BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has surpassed $30 billion in holdings, reflecting increasing demand for the world’s leading cryptocurrency. The world’s largest asset manager reached the $30 billion mark less than 10 months after launching its Bitcoin ETF, which began trading on Jan. 10. BlackRock currently holds more than 417,000 Bitcoin worth over $30.4…

Stablecoins seem to be increasing demand for short-term United States government bonds known as Treasury bills, according to US Department of the Treasury meeting minutes published Oct. 30. In an Oct. 29 meeting, the US Treasury’s Borrowing Advisory Committee weighed the benefits of stablecoin adoption and Treasury bill tokenization, with one member suggesting the US…

On Oct. 29, Starknet, a layer-2 (L2) scaling solution on Ethereum, achieved a new milestone by reaching a peak of 857 transactions per second (TPS) in a controlled stress test. The test averaged 127.5 TPS over a 24-hour period, showing the network’s potential to support high-demand blockchain applications, but also raising questions about long-term scalability….

The adoption of cryptocurrencies is accelerating, demanding a scalable and reliable bridge between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi). Global fintech firm Unlimit aims to simplify the exchange between fiat and digital currencies for businesses and users with its crypto on-ramp and off-ramp solution. In this interview, Bryan Feng, head of crypto at Unlimit, explores the…

Solayer and OpenEden are launching a yield-bearing stablecoin on Solana backed by United States Treasury bills, according to an Oct. 28 announcement. Dubbed sUSD, the stablecoin is the first of numerous tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) Solayer plans to launch on Solana, the company said in a post on the X platform. “[A]nyone with $5 can access tokenized…

Visa users with eligible debit cards will soon be able to instantly deposit and withdraw funds from their accounts with the crypto exchange Coinbase after the two firms announced a partnership. “Coinbase already has millions of users with a debit card connected to their account,” Visa said in an Oct. 29 statement. It added United States…

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has been networking its tokenization-focused Project Ensemble and has new collaborations to show for it. Project Ensemble is being linked with the Central Bank of Brazil’s (CBB) Drex pilot project and the Bank of Thailand’s (BOT) Project San. Uniting tokenization projects around the world The CBB announced the second phase of…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says a goal of one of the blockchain’s roadmap stages is to research “advanced cryptography” to make it resistant to future quantum computers, which could break encryption. “There is a heck of a lot left to do,” Buterin wrote in an Oct. 29 blog post, which shared his thoughts on a part…

Europe’s forthcoming regulatory framework will introduce banking concerns for stablecoin issuers that could threaten the stability of the broader crypto space, according to Paulo Ardoino. The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is the first comprehensive regulatory framework for the crypto industry and is set to go into full effect on Dec. 30. Under MiCA, stablecoin…

Jack Booth, co-founder of TON Society, believes that achieving mass adoption of cryptocurrency hinges on advancing decentralization within The Open Network (TON). In an exclusive interview with Booth, whose organization is focused on decentralizing finance and data on TON, told Cointelegraph that the TON community “is building a decentralized ecosystem” to make decentralized finance (DeFi),…