Author: Kryptonews

The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has dropped plans to make a centralized digital ID mandatory for workers, softening a flagship policy that would have required every employee to prove their right to work via a government‑issued credential rather than traditional documents like passports. The move follows months of backlash from critics, including UK Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe, Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage and other cross‑party politicians, civil liberties groups and campaigners. Opponents warned it risked building an “Orwellian nightmare,” centralizing sensitive data in a honeypot vulnerable to hacking, and mission creep into areas such as housing, banking and…

Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth and a now-liquidated art shipping company are facing trial over allegations of dodging UK sanctions. The gallery is accused of making George Condo’s 2021 work on paper, Escape from Humanity, available in 2022 to a person connected to Russia. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) filed the charge in November, with shipping firm Artay Rauchwerger Solomons facing a parallel allegation.In a December hearing, a judge set a 10-day trial for January 2028, likely before a High Court judge at London’s Southwark Crown Court. The next hearing, on May 5, 2026, will see the defendants formally arraigned and…

Active users on the Ethereum network have overtaken major layer 2s as long-term development strategies begin to pay off.The number of active addresses on Ethereum exceeded 791,000 on Monday, higher than that of the network’s major L2 players, including Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, according to data from Nansen.Daily average transaction costs have also reached new lows. On Monday, average transaction fees were only $0.15. The average fee for a transaction on Ethereum was as high as $11 just one year ago.These metrics for Ethereum utility come ahead of ambitious plans by developers to make the network bulletproof. Ethereum has more…

Pakistan has reportedly signed an agreement with a company connected to World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture linked to the family of US President Donald Trump, to explore the use of its dollar-pegged stablecoin for cross-border payments.The agreement involves SC Financial Technologies, a little-known company linked to World Liberty Financial, and marks one of the first publicly known partnerships between Trump-linked crypto ventures and a sovereign state, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.Under the arrangement, World Liberty Financial will collaborate with Pakistan’s central bank to integrate its USD1 stablecoin into a regulated digital payments framework.…

Ethereum digital asset treasury (DAT) BitMine has just staked another huge batch of Ether, bringing its total amount staked to over 1.5 million ETH. Tom Lee-chaired BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) added 186,560 ETH (worth around $625 million) to the “Beacon Depositor” address, reported Lookonchain on Wednesday.This brings the total amount staked by the world’s largest Ethereum (ETH) DAT to 1,530,784 ETH, worth approximately $5.13 billion, equating to 4% of the total 36 million ETH staked on the Beacon Chain.This share could still increase as the company holds a total of just over 4 million ETH, of which 37% has now been…

Key NotesNEAR gains access to NVIDIA’s GPU resources, technical support, and potential venture capital connections through the partnership.The collaboration builds on existing integration of NVIDIA Confidential Computing within NEAR’s AI infrastructure stack.NEAR token surged 7% following the announcement, with trading volume reaching $270 million in 24 hours. NEAR AI announced it is joining NVIDIA’s Inception Program designed to foster growth of artificial intelligence startups in different stages. From NEAR’s side, joining the program strengthens its mission of developing verifiable, privacy-preserving tools for AI, according to the announcement on January 13. “Through the program, NEAR AI gains access to NVIDIA’s technical…

The financially ailing California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco will close in 2027. Founded in 1907 in Berkeley, the school will sell its campus to Vanderbilt University. CCA is the only nonprofit, standalone art school in the city. “I am writing to share an important update with you about the future of California College of the Arts: to support opportunities for our students to complete their education and to honor CCA’s significant role in the Bay Area’s creative ecosystem, we have entered into an agreement with Vanderbilt University,” says an announcement from the school’s president, David Howse, on…

Rulemaking involves individual regulators and agencies fleshing out the details of a law passed by legislators. It can include publishing proposed rules and seeking public comment.It could take many years for the crypto market structure bill to be implemented due to a lengthy rulemaking process, according to Paradigm’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Justin Slaughter.The market structure bill has advanced to the Senate committee stage with bipartisan text and ongoing negotiations. It’s set for a markup with the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, while the Senate Agriculture Committee has delayed its hearing until Jan.27.If the House of Representatives and the…

Stablecoin issuers and third-party platforms that pay interest to stablecoin holders are creating an “undesirable” parallel banking system, says JPMorgan financial chief Jeremy Barnum.Barnum told investors during the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday that its advocacy to ban all yield payments on stablecoins is “in the spirit of the GENIUS Act legislation,” which banned issuers from paying yield on their tokens.“The creation of a parallel banking system that has all the features of banking, including something that looks a lot like a deposit that pays interest without the associated prudential safeguards that have been developed over hundreds of years…

Scammers and fraudsters increasingly used impersonation scams to steal crypto from unsuspecting users last year, with a 1400% year-over-year spike in cases, according to Chainalysis. Impersonation scams involve fraudsters posing as a trusted person or organization in an effort to trick victims into handing over crypto, passwords, account access and other sensitive information. In a crypto crime report on Tuesday, Chainalysis said fraudsters have been incorporating multiple tactics into their operations.“For example, many pig butchering and investment scams incorporate elements of impersonation, social engineering, and even technical- or wallet-focused scams,” they said. The average amount stolen through impersonation scams also increased by over…