Author: Kryptonews

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Banking trade groups, rather than individual banks, are chiefly responsible for stalled negotiations on crypto market structure legislation, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said.Banks themselves are looking at crypto as an opportunity, he said Wednesday at the World Liberty Forum hosted at Mar-a-Lago.”For whatever reason, sometimes incumbent industries have trade groups, and they view the world with a zero-sum mindset [where they believe] for the banks to win, crypto has to lose,” he said. “They’re not viewing this as a positive [step].”Banking trade groups have represented the industry in meetings with the crypto industry hosted by the…

Wallet infrastructure firm Kresus Labs has raised approximately 18 billion won ($13 million) in investment from Hanwha Investment & Securities, one of South Korea’s largest financial institutions.The investment follows a memorandum of understanding signed in December at Abu Dhabi Finance Week and is aimed at expanding Kresus’ enterprise digital wallet infrastructure, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platforms and onchain financial workflows.The wallet and blockchain infrastructure firm develops digital asset tools for both consumers and institutions, including “seedless” wallet recovery technology and multi-party computation (MPC)-based security systems. Seedless recovery refers to the means of restoring access to a digital asset stored in…

Key takeaways:SOL is struggling to hold $80 as a 75% drop in futures’ open interest shows that traders are heading for the exits rather than opening new bets.Solana remains heavily dependent on retail and memecoin activity, while Ethereum maintains its lead in high-value decentralized finance.Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), has hit a wall, repeatedly failing to break back above $89 over the last two weeks. This sluggish price action comes after a rejection at the $145 level in mid-January and a sharp drop to $67.60 during the Feb. 6 crash. Demand for bullish leverage has essentially evaporated as traders brace…

Tai Shani, a London-based artist who won the Turner Prize in 2019, said this week that she was terminating a book contract with Phaidon, the arts book publisher that has been owned by billionaire art collector Leon Black since 2012. Shani cited Black’s connections to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including “numerous horrific allegations” about Black and some which have been newly revealed as part of the Department Justice’s recent release of Epstein-related documents. Related Articles “I think of withdrawal as a feminist practice,” Shani wrote in a statement posted to Instagram, which has garnered more than…

The crypto world is known for its explosive potential, and presales have become one of the best ways to get in on these gains. They allow you to access projects at a ground-floor price before they hit major exchanges. But with so many options, it’s hard to know which ones are worth your attention. Some presales just promise hype, while others offer real utility and strong growth potential. Now, this roundup highlights a handful of the best crypto presales for 2026: ZKP crypto, BlockchainFX, Bitcoin Hyper, and Pepeto. These projects combine solid tech, investor-friendly structures, and early traction. These presales…

Billionaire real estate mogul Barry Sternlicht said his firm, Starwood Capital Group, which manages over $125 billion in assets, is ready to begin tokenizing real-world assets but can’t move forward due to regulatory barriers in the United States.“We want to do it right now and we’re ready,” Sternlicht said Wednesday at the World Liberty Forum in Palm Beach. “It’s ridiculous that our clients can’t do it in token,” he said, referring to transacting real-world assets — like real estate — using blockchain-based tokens.Tokenization refers to converting ownership of physical assets, like real estate or art, into blockchain-based tokens that can…

Base, a decentralized Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, said Wednesday that it is transitioning from running on L2 blockchain protocol Optimism’s tech stack to running on its own, unified software architecture.Launched in 2023 as an Optimism chain, Base is shifting to its own tech stack to reduce dependencies on external service providers and shorten the time it takes to ship new upgrades, according to an announcement from Base. The team said:“Consolidating into Base changes how Base packages and releases software for the network. We will ship one official distribution for each upgrade: a single Base binary for operating nodes on the…

Jane Street Group LLC boosts its Bitcoin exposure with a $276 million investment in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). Revealed in a recent 13F filing for the fourth quarter of 2025, the substantial acquisition underscores the resilience of institutional Bitcoin demand despite the weak sentiment and price action. As a designated market maker for major crypto exchange-traded products, Jane Street plays a critical role in maintaining liquidity within the Bitcoin ETF ecosystem. This accumulation aligns with wider institutional trends, similar to how BlackRock acquires stakes in other ecosystem plays like Bitmine to bolster its product lines. iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF…

In a sign of growing international cooperation in the restitution of looted artifacts, Portugal has returned three pre-Columbian objects to Mexico. This will be the first time Portugal has repatriated unlawfully acquired antiquities to that country. The three pieces represent distinct pre-Hispanic periods and cultures. They include a Shaft Tomb Culture female figure, a Maya painted vessel, and a Zapotec urn. According to a press release from Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the handover took place at the Mexican embassy in Lisbon on February 12. The objects will be returned to Mexico in the coming weeks. Related Articles “This return…

OpenAI is stepping deeper into crypto security with the launch of EVMbench, a new testing framework designed to measure how well artificial intelligence can understand and potentially secure smart contracts on Ethereum and similar blockchains.Smart contracts, self-executing code deployed on blockchains like Ethereum, underpin decentralized exchanges, lending protocols and a wide range of onchain financial applications. Because these contracts are typically immutable once deployed, vulnerabilities can be serious.EVMbench is OpenAI’s attempt to see whether modern AI systems are up to the task of helping prevent those issues. Built in collaboration with crypto investment firm Paradigm, the benchmark draws on real-world…