Coindesk

E-commerce giant Shopify (SHOP) is bringing stablecoin payments to its merchants over Base, crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN)'s Ethereum layer-2 network, the companies said on Thursday.The integration is set to roll out on June 12 to a limited group of early access merchants, with broader availability expected later this year for all merchants using Shopify Payments, the companies said.Once the rollout is complete, merchants will be able to accept payments of Circle's (CRCL) USDC token on-chain while receiving local currency settlements without incurring foreign transaction fees. Shopify said it plans to give 1% cash back to customers who pay with USDC. This feature that will launch later in the year.Stablecoins, digital tokens whose value is tied to a real-world asset, are...

A more upbeat macroeconomic backdrop, growing corporate appetite for digital assets, and increased regulatory clarity will fuel a constructive outlook for crypto markets in the second half of 2025, according to a report by Coinbase Research.After a bumpy first quarter marked by a brief contraction in U.S. GDP and trade disruptions, data now point to stronger growth. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker has jumped to 3.8% QoQ as of early June, a sharp upgrade from earlier in the year. This shift, alongside expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts and a less aggressive trade policy, has eased recession fears and strengthened investor sentiment.Declining dollar dominance and inflation protection use-cases may also boost bitcoin’s BTC appeal, even if long-dated U.S. Treasury yields...

DeFi Development Corp. (DFDV), the Nasdaq-listed firm pursuing a solana SOL treasury strategy, is planning to get some more dry powder to boost its SOL stack.According to a Thursday press release, the company has secured a $5 billion equity line of credit with RK Capital Management. The agreement allows DeFi Dev to sell shares at its discretion, so long as it meets conditions like filing a resale registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said it plans to file the necessary paperwork soon."We now have the flexibility and structure we need to scale," said Joseph Onorati, Chief Executive Officer. "This is a clean, strategic path to continue growing SOL per share and compounding validator yield."DFDV shares rebounded...

Avalanche AVAX found support after a substantial decline on the short-term, according to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis model.The token is down 5.6% in the last 24 hours, underperforming the CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins — which lost 3.2% in the same period of time.Technical Analysis• AVAX-USD pair declined 6.46% before staging a recovery.• A high-volume support zone emerged around $20.76-$20.85, where strong buying interest reversed the downtrend.• Price action formed a descending channel with resistance at $21.65, which was broken when AVAX climbed above $21.20.• V-shaped reversal pattern formed with strong buying momentum emerging around the $21 psychological support level.• Heavy accumulation occurred, with trading volume...

Morpho, a permissionless cryptocurrency lending protocol, unveiled an update that seeks to further align decentralized finance (DeFi) with traditional lending by bringing more in the way of bespoke, predictable loan terms.Morpho V2 delivers market-driven fixed-rate, fixed-term loans with customizable terms, features previously unseen in DeFi, which are required to meet the demands of institutions and enterprises looking to build or migrate financial products on-chain, Morpho said in a press release on Thursday.DeFi, a blockchain-based and automated system of lending and borrowing on-chain assets, is set to surge this year, just as it did in 2021, particularly because of the involvement of institutional finance and real-world assets (RWAs).But DeFi infrastructure needs to surpass certain on-chain confines such as a reliance on...