Coindesk

The U.S. Congress' opening priority for the crypto industry is to quickly finish a stablecoin oversight bill, and the House of Representatives has released the text of its version on Wednesday, following in the heels of a recent committee approval of its Senate counterpart.The House version, introduced by Rep. Bryan Steil, who leads the House Financial Services Committee's crypto panel, and Rep. French Hill, the Republican chair of the overall committee, governs the way companies can issue dollar-denominated digital tokens.The new version will "close the gap" between the House efforts and the Senate version of the bill, Steil said during a conference appearance Wednesday.The Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy (STABLE Act) "is a strong continuation of...

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the leading Democrats supporting crypto legislation, warned the industry against pushing for a “watered-down” version of the long-awaited stablecoin legislation currently moving through the Senate, arguing that stringent regulations are necessary to foster innovation and protect investors from bank runs like the one on Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 and the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022.Speaking at the D.C. Blockchain Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Gillibrand said that the bipartisan stablecoin bill — Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) — creates a number of protections for consumers in the event of an issuer bankruptcy scenario.“You have to think through all the ways this can go wrong....

Shares of GameStop (GME) traded 16% higher on Wednesday after the company announced that it would start buying bitcoin (BTC) to add to its balance sheet.The gaming retailer reported holding $4.8 billion in cash during its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Company CEO Ryan Cohen weeks ago had teased an interest in purchasing bitcoin for the GME balance sheet. He was joined by Matt Cole, CEO of Strive Asset Management — an owner of GME via its ETFs, who urged the same.Though GameStop on Tuesday reported that a portion of its cash will go into bitcoin and U.S. dollar dominated stablecoins in the future, it did not disclose how much, or the timing of any buys.The plan kicked off a speculative...

Could the crypto revolution’s legacy extend beyond democratizing money? Today, it’s paving the way to reinvent private credit. Envision a future where lending to mid-sized businesses or financing infrastructure projects mirrors the efficiency and openness of a decentralized exchange. That’s the aim of tokenization, a blockchain-powered innovation breaking down decades-old barriers in a $1.7 trillion (and growing) private credit market.Private credit 101: the invisible engine of global financePrivate credit is an integral element of non-bank lending in which institutional players like hedge funds, private equity firms and specialized lenders provide loans directly to businesses. These aren’t your typical bank loans — think bespoke financing for startups, real estate developments or corporate expansions, often offering higher yields than public bonds, averaging...

The final dress rehearsal for Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade occurred Wednesday, as the blockchain's biggest changes in over a year were tested an additional time following a series of mishaps.The upgrade on the new Hoodi testnet was closely watched given that two previous tests, on the Holesky and Sepolia test networks, failed to finalize properly.Following those tests, developers created a new testnet, Hoodi, to give ecosystem players, particularly staking providers, one more testing opportunity before the Pectra upgrade hits Ethereum’s mainnet.The test involved passing Hoodi a series of code changes meant to make Ethereum more user-friendly for both end-users as well as developers. One of those changes adds smart contract functionality to wallets, allowing wallet software developers to build new...