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As the stablecoin competition is heating up with looming regulation in the U.S., traditional finance institutions are taking notice—largely out of fear of losing out to digital dollars, said Ben Reynolds, BitGo's managing director of stablecoins, at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.Speaking at a panel discussion, he said that BitGo's recently launched stablecoin-as-a-service has seen “incredible inbound” interest from U.S. and foreign banks wanting to tokenize deposits or issue stablecoins."A lot of banks are just being defensive—they’re afraid they’re going to lose their deposits,” Reynolds said. "They look at stablecoins and say: How do we not get left behind?"Yield-bearing versions of stablecoins and tokenized money market funds have seen rapid growth recently, but still make up only a fraction of the...

Sam Altman’s blockchain project World has sparked controversy in the past due to its use of iris-scanning technology to create digital identities. But World Foundation Advisor Liam Horne says that the controversy around that technology, known as orbs, is often misunderstood.It’s “actually the complete opposite,” of what critics share regarding World or Altman owning that data, Thorne said on Wednesday at a panel at Consensus 2025. “The data literally never leaves the orb.”The World Network uses its orbs — chrome, bowling ball-shaped devices —to perform iris scans that verify an individual’s unique identity as part of a system called "proof-of-personhood." When a user looks into an orb, the device maps their iris and immediately converts the biometric into a privacy-preserving...

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. This is Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, CoinDesk’s Tech team.In this issue:Hacking Attempt on Lido Results in 1.4 Ether Lost From Oracle ProviderBitcoin DeFi Security Improves as Rootstock Boosts Hashrate ShareEthereum’s Next Upgrade ‘Fusaka’ Could Cut Layer-2 and Validator CostsTelegram Cracks Down on $8 billion Crypto Crime MarketplaceUnknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the `components.types` optionNetwork NewsLIDO AVOIDS MAJOR SECURITY BREACH: Lido, Ethereum’s largest liquid staking protocol, avoided a major security incident after one of its nine oracle keys was compromised in what appears to be a low-impact but serious breach involving validator operator Chorus One. Lido secures over 25%...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures, including the launch of his TRUMP memecoin in January, have complicated bipartisan efforts to get stablecoin legislation passed, Rep. French Hill, a lawmaker at the center of the industry's crypto efforts in Washington, said Wednesday at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.However, Hill — chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which recently released a discussion draft of a crypto market structure bill — said that there is still a strong bipartisan consensus around the need for crypto legislation, despite Democrats’ growing frustration with the potential conflicts of interest and the opacity of Trump’s personal crypto investments.“Despite the politics around the Trump memecoin and crypto investments that has definitely made our work more complicated, I still argue that...

Top House Democrats sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday, asking its money laundering watchdog to hand over all suspicious activity reports (SARs) tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures.In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Reps. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — the ranking members of the House Oversight, Administrative, and Judiciary committees — called for an urgent investigation into Trump’s blockchain project World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin, citing possible violations of campaign finance laws, bribery statutes and securities regulations.“The Committees seek to determine whether legislation is necessary to prevent violations of campaign finance, consumer protection, bribery, securities fraud, and other anti-corruption laws in connection with fundraising by...