Coindesk

South Korea's Financial Services Commission (SFC) plans on lifting a ban that prevented institutions trading crypto in response to the upsurge in global participation in the market, it said on Thursday. Non-profit organizations like charities, university and school corporations, law enforcement agencies will be able to sell their virtual assets by the first half of the year. By the second half of the year listed companies and professional investors will be allowed to buy and sell crypto. Corporations and banks have been restricted from trading virtual assets due to government regulations that were put in force in 2017. At the time the blockage was put in place to alleviate "overheated speculation" and address money laundering concerns. With the enforcement of...

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Thursday that it is expanding its platform to crypto trading and confirmed it is planning to distribute SEA tokens to users.The trading platform called OS2 has launched today, and aggregates marketplaces, allows cross-chain purchasing and offers lower fees in the beginning, according to the protocol's press release."This represents an expansion of OpenSea from an NFT marketplace to a much broader platform for trading all types of digital assets," said Devin Finzer, Co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. "We think tokens and NFTs belong together in a single, powerful, delightful experience."OpenSea Foundation, the Cayman Islands-based development organization behind the protocol, will also distribute SEA tokens offering utility on the OS2 platform.While details and date of...

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3191.13, down 1.0% (-32.82) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.Three of 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: APT (+1.3%) and AAVE (+0.9%).Laggards: NEAR (-3.1%) and AVAX (-2.6%). The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.Source link

Inflation at the wholesale level came in faster than forecast last month in another disappointment to investors and policymakers hoping for cooling price pressures.The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.4% in January versus economist forecasts for 0.3% and 0.2% in December. On a year-over-year basis, PPI was higher by 3.5% against estimates for 3.2% and 3.3% in December.Core PPI, which excludes food and energy components, rose 0.3% in January versus forecasts for 0.3% and 0% in December. Core PPI year-over-year was higher by 3.6% versus estimates for 3.3% and 3.5% in December.Under pressure once again this morning ahead of new Trump tariff announcements promised for later today, the price of bitcoin (BTC) continued to trade around the $96,000 level.Normally not...

Midas, a protocol for issuing yield-bearing tokens backed by U.S. Treasuries and other assets, has introduced Liquid Yield Tokens (LYT) linked to actively managed, decentralized finance (DeFi) funds, starting out with Edge Capital, RE7, and MEV Capital.Late last year, Midas received regulatory approval to issue its basis trade and U.S. Treasuries tokens in Liechtenstein, allowing passporting across Germany and Europe.Tokenization builders in the crypto native and DeFi-focused arena saw the need for yield-bearing alternatives to established stablecoins like Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, which keep the interest generated from reserves.Additions to the Midas product suite reflect changing market conditions. For instance, the firm’s tokenized T-Bill product, based on a BlackRock money-market fund, was introduced when interest rates were around 5%...