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Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) is holding talks with Indian authorities in an effort to secure approval to return to the country it quit in 2023, Tech Crunch reported on Wednesday.The exchange is in talks with regulators including the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Tech Crunch said, citing two people familiar with the matter."Coinbase is excited by the opportunities in the Indian market, and intends to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, but we have nothing to announce regarding a FIU registration at this time," a spokesperson for the U.S. company told CoinDesk. Coinbase suspended operations in India in 2022, days after starting up due to "informal pressure" from the Reserve Bank of India. In 2023, the exchange said it stopped allowing...

Metaplanet (3350), a Japanese bitcoin (BTC) acquirer, will be added to the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Japan index at the end of Feb. 28, according to the firm's CEO Simon Gerovich.The MSCI index tracks mid-to-large-cap Japanese stocks, which serve as a key benchmark for institutional investors worldwide. As a result of inclusion, Metaplanet will benefit from increased exposure to global investment funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track MSCI indices.Gerovich on X highlighted the positive news that comes from inclusion, which includes increased visibility, passive inflows and validation of growth. "This milestone further solidifies Metaplanet’s position as Asia’s leading Bitcoin Treasury Company and expands our reach in global markets", Gerovich says. In addition, Metaplanet confirmed they had completed a raise...

Bitcoin (BTC) miner Riot Platforms appointed three new directors to its board as it explores potential opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC).The additions include Michael Turner, former president of Oxford Properties and global head of real estate at OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension funds, alongside Jaime Leverton, ex-CEO of Hut 8 Mining (HUT), and Doug Mouton, a data center development veteran from Microsoft and Meta, the company said in a release on Thursday.The appointments come as Riot considers repurposing its mining infrastructure, particularly its Corsicana Facility in Texas, for AI workloads, and has tapped investment banks Evercore and Northland Capital Markets to assist with this transition.Riot’s move follows a broader industry trend as miners seek new...

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor.In this issue:Can Based Rollups solve Ethereum’s problem?Lido goes modularUniswap finally unveils UnichainEthereum’s Pectra upgrade is comingNetwork newsBASED ROLLUPS TO THE RESCUE: In recent years, Ethereum has embraced a layer-2 scaling roadmap—a plan that encouraged the development of third-party auxiliary networks called "layer-2 rollups"—to help scale the base Ethereum ecosystem. Offloading activity to these upstart networks has helped bring down fees and improve speeds for end-users, but it has led to a massive, deeply fragmented ecosystem of layer 2s. But while layer-2 networks all post data back down to Ethereum, they often struggle to communicate directly with...

Circle's USDC, the second-largest stablecoin on the market, rose to a record market capitalization over $56 billion this week as stablecoin growth showed signs of reaccelerating.USDC added $10.2 billion to its market cap over the past month, driven primarily by rising Solana-based DeFi trading volumes, Artemis data shows. That's more than double the $4.6 billion growth of Tether's USDT, the largest stablecoin in the market and Circle's biggest competitor, during the same period. USDT still dominates the stablecoin space with a $142 billion market cap.With the latest growth spurt, USDC surpassed its 2022 peak and fully recovered from the 2023 U.S. regional-banking crisis, which dealt a serious blow to the cryptocurrency. At the time, Circle held a part of...