Coindesk

Crypto market maker Wintermute's Singaporean derivatives trading entity Wintermute Asia has introduced a contract for difference (CFD) linked to the GMCI USA Select Index, enabling traders to swiftly adapt to evolving market narratives, especially concerning the potential establishment of a strategic digital asset reserve.The index tracks the performance of the top crypto projects with a legal entity based in the U.S. based on their circulating supply. Payments-focused cryptocurrency XRP, Solana's SOL and memecoin DOGE have the highest weight in the index, which also comprises of ADA, AVAX, LINK, UNI, HBAR, NEAR, LTC, and APT. The index is up over 160% since Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election in early November.The composition of the index is such that it...

Former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer called for owning bitcoin (BTC), but not its largest public holder MicroStrategy, in the latest segment of CNBC’s Mad Money on Monday night.“If you want to own bitcoin, (you) own bitcoin,” Cramer said in response to a caller during the segment. “I own bitcoin, you should own bitcoin. Bitcoin is a great thing to have in your portfolio.”“But not MicroStrategy,” he ended without further specifics or reasoning. MicroStrategy is the world’s biggest holder of the asset with over 417,107 bitcoin, worth over $48 billion at current prices, in its treasury as of Monday.But there may be reason to cheer for MicroStrategy bulls and bitcoin bears in the weeks to come. Cramer’s picks often tend...

KuCoin has pled guilty to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and has agreed to pay penalties of over $297 million, the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a release on Tuesday."KuCoin avoided implementing required anti-money laundering policies designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions," U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said in a statement. "KuCoin was used to facilitate billions of dollars’ worth of suspicious transactions and to transmit potentially criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet markets and malware, ransomware, and fraud schemes," the statement added.As part of the guilty plea, KuCoin has agreed to exit the U.S. market for atleast two years and two of the exchange's...

With his U.S. Senate confirmation behind him, Scott Bessent is in place to be the top financial official of President Donald Trump's administration, where he'll be among those fulfilling the crypto directives already set out by the president last week.Bessent, a billionaire former hedge fund manager, didn't give the crypto sector much to chew on during his nomination hearing earlier this month, but he's a known digital assets enthusiast. His boss, Trump, has already assigned him a spot on the team assigned to marshal the federal government toward a friendly system of oversight.The Senate voted 68-29 to approve Bessent's nomination Monday evening, and he'll officially join Trump's cabinet when he's sworn in to permanently replace predecessor Janet Yellen. At the...

Amid a bloody start to the week in crypto markets, which saw liquidations near monthly highs as various major tokens dropped by double-digit percentages, the native token of Solana-based DEX aggregator Jupiter is defying the trend over a new buyback plan.Data from TradingView shows that JUP is up more than 34% against bitcoin over the past week despite seeing an 11% decline over the last 24 hours, compared to BTC’s near 4% drop.JUP’s outperformance is a result of a series of announcements made during its first-ever event, Catstanbul 2025, which addressed utility concerns. The protocol’s pseudonymous founder, known as ‘Meow’, revealed that 50% of all protocol fees are set to be used to buy tokens from the open market, with...