Coindesk

Coinbase's (COIN) $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit will be a tipping point for the company, pushing the U.S.-based exchange into direct competition with global heavyweights like Binance, Wall Street analysts wrote on Thursday.The massive deal is more than just a platform expansion; it's a paradigm shift for the exchange and trading industry. According to the analysts, the deal signals the start of a new consolidation cycle in the crypto trading industry, as smaller exchanges face pressure and TradFi firms look to expand further into the sector.Read more: In $2.9B Deal, Coinbase Buys Deribit to Expand in U.S. Crypto Options MarketDeribit controls 85% of the global crypto options market and reported $1.2 trillion in trading volume last year. By absorbing it,...

The U.S. legislation that would establish stablecoin regulation failed to take a huge step closer to reality on Thursday as a rush of Democratic resistance kept the bill from moving into a debate phase, which would have been the path toward an eventual vote on passage.The crypto industry has been closely watching the Senate, where the fate of its long-fought legislative battle hangs in the balance this year. The first of two major digital assets bills — this one to regulate stablecoins such as Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT — ran into a congressional roadblock, despite having easily won bipartisan approval in a previous Senate Banking Committee vote.A technical but vital vote to advance the legislation into days of floor...

Bitcoin (BTC) is poised to hit a new record high, with investment flows now the dominant market driver, according to Standard Chartered (STAN).U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen $5.3 billion in inflows over the past three weeks, the investment bank said in emailed comments Thursday.Adjusting for hedge fund basis trades, net real flow is estimated at over $4 billion, the bank said. The basis trade is a strategy that exploits the difference between the spot price of bitcoin and the price of the cryptocurrency in the futures market.Strategy (MSTR) has increased its holdings to 555,450 BTC, or 2.6% of total future supply, which is locked at 21 million BTC. The company's plan to raise $84 billion to buy...

Bitcoin is back in six figures, continuing yet another of its famous zigs when most were expecting a zag.To review, the world's largest crypto first pushed through $100,000 in December as it rallied hard following Donald Trump's November election victory. The price eventually rose above $109,000 in the hours prior to the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20.With the bulls furiously revising their upside price targets higher, things began to crack at that moment. What followed in ensuing weeks was a steady decline, which reached its denouement at just under $75,000 in the panic following Trump's early April announcements of punitive tariffs against U.S. trading partners.The carnage in many altcions was far worse. Solana (SOL) and ether (ETH), for instance, had...

Thank you to our sponsor of this week's newsletter, Grayscale. For financial advisors near Chicago, Grayscale is hosting an exclusive event, Crypto Connect, on Thursday, May 22. Learn more.In today’s Crypto for Advisors, Tedd Strazimiri from Evolve ETFs writes about the evolution of tokenization and the value it brings to investors. Then, Peter Gaffney from Inveniam answers questions about what tokenization can do for wealth managers and their clients in Ask an Expert.- Sarah MortonUnknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the `components.types` optionUnknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the `components.types` optionThe Tokenization Boom: Why Ethereum Remains the Rails for Real-World Asset TokenizationThe tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) has moved beyond buzzword status to...