Coindesk

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, has fallen out of investor relative to bitcoin (BTC), returning the worst bull-cycle performance against its larger rival since the Ethereum blockchain's inception in 2015.A comparison of the ether to bitcoin ratio across past cycles from the tokens' respective lows shows consistent underperformance. The black line in the chart above represents the current cycle that started in November 2022, when bitcoin bottomed at around $15,500 during the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. With each cycle, ether's return against bitcoin has diminished.On Wednesday, the ratio dropped below 0.0300 to touch 0.02993, a four-year low. The previous low was recorded on Jan. 19, a day before President Trump's inauguration. This month, the ratio — the exchange rate...

Dutch bank ABN AMRO has conducted an onchain trade of tokenized assets against stablecoins alongside Germany-regulated 21X.The two firms completed a joint proof of concept (PoC) for the issuing of a token on the Polygon Amoy Testnet, which was listed as a trading pair with an e-money token, according to an emailed announcement on Thursday."The deployment of 21X's on-chain order book smart contract enabled trading between tokenized cash and the tokenized asset in one single transaction," the firms said. Frankfurt-based 21X, which is building a blockchain-based exchange to list and trade tokenized securities, won approval from German regulator BaFin in December.Tokenization - the representation of real-world assets such as stocks or bonds as tokens on a blockchain - has become...

Abstract, the layer-2 network rolled out this week by Pudgy Penguins, is off to a muted start despite offering a series of incentives to new users.The network notched 711,000 user transactions on the day of release, but that respectable total has been overshadowed by a lack of inflows. Its total value secured (TVS) was standing at just $33 million worth of ether (ETH) and stablecoins, a far cry from the tens of billions of dollars distributed across other hyped layer 2 networks.The platform's native decentralized exchange, NOXA, has $109K worth of total value locked (TVL), down from $515K on launch day, DefiLlama shows.The launch was marketed as a "new era of consumer crypto" with simplified onboarding that allowed users to...

Several marketplaces hawking Donald Trump-branded merchandise, including GetTrumpWatches.com, GetTrumpFragrances.com, and GetTrumpSneakers.com, have started accepting the Trump memecoin as a payment method alongside credit cards and bitcoin (BTC).Payments options now include TRUMP and will be processed by Solana Pay, a decentralized payment system that allows users to send money directly to merchants without intermediaries.The watches will be made-to-order and start shipping from October onward, an FAQ on the website shows. As such, these official products are not sold by Trump directly but are part of a licensed agreement with CIC Digital LLC - one of the companies that helmed the issuance of TRUMP tokens.The move bumps utility and usability for the TRUMP token, which launched on Jan. 17 and has...

Polymarket only sees a 16% chance that the Donald Trump will order the creation of a strategic bitcoin (BTC) reserve in the first 100 days of its administration, despite assurances from crypto czar David Sacks that there's an effort underway to explore the idea."President Trump has asked us to study that issue, so we are not ready to comment on it yet. But it's one of the things our working groups are going to look at," Sacks said in a recent appearance on Fox. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who is known for her bitcoin-friendly policy stance, has submitted a bill proposing the creation of a reserve, but this is a separate measure from the White House's efforts. The...