Coindesk

Japanese messaging app giant Line plans to give its 196 million active users the ability to use decentralized apps (dapps) such as games and utilities.The social network, which is mainly used in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia, will debut with 30 dapps in its portal by the end of January and plans for a further 150 by the end of the first quarter, said Sam Seo, the chairman of Kaia DLT Foundation, whose Kaia blockchain will host the applications.Line's initiative reflects a growing trend of social media and messaging apps integrating blockchain technology to offer a wider range of services. Telegram, which has more than 900 million users, offers games including Catizen and Hamster Kombat over The Open Network (TON)...

Bitcoin's (BTC) bullish momentum has hit a snag this week for several reasons, including a weaker stateside demand. Now, the Australian dollar-Japanese yen exchange rate or the AUD/JPY pair, the classic risk barometer, has turned south again, signaling caution to risk asset bulls.The Australian dollar (AUD), a commodity currency, is a proxy for global economic health, particularly for emerging markets and China. On the other hand, the Japanese yen (JPY) is seen as a safe-haven currency that investors turn to during times of stress. Thus, a decline in AUD/JPY is considered a risk-off signal.Matt Simpson, an analyst at The City Index, summed it up in his analysis as follows: "As AUD/JPY is a classic barometer of risk, we should take...

The overwhelming chatter on social media, especially Crypto Twitter is that Ethereum’s ether (ETH) is dead, a narrowly moving token.Still, the market is betting on higher ETH prices as traders pile into derivatives tied to the cryptocurrency alongside a boom in Ethereum's blob usage.Cumulative open interest in perpetual and standard futures contracts has surged to a record 6.32 million ETH, worth over $27 billion, registering a 17% month-to-date gain, according to data source CoinGlass. An uptick in open interest alongside a price is said to validate an uptrend, and ether's price has surged 35% to $3,400 this month, matching the industry leader's bitcoin's price gain.According to data source Velo, the gap between three-month ETH futures and spot prices, the so-called...

Ripple Labs has kicked in another $25 million to the cryptocurrency industry's Fairshake political action committee, one of the most aggressive and high-dollar campaign-finance operations in corporate history.The super PAC has made an unprecedented head start on the 2026 election cycle. Between Ripple, crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fairshake has amassed $73 million in fresh commitments. That's on top of $30 million held over from the 2024 cycle.The PAC is still awaiting the results in one U.S. congressional contest in the Nov. 5 elections, but Fairshake's track record includes backing at least 53 members of next year's Congress."Fairshake is the most successful multi-candidate, bipartisan super PAC in American history," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse posted...

U.S. sanctions against Tornado Cash, a service that anonymizes crypto transactions, must be abandoned, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.The decision answers a controversial privacy debate on whether the government — via a sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department — has a right to target the technology because it's associated with criminals. The ruling reversed a district court's August ruling that had sided with the government's pursuit of what it had characterized as a "notorious" crypto-mixing service."Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the 'property' of a foreign national or entity," according to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruling, so they can't be blocked under the International Emergency...