Mastercard has launched a new Crypto Partner Program that brings together more than 85 companies from across the digital asset and payments industries, an effort to link blockchain technology more directly with the infrastructure that underpins global commerce. The program includes crypto exchanges, blockchain developers, fintech firms and banks such as Binance, Circle, Ripple, Gemini,…
Bitcoin BTC$69,558.65 traded at $69,500 mid-morning in Europe after giving up Tuesday’s gains following a rejection at $71,750. The largest cryptocurrency dropped 0.55% since midnight UTC, a loss dwarfed by several altcoins, with zcash (ZEC) and aave AAVE$109.87 falling by 4.5% and 2.1%, respectively. Gold and the dollar are little changed, while U.S. stock index…
Next week could prove pivotal for markets, including bitcoin, as seven major central banks, including the powerful Federal Reserve, announce rate decisions amid war-driven oil price gains that threaten to reignite inflation in the global economy. The week’s packed economic calendar includes the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rate decision on March 17, followed by…
Since the emergence of ChatGPT and chatbots, the artificial intelligence (AI) hype has evolved into “agentic payments,” billed as the next wave of internet commerce in which humans won’t be transacting. It will be AI agents paying each other: The idea is simple: build automated payment rails using AI agents that traditional firms like credit…
Bitcoin BTC$69,951.35 touched $71,612 on Tuesday evening before settling back to $70,036 by Wednesday’s Asian session, as oil price slide revved up risk sentiment. A key catalyst was a Wall Street Journal report that the International Energy Agency had proposed the largest crude reserve release in its history, exceeding the 182 million barrels released in…
Ripple announced plans on Wednesday to secure an Australian Financial Services License through the proposed acquisition of BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, per a release shared with CoinDesk. The acquisition, which is still subject to completion, would allow Ripple to offer its full payments stack in Australia, covering onboarding, compliance, funding, foreign exchange, liquidity management,…
Ethereum’s network activity has surged to all-time highs across multiple metrics, but the growth has failed to lift ether’s price or boost fee generation at the base layer. A weekly report from analytics firm CryptoQuant published March 10 found that daily active addresses on Ethereum approached 2 million in February 2026, exceeding peaks seen during…
We all know the problem with a public ledger. Most of us living inside the crypto ecosystem can’t actually bring ourselves to say it. But find a normie on the street, one with some knowledge of blockchain (good luck with that), and they’ll tell you straight. It’s public. A public ledger is public. We’ve spent…
Shares of Circle (CRCL), the crypto firm behind the USDC (USDC) stablecoin, could add to their recent remarkable surge, according to analysts at brokerage Bernstein. The team, led by Gautam Chhugani, rate the stock at outperform with a $190 price target, suggesting about 60% upside from current $120 level. And that’s after the stock rallied…
Prediction market platform Polymarket has teamed up with Palantir and TWG AI to build a monitoring system designed to detect suspicious trading and manipulation in sports prediction markets, a move that reflects growing pressure on the fast-growing sector to establish credibility. The new system will use Palantir’s data infrastructure and TWG AI’s analytics to monitor…
