In Brazil, cryptocurrency adoption isn’t being led by traders betting big on volatile tokens. It’s being shaped by younger, more cautious investors, often using stablecoins and tokenized bonds as a way to protect their wealth. According to new data from local cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin, shared with CoinDesk via a report titled “Raio-X do Investidor…
It’s become fashionable of late to dismiss bitcoin’s BTC$88,156.95 four-year cycle — and the inevitable boom and bust it brings — as an anachronism. Just in the past week, Bitwise’s Matt Hougan and ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood have thrown their considerable weight behind the idea of dismissing the four-year cycle. Each noted the ETFs along…
Spot bitcoin ETF investors may have shown themselves to be anything but momentum chasers this year. While it’s no secret that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has been a wild success since it opened for business in January 2024, data compiled by Bloomberg’s crack ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shows that success in another light. So…
Looking back on 2025, the sound money, or debasement trade, was decisively won by the metals over bitcoin. Gold delivered one of its best years on record, up 65%, while bitcoin so far is down 7%. Until August, the two assets had similar returns, both up roughly 30%. From that point, gold surged while bitcoin…
DraftKings has unveiled a new standalone app for real-money prediction markets, becoming the latest major player to enter a field that includes crypto-native platforms like Polymarket and Robinhood’s event contracts. The product, called DraftKings Predictions, lets users trade on the outcomes of real-world events, starting with sports and finance, the company announced on Friday. It…
In 2025, the Solana ecosystem saw a mix of activities related to hype, hardware, and high-impact upgrades, marking one of the chain’s most memorable years yet. The year began with a full-blown memecoin mania, where speculative energy and hype ignited onchain activity. This wave followed on the heels of the late 2024 rise of BONK,…
Aave isn’t just big for DeFi. It’s the largest lending protocol in the sector by a mile, with more than $50 billion in assets deposited across its markets. That’s a balance sheet that would slot it roughly into the ranks of the top 50 U.S. banks by assets if it were a traditional institution. This…
The Ethereum ecosystem underwent something of a short revival in 2025. Early in the year, as many major cryptocurrencies surged to fresh all-time highs, ether lagged behind. Some in the community pointed fingers at Ethereum Foundation’s (EF) leadership, claiming the organization hadn’t done enough to reinvigorate the network’s momentum. This feature is a part of…
Veteran Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr is at the forefront of one of the most hotly-discussed debates in cryptocurrency — what the original blockchain network should be used for. The advent of the Ordinals protocol in 2023, which allowed a form of NFTs to be minted on Bitcoin, and Runes a year later, which did something…
Jeff Yan rarely speaks in public, avoids social media, and has never taken venture capital money. But in 2025, few individuals have had a bigger influence on the shape of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the crypto space itself. This feature is a part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list. Yan is the founder of Hyperliquid, a…
