Thomas “Tom” Lee has been a fixture on Wall Street for some time, and his recent pivot into crypto signals he’s not content to remain on the sidelines. This feature is a part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list. Lee co-founded Fundstrat Global Advisors, an independent financial research firm, in 2014. He currently serves as head…
Jesse Pollak, best known as the creator behind American crypto exchange Coinbase’s layer-2 network Base, has been seen as the person largely responsible for the network’s growth in popularity this year. Pollak, who began at Coinbase in 2017, launched Base in 2023. Designed to make onchain activity cheaper and easier and to support a new…
Last year, Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy (MSTR), stood among the most influential figures in the bitcoin ecosystem. His company’s stock surged fivefold, even as U.S. bitcoin ETFs entered the market. This feature is a part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list. The story in 2025, however, has been markedly different. MSTR has struggled to…
Binance is set to explore the tokenization of up to $2 billion in bonds, treasury bills and commodity reserves in Pakistan, Reuters reported on Friday. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the world’s largest crypto exchange by trade volume highlights Pakistan’s push to use blockchain technology to unlock liquidity and attract foreign investment as it…
Five digital asset firms have received conditional approvals Friday to become federally chartered trust banks by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) in a major step to bring U.S. dollar stablecoin issuers under federal regulatory oversight. Blockchain firm Ripple and Circle’s (CRCL) First National Digital Currency Bank are on the list, which also…
Tether, the crypto firm behind the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT USDT$1.0002, is aiming to acquire popular Italian football club Juventus FC, boosting its minority stake to 100%. The firm said Friday that it has submitted a binding proposal for majority shareholder Exor’s 65.4% stake in the club in an all-cash offer, according to a Friday…
After a 13-page letter from investment powerhouse Citadel Securities advised the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols handling tokenized securities demand a closer regulatory grip, the industry answered back with its own correspondence on Friday, calling the arguments “baseless.” “While we share Citadel’s aims with respect to investor protections, orderly markets,…
Bitnomial Clearinghouse LLC received approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to clear fully collateralized swaps, enabling its parent company, Bitnomial, to launch prediction markets and offer clearing services to other platforms. According to Friday’s announcement, Bitnomial’s prediction market will cover crypto and economic events, alongside its existing Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto derivatives…
HBAR trades lower Thursday after breaking through multiple technical levels during an afternoon selloff that pushed the token down 4% to $0.1247. The native token of the Hedera network posts a $0.0082 range representing 6.4% volatility as resistance at $0.1320 proves insurmountable for bulls attempting to extend gains. Volume patterns reveal heightened institutional participation throughout…
Interactive Brokers will now allow retail investors to fund individual brokerage accounts with stablecoins, a step aimed at keeping pace with the increasingly competitive retail trading market, Bloomberg reported Friday. The Greenwich, Connecticut-based brokerage firm competes with rivals including Robinhood Markets Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. and earlier this year expanded its cryptocurrency trading capabilities…
