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Bitcoin surged past 106,000 dollars for the first time in almost a week as reports surfaced that the U.S. Senate had reached an agreement to end the 40-day government shutdown, the longest in American history. Ethereum climbed more than 7% to trade above 3,600 dollars, while XRP and Solana both rose around 6%. The prolonged government impasse had previously dragged down crypto prices, with Bitcoin dipping below 100,000 dollars several times and Ethereum losing even more value as investors turned cautious. Despite the rebound, Bitcoin remains about 15% below its October high of 126,000 dollars.
The shutdown, along with broader economic concerns, has fuelled market turbulence in recent weeks. Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds experienced heavy outflows, losing more than 2.6 billion dollars combined, while crypto-related stocks such as Coinbase and Bitcoin treasury Strategy also saw sharp declines. Meanwhile, the Bitwise Solana ETF bucked the trend, attracting significant inflows and signalling renewed interest in alternative crypto assets. The Senate deal to reopen the government helped restore investor confidence, lifting the broader digital asset market as expectations grew that the political deadlock was finally nearing its end. Source
The article argues that privacy is evolving from a niche concern into the foundation of digital freedom, with technologies like zero-knowledge proofs redefining how trust and accountability work online. Rather than relying on visibility and observation to ensure integrity, the emerging paradigm of shared verification allows for proving compliance without exposing sensitive data. This marks a shift from transparency-based governance to systems that embed privacy and verifiability directly into their design. The Ethereum Foundation’s Privacy Cluster exemplifies this transformation, focusing on confidential computation, selective disclosure, and privacy as an essential infrastructure component.
However, regulation has yet to align with this new reality. Current laws still equate visibility with safety and treat privacy tools as risks rather than safeguards. The article contends that this outdated mindset undermines trust and democratic resilience in an era of mass data collection and surveillance. Instead, policymakers should recognize privacy-preserving technologies as enablers of accountability and human rights. By supporting open-source privacy systems, providing legal clarity, and embracing privacy-by-design as legality-by-design, regulators can ensure that freedom and integrity are built into the architecture of digital networks. Source
Japan’s three biggest banks—MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., and Mizuho Bank—have received regulatory approval to conduct proof-of-concept trials for a yen-denominated stablecoin. The project, backed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency, will test whether joint issuance by multiple banks can meet legal and compliance standards. According to Nikkei Asia, the consortium expects the stablecoin to be in practical use by March 2026, targeting both intracompany and corporate client transactions. The infrastructure for the project will be provided by fintech firm Progmat, with future plans including a potential dollar-pegged version.
Japan’s stablecoin initiative reflects the country’s broader digital finance strategy amid similar developments across East Asia. While startups like JPYC have already launched yen-based stablecoins, analysts suggest adoption of the banks’ coin may be slow due to Japan’s already cashless payment ecosystem dominated by services like PayPay. Meanwhile, other regional players such as Singapore and South Korea are advancing their own regulated stablecoins, while China continues to restrict private stablecoin projects. Japan’s entry into the space signals a step toward mainstream integration of blockchain-based payments under regulatory oversight. Source
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has expanded its stake in BitMine, purchasing 48,454 shares worth around 2 million dollars across its ARK Innovation, ARK Fintech Innovation, and ARK Next Generation Internet ETFs. The Ether-holding firm’s stock has surged 415% in 2025, driven by its strategy of accumulating Ether as a treasury asset. BitMine now holds roughly 3.4 million ETH, though it faces about 2.1 billion dollars in unrealized losses following recent crypto market declines. Despite these challenges, investor confidence appears strong, with BitMine shares closing at 40.23 dollars after a 7.65% daily gain.
In contrast, ARK Invest reduced its long-standing position in Tesla, selling approximately 71,638 shares valued at 30 million dollars. The sale follows Tesla shareholders’ approval of CEO Elon Musk’s nearly 1 trillion dollar pay package, which could boost his ownership stake to 25% if performance milestones are met. Tesla’s stock dipped 3.68% amid the announcement. The portfolio shift suggests that ARK may be rebalancing toward digital asset-linked equities like BitMine, reflecting growing investor interest in crypto-treasury firms despite market volatility. Source
Bitcoin-focused firm Strategy has raised 715 million dollars through its new euro-denominated preferred share offering, the STRE, marking its first major fundraising effort in foreign markets. The Luxembourg-listed security was priced lower than initially expected at 80 euros per share and offers a 10% fixed dividend. Proceeds will be used for general expenses and to expand Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings, which currently total around 641,205 BTC worth 64.6 billion dollars. The company said STRE investors have priority claims above common shareholders but below STRF holders and debt investors. Despite the successful raise, Strategy’s stock fell 3% to 230 dollars on Friday, extending a 14% weekly decline as Bitcoin prices hovered near the 100,000-dollar mark.
The fundraising move reflects Strategy’s increasing reliance on preferred shares after its stock price weakened relative to its Bitcoin reserves, reducing the efficiency of common share issuances. The new instrument, dubbed the “first digital credit instrument” for the European market by executive chairman Michael Saylor, signals the company’s efforts to diversify its funding sources while maintaining its aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy. Even as market volatility pressures crypto-related equities, investor confidence in Strategy’s long-term Bitcoin position remains strong, with prediction markets estimating a 95% likelihood that the firm will not sell any Bitcoin before year-end. Source
Ledger is considering a New York listing after achieving record revenues in the triple-digit millions for 2025, boosted by a surge in crypto hacks and growing demand for cold storage wallets. The French company, founded in 2014, has seen its strongest year yet as both individuals and institutions seek safer ways to secure digital assets amid rising cyberattacks. In the first half of 2025 alone, hackers stole 2.2 billion dollars worth of digital assets, surpassing the total for all of 2024, with nearly a quarter of these attacks targeting individual wallets.
CEO Pascal Gauthier said Ledger currently secures about 100 billion dollars in Bitcoin for its customers and may benefit further from holiday season demand spikes. The company, valued at 1.5 billion dollars in 2023, is considering raising additional funds through a private round or a US listing while expanding its New York team. However, its new multisignature app has sparked controversy over fees, drawing criticism from users who argue the changes move Ledger away from its original decentralized principles. Source
A Columbia University study found that about a quarter of all trading volume on Polymarket, one of the largest prediction platforms, may be the result of wash trading. The researchers analysed trading activity across 1.26 million wallets and discovered suspicious patterns in 14% of them, indicating users may have been trading among themselves to boost activity and qualify for potential token rewards. The absence of Know-Your-Customer checks, lack of transaction fees, and the anticipation of a token airdrop were cited as key incentives behind this behaviour. While the researchers did not accuse Polymarket of participating in the trades, they estimated that such activity peaked at nearly 60% of weekly volume in December 2024 before falling and then rising again later in 2025.
Polymarket, which allows users to wager on political, cultural, and economic outcomes, has handled more than 18 billion dollars in total volume and attracted over 1.3 million users. The platform’s rapid rise, backed by a 9 billion dollar valuation, has been accompanied by regulatory challenges, including fines and bans in several countries. The study revealed that wash trading was especially prevalent in sports and election markets, sometimes accounting for over 90% of weekly volume. Researchers warned that such practices distort market data and erode public trust in prediction platforms, urging Polymarket to adopt stronger measures to detect and deter manipulative trading. Source
Markethive is a social-powered inbound marketing platform that combines community, collaboration, and technology to help entrepreneurs and businesses amplify their online presence through a system called Blogcasting. This unique feature allows users to broadcast their blog posts and newsletters across multiple platforms, including social media networks and WordPress sites, significantly expanding content visibility beyond traditional email or single-channel methods. By integrating automation and social connectivity, Markethive enables users to reach millions, leveraging the network effect as subscribers and followers share content across their own channels. This approach not only enhances brand awareness and traffic but also fosters engagement, community building, and long-term trust.
The platform’s Blog Swipe and Blog Subscribe functions further strengthen collaboration and knowledge sharing by allowing users to republish, curate, or refine each other’s content while maintaining attribution. This encourages mentorship and improves the quality of material produced across the community. With tools for group collaboration, curated content management, and WordPress integration, Markethive supports bloggers of all skill levels and creates a cohesive ecosystem for digital communication and marketing. Its emphasis on human connection, mutual support, and global reach positions it as a comprehensive platform for business growth, creative expression, and professional development in the digital economy. Source
The concept of perfect fairness in blockchain transaction ordering—ensuring that transactions are executed exactly in the order they are received—is theoretically unattainable due to the Condorcet paradox. This paradox shows that even if each node in a distributed system maintains a consistent internal order of received transactions, the collective preferences of multiple nodes can create cyclical conflicts with no globally fair solution. For example, if most nodes receive transaction A before B, B before C, and C before A, the network faces a logical loop that makes universal “receive-order fairness” impossible without assuming instant communication. Efforts like Hedera Hashgraph’s median timestamping aim to approximate fairness but are easily manipulated; even one dishonest node can distort timestamps and reverse transaction order, revealing that “fair timestamping” provides only an illusion of fairness.
Recognizing this impossibility, newer protocols such as Aequitas and Themis propose more practical definitions of fairness. Aequitas introduces batch-order fairness, grouping conflicting transactions into the same block rather than enforcing a strict sequence, while Themis enhances this with greater scalability and efficiency using cryptographic proofs. These approaches accept that perfect fairness cannot exist in asynchronous systems but still uphold fairness principles by limiting manipulative ordering power. By prioritizing verifiable integrity over subjective trust, they redefine fairness as a provable, achievable property of blockchain consensus. Source
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has disclosed that Zcash has become the second-largest holding in his family office, Maelstrom, trailing only Bitcoin. The announcement coincides with a dramatic surge in Zcash’s value, which rose from $137 to over $730 in the past month, representing gains of more than 400% before easing to $548. Other privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, such as Dash, Decred, and ZKsync, have also experienced strong gains, while major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether have remained largely range-bound amid market uncertainty. Zcash currently has a market capitalization of $8.9 billion, with a circulating supply of 16.28 million and a maximum cap of 21 million coins.
The renewed interest in Zcash is being attributed to an organic resurgence driven by growing public concern over digital privacy and government surveillance. The Zcash Foundation, a US-registered nonprofit, stated that it had no role in the sudden spike in attention and described the wave of interest as unexpected. Zcash’s hybrid model, supporting both transparent and shielded transactions, combined with a fixed supply and proof-of-work security, has contributed to its appeal as a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. The resurgence highlights a broader grassroots movement emphasizing financial autonomy and privacy in the digital asset space. Source
Zcash has experienced a dramatic surge, rising nearly tenfold in five weeks and reaching a recent high of around $735 before settling at $666. The spike led to over $51 million in short position liquidations, making Zcash the third-most liquidated crypto on the day behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The token, which had hovered around $40 for more than three years, has gained significant attention as concerns about Bitcoin’s centralization and corporate influence have grown. Despite the rally, Zcash remains well below its all-time high of $3,191 from 2016, with a current market valuation of about $11 billion.
Analysts suggest that Zcash’s surge is driven by its privacy-focused features, which appeal to users seeking an alternative to Bitcoin amid increasing regulatory and corporate involvement in cryptocurrency. Zcash supports anonymous transactions using zero-knowledge proofs, allowing users to shield their activity. The rally may also have been influenced by the recent sentencing of Keonne Rodriguez, a developer of the privacy-focused Bitcoin app Samourai Wallet, which sparked renewed debate over government oversight and the rights of crypto developers. The combination of grassroots interest in privacy and external events has helped fuel the historic price movement. Source
The US Senate has reportedly reached a deal on a multi-part budget bill that could end the government shutdown, potentially providing a boost to the crypto market. The pending legislation is said to have enough support to pass the 60-vote threshold, although an official vote is still required to finalize the agreement. Ongoing uncertainty about the government’s reopening has contributed to recent volatility in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin falling over 17% from a high of $126,080 during the early days of the shutdown to around $104,370. Market reactions have been influenced by broader economic and political events, including tariff announcements that previously drove significant price swings.
Historical trends suggest a resolution could favor crypto markets, as Bitcoin rose over 265% following the last US government shutdown in early 2019. Prediction markets indicate growing confidence that the current shutdown will end later this week, with odds from platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi pointing to a resolution by Friday. The announcement of a $2,000 dividend for most Americans from tariff revenue may also support market sentiment. If the shutdown ends as anticipated, the crypto sector could see renewed investor confidence and price stabilization. Source
Transak co-founder and CEO Sami Start explained that the next phase of stablecoin adoption will likely be seamless and largely invisible to users as these tokens are integrated into consumer applications. The company is focusing on white-label, modular API solutions that allow established firms to incorporate stablecoins into their existing financial products without prominently featuring Transak’s brand. This approach enables users to interact with stablecoins in the context of broader financial services, such as tracking balances or making payments, without necessarily realizing they are using crypto assets. Stablecoins like Transak’s Tether-backed offerings are gaining legitimacy in the U.S., and the GENIUS Act legislation has spurred interest from major financial institutions.
Start highlighted that Transak’s flexible system allows for a “stablecoin sandwich,” where the company may facilitate onboarding or conversion on one end while another party handles the opposite transaction. This flexibility opens the market to a broader range of applications, from remittances to consumer finance, while keeping the process largely invisible to end users. Stablecoins also provide low-risk revenue opportunities for tech firms through their backing assets, as seen with Coinbase’s earnings from USDC. The adoption trend is being echoed globally, with firms like Western Union planning their own stablecoin offerings and Japan’s largest banks preparing for pilot launches. Source
Ethereum’s layer-1 network has seen gas fees fall to an all-time low of just 0.067 Gwei amid a slowdown in crypto market activity following October’s historic crash. At these levels, executing a swap costs $0.11, NFT sales carry a fee of $0.19, bridging assets costs $0.04, and onchain borrowing is $0.09. This contrasts sharply with the network’s peak fees of 15.9 Gwei during the October market flash crash. While traders and investors can benefit from these low fees, analysts warn that such minimal charges could signal deeper structural issues with Ethereum’s revenue model, which relies on transaction fees to incentivize validators and secure the blockchain.
The drop in fees is largely attributed to the Ethereum Dencun upgrade in March 2024, which reduced costs for layer-2 scaling networks, inadvertently causing Ethereum’s base-layer revenue to decline by 99%. Critics argue that sustained low fees could undermine both financial sustainability and network security, as validators may lack sufficient incentives. The shift toward layer-2 networks, while improving scalability, has created internal competition and cannibalized the base layer’s revenue, raising concerns about Ethereum’s long-term economic model and its ability to retain users and maintain network security. Source
US Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran stated that the growing demand for US dollar–pegged stablecoins could exert downward pressure on interest rates by affecting the neutral rate, or r-star, which is the rate that neither stimulates nor restricts economic activity. Miran highlighted that stablecoins are already increasing demand for US Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated liquid assets, particularly from international buyers, and predicted that the market could grow from its current $310.7 million valuation to as much as $3 trillion over the next five years. If the neutral rate declines, the Fed may respond by lowering interest rates to maintain economic balance.
Miran emphasized the importance of regulation in supporting the broader adoption of stablecoins, praising the GENIUS Act for establishing clear guidelines and consumer protections. The legislation requires US-based stablecoin issuers to maintain reserves backed one-to-one with safe, liquid US dollar assets, lending credibility and stability to the market. While stablecoins present potential competition to traditional financial institutions, the framework provided by the GENIUS Act could help integrate them safely into the financial system, allowing stablecoins to grow substantially while supporting the Fed’s monetary policy objectives. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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