x
The blockchain payments company Ripple is expanding its business into the corporate treasury market through a significant acquisition. The firm is set to acquire GTreasury, a company specializing in cloud-based treasury management and digital asset infrastructure, for $1,000,000,000. This strategic purchase is designed to enable treasury and finance teams to bypass slow, old payment systems and infrastructure that lead to high costs and delays. The combined offerings of Ripple and GTreasury aim to instantly process payments, free up trapped capital, and facilitate new growth opportunities for businesses.
According to a press release, this acquisition is particularly focused on helping Ripple better manage cryptocurrencies, such as stablecoins and tokenized assets, at the large scale demanded by blue-chip companies. The deal is anticipated to be finalized within the next couple of months, pending the necessary regulatory approval. This acquisition follows a previous move earlier this year when Ripple purchased Rail, a Toronto-based stablecoin payments platform, for $200,000,000. Additionally, the digital asset associated with Ripple, XRP, was trading for $2.29 at the time the article was written, reflecting a 3.7% daily increase. Source
Market makers like Wintermute and LO:TECH temporarily ceased trading during a recent flash crash that saw over $19 billion in crypto liquidations, which may have contributed to market volatility. Wintermute explained that they follow a strict, rules-based, delta-neutral approach to trading, and the extreme speed and violence of the liquidation cascade broke their internal rules, forcing them to pause and reassess their strategy. While some speculated on social media that this pause was a coordinated effort to maximize profits, both Wintermute and LO:TECH denied these claims, stating their actions were a result of automated systems kicking in or the necessity to regroup. LO:TECH's CTO noted that their risk engine's circuit breakers engaged, and they also faced unreliability with exchange APIs at the time.
Industry analysts confirmed that market makers withdrawing resulted in significantly less market liquidity, leading to more volatile prices and fragmentation of prices across various exchanges. However, experts defended the market makers' decision to retreat, explaining that the auto-deleveraging mechanism used by some crypto exchanges made it impossible for market makers to rely on their hedges. In this highly fragmented and unpredictable environment, where their gains on one exchange might be closing winning positions on another to offset losses, the risk of providing liquidity became too high. Ultimately, Wintermute's desk strategist affirmed that they will make markets when it can be done safely and in a delta-neutral manner, which was not possible during the severity of the flash crash. Source
Jeremy Kranz, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Sentinel Global, urges investors to be discerning about privately-issued stablecoins, which he terms "central business digital currency." He warns that these stablecoins share risks with a central bank digital currency (CBDC), including surveillance, programmability, and control features. Kranz suggests that a large financial institution issuing a stablecoin could potentially freeze funds or unbank users under legal frameworks like the Patriot Act. He also highlighted the unique risks of different stablecoin types, noting that overcollateralized stablecoins are susceptible to bank runs if simultaneous redemptions occur.
Kranz further discussed that algorithmic and synthetic stablecoins carry risks such as counterparty dependencies and the potential for de-pegging from volatility or flash crashes in crypto derivatives markets. He concluded that while the technology itself is a neutral tool, the future depends on individual investors understanding the fine print and making informed decisions, as the rapid pace of innovation in this space will create both significant opportunities and risks. The stablecoin market capitalization recently surpassed 300 billion, following heightened interest after the passage of the GENIUS stablecoin bill in the United States. However, this legislation received criticism, with a U.S. representative calling the bill a CBDC Trojan Horse intended to open the door to a cashless society and a digital currency that could be weaponized by an authoritarian government. Source
Asset management giant BlackRock, managing over $10 trillion in assets, is introducing a new regulatory-compliant money market fund to meet the surging demand for stablecoin reserve management. The new product, the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL), is designed to increase client liquidity while operating within the framework of the recently passed US Genius Act. This legislation established clear regulatory guidelines for stablecoins, making the fund a compliant solution for issuers and clients seeking regulated reserve options.
Jon Steel, BlackRock’s global head of product and platform for cash management, emphasized that the firm is seeing increasing demand for innovative and compliant reserve management solutions from stablecoin issuers. He noted that the BSTBL fund represents a new chapter for their cash management business and positions BlackRock as a preferred reserve asset manager within the digital payments ecosystem. This move follows a period of heightened institutional interest in digital assets, highlighted by the firm's recent purchase of one billion dollars worth of Bitcoin in a single week. Source
Despite fears that the digital asset treasury hype might be ending, BitMine Immersion Technologies has purchased $1.5 billion worth of Ether since the recent crypto market crash, totalling 379,271 Ether across three separate acquisitions. This accumulation comes even as Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, who remains bullish on the asset, suggests the digital asset treasury bubble may have already burst, noting that many such treasuries are trading below their net asset value. BitMine is already the world’s largest Ether treasury company, holding over three million ETH, which is $11.7 billion and represents 2.5% of the total supply, as it works towards a target of 5%.
Lee has expressed a strong long-term view on Ether, suggesting it "could flip Bitcoin" similar to how equities flipped gold post-1971. The continued aggressive purchasing occurs amid reports from firms like 10x Research that major digital asset treasuries are trading near or below their net asset values, though they believe well-managed DATs can still perform strongly. Lee attributes the current crypto market downturn, which is 15% below its recent high, not only to a record leverage flush but also to "gold envy" from investors. He concludes that with leveraged long positions near record lows, the crypto market is likely "at the basement and working our way back up." Source
Stablecoin giant Tether announced a $250,000 donation to OpenSats, a nonprofit that funds the development of free and open-source Bitcoin software. This amount was publicly criticized by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on X, who curtly replied, "Why only $250K?" to a post by Tether's CEO. Tether, one of the most profitable companies in the crypto industry, which reported a $13 billion profit last year, made the donation to support OpenSats' operations and grant-making efforts. When questioned about his own financial commitment to the cause, Dorsey quickly revealed that his Start Small initiative had previously given OpenSats over $21 million in 2024.
Although Dorsey's donation was significantly larger, the public spat resulted in criticism directed back at him from Udi Wertheimer, the creator of the Bitcoin Ordinals project Taproots Wizards. Wertheimer initially supported Dorsey's commitment to funding open-source Bitcoin development, but then lambasted him for his investments in Ocean, a Bitcoin mining pool. Ocean had previously attracted controversy for discouraging the processing of non-financial transactions, like Ordinals, on the Bitcoin blockchain. Wertheimer argued that Dorsey's capital in Ocean was being actively deployed to slow down development, highlighting the imperfections often found within the crypto community's public discourse. Source
One of the world's largest credit card companies, Visa, suggests that stablecoins could fundamentally change the global credit market, which is valued in the multi-trillions of dollars. A new research report from Visa indicates that these dollar-pegged digital assets are moving beyond their initial use as mere tools for crypto trading and are becoming essential infrastructure for a rapidly expanding lending ecosystem that has processed over half a trillion dollars in loans to date. For established financial institutions and banks, this shift presents both an opportunity and a necessity to comprehend how programmable money is reshaping existing credit frameworks.
Visa identifies three primary avenues through which stablecoins are set to revolutionize the wholesale credit market: enabling tokenized traditional assets to function as collateral, thereby opening up new collateral pools; broadening the scope of crypto credit programs; and facilitating a more digital method for assessing a potential client's creditworthiness. The company anticipates that tokenized conventional assets will soon be accepted as collateral in lending markets, bridging the gap between traditional credit and the digital asset space. Furthermore, the expansion of crypto credit programs will allow users to gain access to liquidity by borrowing against their digital asset holdings. Finally, the next step involves developing on-chain identity and credit scoring systems that analyse a wallet's transaction history, asset holdings, and protocol interactions to build a credit profile while maintaining user privacy through technologies like zero-knowledge proofs. Source
Markethive is launching a major initiative to transform the digital publishing and press release market with its Hivepress system, which revolves around the creation of Franchives. Franchives are unique, franchise-like digital news sites that allow individual Markethive members to become independent, monetizing publishers with their own custom domain and IP address. The core Hivepress system is designed for generating revenue through distributing press releases and sponsored articles across a vast network, offering significant commissions to the Franchive owners responsible for publication. This ambitious project aims to democratize digital publishing, enabling members to manage their own news hub with built-in tools for content creation, search engine optimization, widespread distribution, and advanced analytics, all without the typical high costs of launching an independent news outlet.
A major feature of the Franchive system is its groundbreaking revenue model, which allows site owners to keep 100% of the profits generated from direct advertising, such as banner and video ads, placed on their platforms. Furthermore, the system supports comprehensive payment flexibility, allowing owners to accept traditional methods like credit cards and PayPal, alongside cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Markethive's proprietary Hivecoin (HVC), with discounts offered for HVC payments. The affordable setup fee of $500 is strategically invested by Markethive into essential services like initial SEO for the new sites and funding professional writers to produce high-quality content that is automatically syndicated to all Franchive owners, significantly reducing the content creation burden and establishing a solid, interconnected network for publishing and monetizing digital content. Source
The cryptocurrency markets have experienced a surge in value following the confirmation by United States President Donald Trump of an upcoming meeting with China's President Xi Jinping. This de-escalation of trade tensions between the US and China is viewed as a positive catalyst for crypto prices. The two leaders are scheduled to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Seoul, South Korea, starting on October 31. Trump's comments to Fox News, where he expressed optimism about reaching a fair deal with China and praised Xi Jinping as a strong leader, signaled a reversal of previous sentiments where he had announced additional tariffs and suggested no reason for a meeting, which had previously sent crypto markets into a significant downward spiral and caused a historic liquidation event in the derivatives market.
The positive market reaction was immediate and widespread, with Bitcoin's price rising by approximately 2% on Sunday following Trump’s confirmation. Other major cryptocurrencies also saw modest gains, including Ether and BNB, which each recorded a gain of about 3.5%, and Solana’s SOL, which increased by nearly 4%. This rally comes after market sentiment had hit a six-month low in the wake of the previous crash, with the Crypto Fear & Greed indicator signaling "Extreme Fear" among investors due to fears of a prolonged trade war. Despite the recent volatility, some analysts have forecasted that the downturn would be short-lived, maintaining that the long-term bull trend for the crypto market remains intact. Source
Stripe's new blockchain project, Tempo, has reportedly completed a Series A funding round, securing $500 million and achieving a $5 billion valuation. This significant early success for the layer-1 blockchain, which is designed to support Stripe’s expansion into crypto payments, was co-led by venture firms Greenoaks and Thrive Capital. The fundraising itself was overshadowed by the project's hiring of Dankrad Feist, a leading researcher from the Ethereum Foundation and a key contributor to the Ethereum network. Feist's move was celebrated by some, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who expressed support for his goal of bringing crypto payments to a wider audience, but it also ignited controversy within the crypto community regarding the tension between open-source development and corporate blockchain projects.
Many community members viewed Feist's departure as a significant loss for the open-source movement, criticizing the decision to join a corporate-backed chain. Popular crypto figures drew analogies comparing the move to an environmental activist joining a major oil corporation, and others recalled a previous conflict-of-interest controversy from the prior year when Feist and another colleague accepted and then abandoned advisory roles at the Ethereum restaking protocol Eigenlayer. Despite the community backlash, Feist stated that he believes "the real world moment is now" and that joining Tempo will allow him to more effectively ensure crypto payments reach "normal people’s lives everywhere in the world," though he will remain a research advisor for select strategic initiatives at the Ethereum Foundation. Source
Ethereum developer Federico Carrone has raised concerns that the increasing influence of venture capital firms like Paradigm poses a significant "tail risk" to the network's decentralized ethos. While acknowledging that Paradigm has contributed valuable resources, including hiring key researchers and funding critical open-source libraries, Carrone fears that a profit-driven entity's growing sway could cause the Ethereum ecosystem's priorities to shift away from its community-focused, philosophical vision toward corporate incentives. The developer suggests this misalignment is already becoming evident and could deepen, urging the community to be wary of allowing any fund to gain a technical deep dependency on an open-source project.
This caution stems in part from Paradigm's involvement in a range of Ethereum-related projects, including the Reth development software, as well as its recent move to incubate Tempo, a stablecoin and payments-focused Layer 1 in partnership with Stripe. Carrone highlights that Tempo, being a corporate-controlled chain, represents a stark contrast to Ethereum’s open-source nature, underscoring the potential conflict between decentralized and centralized objectives. He ultimately argues that Ethereum must be extremely careful to avoid this corporate creep, which could corrupt the network’s long-term vision. Source
Following a period of historic volatility and cascading liquidations in the crypto market, experts debated whether traditional financial safeguards, specifically circuit breakers used on venues like the NYSE and Nasdaq, could be practically or effectively applied to decentralized finance (DeFi). The core argument against implementing such mechanisms is the inherently decentralized nature of DeFi. Unlike traditional markets where assets trade primarily on a single venue with consolidated orders, DeFi systems are autonomous, operating around the clock, and underpinned by resilient smart contracts that perform even during liquidity crises. Amanda Tuminelli of the DeFi Education Fund noted that there is "no off button" in DeFi to exert unilateral control, explaining that even if restrictions were placed on a service's "front end," the underlying protocol remains open and accessible through "a million other front ends," limiting the efficacy of any halt.
Gregory Xethalis of Multicoin Capital further cautioned that attempting to impose traditional market safeguards could actually worsen conditions in DeFi. He argued that since digital assets trade universally with constant arbitrage across multiple venues, implementing circuit breakers would likely cause "dislocations" and exacerbate price discrepancies rather than promote orderly trading. He stated that solutions must be specifically designed for the unique characteristics of new markets like DeFi, which trade globally. While experts suggest caution about adopting "yesterday’s solutions" for tomorrow’s products, Xethalis added that this does not preclude DeFi from developing its own novel risk parameters and solutions, possibly drawing inspiration from centralized markets where appropriate. Source
The article addresses the significant failure rate of crypto airdrops, noting that 88% of tokens lose value within three months, even though projects have distributed over $20 billion since 2017. Experts suggest that for an airdrop to succeed, proper token distribution is essential, focusing on placing tokens into the hands of loyal, or "diamond," holders. Successful strategies often involve phased or targeted distributions to prevent mass sell-offs by the community. Additionally, projects are advised to be more careful in selecting recipients by analyzing user onchain activity, trading behavior, and even social media reputation to filter out opportunistic airdrop hunters and farmers, thereby ensuring that the tokens go to users genuinely interested in the product and its long-term viability.
Beyond distribution, underlying product quality and liquidity management are identified as key factors determining an airdrop’s success. Azura CEO Jackson Denka contends that many tokens fail because they are attached to fundamentally unsound protocols that lack real adoption or revenue generation, stressing that a good product will succeed regardless of the giveaway structure. Furthermore, poor liquidity design, such as releasing too much supply too quickly, floods the market and diminishes value. To combat this, successful models reward users for continued activity and utilize gradual unlock schedules, helping to build sustainable liquidity. Ultimately, while airdrops will persist, Denka anticipates their popularity will wane as initial coin offerings emerge for investors to pay for tokens before release, viewing airdrops as a temporary phase in the broader history of crypto markets. Source
Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work (PoW) system is central to its security but comes with substantial energy and environmental costs, which have become a major point of controversy. Current estimates from the 2025 Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report place Bitcoin's annual electricity consumption at 138 TWh, with corresponding network emissions of approximately 39.8 Mt CO$_2$e. However, the energy composition is shifting, with the report also noting that over 52% of the power used by miners comes from sustainable sources, including renewables and nuclear. Academic research is moving beyond just electricity to explore Bitcoin's broader environmental impact, factoring in carbon dioxide emissions, water usage, e-waste from discarded hardware, and land use, painting a multi-dimensional picture of its footprint.
The industry is seeing a major split in design philosophies, highlighted by Ethereum's successful shift to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) in 2022, which radically cut its energy use by about 99.9% and demonstrated that a major network can function securely without the massive energy burn of PoW. For Bitcoin, the debate continues between those who argue PoW is essential for its security and decentralization and those who fear it invites political backlash and regulation. Some proponents of Bitcoin mining suggest it can actually aid the transition to green energy by acting as a "buyer of last resort" for surplus solar and wind power, thereby stabilizing grids and incentivizing renewable projects. Ultimately, the future of Bitcoin's environmental role depends on whether miners and policymakers can steer the activity toward sustainable power sources and responsible practices. Source
Bitcoin's network hashrate recently reached an all-time high of over 1.2 trillion hashes per second, maintaining an elevated level despite a temporary dip in mining difficulty to 146.7 trillion, which was about 2.7% lower than its previous peak. While this drop briefly eased the mining process, the sustained high hashrate indicates that the difficulty is expected to rapidly increase again in the near future, projected to rise to 156.92 trillion in the upcoming adjustment estimated for late October 2025. This continuous rise in hashrate forces miners to expend even greater computing resources to successfully add new blocks to the Bitcoin ledger, intensifying the existing stress from reduced block rewards, increasing competition, and challenging trade policies.
Faced with these growing pressures and shortfalls in revenue, many mining companies are exploring alternative income sources, specifically by diversifying their operations into AI data centers and other forms of high-performance computing, as seen with companies such as Core Scientific, Hut 8, and IREN. This strategic shift, however, introduces new conflicts, as both the mining and AI sectors are energy-intensive and now compete fiercely for access to affordable power. The industry is also grappling with persistent regulatory hurdles and evolving supply chain problems, particularly those arising from trade tariffs that raise the cost of essential mining hardware. Furthermore, the risk of escalating trade tensions between major global powers could lead to export controls on vital components like computer chips and processors, making it even harder for miners to acquire the necessary equipment. Source
Mainland Chinese officials have halted the stablecoin plans of two major technology companies, Alibaba-backed Ant Group and JD.com, in Hong Kong. This directive follows guidance from the People’s Bank of China and the Cyberspace Administration of China, which warned against private entities issuing currency-like assets. The move is viewed as a way for Beijing to reassert state authority over monetary policy and recalibrate Hong Kong’s role in digital assets, pushing for disciplined, cross-border compliance instead of retail speculation. It signals an effort to align Hong Kong's regulatory environment with Beijing’s broader policy goals, which tolerate innovation only within state-defined boundaries.
The instruction to suspend these ambitions came just months after both companies expressed interest in Hong Kong's new stablecoin framework. Officials reportedly warned the firms that private stablecoins could dangerously blur the line between financial technology and sovereign monetary policy. Key concerns cited include risks to capital supervision and the potential for private stablecoins to overlap or compete with the e-CNY, China’s central bank digital currency, which is central to Beijing’s long-term payment strategy. The overall intention for Hong Kong’s stablecoin regime is to attract foreign crypto capital, not to act as a conduit for domestic mainland transactions, reinforcing that speculative virtual currency transactions within the mainland remain off-limits as per a 2021 pronouncement. The caution is also reflected in similar recent instructions to mainland-linked brokerages to pause real-world asset tokenization efforts in Hong Kong. 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.
Featured Image - Source: Pixabay
