Riyad Bank's innovation arm Jeel has partnered with Ripple to test blockchain-based cross-border payments and digital asset services in Saudi Arabia through a regulatory sandbox aligned with Vision 2030 goals. Riyad Bank's innovation arm Jeel has partnered with Ripple to test blockchain-based cross-border payments and digital asset services in Saudi Arabia through a regulatory sandbox aligned with Vision 2030 goals. Jeel, the innovation arm of Riyad Bank, has entered into a partnership with blockchain company Ripple to test new financial services built on distributed ledger technology. The collaboration will focus on cross-border payments and future digital asset use cases within Saudi Arabia. Under the agreement, both sides will run technology trials inside Jeel's regulatory sandbox. The controlled environment allows financial institutions and technology providers to test new systems under regulatory oversight before broader market deployment. The partnership comes as Saudi Arabia continues to expand digital infrastructure across banking and payments. Jeel and Ripple will examine blockchain-enabled corridors designed to reduce friction in international payments. The testing phase will assess how Ripple's infrastructure performs when handling real transaction flows inside a sandbox setting. Jeel operates its sandbox as a testing platform that balances innovation with regulatory discipline. Testing will include technical performance, transaction processing capacity, system stability, and data security controls. Executives at Jeel have said the sandbox model allows controlled experimentation with emerging financial infrastructure. Beyond payments, the partnership will also examine digital asset custody and tokenization frameworks. These areas have gained attention across financial markets as institutions look for secure ways to manage blockchain-based assets. The goal involves identifying methods that meet security standards while remaining scalable for institutional use. Tokenization, which converts traditional assets into blockchain-based representations, also forms part of the evaluation. Financial institutions view tokenization as a potential tool for improving settlement efficiency and asset management processes. Any deployment in this area will depend on regulatory approval and performance results from the sandbox phase. The partnership provides Ripple with direct access to Saudi Arabia's regulated financial innovation network. Through Jeel's institutional channels, Ripple will test its enterprise blockchain platforms within the national financial environment. Ripple's regional leadership has described Saudi Arabia as an important market for digital transformation. The company views sandbox participation as an opportunity to demonstrate how its technology operates under regulatory oversight rather than in isolated pilot projects. For Saudi institutions, working with an established blockchain provider offers exposure to enterprise-grade platforms already used in other regions. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 strategy places digital finance at the center of economic reform. By testing blockchain infrastructure within a regulated environment, the project fits into broader national efforts to strengthen digital financial services. Authorities have emphasized the importance of maintaining financial stability while introducing new technologies. The Ripple collaboration adds an international technology partner to this framework, connecting local banking innovation with global blockchain expertise. Jeel operates as Riyad Bank's innovation arm, responsible for exploring emerging technologies and testing new financial products. Riyad Bank remains one of Saudi Arabia's largest financial institutions, serving corporate, retail, and government clients. Its innovation unit plays a role in evaluating technologies before large-scale deployment across the bank's operations. Rather than adopting systems directly into production, the bank uses sandbox testing to assess risk, reliability, and regulatory impact. Saudi Arabia's financial authorities have taken steps to support controlled experimentation while maintaining oversight. The Jeel-Ripple partnership follows this pattern by combining international technology with domestic regulatory supervision. The Middle East also plays a growing role in cross-border trade between Asia, Europe, and Africa. Blockchain-based systems have attracted attention as tools that can reduce settlement time and operational complexity across borders. Traditional financial institutions increasingly work with specialized providers rather than building all infrastructure internally. Ripple brings blockchain expertise, while Jeel provides regulatory access and institutional integration. This model reflects how banks adopt new technology while maintaining control over compliance and risk management. The arrangement also supports Riyad Bank's efforts to position itself as an active participant in digital finance development across Saudi Arabia. Industry observers note that such partnerships often determine whether experimental technology transitions into mainstream banking operations. Any expansion beyond sandbox testing will depend on regulatory approval and performance results. Saudi regulators continue to evaluate how blockchain systems fit within existing financial laws and consumer protection frameworks. Issues such as data privacy, transaction monitoring, and asset custody controls remain central to these assessments. This oversight process plays a central role in shaping how digital finance evolves across the Kingdom. Jeel and Ripple have not released a timeline for completing sandbox testing or moving into production deployments. The next phase will involve performance evaluation, compliance review, and operational assessment. If results meet regulatory and institutional standards, the partnership could expand into live payment corridors or digital asset services offered through Riyad Bank's platforms. Any such rollout would occur in stages and under continued regulatory supervision. The Jeel-Ripple partnership represents a structured approach to blockchain adoption in Saudi Arabia's financial sector. Rather than rapid deployment, the project emphasizes testing, compliance, and operational readiness. By using a sandbox model, Riyad Bank's innovation arm and Ripple aim to determine whether blockchain tools can meet institutional standards inside one of the region's largest banking markets. The outcome of these tests will influence how quickly blockchain-based services move from controlled trials into everyday banking operations across Saudi Arabia. Ripple has secured expanded approval from Singapore's Monetary Authority, allowing the company to scale regulated blockchain-based payment services and strengthen RLUSD and XRP adoption across the region. Tether has invested in fintech firm Parfin to support institutional USDT adoption and strengthen blockchain-based settlement tools across Latin America, deepening its presence in a region with fast-growing digital asset activity. PayPal plans to launch PYUSD on the Stellar blockchain, expanding its stablecoin's utility for real-world payments, remittances, and financing—pending regulatory... Full Article Blockchain and identity management are not only a natural fit, but will also be an increasingly important part for online... Full Article Premier crypto event featuring a festival-like atmosphere at the majestic Madinat Jumeirah. Read by executives at JP Morgan, Coinbase, Blackrock, Klarna, and more. Our newsletter is sent every Tuesday and Thursday, with occasional special editions in between. Our news section is updated daily with breaking fintech developments and in-depth articles. We offer conference listings, company directory features, branded articles, press release distribution, and newsletter advertising to reach decision-makers in the fintech industry. Haftungshinweis: Trotz sorgfältiger inhaltlicher Kontrolle übernehmen wir keine Haftung für die Inhalte externer Links. Für den Inhalt der verlinkten Seiten sind ausschließlich deren Betreiber verantwortlich.

Analysis suggests a whopping 95 percent of NFTs are now worthless. Nifty Gateway, one of the earliest online marketplaces for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has announced it will shut down effective February 23 amid a sharp drop in activity. The platform has already “entered withdrawal-only mode,” according to a notification on its website, which advises members: “Please withdraw your assets by this date.” After February 23, “you will no longer be able to list, purchase, bid on, or sell NFTs on Nifty Gateway. Nifty Gateway was founded in 2018 by twins Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster as a platform where NFTs could be easily bought and sold using cryptocurrency or fiat. In 2019, it was snapped up by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, founded by another pair of twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, as its first-ever acquisition. In 2021, the platform reported $300 million in gross merchandise value, its profile boosted by its partnership with Sotheby's for the auction house's $17 million NFT drop with Pak. “Since launching, Nifty supported dozens of innovative drops and brought new creative experiences to life,” Gemini noted in its recent announcement. “We are incredibly proud of the work the Nifty team has pioneered and grateful to Nifty Gateway's customers and artists for joining us on this journey.” The boom saw a proliferation of NFT platforms, with major auction houses launching Web3 initiatives, from Sotheby's Metaverse to Christie's digital art department. Brands such as Louis Vuitton and Nike got in on the action; Bored Ape NFTs were trotted out on late-night talk shows. As recently detailed by the Independent, the NFT market collapsed with estimated trading volumes dropping from a peak of $4 billion to roughly $800 million within a single year. “The company will continue to sell digital art within the larger 20th and 21st Century Art category.” In 2024, Sotheby's laid off most of its Metaverse and NFT team, retaining only three staffers. Analysis by DappRadar noted that the trading volume of art NFTs fell from a high of $2.97 billion in 2021 to $197 million in 2024. Current Nifty Gateway users who hold an NFT and a balance of USD or ETH will be notified by Gemini on how to move their assets off the platform and onto the Gemini ecosystem, the company said. It added that NFTs will continue to be supported through the Gemini wallet. “This decision will allow Gemini to sharpen its focus and execute on the vision of building a one-stop super app for customers,” the announcement reads. Downtown's Ambitious New Nonprofit, Esther Kim Varet's Cash Haul—and More Art World Gossip

After the New York Fed conducted a rate check—a procedural move often preceding market action—the Japanese yen surged 3.39% from last Friday's low. It now trades at 153.95 yen to the dollar, a level not seen since early November 2025. This matters because a stronger yen threatens to unwind one of the world's most pervasive investment strategies, directly impacting the liquidity that has buoyed risk assets like Bitcoin for years. In this fragile macro environment, Bitcoin's behavior is increasingly dictated by traditional finance flows. For decades, Japan's near-zero interest rates have fueled the "carry trade," where investors borrow cheap yen to buy higher-yielding assets abroad, including U.S. stocks and Bitcoin. If the yen weakens, these trades become more profitable on paper. This dynamic hits Bitcoin directly, as its short-term price is primarily determined by leveraged capital, Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, told Decrypt. Investors must now sell those risk assets to buy back yen and close their loans, creating a wave of selling pressure. This dynamic explains recent selling across crypto and equities as the yen has strengthened. A forced unwinding of these leveraged positions could further destabilize bond markets and global liquidity, echoing the August 2024 carry-trade blowup that sent Bitcoin below $50,000 and triggered over $1 billion in liquidations. Sun noted, however, that the current impact is unlikely to exceed that event, as overall risk appetite among leveraged players is now lower than in 2024. While this deleveraging poses a clear short-term threat to Bitcoin's price, the longer-term monetary consequences could be powerfully bullish, experts told Decrypt. If the Fed intervenes by selling dollars, it effectively expands dollar liquidity—a form of money printing. This weakens the U.S. dollar, which is already near multi-month lows, and boosts global liquidity. Bitcoin, Ethereum ETFs Bleed as Crypto Funds Lose $1.73 Billion, Largest Since November For a new, sustained rally to take hold, Sun said the market would need to see “a decline in yen FX volatility, followed by USD weakening,” confirming a structural shift toward broader liquidity easing. Such an environment historically acts as a tailwind for scarce, "hard money" assets like Bitcoin. Arthur Hayes, former CEO of BitMEX and a prominent macro commentator, has called this scenario "extremely boolish," in a Saturday tweet. Until that pivot, however, Sun expects pressure to persist. “Until the yen stabilizes and intervention risks are fully priced out, global risk appetite will remain compressed, and Bitcoin prices will continue to face material downside pressure,” he said.

A few weeks ago, Zama announced its launch on mainnet with the first Confidential USDT (cUSDT) transfer on Ethereum. The Zama auction app was the most-used application on Ethereum on January 24th, above USDT, USDC, and Uniswap. It took Zama only 3 days to grow Total Value Shielded (TVS) above $100m, something that took other Ethereum-based privacy protocols multiple years. The protocol experienced no downtime, and was able to keep up with the throughput of Ethereum itself, proving that FHE is now production-ready and can be used at scale by anyone building a financial application on the blockchain. The Zama ICO was done through a confidential sealed-bid Dutch auction. After studying more than a hundred TGEs, we found that auctions offer the best balance of fair distribution, price discovery, and capital efficiency. Confidentiality is critical: when participants can see others' bids, price discovery becomes distorted as people react to one another rather than bidding what they truly believe. Participants picked a price (public) and an amount (private). The upcoming pre-TGE sale will give a chance to participants who did not get their bids filled in the auction to buy $ZAMA tokens at the auction clearing price, with a $10k participation cap. $ZAMA tokens will be distributed as standard ERC-20 tokens, fully unlocked and immediately usable for paying encryption and decryption fees on the Zama Protocol. All $ZAMA holders can stake their tokens on their choice of operators to earn rewards and help secure the Zama Protocol. Using the Zama Portfolio, anybody can start to shield and send confidential tokens. Finally, blockchain gets its HTTPS moment, and the days of fully transparent transactions are behind us. Everything that goes onchain will eventually be encrypted, and it starts today with the Zama Public Auction.

Amid a global rise in cryptocurrency‑related crime, Israeli start-up Lionsgate Network is drawing increased attention from both attackers and regulators as it positions itself as a central player in the race to trace and recover stolen digital assets. While the crypto world has long been associated with anonymity and untraceable transactions, Lionsgate Network specializes in blockchain forensics to expose even the most sophisticated criminal or terror networks. And when crime is involved, we can help,” Bezalel Raviv, CEO and founder of Lionsgate Network, told The Jerusalem Post ahead of Cybertech 2026. This emphasis on institutional collaboration has become a central part of Lionsgate Network's identity, particularly as governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide struggle to keep pace with the scale of crypto‑related crime. “This is a huge tumor in the financial world,” Raviv said. Lionsgate Network uses advanced monitoring systems that can determine whether a case is recoverable in under 10 seconds. And according to Raviv, every crypto transaction leaves two parallel trails. “The blockchain trail, mapping precisely where funds originated and how they moved across wallets, protocols, and platforms, down to the smallest unit. While OSINT data is not always immediately visible, our AI models continuously learn and improve detection exponentially, increasing attribution accuracy over time.” The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center now receives thousands of fraud reports each day, many involving elaborate investment schemes that target victims across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. The FBI's IC3 reports roughly 6,000 new cybercrime complaints per day, yet based on victim behavior, we estimate that only about one in 15 incidents is actually reported, suggesting the real numbers are significantly higher,” Raviv said. Lionsgate Network is seeing similar growth curves across Europe and Latin America. Against this, Lionsgate Network has stepped into a vacuum left by traditional financial institutions, which often lack the tools or jurisdiction to intervene or dismiss victims by telling them that their funds cannot be recovered. While most attacks are state-backed, the majority by Iran and North Korea, terror groups have also been highly involved in money laundering, including in cryptocurrency. Lionsgate Network has been central in seizing terror funds from Hamas, Raviv told The Post. “On October 10, 2023, I was in Switzerland when I got a call from the Prime Minister's Office requesting that Lionsgate Networks block cryptocurrency suspected of belonging to Hamas. The wallets belonged to Hamas operatives that were active on X, and we were able to help authorities seize over $100 million in cryptocurrency with our intelligence,” he said. According to Raviv, the company found dozens of other Hamas wallets that had not been previously identified. According to reports, the complaint accused Binance of knowingly enabling Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) move over $1 billion through its platform. After Binance pleaded guilty two years earlier, in November 2023, and paid a $4.32 billion penalty, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange continued to launder millions of dollars for the terror groups. As digital assets become more deeply embedded in global finance, the need for specialized forensic expertise will only grow. As crypto scams grow and evolve, Lionsgate Network will continue to expose them.

Together, we power an unparalleled network of 220+ online properties covering 10,000+ granular topics, serving an audience of 50+ million professionals with original, objective content from trusted sources. We help you gain critical insights and make more informed decisions across your business priorities. North Korean threat actors are once again targeting developers with an ongoing phishing campaign, this time with a specific focus that goes outside the usual geographic scope and demonstrates the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a novel backdoor. The advanced persistent threat (APT) group Konni has been targeting developers with expertise in and access to blockchain-related resources and infrastructure across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, including Japan, Australia, and India, Check Point Research revealed in a recent blog post. The activity — which use phishing lures that appear to be legitimate project documentation — also shows the group deviating from its usual tactics and targets, signaling a potential redirection of activity, Check Point said. "Instead of focusing on individual end users, the campaign goal seems to be to establish a foothold in development environments, where compromise can provide broader downstream access across multiple projects and services." Indeed, threat actors tied to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are notorious for targeting software developers, in particular through sweeping job-recruitment campaigns known as Contagious Interview and Wagemole. Indeed, 2026 is already poised to be the year that AI-generated malware appears in earnest. For example, Check Point recently documented how a complex Linux malware framework, dubbed VoidLink, was built almost entirely with the AI-coding assistant TRAE SOLO. The Konni backdoor used in this latest campaign has "an unusually polished structure," with upfront documentation that Check Point researchers said is unusual for commodity or APT-authored PowerShell implants. That documentation describes the script's functionality — to ensure that only one instance of this UUID-based project runs at a time and to send system info via HTTP GET every 13 minutes — in clear and readable terms. It's also further divided into well-defined, logical sections that each handle a specific task, which reflects "modern software engineering conventions rather than ad-hoc malware development," according to the blog post. Related:Russia's Fancy Bear APT Doubles Down on Global Secrets Theft "Konni's introduction of AI-assisted tooling suggests an effort to accelerate development and standardize code while continuing to rely on proven delivery methods and social engineering," Check Point said. "This pattern suggests an intent to compromise development environments, thereby obtaining access to sensitive assets, including infrastructure, API credentials, wallet access, and ultimately cryptocurrency holdings," read the post. While this blockchain and cryptocurrency focus is more commonly associated with other DPRK-linked actors, there are indications that Konni — a subset of the more formidable APT Kimsuky — also engaged in similar financially motivated targeting in the past, according to Check Point. With APTs using new tools like AI and shifting tactics in campaigns that are evolving quickly, defenders also must be on high alert to the changing nature of these activities, according to Check Point. "Combined with indicators suggesting activity beyond Konni's historically South Korean–centric footprint, this operation illustrates how a mature threat actor can maintain stable intrusion workflows while adapting both its targeting and tooling," read the post. As always, anyone receiving unsolicited emails asking them to click on attached or embedded documents, no matter how legitimate those documents seem, should approach them suspiciously. Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. Deepfake: Empowering Your Users to Recognize What AI Can Fake Invisible Threats: Mapping the Hidden Attack Surface of AI-Native Apps

As if continuing declines in the bitcoin price weren't enough, shares of bitcoin miners who have shifted their business plan to focus on AI infrastructure were mostly sharply lower Monday following Nvidia's $2 billion investment in CoreWeave. “The declines across the AI and HPC segment tied to bitcoin miners today signal a commitment between NVIDIA and CoreWeave, with GPU allocation increasingly prioritized toward that partnership,” said James Van Straten, senior bitcoin analyst at CoinDesk. “This could potentially diminish funding prospects for independent miners seeking to pivot into AI infrastructure. The $2 billion capital injection is set to materially expand AI compute capacity for CoreWeave, which would intensify competition and squeeze both margins and market share for smaller players." "As with any maturing industry, consolidation now appears increasingly inevitable,” he said.In addition, Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets at VanEck says CLSK fell about 9% as markets priced in perceived outage risk tied to its Tennessee exposure after state level power headlines, despite its sites being in grid green zones. The drop was compounded by a proxy filing that quantified a roughly $45 million CEO pay package for 2025, raising governance concerns as the firm pivots toward AI, according to Sigel. The only name showing a sizable gain on Monday is Core Scientific (CORZ). Shares are higher by just shy of 2% in late-morning trade. Along with Core Scientific, HUT also offers infrastructure tailored to large-scale AI applications, giving it a competitive edge as demand for compute surges. Bitcoin miners, once singularly focused on validating blockchain transactions, have been repurposing their data centers for more profitable workloads, particularly as mining rewards shrink and power costs rise. Nvidia's latest move, however, suggests those resources may increasingly flow to larger, more tightly integrated players like CoreWeave, forcing smaller firms to adapt or consolidate. KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market. Cathie Wood's ARK Invest files for two crypto index ETFs tied to CoinDesk 20 Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services.

A report indicates that alleged opportunities to become rich overnight are proliferating in WhatsApp groups where the Latino community predominates “The patterns uncovered here should sound alarms not only for Latino communities but also for U.S. regulators, law enforcement agencies, and financial institutions.” According to DDIA, more than 3,000 unique messages were analyzed with the help of Palver—a technology company that specializes in social trend analysis—and found that these are marked within WhatsApp with the caption “frequently forwarded,” a warning sign to be cautious. The Institute estimates that these fraudulent messages may have reached more than 192,000 users in 262 groups. “It's an issue that deserves more attention.” The messages analyzed show that criminals pose as investors, mentors, or coaches who invite Latinos to join an exclusive group of “entrepreneurs” and earn extremely high profits. “How to earn money with your cell phone without leaving home,” says the content, highlighting the promise of a 1,000% return with a suspiciously low initial investment. “Put your money to work for you. Automatic profits in your wallet,” the messages say. Some offers feature a “24-hour plan,” encouraging people to make small investments in USDT with the guarantee of exponential growth in a day. For example, “invest 50 USDT and earn 750 USDT.” In addition, scammers use fake testimonials to gain credibility. The Institute also found financial service “offers” promising loans ranging from $2,000 to $1 million. These are classic lures for what the report calls advance fee frauds: they convince the victim to pay a sum of money to unlock the loan, which never materializes, or which has high and hidden interest rates. Financial fraud also relies on recruiting new members. Gift and you will receive multiplied by eight.” DDIA investigators believe that these groups enable Ponzi schemes to go viral: a fraud that pays existing investors with funds raised from new investors. Some potential scammers use legitimate names of financial institutions and offer personal assistance in opening a bank account, likely with the goal of obtaining sensitive personal information and identity documents from individuals. This investigation also found alleged online gambling promotions: some promise to “double your money” through a limited-time offer. According to Reuters, the Trump family, for example, earned some $800 million during the first half of 2025 thanks to World Liberty Financial, a company founded in 2024 by members of the family. In light of some irregularities, there is currently an open war between the crypto industry and big banks in the United States. Division among Republicans and doubts among some Democrats have stalled the bill passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025. In contrast, the Genius Act is U.S. President Donald Trump's big promise to leave skepticism about digital currencies behind. The regulation seeks to regulate stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that are linked to an external asset such as the dollar, the euro, or gold to maintain a stable value. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition Cada uno accederá con su propia cuenta de email, lo que os permitirá personalizar vuestra experiencia en EL PAÍS. Puedes consultar aquí los términos y condiciones de la suscripción digital.

Researchers from Chiba University have developed a lightweight peer-selection algorithm that significantly reduces data propagation delays without increasing resource usage on internet of things (IoT) devices. The Japanese university's development team believe that the vision of a fully connected world is rapidly becoming a reality through IoT, including everything from small sensors to autonomous vehicles and industrial equipment. And to ensure this data is secure and not tampered with, engineers are increasingly turning to blockchain as a promising solution being a decentralised, trustworthy means of communication and specifically a promising solution for secure data sharing in IoT networks. Blockchain systems are seen as a promising solution to the growing complexity of IoT networks that continue to grow in size, but often suffer from high latency that limits time-sensitive applications, with existing blockchain systems can be too slow for the split-second decisions required in real-world IoT environments. They also noted that previous research has ignored how the overarching shape of these connections – referred to as the ‘network topology' – affects speed in IoT-blockchain systems. To address this knowledge gap, a research team led by Kien Nguyen, associate professor at the Institute for Advanced Academic Research/Graduate School of Informatics at Chiba University in Japan, investigated how to streamline operations in IoT-blockchain networks. Their study, published in the journal IEEE transactions on network and service management, investigated how the structure of peer-to-peer blockchain networks affects IoT-blockchain performance, examining the impact of different network topologies on performance and introducing a new method to keep data moving efficiently. “We aimed to bridge the gap between theoretical design and practical deployment of IoT-blockchain systems by identifying the fundamental causes of their high latency and proposing a decentralised solution that is both simple and effective,” said Nguyen. After analysing various representative cases, they showed that the decentralised nature of IoT networks often leads to redundant data transmission. The researchers said this results in network congestion and queuing delays, particularly when nodes are connected in a way that creates too many overlapping paths. Instead of sticking with a series of random connections, a node using Dual Perigee assigns scores to its peers based on how quickly they deliver both individual transactions and full blocks. If a neighbour is consistently slow, the node automatically disconnects and tries new peers. It was also said to have outperformed state-of-the-art methods, such as the original Perigee algorithm, by over 23%. The researchers firmly believe that work has significant implications across many technological fields. By minimising the time it takes for a blockchain to confirm and share data, the system thus becomes responsive enough for time-sensitive tasks. “The proposed decentralised latency-aware peer-selection mechanism can serve as a foundation for future blockchain platforms that support real-time, mission-critical IoT services, ultimately enabling more secure, responsive and trustworthy digital infrastructures,” added Nguyen. “Our approach can be applied to emerging IoT-based services that require fast and reliable data sharing, such as smart cities, smart homes, industrial monitoring, healthcare systems and supply-chain tracking.” CIOs who prioritize outcomes, governance and trust can scale AI without ... As CIOs look to implement GenAI, the number of potential use cases and vendor options can overwhelm them. Train employees to avoid password reuse, spot phishing attempts and encrypt messages, among other ... From agentic AI defensive toolchains to MCP server risks, explore ... GreenLake allows users to pay only for the IT resources they use. As AI reshapes data management, organizations must balance innovation with ethics, ... As organizations modernize their data systems, architecture choices will determine how risk is governed, disruptions are absorbed...

Nigel Farage's cryptocurrency partner is tied to Trump-supporting tech firms and senior Conservative figures, reports Nafeez Ahmed The company's leadership emerged from corporations and venture capital firms deeply connected to some of Trump's most prominent tech-world supporters. Byline Times can also confirm that Amazon, a major pro-Trump donor controlled by Jeff Bezos, provided seed-funding to Radom. Radom had already exerted its influence in the UK Parliament years before Farage's announcement, through an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) whose secretariat was run by an organisation advertising close relationships with pro-Trump tech giants including Oracle, Google and Microsoft. Byline Times can reveal that the APPG's secretariat had not only received funding from Oracle, but at the time was dominated by Conservative Party politicians – including current Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Radom's founder and chief executive, Christopher Wilson, cut his teeth as a software engineer at Oracle, the technology giant controlled by Larry Ellison. Under Ellison's stewardship, it has become synonymous with a particular strain of pro-Trump, anti-regulatory conservatism rare among major tech companies. Ellison has hosted fundraisers for Trump, donated substantial sums to Republican Party causes, and positioned himself as one of the President's most prominent backers. A decade ago, senior Oracle executives were hobnobbing with people in Trump's orbit shortly before the 2016 election. Oracle CEO Safra Catz and chief lobbyist Ken Glueck went on to join the Trump administration's transition teams. Wilson's tenure at Oracle does not necessarily mean he shares Ellison's politics. But it situates Radom's technical leadership within a corporate environment closely entangled with Trump-aligned networks and narratives throughout the MAGA era. Mariel Yonnadam, the company's former chief technology officer from 2022 until 2025, previously worked as a front-end engineer from 2018 to 2019 at Faire, a San Francisco-based marketplace that has become one of Silicon Valley's most highly valued ‘unicorn' start-ups. Another is Sequoia Capital, which in recent years has become increasingly associated with powerful Trump-supporting partners including Douglas Leone, a major Trump campaign donor, and Shaun Maguire, who has gained national prominence for aggressive pro-Trump advocacy. Amazon donated $1 million in cash for Trump's inaugural fund in December 2024, and by August 2025 gave the Trump administration a $1 billion coupon to use their services for the federal government's digital transformation and artificial intelligence capacity. That year, Radom received seed-funding directly from Amazon through the AWS Activate programme, which provides cloud computing credits to start-ups. The Portfolio tier places Radom within a broader ecosystem that includes major Silicon Valley investors – AWS Activate providers listed alongside Tykhe Block include Andreessen Horowitz and NVIDIA, both of which donated to Donald Trump. This support from Amazon, one of the world's largest technology companies, provided Radom with subsidised cloud infrastructure during its critical growth phase. Radom's presence in British politics predates its partnership with Reform UK by more than a year. In 2022, Wilson became an advisor to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain. They allow private actors to shape MPs' understanding of emerging sectors, often with minimal transparency about funding or commercial interests. The Blockchain APPG's secretariat was run by the Big Innovation Centre, a private think tank that publicly advertises an elite client and partner portfolio including Oracle – Wilson's former employer – alongside other American Big Tech giants Google and Microsoft (both of which also donated $1 million each to Trump's inauguration committee). But it claims proximity to some of the world's most powerful technology companies. During this period, the APPG's parliamentary membership was dominated by Conservative politicians, who included current Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch as the group's Treasurer, as well as then MP Damien Moore, Lord James Bridges of Headley (former Brexit Minister under Theresa May), Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond, and the late MP David Warburton.Radom's CEO Chris Wilson would join as an advisor three years later. We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. Major technology companies, via policy intermediaries like the Big Innovation Centre, enjoyed access and influence onw questions of blockchain, digital assets and regulation – access that helped shape the environment in which crypto firms could establish legitimacy. Wilson's advisory position within this framework gave Radom credibility at a time when the cryptocurrency sector was struggling to establish itself in mainstream policymaking circles, along with direct access to MPs and peers engaging with blockchain regulation. When Nigel Farage chose Radom as Reform UK's crypto gateway, he connected his party to a firm whose leadership link directly back to some of the most politically consequential Silicon Valley firms backing Trump's second term. Crypto donations are not merely a technical innovation in political fundraising. Manafort played a key role in crafting the American President's entire crypto agenda, which Farage is now exporting to Britain. The question facing British politics is not whether Radom or its founders hold particular political views. It is whether our regulatory and parliamentary systems are sufficiently transparent to scrutinise the activities and influence of foreign-aligned technology companies handed private access to our political institutions. Radom, Reform UK, and the Big Innovation Centre did not respond to requests for comment. To find the nearest newsagent stocking this month's edition, search here.

Somewhere between the third espresso, Taylor Swift, and my phone hitting a single digit battery, it hit me. It was about things that are impacting our future. JPMorgan is live on Ethereum, a third of Gen Z wants an AI boss, and Quantum risk for blockchains! The World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos has always been where global anxiety becomes a catalyst. This year, technology dominated but broadened to impacting geopolitics and country competition. So what does any of this have to do with Taylor Swift? When my Gen Z daugther picked me up from the airport and I tried to explain what I learned, she cut me off two sentences in. JPMorgan just did the same thing with money. The world's largest bank is now officially on Ethereum. JPMorgan's first real world asset product, the Onchain Net Yield Fund (MONY), is powered by JPM Kinexys. Taylor writes her best songs after breakups. Gen Z is writing theirs about human bosses. Ana Kreacic, COO of the Oliver Wyman Forum, delivered her annual Davos report. Oliver Wyman's survey of 300,000 voices revealed a striking finding: one third (37%) of Gen Z respondents said they would prefer an AI manager over a human one. In my discussions with Dr Efi Pylarinour, Global Fintech Thought Leader, she said that “they are not longing for a robot CEO. AI just moved from Tech to Geopolitics. AI crossed a threshold at Davos this year. It is no longer simply a technology topic. Elon Musk, in his first ever Davos appearance, predicted that AI could surpass any individual human by the end of this year. By 2030, AI will be smarter than all of humanity combined. He painted a vision of "abundance for all" where robots outnumber people and the global economy explodes. But while Musk was outlining this utopia, Autodesk was laying off 1,000 employees, betting on AI to automate their jobs. The world's leaders are grappling with this very tension, pushing for "trusted AI." Taylor hides Easter eggs in every album. The quantum threat to crypto has been hiding in plain sight too. During Davos week, the Citi Institute released a deep dive on the quantum threat to blockchain, revealing that risk is unevenly distributed: Bitcoin has roughly 25 percent of coins exposed while Ethereum and Solana face far higher vulnerability over 65 percent.at Accenture. Ronit Ghose, Managing Director, Citi Institute, told me that “Citi Institute believes the starting gun has been fired on a trillion dollar security race now underway for banks and blockchains to move to post quantum cryptography” Taylor drops vault tracks to release when the world is ready. Quantum readiness requires mapping exposure, prioritizing critical systems, enabling crypto agility, and executing multiyear migrations. In chatting with Steve Suarez, CEO of HorizonX and a contributor to the report, he noted that "as the field matures, it's becoming increasingly clear that progress will depend on how effectively the ecosystem bridges advances in hardware with practical, deployable applications. This will be the largest software upgrade in history with over 20 billion hardware devices that will need to be upgraded. 'The takeaway: social consensus and coordinated upgrades will determine which ecosystems survive the quantum transition intact. “The quantum conversation is moving from cryptographic circles to boardrooms. Companies need to act the same with Quantum as they do with AI,” Tom Patterson, Managing Partner at Accenture, told me. The Eras Tour features every version of Taylor performing together. Cognizant showcased their open source multi agent platform with a live demo. Babak Hodjat, their Chief AI Officer explained to me “that the system is itself a multi agent system that designs and builds other multi agent systems through dialogue. Agents that can merge responsibilities, split when overloaded, and form new connections spontaneously. The report indicates that for every $2 spent on AI initiatives, enterprises should invest roughly $2.50 on data modernization, governance, and management. In addition, the report laid out the ideal length of time that an ideal Chief AI Officer should remain in office. Leading AI companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic are each spending roughly a billion dollars a year on human provided training data alone. The mantra has shifted from more data to better data, and that means humans in the loop at scale. Taylor went from opening act to headlining statuiums. CZ, Binance co-founder and former CEO, and Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, both spoke at official WEF sessions, a sign of just how far crypto has come from the sidelines. CZ predicted a Bitcoin supercycle in 2026 and revealed he is advising roughly a dozen governments on asset tokenization. He described a future where AI agents transact natively in crypto, and where traditional payment rails like Visa and Mastercard sit on top while stablecoins settle behind the scenes. Yat Siu was equally bullish, calling stablecoins a pillar of future financial growth and predicting the Clarity Act will pass this year, triggering a wave of US tokenization. World models are doing the same for AI, learning from video instead of just text. They learn from video, simulation, and spatial data to build internal representations of how objects move and interact over time. For leaders building on AI infrastructure, the question is whether the next breakthrough comes from scaling language models or from teaching machines to perceive physical reality. Ajeet Khurana, the founder of the Web Davos House, told me that “web3 has made such progress in 2026 that we wanted to drive more value around crypto, DePin, stablecoins, and more into the fabric of global companies.” Davos 2026 made one thing clear: the lines between AI, blockchain, quantum, and geopolitics are dissolving. The question is no longer whether these technologies will converge. It is whether organizations can move fast enough to keep up. Taylor Swift figured out how to stay ahead of every era.

Build it and they will come—or so goes the old saying. In reality, if you build a blockchain-based social media network, then almost no one will come. The crypto world got another reminder of this last week when Farcaster, which raised a $150 Series A round in 2024, abruptly called it quits. If you're unfamiliar, Farcaster was co-founded by early Coinbase employee Dan Romero and let users share various content via a Twitter-like timeline. Some on X have pointed to the management team as the primary reason for Farcaster's failure, a claim that may or may not be justified. All of this reflects how people may love the idea of using a blockchain for data sovereignty but, in reality, they are going to seek out their social media fix on X or TikTok or Reddit. That's because those platforms are humming with millions of users while providing an interface that is far sleeker than what a crypto startup can conjure up. There may also be a bigger problem for those trying to build social and other applications on blockchain. Namely, the technology may simply not be cut out to do this—and that crypto should stick to what it's always been good at, which is finance. Over 17 years or so, crypto has come up with three killer apps that have found massive product market fit: Bitcoin, stablecoins, and DeFi. All three are squarely in the realm of finance. Meanwhile, the idea of using blockchain to transform other industries like media or supply chains seems as far-off as ever—though there is renewed buzz about using decentralized technology to expand privacy. As for Farcaster itself, it may stand as the high water mark for an earlier era of crypto that was defined by a popular book about data ownership called Read Write Own. As one observer noted on X: “With Farcaster losing its founders, Chris Dixon's Read Write Own era is over. BitGo became the first crypto IPO of 2026 with the longtime custody and infrastructure firm enjoying a podcast pop on its first day before sliding below its listing price by end of week. The fate of the Clarity Act, which would provide regulatory structure for crypto, remains uncertain amid a squabble over rules for stablecoin yields. The bill is stalled in Senate sub-committees, but one insider thinks it has momentum. Binance is setting up shop in Greece, where it filed for a pan-European MiCA license and set up a holding company. It raised $40 million from Blockstream Capital to focus on crypto-based payments for gameplay. Even at a Davos gathering heavy on crypto content, CZ stood out for a televised interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin where he described in intimate detail the strip search process during his prison stay. In a final sign the metaverse era is done for good, Mark Zuckerberg turned the lights off on the remains of a project that once seemed so important that he renamed his company for it. Jeff John Roberts is the Finance and Crypto editor at Fortune, overseeing coverage of the blockchain and how technology is changing finance. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.

The Trade Desk Announces Tahnil Davis as Interim Chief Financial ... Nuvve Enters Into a Framework Agreement With Capture Energy and P... The Trade Desk Announces Tahnil Davis as Interim Chief Financial ... Nuvve Enters Into a Framework Agreement With Capture Energy and P... DeFi Technologies (Nasdaq: DEFT) subsidiary Valour has received approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the London Stock Exchange to offer select yield-bearing crypto ETPs to UK retail investors, effective January 26, 2026. Over recent crypto,offering events, DeFi Technologies focused on sizable registered direct offerings. On Sep 25, 2025, it announced pricing of an oversubscribed US$100 million deal with shares and warrants, followed by closing the same US$100 million offering on Sep 26, 2025. Past crypto,offering news for DEFT (2 events) averaged a 9.55% move with negative reactions to capital-raising updates, framing today's UK-focused product approval in a different risk context. Historical same-tag events emphasized raising US$100 million via registered direct offerings, whereas the current update focuses on expanding distribution of existing crypto ETPs to UK retail investors. This announcement highlights UK FCA and LSE approvals that enabled Valour to begin offering Bitcoin and Ethereum staking ETPs to UK retail investors on January 26, 2026. It extends prior professional-only LSE access into the retail channel, adding a yield component via staking within regulated exchange-listed products. Investors may watch how assets, trading activity, and future geographic expansions evolve alongside these new UK listings. TORONTO, Jan. 26, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (the “Company” or “DeFi Technologies”) (Nasdaq: DEFT) (CBOE CA: DEFI) (GR: R9B), a financial technology company bridging the gap between traditional capital markets and decentralized finance (“DeFi”), is pleased to announce that its subsidiary, Valour Inc., and Valour Digital Securities Limited (together, "Valour"), a leading issuer of exchange traded products ("ETPs") has received UK regulatory approval and has begun offering select Valour ETPs to UK retail investors through the London Stock Exchange (“LSE”) starting January 26, 2026. Building on Valour's prior LSE launches for professional investors, retail access now expands in the UK. Following the launch of Valour's asset-backed Ethereum Physical Staking ETP for professional investors and the launch of the world's first physically-backed Bitcoin Staking ETP, Valour is pleased to offer these products to UK retail investors. “This is a major milestone for Valour and DeFi Technologies as we continue expanding access to regulated digital asset investment products,” said Johan Wattenström, CEO and Chairman of DeFi Technologies. “The UK is one of the world's most important financial markets, and these approvals broaden our ability to serve UK retail investors with transparent, exchange-listed products that provide straightforward exposure to the evolving digital asset economy.” Valour's 1Valour Bitcoin Physical Staking ETP is designed to provide regulated access to Bitcoin with a staking yield component that is reflected in the ETP's net asset value (“NAV”). As the first Nasdaq-listed digital asset manager of its kind, DeFi Technologies offers equity investors diversified exposure to the broader decentralized economy through its integrated and scalable business model. This includes Valour, which offers access to over one hundred of the world's most innovative digital assets via regulated ETPs; Stillman Digital, a digital asset prime brokerage focused on institutional-grade execution and custody; Reflexivity Research, which provides leading research into the digital asset space; Neuronomics, which develops quantitative trading strategies and infrastructure; and DeFi Alpha, the company's internal arbitrage and trading business line. About Stillman DigitalStillman Digital is a leading digital asset liquidity provider that offers limitless liquidity solutions for businesses, focusing on industry-leading trade execution, settlement, and technology. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem is collapsing to new lows amid dim demands and a lack of functionality. The platform announced it will shut down on Feb. 23, 2026, effective immediately, entering “withdrawal-only” mode. Acquired by crypto exchange Gemini in 2019, Nifty Gateway was once a flagship name of the NFT era—now, it's another sign of how far the market has fallen. We sometimes use affiliate links in our content, when clicking on those we might receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Receive up to $100,000 worth of exclusive gifts for newcomers upon registration. Nifty Gateway's shutdown reflects a broader consolidation across the NFT market. Large platforms like OpenSea have steadily absorbed market share—accounting for roughly 62% of NFT transactions in 2025—leaving smaller or more specialized marketplaces increasingly exposed. Reaction across the NFT community has been mixed. Nifty Gateway's exit caps a turbulent year for NFTs. Yet sales volumes and revenues fell sharply, exposing a market unable to absorb the flood of new assets. The industry continued shifting away from hype-driven speculation—dominant in 2021 and 2022—toward utility-focused use cases, including gaming, real-world asset tokenization, and AI-generated content. Still, those efforts failed to offset what many now describe as an extended “NFT winter.” Market fatigue, regulatory pressure, persistent scams, and growing competition from other crypto sectors like DeFi and memecoins all weighed heavily on the space. Against that backdrop, Nifty Gateway's exit looks less like an isolated event and more like a symptom of a market still searching for its next act. Celebrity endorsements, metaverse hype, and easy money in crypto bull markets fueled the peak. Total NFT supply ballooned to roughly 1.34 billion tokens, up about 25% year over year, as low-cost minting removed barriers to entry. While the number of NFT holders grew to around 11.6 million, much of that activity shifted toward gaming NFTs, tokenized real-world assets, and AI-generated collectibles. Compared to the boom years—when prices often reached hundreds or thousands of dollars, and annual volumes hit tens of billions—the contrast is stark. By early 2026, sales remain down 70–80% from peak levels, speculation has largely faded, and the market feels smaller but more grounded. Surviving projects now focus on utility, gaming, culture, and real-world integration rather than quick flips—suggesting NFTs may be settling into a quieter, more sustainable role after years of excess.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. According to Dutch newspaper Politie [machine translated], the three individuals from Axel and one from the neighboring Terneuzen have been interrogated by detectives but have since been released. However, this is a tiny drop in the Ocean of stolen Bitcoin and other crypto, estimated to be worth $17 billion in 2025 alone. We should note that NFTs are not exactly the same as cryptocurrencies, but they both run on blockchain technology and can even be stored on the same wallets that keep Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the like. The relative novelty of cryptocurrencies and NFTs means that many people get scammed when using these technologies, especially older people who are often tricked into depositing large amounts of cash into Bitcoin ATMs. But even those who are used to the system can fall victim, either through phishing, social engineering, malware, or seed phrase theft, among others. The large values tied to NFTs and Bitcoin make them lucrative targets for hackers, with just one well-targeted heist able to net millions of dollars in profit. Since NFTs are tokens and are stored in wallets, the suspected thieves didn't perform a bank vault heist with guns blazing. Instead, it was done behind monitors and keyboards, where they likely targeted individuals using phishing websites, fake wallet apps, or even with compromised browser extensions. It also seems that the Zeeland authorities do not have enough evidence against the four individuals, as they were eventually released after their interrogation. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.

Copyright © 2026 Categories Jurisdictions Regulatory Bodies Services Crypto / Digital Assets Korea Tests Autonomous AI Payment System Using Digital Currency Tokens To get access to this article, please login or get in touch to request subscription information Subscribe to Regulation Asia to gain access to APAC's leading regulatory intelligence platform.Regulation Asia is trusted by 60% of the region's top banks and asset managers, and 50% of the world's largest law firms. Regulation Asia is the leading regulatory intelligence platform providing news, insights and analysis that inform and impact Asia. INTELLIGENCE SERVICES HELP Copyright © 2026

The North Korean threat actor known as Konni has been observed using PowerShell malware generated using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to target developers and engineering teams in the blockchain sector. Active since at least 2014, Konni is primarily known for its targeting of organizations and individuals in South Korea. It's also tracked as Earth Imp, Opal Sleet, Osmium, TA406, and Vedalia. In November 2025, the Genians Security Center (GSC) detailed the hacking group's targeting of Android devices by exploiting Google's asset tracking service, Find Hub, to remotely reset victim devices and erase personal data from them, signaling a new escalation of their tradecraft. As recently as this month, Konni has been observed distributing spear-phishing emails containing malicious links that are disguised as harmless advertising URLs associated with Google and Naver's advertising platforms to bypass security filters and deliver a remote access trojan codenamed EndRAT. The email messages have been found to masquerade as financial notices, such as transaction confirmations or wire transfer requests, to trick recipients into downloading ZIP archives hosted on WordPress sites. The AutoIt script is a known Konni malware called EndRAT (aka EndClient RAT). "This attack is analyzed as a case that effectively bypassed email security filtering and user vigilance through a spear-phishing attack vector that exploited the ad click redirection mechanism used within the Google advertising ecosystem," the South Korean security outfit said. The latest campaign documented by Check Point leverages ZIP files mimicking project requirements-themed documents and hosted on Discord's content delivery network (CDN) to unleash a multi-stage attack chain that performs the following sequence of actions. "Instead of focusing on individual end-users, the campaign goal seems to be to establish a foothold in development environments, where compromise can provide broader downstream access across multiple projects and services," Check Point said. "The introduction of AI-assisted tooling suggests an effort to accelerate development and standardize code while continuing to rely on proven delivery methods and social engineering." According to Finnish cybersecurity company WithSecure, the ERP vendor's software has been the target of similar supply chain compromises twice in the past – in 2017 and again in 2024 – to deploy malware families like HotCroissant and Xctdoor. "This variability underscores the group's flexibility and its ability to support broader strategic goals as those priorities change over time." Get the latest news, expert insights, exclusive resources, and strategies from industry leaders – all for free. Discover how leading MSSPs use AI to automate security management, boost margins, and scale services without extra headcount. Join cybersecurity leaders Kumar Saurabh and Francis Odum to learn how to build, buy, and automate smarter for a modern, efficient SOC.

Entropy founder and CEO Tux Pacific posted to X on Saturday that the crypto automations platform doesn't have a viable path forward after years of operation. Entropy launched in late 2021 initially as a decentralized self-custody solution, with crypto venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz backing it alongside Coinbase Ventures as part of a $25 million seed funding round in June 2022. Pacific said that over the second half of 2025, Entropy was developing a crypto automations platform integrated with artificial intelligence, in a similar fashion to mainstream workflow platforms such as Zapier. Related: How AI crypto trading will make and break human roles However, Pacific said that “after an initial feedback request revealed that the business model wasn't venture scale, I was left with the choice to find a creative way forward or pivot once more.” “After four hard years working in crypto, I decided that the best I could do has already been done: it was time to close up shop.” Entropy's wind-up comes after the a16z-backed decentralized social networking protocol Farcaster said on Thursday it would return $180 million in capital to investors amid a takeover by infrastructure provider Neynar. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero quashed rumours that the platform was shutting down via X, noting Neynar would steer the project in a more developer-focused direction, with Farcaster still having strong usage metrics. Magazine: ‘If you want to be great, make enemies': Solana economist Max Resnick Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries. These arrangements help maintain an accessible platform and do not result in additional costs to readers. All partners are reviewed prior to entering any paid partnership. All partners are reviewed prior to entering any paid partnership.