Crypto
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Nava raises $8.3 million in seed funding to keep AI financial agents from going off the rails
The crypto world has been buzzing in recent months about the potential for applying blockchain technology to agentic commerce, a term that describes AI agents undertaking purchases or other economic activity on a user’s behalf. Early innovations include Coinbase’s x402, a standard for AI agents to transact across the web, and Stripe-backed Tempo’s “Machine Payments Protocol.” …
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Bitcoin mining giant Foundry adds new pool for privacy-focused Zcash
Foundry, an upstate New York-based firm that launched in 2019, runs a mining pool that today commands around 31% of all Bitcoin production. On Monday, the company formally launched a second pool operation based around a cryptocurrency known as Zcash that shares many attributes of Bitcoin, but that is designed to be less visible. The…
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Iran is demanding tankers in the Strait of Hormuz pay tolls in crypto: What we know so far
After the U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday, the Islamic Republic pledged to open up the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water that’s a key bottleneck in the world’s trade of oil. But there’s a catch: Iran signaled it plans to impose toll ships passing through the chokepoint—and have…
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Trump-backed World Liberty Financial tokens hit all-time low on reports of insider loans
WLFI, the native token of the Donald Trump-backed crypto platform World Liberty Financial, cratered to an all-time low on Friday as investors digested news reports that the company had lent out tokens on a platform tied to one of its executives. As of mid-day, WLFI was trading at $0.08, a roughly 82% drop from its…
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Prediction markets have made betting easier than ever—and young men are paying the price
Nevin Burmeister first downloaded Kalshi on July 8, just two days after his 18th birthday. In his home state of Indiana, the minimum age for sports betting is 21. But Burmeister could legally wager on sports on Kalshi starting at 18. He is one of millions of people taking part in the recent craze for…
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The New York Times says it found Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. Not so fast
The quest to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, has been going on for more than a decade now, and resulted in some embarrassing misfires. The most notorious came in 2014 when Newsweek magazine dropped a bombshell cover story claiming the Bitcoin inventor was a 64-year-old man named Dorian Nakamoto, hiding in plain…
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Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF began trading. An analyst put it in the top 1% of ETF launches
A slew of Bitcoin ETFs have hit the market since the products were first approved in the U.S. in 2024, but so far one sector has remained on the sidelines—major U.S. banks. That changed Wednesday with the launch of MSBT, a Bitcoin ETF offered by Morgan Stanley. The spot ETF, which features an industry low…
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Jamie Dimon warns of growing crypto competition in annual letter: ‘We need to roll out our own blockchain technology’
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has long been among the crypto sector’s most notable skeptics. Dimon vowed in 2017 to fire any JPMorgan trader who traded bitcoin and has called the oldest cryptocurrency a “fraud” and a “pet rock.” More recently, though, Dimon has become more open to the technology and, this week, he acknowledged that…
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Bitcoin slides with risk assets as Trump’s Iran ultimatum looms
Bitcoin slipped as cryptocurrencies were swept up in broader market volatility after a series of attacks on Iran’s infrastructure as President Donald Trump’s key ceasefire deadline approaches. The largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 2.5% before paring some losses in New York trading. The decline erased gains from the previous day, when Bitcoin briefly topped…
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Exclusive: Crypto hedge fund Split Capital winds down as its founder nabs new gig as an exec at stablecoin startup Plasma
In January 2024, as crypto prices were soaring, Zaheer Ebtikar unveiled a new digital assets hedge fund called Split Capital. Two years later, he’s winding that firm down as he pivots to one of the buzziest sectors in crypto: stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets like the U.S. dollar. On Tuesday, the former hedge…