Finance is increasingly a weapon of war. United States policymakers and our allies focus too narrowly on macroeconomic tools like sanctions and promoting the dollar as a reserve currency when the modern front is evolving. Today, the real battles are being waged on smartphones and in the global currency markets.

China is waging a multi-decade plan to displace the United States' greatest asset: the dollar. The dollar is critical to the United States' economic and geopolitical power as the global

Over the past year, the crypto industry has attracted users on an exponential scale, with monthly active addresses tripling from 70 million in 2023 to over 220 million in 2024. With over 300 chains listed, the ecosystem should be able to cater to the needs of all types of users sustainably. However, in this sprawling landscape, a majority of activity and liquidity is locked within multiple Ethereum Layer 2’s.

In its current state, Ethereum is reminiscent of early 1500s Europe, which experienced

Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR) It's been a tough month for MicroStrategy (MSTR), the software developer turned bitcoin (BTC) accumulator. Its stock has tumbled almost 50% since November, when it joined the Nasdaq 100 index and peaked at a 600% gain since the start of the year.

That still leaves the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company a whopping 342% ahead in 2024, the biggest return among the highest-profile crypto-linked assets in traditional

XRP trading volumes on South Korea's biggest crypto exchanges have overtaken those of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) in a sign of flurried interest that often precedes price volatility.

Total trading volume against the won on UpBit, Bithumb and Korbit, the country’s largest exchanges by volumes and users, topped $800 million in dollar value in the past 24 hours.

XRP registered over $200 million in volumes on Bithumb and $600 million on UpBit, with bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes less than half of

Ether (ETH), the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, is likely to outperform larger rival bitcoin (BTC) in 2025, Steno Research said in a report Sunday, citing historical trends and Donald Trump's U.S. election victory.

Bitcoin is predicted to reach a minimum of $150,000 next year, up from about $94,000, while ether will more than double to at least $8,000 from $,3400, the report said.

Steno said it expects the ether/bitcoin ratio to rise to 0.06 in the next 12 months from the current

Bearish trading in bitcoin (BTC) markets continued late Monday as the asset briefly fell under $92,000 on profit-taking despite another mammoth MicroStrategy purchase, recovering to just over $92,800 as of Asian morning hours Tuesday.

Some traders expect the current price action to likely continue until February, weeks after president-elect Donald Trump takes office in the U.S. and sets into motion a barrage of policies that may help the market. "We are skeptical of any New Year fireworks espec

Crypto prices are experiencing a rocky Monday due to poor U.S. macroeconomic data and rampant profit-taking.

Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped 1.8% in the past 24 hours to $91,800, a price not seen since Dec. 5, the day it broke through $100,000 for the first time. The largest cryptocurrency has fallen more than 14% from its Dec. 17 record of $108,278.

Ether (ETH) has lost less, falling 0.7% to $3,320, though it’s now 17% below its December highs, and still has not surpassed the record $4,820 it hit i

The dead internet theory may not be in full swing just yet, but AI agents have already taken over much of Crypto Twitter.

Reply bots on X are populating posts on nearly everything, using artificial intelligence models to increase reach and blockchains to settle micro transactions or record data.

These bots are increasingly interacting with other bots, with pairs of such bots launching their own tokens. (While token issuance still requires humans, often the concept stems from whatever the AI bo

In retrospect, it was inevitable.

Down more than 8% and holding just above $300 on Monday, MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares are now lower by about 30% since just after the announcement of their inclusion into the Nasdaq-100 index and nearly 50% from their late November record high.

The signs of at least a major short-term top in one-time barely known enterprise software company turned juggernaut Bitcoin Development Company MicroStrategy were everywhere.

First among those signals was the rocketing

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3254.32, down 1.8% (-60.38) since 4 p.m. on Friday.

Three of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: SOL (+2.5%) and APT (+0.8%).

Laggards: XLM (-6.6%) and LINK (-6.2%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR)

MicroStrategy, the self-described bitcoin (BTC) development company, increased its holdings of the largest cryptocurrency for the eighth consecutive week.

The company, which already holds more bitcoin than any other publicly traded company, bought another 2,138 BTC for $209 million in the week ended Dec. 29, bringing its total holdings to 446,400 BTC.

Once again, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor teased the annou

Crypto scammers have finally found their thieving match: Themselves.

A new scam has been making the rounds mainly on YouTube that would make even the most cunning trickster tip their hat, security firm Kaspersky said in a security update last week.

"I have USDT stored in my wallet, and I have the seed phrase. How do I transfer my funds to another wallet?,” Kaspersky noted one such comment. The specific wallet held over $8,000 worth of stablecoins on the Tron blockchain. A seed phrase is a word

The U.S. is likely to hit the maximum it's legally allowed to borrow at some point between Jan. 14 and Jan. 23, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a Friday letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. After that, the Treasury will take "extraordinary measures" to cut borrowing.

"I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States," she wrote. In June 2023, Congress suspended the debt limit until Jan. 1, 2025.

Risk assets we

Layer-1 blockchain HyperLiquid, known for its decentralized derivatives exchange, opened up native staking for holders of its HYPE token, according to a Monday post on X.

Stakers can select which validator to stake tokens with and will accrue rewards in return for securing the network. At launch, HyperLiquid staked 300 million tokens ($8.4 billion), and another 7 million tokens were added by users in the first hour. The tokens are staked across 16 validators.

Locked tokens bound by a vesting s

Bitcoin (BTC), the world's largest cryptocurrency, is likely to reach new highs next year and will "test or best" $185,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025, Galaxy Research said in a report last week.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest crypto, is predicted to rise above $5,500 in the next 12 months, the report said.

"A combination of institutional, corporate and nation state adoption will propel bitcoin to new heights in 2025," wrote Alex Thorn, Galaxy's head of research.

Galaxy said it expects fiv

XRP led crypto losses on the second-last day of this year as a stronger dollar weighed down global currencies and assets including bitcoin, with Asian equity markets sliding lower on Monday.

XRP sunk more than 5% in the past 24 hours, with dogecoin (DOGE), Solana’s SOL, ether (ETH) and BNB falling as much as 2%. Overall market capitalization fell 3%, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), an index tracking the largest tokens, minus stablecoins, shed 3.5%.

US equities declined on Friday and

It is the last Friday of 2024, so naturally there's a 115-page Internal Revenue Service final rule to dig through. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mandated the IRS better define the word "broker" as it relates to digital asset services. The IRS published a document which creates definitions and rules around these activities.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

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Terraform creator Do Kwon will be extradited to the U.S., Montenegrin Justice Minister Bojan Božović said Friday.

The U.S. and South Korean governments have both sought to take custody of Kwon to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra/Luna system in 2022, which kicked off a series of high-profile collapses including that of FTX.

Kwon, who was arrested in Montenegro in March of 2023 and sentenced to a few months in prison over passport forgery charges,

The dominant crypto narrative for 2024 has been institutional adoption. From the U.S. approval of spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds to the burgeoning number of companies pledging to buy the largest cryptocurrency for their treasuries, crypto has entered, more than ever before, the mainstream conversation.

Bitcoin has increased almost 130% this year, breaking record highs on several occasions. It is currently hovering near the psychological threshold of $100,000. The ETFs approved in Janu

Stalled bitcoin (BTC) and crypto prices may not be bringing festive cheer to traders, but some with money are trying to spread the goodwill around.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he'd accepted an invitation to be the “adoptive father” of pygmy hippo Moo Deng when she grows up. He is also donating 10 million Thai baht ($300,000) to the Khao Kheow Open Zoo near Bangkok where the five-month-old lives, he said in a Thursday posting on X.

The donations, made in Moo Deng’s name, will be us