Crypto Exchange Binance Expands to Syria as US Lifts Sanctions
Binance Holdings Ltd., the world's biggest crypto exchange, is opening its platform to users in Syria, a month after US President Donald Trump said he will lift economic sanctions on the country.
'After years of exclusion, Syrians now have the chance to build, invest, and connect,' Binance Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng said in a statement.
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The Protocol: Polygon, Once a Scaling Leader, Eyes a Revamp
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. We're Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, CoinDesk's Tech & Protocols team. In this issue: Sandeep Nailwal Takes Control of Polygon Foundation, Charts New Course, Retires ZkEVM Ethereum Foundation Unveils New Treasury Policy With 15% Opex Cap Bitcoin Core 30 to Increase OP_RETURN Data Limit After Developer Debate Concludes Plume Launches Genesis Mainnet to Bring Real-World Assets to DeFi Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option SANDEEP NAILWAL TAKES CONTROL OF POLYGON FOUNDATION, RETIRES ZKEVM: Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has officially assumed the role of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, marking a pivot in the organization's leadership makeup and a sweeping overhaul of the network's longterm roadmap. 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BITCOIN CORE 30 TO INCREASE OP_RETURN DATA LIMIT: The developers of Bitcoin Core, the primary open-source software for connecting the blockchain behind the world's largest cryptocurrency, said October's version 30 release will increase the default limit for OP_RETURN data transactions from the current 80 bytes to nearly 4MB, a limit imposed by Bitcoin's block size. The proposal for the change, which was confirmed in an update on GitHub, had sparked debate within the Bitcoin community. Critics argued that removing the limit could encourage increased embedding of arbitrary data, potentially leading to network spam and a shift from bitcoin's primary function as a financial tool. — Sam Reynolds Read more. 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Ethereum Treasury Firm SharpLink Gaming Plunges 70% – But There May Be a Twist
SharpLink Gaming (SBET), a Nasdaq-listed company that is pursuing an ether ETH treasury strategy, tumbled 70% on Thursday in after-hours trading following a fresh filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company submitted an S-3ASR registration statement, enabling the resale of up to 58,699,760 shares related to its private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing. The Thursday filing allows more than 100 shareholders in the PIPE round to sell their shares, effectively flooding the market and triggering a post-close sell-off, Charles Allen, CEO of BTCS, a publicly-traded firm that's pursuing crypto reserve strategy, explained in an X post and an interview with CoinDesk. The company raised $450 million earlier this month through a PIPE round from a wide range of investors, including ConsenSys, Galaxy, and Pantera Capital, to acquire ETH for its treasury. Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin also joined the firm as board chairman. However, there may be a larger strategy behind the latest move. Allen said in an X post that he thinks the company may have quietly raised up to $1 billion to buy more ETH using an at-the-market (ATM) offering that was previously announced in a May 30 SEC filing. "If they played cards right, they would expect a surprise PR tomorrow with $1B of ETH purchases, which could light the match to reignite the stock," he said. ETH is down 4.1% over the past 24 hours at around $2,650 as bitcoin and the broader crypto markets slid.
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The Best High-Yield Bank Stock to Invest $25,000 in Right Now
I just upped my position in Bank of Nova Scotia. The Canadian banking giant started a business shift in 2024. After no dividend hike in 2024, Scotiabank is back on the dividend growth train. 10 stocks we like better than Bank Of Nova Scotia › Citigroup (NYSE: C) is a popular U.S. bank with an attractive 2.8% yield. But what if you could get more than twice that yield without taking on a huge amount of risk? That's exactly what I did when I doubled my position in this Canadian banking giant. The trigger for my investment was the company's return to dividend growth with a 4% hike announced after it reported earnings for its fiscal second quarter of 2025. Here's why you might want to follow along if you have $25,000, or even just $500, to invest. Banks like Citigroup can be complex, but the core of the operation is usually pretty simple. They take in deposits and make loans. Customers include individuals and businesses. That's usually the foundation of even the largest banks. On top of that they layer more complex businesses, like wealth management or investment banking. Generally speaking, this creates a fairly solid business and one that provides necessary services. But sometimes banks get out over their skis, which is exactly what happened to Citigroup during the Great Recession. The bank ended up taking a government bailout and cutting its dividend. It wasn't alone, a lot of major U.S. banks did the same, including Bank of America. Some smaller banks got so extended in the housing crisis that they had to sell themselves, usually to larger banks like Citigroup and Bank of America. This situation turned me off from the U.S. banking system and turned me on to Canada's highly regulated banking system. I own Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE: BNS). I just upped my stake in Bank of Nova Scotia, which is usually just called Scotiabank, after the company returned to dividend growth following a turnaround year. It has a 5.9% dividend yield, which is more than double what you'd get from Citigroup. To put some dollars and cents on that, $25,000 worth of Citigroup stock nets you an annual income stream of $700. The same investment in Bank of Nova Scotia brings in around $1,475. Bank of Nova Scotia is one of the largest banks in Canada, largely offering basic banking services. Canadian banks tend to be operated in a very conservative manner because of the heavy banking regulation in the country. This has, effectively, provided the biggest banks with entrenched industry positions. As one of the largest banks, Bank of Nova Scotia has a rock solid business foundation in its home country. This is not true of U.S. banks, where competition tends to be pretty fierce. The big highlight for me on the Canadian side of the border was the fact that Bank of Nova Scotia (and Toronto-Dominion Bank) maintained its dividend through the Great Recession. I'm confident that Scotiabank will keep paying a reliable dividend, too, noting that the company has paid a dividend every single year since 1833. That's nearly 200 years! The one big problem with Scotiabank is that it has chosen a different path when it comes to growth. Most of its peers have pushed into the U.S. market. Scotiabank focused on growing its business in Central and South America. That didn't work out as well as hoped and it changed gears, with plans to increase its presence in the U.S. market while refocusing on key Central and South American markets. It basically wants to provide a seamless banking experience from Mexico, though the United States, and on to Canada. The revamp resulted in management holding the dividend steady in 2024 as it shifted gears. In 2025 the bank provided the big update I was looking for with the dividend increase. Management and the board is clearly comfortable enough with the progress they have made to resume dividend increases. That tells me all I need to know, because there was no need to hike the dividend yet. It was a choice meant to signal financial strength at a business that is starting to shift in a new direction. To be honest, the fiscal second quarter wasn't the best one for Scotiabank. Adjusted net income, adjusted earnings, and return on equity all fell year over year. The core Canadian operations were particularly weak as the company materially increased its reserves for bad debt. But that's a preemptive move to ensure it remains financially strong. And exactly what I would expect from a conservatively run bank. The really big news is that Bank of Nova Scotia is confident in the success it is achieving with its turnaround. The high yield is paying me well to stick by a relatively conservative bank as it continues to shift in a new business direction. And the dividend increase was enough to get me to double down. But for dividend investors with $500 or $25,000, the end result of going with Scotiabank over a U.S. bank like Citigroup is dramatically more income. Before you buy stock in Bank Of Nova Scotia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Bank Of Nova Scotia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Citigroup is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Reuben Gregg Brewer has positions in Bank Of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bank of America. The Motley Fool recommends Bank Of Nova Scotia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The Best High-Yield Bank Stock to Invest $25,000 in Right Now was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
