Latest news with #DigitalAssetSummit
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Solana wants to be the ‘financial everything store,' says Solana Foundation Exec
Traditional finance is moving closer to crypto, and Solana wants to lead the charge. 'There's unquestionably a great deal of interest in bringing more financial assets onto the blockchain,' said Nick Ducoff, who leads Institutional Growth at the Solana Foundation in a conversation with TheStreet Roundtable at Digital Asset Summit in New York. For years, institutions avoided crypto due to regulatory uncertainty. But that's starting to change. Ducoff noted, 'It's been a really exciting year for institutional adoption on Solana. We've had folks like Franklin Templeton, Wellington, Société Générale, Hamilton Lane, and others bring funds onto the Solana network.' Institutional players are now seriously exploring blockchain technology, and leaders such as Blackrock's Larry Fink have said that Bitcoin is already threatening the U.S. dollar's status as the reserve currency. One of the biggest reasons institutions have not interacted with crypto much in the past has been a lack of regulatory clarity. While the Trump administration has promised to make America the crypto hub of the world, defining rules for the space is a tremendous task and will take time. Still, institutions are already jumping in. 'It's been a really exciting year for institutional adoption on Solana. We've had folks like Franklin Templeton, Wellington, Société Générale, Hamilton Lane, and others bring funds onto the Solana network,' Nick noted. A big concern for institutions is the lack of know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) in DeFi. This has held back specifically real-world assets (RWA) from becoming more common. 'Today, DeFi is permissionless—anyone can come in, contribute, participate, or borrow on the network. To bring real-world assets into that DeFi environment, you do need KYC and AML,' Nick explained. Nick credits the large amount of interest in Solana in particular to its regulatory compliant focused approach and the fact that Solana is the most-used blockchain in the world. 'We make it really easy at a few levels. The Solana blockchain has a token program called Token Extensions, which makes it simple for issuers to build and issue compliant tokens on a public, permissionless network,' he explained. The Solana Foundation's goal is to 'create the 'financial everything store' at Nasdaq speed and scale,' giving investors unprecedented access opportunity and choice. A world where finance is faster, broader, and fairer. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Michael Saylor predicts Bitcoin will have a $500T market cap and will 'demonetize gold'
MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor made one of his most ambitious forecasts at the Digital Asset Summit on March 26. He said that Bitcoin will one day reach a market cap of $500 trillion and surpass gold, real estate, and long-term financial assets as the top store of value. "Bitcoin is going to demonetize gold," Saylor said as he delivered his keynote. Then it's going to demonetize real estate that's 10x more than gold. Then it's going to demonetize every long-term store of value." Saylor noted that the capital inflow into Bitcoin is in full swing and already underway. "Dollars of capital are flowing into the network. It's going to go from $2 billion to $20 billion to $200 billion to $2 trillion to $20 trillion to $200 trillion," he stated. When it gets to $200 trillion, it'll chop along and plus 20% to eventually $300, $400, $500 trillion." He explained the change as an overall economic evolution from legacy financial systems to digital infrastructure. "You have capital flowing from 20th-century assets to Bitcoin… from physical to digital," Saylor said. It's unstoppable." Saylor argued that global capital could increasingly leave traditional and regional assets, such as real estate in Russia, private equity in China, and assorted assets spread across Africa and South America, and flow into Bitcoin instead in framing this shift from a legacy financial system to a network digital monetary system. He also drew parallels to historical episodes in which early adopters of new monetary systems gained a strategic advantage, suggesting that today's Bitcoin investors could find themselves in the same position as value re-appropriates across the globe. His comments come as more institutional interest in Bitcoin is building up, and conversations about the asset's evolving place in the global economy continue. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bitcoin price stuck amid market crash worries — Good news, McDonald's memes are back
Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency has been trading between $85,000 and $88,000 despite bullish moves from some of its biggest supporters. On March 24, MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor bought the dip — again. In a regulatory filing, the firm (now renamed Strategy) disclosed it purchased 6,911 BTC between March 17 and March 23 for $584.1 million in cash. That brings Strategy's total holdings to 506,137 BTC, now worth $42.8 billion at current prices. Prices jumped 4% on the day of the news, but since then, things have gone quiet. Saylor's move did briefly pump sentiment. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index swung from 'Extreme Fear' to 'Greed' — before slipping back again. But despite the bullish vibes and a flurry of positive headlines, Bitcoin just isn't breaking out. It's left many wondering why. After all, GameStop just opened the door to adding Bitcoin to its corporate treasury, following in the footsteps of Strategy. There are new crypto ETF filings almost every week. Governments are talking about Bitcoin reserves. Even President Donald Trump delivered a 90-second video speech at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 20, doubling down on his support for crypto — though he didn't announce any new policies. The Ripple vs SEC saga also came to an end this week, with Ripple agreeing to pay a portion of the fine and drop its appeal. And yes — in true meme fashion — Trump even promoted his own memecoin, TRUMP, over the weekend. Stock markets are shaky, inflation concerns linger, and tariffs announced by Trump's administration are rattling global markets. The Kobeissi Letter flagged a rare signal, 'The S&P 500 and the US Dollar index have declined -6.5% and -3.5%, respectively since January 31st. The last time this happened was in 2008.' QCP Digital added in a note, 'In digital assets, we see scope for BTC to outperform tactically in the near term. In a surprising twist, GameStop (GME) has added BTC to their treasury... the symbolic weight of GME's meme status could rekindle speculative fervour.' McDonald's hats, clown noses, and 'Back to Work' edits are flooding X again — with Bitcoiners jokingly applying for fast food jobs as prices stall. Here are a few of the best: Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nasdaq Shift to Round-The-Clock Stock Trading Partly Due to Crypto, Says Exchange Executive
Stock and other traditional financial asset traders across the world are wanting to be able to buy and sell assets around the clock, resulting in two of the biggest stock markets in the U.S., Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) making moves to offer round-the-clock trading soon. 'We definitely see that this is where the markets are moving,' said Giang Bui, Nasdaq's head of U.S. Equities & Exchange-Traded Products, speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday. 'There's a lot of demand globally for U.S. stocks and people want to trade within the hours that they're typically awake, and I think a lot of it is because people are used to trading crypto 24/7.' Both Nasdaq and the NYSE are in the process of receiving approval to open their venues 24 hours a day, for five or even seven days a week. Nasdaq recently announced that it had begun engaging with regulators about the change while the NYSE has already received the green light. Round-the-clock trading can have several advantages for markets, including increased volume and market liquidity as traders aren't tied to specific time zones. Currently, the U.S. stock market opens for trading at 9:30 a.m. ET and closes at 4 p.m. ET. 'We're hearing it across the board from global broker dealers, clients who they're servicing, even within the U.S., there's a number of U.S. brokers that already are offering overnight trading because their customers are used to trading crypto in those hours,' Bui added. Nasdaq lists a number of crypto-related products, including the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the spot ETF issued by BlackRock, which saw the most successful ETF debut in the history of U.S. ETF launches. Earlier today, the exchange listed two Solana (SOL) futures ETFs issued by Volatility Shares.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tether Ranks Among Top Buyers of U.S. Treasuries in 2024, Firm Says
Tether, the crypto company behind the largest stablecoin USDT, said it would rank as the seventh largest net buyer of U.S. Treasury securities in 2024 among countries. The firm purchased a net $33.1 billion worth of U.S. Treasury securities last year, according to a compilation posted on Thursday by CEO Paolo Ardonio using data from Tether's reserve reports and the U.S. Treasury Department. That puts the stablecoin issuer above countries like Canada, Mexico and Germany in the ranking, while Japan and China were net sellers by significantly reducing their U.S. Treasury holdings. The data underscores the case of U.S. dollar stablecoins being a key force of demand in the U.S. government debt market. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that crypto and stablecoins are key to preserve the U.S. dollar's global dominance. President Trump echoed the argument on Thursday at a pre-recorded message at the Digital Asset Summit. Read more: Crypto Will 'Expand Dominance of U.S. Dollar,' Trump Says Circle's USDC, the second-largest stablecoin and fully backed by U.S. government securities, cash and other cash-equivalent assets, increased its market capitalization by $19 billion last year. USDT's market cap, which is predominantly backed by U.S. government securities, grew by $45 billion during the same period. Sign in to access your portfolio
