The EU is right to accelerate its stablecoin agenda (“EU speeds up plans for digital euro after US stablecoin law”, Report, August 22). Digital assets are set to become a central pillar of global finance. In doing so, EU regulators also acknowledge what is already clear in the market: dollar-backed stablecoins are strengthening America’s position in cross-border payments.

As crypto and DeFi continue to shed their outsider status, with regulatory clarity improving and integration with traditional systems deepening, the stage is being set for broader adoption of digital assets and innovations in how we think about ownership and identity.

Another investment firm is putting funds on the blockchain. Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and CEO of SkyBridge Capital, announced Tuesday that his company plans to hold around $300 million from two funds in the form of tokenized assets. SkyBridge’s move comes amid a wave of enthusiasm for what the crypto industry calls tokenization. The process entails creating digital token versions of real-world assets like Treasury bills, which can be easily traded on a blockchain in the same way as Bitcoin or stablecoins.

As crypto continues its march into the mainstream, a few critics have recently voiced their concern of an impending financial crisis, similar to the one that shook the global financial system to its core in 2008.

News of some major banking players exploring lending against clients’ crypto holdings has magnified the parallels between 2008 and 2025. The 2008 crisis, however, was fueled by risky, complex financial products like credit default swaps that were hidden from view and poorly understood. Banks took on too much risk without enough oversight, and when the housing market crashed, the entire system fell apart.

An open source blockchain platform developed and commercialized by Cornell researchers is being utilized by a software company to establish a more efficient, secure property records database for one of the most populous counties in the nation.  

Ava Labs, the company behind the technology, recently announced that the Avalanche blockchain platform will be used to digitize 370,000 property records worth $240 billion in real estate value in Bergen County, New Jersey. 

Andrew here. Usually, investors hate when companies announce huge spending plans. That’s why it has been so wild to see them cheer as Microsoft and Meta announced mammoth new artificial intelligence investments.

The more they spend, the higher their stocks seem to go. Microsoft raised its suggested annual outlay to $120 billion — up from an originally mind-bending forecast of $80 billion. Such spending helps prop up much of the economy — the semiconductor industry and all of its component parts, as well as the energy
industry, the real estate business and more. More below.

• For decades, the gaming industry has mastered the art of engagement.

• In-game assets, items like skins, weapons, and characters, have been owned and controlled by game publishers.

• Blockchain enables players to mint their in-game assets as NFTs – unique, interoperable, and tradable tokens.

In a major step for the crypto world, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act: a bipartisan bill that lays out clear rules for stablecoins. 

The 68-30 vote marks the Senate’s first big approval of any crypto-related law, showing how Washington’s attitude toward the industry is starting to shift.

The legislation, formally called the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins GENIUS Act, is seen as a breakthrough moment for digital assets,  especially stablecoins, digital tokens tied to the U.S. dollar. 

The U.S. Congress has officially passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act).

The legislation represents one of the most comprehensive federal efforts to date aimed at regulating and fostering the responsible growth of stablecoins, a class of digital assets with value typically pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.

The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, putting the cryptocurrency industry, which had long been viewed with suspicion by lawmakers in Washington, on the brink of a major policy breakthrough.

Bipartisan approval of the bill, known as the GENIUS Act, followed an aggressive lobbying campaign aimed at transforming the cryptocurrency industry’s image from scandal-plagued experiment to legitimate financial sector.

John Wu, President of Ava Labs the Avalanche developer, discusses the need to break down silos for digital assets in this opinion piece.

In financial services, innovation often stalls not because of technological limitations, but because of a reluctance to change a widely entrenched mindset. While institutional adoption of blockchain and digital assets is now rapidly picking up pace, this challenge has been present since the outset. The barriers aren’t purely technological – they’re conceptual.

Throughout history there have been very few moments when two transformational technologies emerge in parallel — and it's even rarer that their paths converge in ways that amplify each other's strengths. This is exactly, however, what we're currently witnessing with artificial intelligence and blockchain.

On April 25, 2025, the Cornell Blockchain Conference at Cornell Tech’s Verizon Center in New York City spotlighted a growing convergence between academic rigor, institutional credibility, and a maturing blockchain industry. What emerged was not just a conversation about scaling technology—but about scaling trust, regulation, and the next wave of entrepreneurs. Abhishek Bhattacharya, the President of Blockchain at Cornell Tech, helped coordinate the event on the main stage.

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies dipped after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on US trading partners worldwide, triggering a slump in risk assets.

The largest digital asset fell as much as 4.5% to about $81,770 as of 10:06 a.m. in New York, while other tokens including Ether and XRP also declined. Solana tumbled 10%.

Open innovation has evolved with tokenization, enabling secure, global collaboration and knowledge-sharing across industries.

Unlike centralized corporate structures, tokenomics fosters transparency, trust, and fair value distribution, empowering communities over corporations.

Tokenization accelerates open innovation, reshaping business by leveraging shared technology, global talent, and decentralized incentives for sustainable, knowledge-driven growth.

There are many questions swirling around Washington and the crypto market regarding how exactly the Trump administration will attempt to execute on the president’s plan for a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.

Yet one important point is clear: The US would have to acquire three of the tokens that he wants included in the stockpile. And that’s causing backlash among both supporters and critics of the notion that the government should be invested in digital assets.

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN.O), opens new tab beat estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, driven by higher trading volumes in bitcoin and other digital tokens following the U.S. election.

Unprecedented interest in crypto, fueled by Donald Trump's victory in the November presidential election, pushed bitcoin beyond $100,000 in the quarter as investors anticipated more crypto friendly policies under the new administration.

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Robinhood (HOOD.O), opens new tab beat expectations for fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, driven by a surge in equity, option and crypto trading on its platform following Donald Trump's return to the White House, sending its shares up more than 14% after the bell.

Robinhood's transaction-based revenue, or income generated from fees for facilitating trading in options, cryptocurrency and equities, jumped 236% in the quarter to $672 million from a year earlier.

We appear to be entering a period of hyper-tokenisation in the US (“Digital asset industry fears Trump memecoin backlash”, Report, January 23), as forces align between a crypto-friendly administration, lawmakers and heads of agencies, coupled with a market environment where tech entrepreneurs and investors are working together to deploy this technology in the real world.

Sometimes when you think about AI outcomes, you’re really just addressing issues of fairness and equity, and how we run our societies.

I think there’s an undercurrent of that in the places where we meet to discuss these things. For example, I thought about this listening to a recent talk by John Wu, president of Ava Labs.