Deribit: Coinbase Buying World’s Biggest Bitcoin, Ethereum Option Platform

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Coinbase is in advanced talks to acquire Deribit, the biggest platform for trading Bitcoin and Ethereum options. Deribit has a key operating license in Dubai, and the deal, which could greatly increase Coinbase’s derivatives footprint.

Bloomberg estimated the deal could be worth $4 billion to $5 billion.

Deribit is licensed to operate in Dubai and has a strong institutional clientele as the biggest platform for trading Bitcoin and Ethereum options.

Bloomberg report highlighted that the companies informed Dubai’s regulators about the talks. Coinbase may be making a calculated move with the possible acquisition as the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency company.

Deribit reportedly hired a financial advisor in January to investigate possible acquisition possibilities. A credible source said that although Kraken had been mentioned as a potential candidate, no talks between the two companies occurred.

Coinbase stated “We have a bold mission to increase economic freedom in the world, and are constantly exploring opportunities around the world to build, buy, partner, and invest to accelerate our roadmap,”

The American-listed exchange declined to confirm any ongoing deal discussions.

It is still unclear if Coinbase and Deribit have reached a definitive agreement although the most recent report indicated that talks are moving forward. This is one of the biggest acquisition discussions in the cryptocurrency industry as the options trading platform was previously estimated to be worth between $4 billion and $5 billion.

Coinbase’s choice to pursue this acquisition deal seems to be a calculated step to enter the Middle Eastern market in light of this. The US and EU’s initial tough stance on cryptocurrency regulations in recent years has contributed to the rise of the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and Singapore as the three unofficial global hubs for blockchain events and resident stakeholders.

Top Japanese Real Estate Firm adopt Ripple’s XRP

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Open House Group Co. a Japanese real estate company declared that it accepted XRP as payment for real estate.

The Tokyo-based business said it made the payment option available to streamline the Japanese real estate purchasing process. In an X post, former Ripple Vice President of Strategy Initiatives Emi Yoshikawa emphasized the recent development.

The Open House Group is a top real estate firm in Japan, with yearly sales of one trillion Japanese yen. The business announced it will also accept Solana and Dogecoin.

According to Open House Group, the recently added digital assets will be usable as prior payment methods like Ethereum and Bitcoin.
On January 31, the company declared that it would start accepting cryptocurrency payments, stating that it would begin with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest digital assets by market capitalization.

The company has been investigating the use of digital assets, including funding studies on Bitcoin’s lightning network. Additionally, the business stated that it has launched a Chinese website where clients can utilize the available payment methods.

Customers can now purchase the entire range of properties the company offers, including residential homes, condominiums, and one-room apartments, using the new payment options, the company added.

According to the company, it would rather use digital assets practically for cross-border and micropayments than view them as speculative assets.

Nonetheless, Open House Group highlighted clients who plan to use its cryptocurrency payment options must abide by all applicable laws, including tax laws, in their home country.

Pump.Fun Feeds on Raydium Lunch

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Pump. Fun has introduced PumpSwap, a Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX). The new platform aims to directly compete with Raydium, the leading DEX in Solana, by offering improved liquidity and seamless token migrations with no fees.

Pump.fun announced the service in a post on X, stating that it aims to address token migrations, a major issue for platform users.

Tokens that graduated to Raydium from the meme coin launchpad previously had to pay a charge of six SOL. The process will now be free and instantaneous, enabling projects to continue without further complications.

The DEX will likewise run on a continuous product automated market maker paradigm similar to UniSwap V2 and Raydium V4.

Users can add or create liquidity pools. Another aspect of the platform that was covered in the post was the upcoming Creator Revenue Sharing concept.

Pump.Fun plans to give token developers a cut of the protocol’s earnings to encourage stronger launches. This concept might use millions of dollars to assist meme coin creators and communities.

Each trade costs 0.25 percent on PumpSwap, with liquidity providers receiving 0.20 percent and the protocol keeping 0.05 percent. However, once the revenue-sharing plan is implemented, the charge schedule will be changed to include artists.

DefiLlama data showed Raydium’s total value locked (TVL) dropped from a peak of $3 billion in January to roughly $11.2 billion, indicating that this strategy threatened the company’s dominance when the initial reports about Pump.Fun surfaced.

Raydium’s RAY token depreciated by a third in value because of the repercussions of the cryptocurrency launching platform’s choice.

U.S. Government Lifts Sanction on Tornado Cash

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixer that had been on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) blacklist since August 2022, has had its sanctions formally lifted by the u.s. Treasury Department.

This ruling represents a major win for privacy advocates and the larger decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem in the world’s largest economy. The Treasury’s move comes after a string of court cases that resulted in decisions for Tornado Cash users.

The protocol was accused of aiding billion-dollar money laundering schemes, mainly by North Korean hackers and other bad actors.

The initial sanctions were met with a robust response from the cryptocurrency community, with many participants claiming that the Treasury had overreached itself by focusing on an open-source protocol.

Coinbase contributed money to the lawsuit, which was filed against the Treasury by several users of the crypto mixer.

Their persistence paid off when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Treasury in late 2024. In January, a federal court in Texas also decided in favor of Tornado Cash users, adding credence to this conclusion.

The U.S. Treasury stressed that it is still “concerned” about state-sponsored hacking and money laundering operations that utilize cryptocurrency systems, even though the sanctions have been lifted. This suggests that authorities continue to watch out for illicit activity in the broader cryptocurrency space even though Tornado Cash is no longer a target.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly recognized the “enormous” opportunities that digital assets present to American citizens, signaling a more balanced approach to cryptocurrency regulation

Ripple: Stellar co-founder denied XRP Manipulation

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Jed McCaleb, a co-founder of Ripple and Stellar, denied attempting to hurt investors because he was angry about Ripple’s strategy. He informed the crypto community that he was quitting the company because he no longer supported the project.

According to McCaleb, he intended to allow others to front-run him. “People were supposed to front-run me. The other option was to sell without informing anyone. Is that preferable?”

Additionally, the crypto tycoon claimed that the SEC did not target him because he never promoted XRP as an investment.

McCaleb received 9 billion XRPs in 2012 as one of the company’s co-founders and recently returned to the public eye after Bloomberg revealed that his wealth is now being used to finance the construction of the first commercial space station.

He left the company in 2013 and co-founded Stellar, a rival project since his vision did not coincide with Ripple.

McCaleb and Ripple agreed in 2014 to gradually sell his XRP tokens. Then, Ripple filed a lawsuit against McCaleb, claiming that he had gone beyond the bounds of the 2014 agreement. They came to a new agreement in 2016 after waving the white flag. The deal linked McCaleb’s sales to the volume of XRP trades.

Forex Signals Brief March 21: Will Gold Price Hit A New High Before Weekend?

Posted on March 21, 2025March 21, 2025 by Skerdian Meta

Gold (XAU) has been absolutely surging and today we might see another record high before the weekend, as buyers find safe havens.

Continue reading “Forex Signals Brief March 21: Will Gold Price Hit A New High Before Weekend?” →

Stellar: XLM under XRP Shadow

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

XLM posted lukewarm momentum at the start of Friday’s trading session.

CoinMarketCap data indicates that the price of the XRP competitor is mildly up by 90 basis points, to trade at $0.2864. Stellar is now the underdog compared to XRP, which shows some strength amid Ripple’s closure with the financial watchdog.

Stellar’s token has increased by 4% as the larger cryptocurrency market begins to rebound over the past week while XRP is up by 6% under the same period.

The altcoin’s growing pessimism is further highlighted by the fact that XLM’s funding rate has gone negative for the first time in a week. When the funding rate, a periodic fee used in perpetual futures contracts, goes negative, short positions dominate, indicating that traders are becoming increasingly pessimistic about a price decline.

More traders will bet on XLM’s price falling, elevating the downward pressure on the stock and causing demand to continue declining. It remains unclear if market correlation indicates that more significant price reversals are imminent, the current state of affairs shows that the much-anticipated “altcoin season” has not yet begun in earnest.

The next few days will probably be crucial for Stellar investors as they look for indications of either further decline or a possible rebound in XLM’s price action with the crypto market as a whole uncertain.

Ripple Bets Big on XRP ETF, U.S Strategic Reserve

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he was confident that XRP would be included in the cryptocurrency stockpile and that an XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) would be approved.

In a statement made by President Donald Trump on the social media site Truth Social, the Ripple executive said that the world’s largest economy will have a cryptocurrency reserve that contains not only Bitcoin but also other popular altcoins. Trump specifically mentioned Cardano, Solana, XRP, and Ethereum

Garlinghouse said: According to what I understand, there will be a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and a cryptocurrency stockpile representing other crypto assets, including XRP.

“To the extent that various law enforcement agencies have seized cryptos which would include XRP, those would go into the stockpile in addition to the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve,” he added, adding that the stockpile would be made up of seized digital assets.

The CEO of Ripple underlined that XRP’s future depended on the general change in regulatory views regarding cryptocurrencies, especially under the current administration.

“We couldn’t get a meeting with people at the White House, now we’re accepted,” he said, highlighting the difficulties Ripple and the larger cryptocurrency industry had previously had reaching lawmakers.

He views this change as a chance for the token to be officially added to national cryptocurrency reserves and for its investment products to acquire legitimacy through an exchange-traded fund (ETF) since XRP was omitted from earlier regulatory plans under the Biden administration.

Ripple’s leader was optimistic about regulatory progress regarding the possible approval of an XRP ETF. He said, “I have immense confidence in the ETF”

”I believe, eleven separate filings are pending with the SEC to introduce XRP ETFs. He noted rising investor interest and inflows into investment products backed by XRP and predicted that these ETFs could launch later in the year.’

Garlinghouse claims that XRP is now enjoying the benefits of a more hospitable regulatory environment after being hampered by “false negative pressure from the SEC.”. According to him, the investment environment for XRP will improve as policy changes from anti-crypto to pro-crypto, increasing the likelihood that an ETF will be approved.

SEC confirms Bitcoin is not a Security

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Corporation Finance Division issued a statement outlining its stance on proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency mining. According to the statement, single mining and mining pools are exempt from US securities laws since they don’t need the help of a central organization or enterprising individual to turn a profit.

Bitcoin miners view the SEC’s clarification as a long-awaited regulatory victory. BTC miners have expressed concerns about regulatory uncertainty under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s leadership.

The Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC released a statement outlining its position on proof-of-work mining. Mining “Covered Crypto Assets” on open, permissionless blockchains, like Bitcoin, does not amount to securities offerings. Bitcoin miners could operate more freely under the new SEC administration’s more transparent rules.

The Division identified two main categories of miners in its statement: mining pools and solo miners. These miners use their processing power to solve challenging cryptographic puzzles to receive rewards.

According to the financial watchdog, their activity amounted to protocol mining on an administrative or ministerial level.

The Division pointed out that “the miner is merely engaging in an administrative or ministerial activity to secure the network, validate transactions, add new blocks, and receive rewards by adding its computational resources to a mining pool.”.

Switzerland Uninterested in Bitcoin

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Olumide Adesina

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) adamantly opposed keeping Bitcoin as a strategic asset despite growing interest in interest in corporations and governments worldwide.

“We do not have plans to buy crypto assets,” SNB Vice Chairman Martin Schlegel said in a recent statement, restating the central bank’s stance that cryptocurrencies do not fit the requirements to be included in Switzerland’s foreign exchange reserves.

Martin Schlegel, Vice Chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), raised concerns about Bitcoin’s price volatility and security risks.

He also emphasized worries about cryptocurrencies’ digital nature and liquidity, which may leave them vulnerable to technical malfunctions. The SNB’s stance contrasts with the increasing institutional interest in Bitcoin worldwide.

President Donald Trump’s advocacy for broader cryptocurrency adoption has stoked debates about adding Bitcoin to national reserves.

Switzerland’s hesitation to accept Bitcoin as a reserve asset is nothing compared to other countries that have already included it on their national balance sheets, such as Bhutan and El Salvador.

Many nations are investigating cryptocurrency adoption regulatory frameworks to conform to Trump’s regulatory stance in the US. In Pakistan, for instance, authorities are developing a comprehensive legal framework to facilitate the expansion of the digital asset sector, as disclosed by Bilal Bin Saqib, CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council. Switzerland has established a solid reputation for its stable national currency and strategic political neutrality.
The nation has emerged as a major center for blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation thanks to significant initiatives like Ethereum, which was established in Zug, Switzerland’s Crypto Valley.