Category: crypto

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao confirmed that YZi Labs is a minority investor in Opinion, a decentralized prediction market platform. Opinion raised $5 million in a seed round, with support from other investors. The platform, now live on BNB Chain, has seen over 1.6 million users and $300 million in trading across various markets since its…

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has completed the second phase of the e-HKD pilot program, focusing on digital Hong Kong dollar and tokenized deposits for institutional clients. The trials showed cost-effective, secure transactions and high public trust. Authorities plan to prioritize e-HKD’s development for wholesale financial applications by mid-2026.

PayPal has partnered with OpenAI to integrate its wallet into ChatGPT, allowing users to make purchases directly within the chatbot. This partnership leverages the Agentic Commerce Protocol to streamline transactions and offer new payment options. The move also aligns with PayPal’s recent advancements in the crypto space.

Circle’s Arc testnet is attracting major financial players like Goldman Sachs and Visa, aiming to establish a common standard for future money movement. Over 100 institutions are testing faster settlement and global interoperability on the blockchain network, with plans for a community-run system in the future.

The People’s Bank of China has established the Digital RMB Operation and Management Center to prepare for widespread adoption of the digital currency. The center will focus on building cross-border and blockchain infrastructure, complementing efforts by the Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to promote the yuan globally.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is leading a funding round for Zar, a startup exploring stablecoin use in Pakistan and other emerging countries through local stores. Stablecoin transactions surpassed Visa’s volume, reaching $46 trillion in the past year. Zar aims to enable cash-to-stablecoin conversions through physical agents in cash-heavy markets.

Bitget Wallet has integrated HyperEVM, providing users with access to Hyperliquid’s $5 billion DEX ecosystem, cross-chain transfers, and HYPE token utilities. Users can trade on Hyperliquid DEX, explore HyperEVM dApps, and engage with HYPE token utilities. The integration follows a successful testnet launch in December 2024 and strengthens Bitget Wallet’s support for over 130 blockchains.

SharpLink is deploying $200 million in Ethereum tokens from its treasury to Linea, a zkEVM scaling network by Consensys. The move supports staking and restaking activities for services like verifiable AI. The partnership aims to build institutional capital markets tools, demonstrating a shift towards trustless infrastructure and efficient yield generation onchain.

Shares of American Bitcoin, linked to Trump, are up 20% for the week, nearing 4000 BTC. Despite Bitcoin’s high trading levels, treasury companies are accumulating. American Bitcoin recently acquired 1,414 BTC, totaling 3,865 BTC. The company’s market cap is $5.29 billion, but some traders are cautious about its valuation.

Polygon is teaming up with Manifold Trading, a quant firm, to enhance its DeFi ecosystem with data-driven liquidity and institutional-grade execution features. This partnership aims to attract institutional investors to the DeFi market by providing professional liquidity management and infrastructure upgrades to drive growth and efficiency across the Polygon ecosystem.