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Fed’s Powell Says He’s Also Worried About Debanking That Strained U.S. Crypto

When confronted by members of the Senate Banking Committee about concerns over the «debanking» trend plaguing the crypto industry, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he’s also worried about it and is already tweaking internal supervision policies at the Fed.
«I too, am troubled by the quantity of these reports,» Powell said in routine testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. He offered that «one theory is that banks are just very risk averse» about money-laundering rules and aggressive supervision under which they’re unwilling to welcome customers that may stretch their compliance demands.
«We’re determined to take a fresh look at that,» said Powell, who added that he’d been «struck by the growing number of cases of what appears to be debanking.»
Republican lawmakers and the new financial watchdogs appointed by President Donald Trump have devoted special scrutiny to the so-called debanking they say was encouraged by the previous administration’s banking agencies, including the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Powell also thanked crypto-advocate Senator Cynthia Lummis for raising in a recent debanking hearing that the Fed has a policy to direct greater supervisory scrutiny on bankers who engage in controversial speech or activity. He said that policy is being deleted from the internal manual it came from.
While crypto oversight wasn’t a central topic at Powell’s hearing on Tuesday, a few of the industry’s big issues were raised, including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Powell said the Fed supports new regulatory efforts around stablecoins — the tokens designed to maintain a steady value by being pegged to assets such as the U.S. dollar.
«Stablecoins may have a big future with consumers and businesses,» Powell said. «We can’t know that now, but it is important for the development of stablecoins — in a safe and sound manner that protects consumers and savers and all — that there be a regulatory framework.»
The chairman of the U.S. central bank also gave a clear answer to his intentions regarding CBDCs — a nebulous threat of a digital dollar that had long concerned U.S. crypto firms, though no U.S. proposal had ever really developed. When asked whether he’d agree to never launch a CBDC, Powell simply responded, «yes.»
The possibility of matching Chinese and European experiments with CBDCs had already grown more remote in the U.S. at the election of Trump and the congressional majorities who are loudly opposed to such an effort.
Powell will speak again at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday. And crypto was set to be the featured topic later Tuesday afternoon at a hearing in the House Financial Services Committee.
Read More: Trump Issues Crypto Executive Order to Pave U.S. Digital Assets Path
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CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Drops 2.5% as Nearly All Constituents Decline

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.
The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 4248.74, down 2.5% (-109.09) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday.
One of 20 assets is trading higher.
Leaders: AVAX (+0.6%) and BCH (-0.8%).
Laggards: UNI (-9.9%) and LINK (-7.0%).
The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.
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Pantera-Backed Solana Treasury Firm Helius Raises $500M, Stock Soars Over 200%

Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT) announced on Monday it’s raising more than $500 million in a private financing round to create a Solana-focused treasury company.
The vehicle will hold SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, as its reserve asset and aims to expand to more than $1.25 billion via stock warrants tied to the deal, the press release said.
The financing was led by Pantera Capital and Summer Capital, with participation from investors including Animoca Brands, FalconX and HashKey Capital.
Shares of the firm rallied over 200% above $24 in pre-market trading following the announcement. Solana was down 4% over the past 24 hours.
The firm is joining the latest wave of new digital asset treasuries, or DATs, with public companies pivoting to raise funds and buy cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) or SOL.
Helius is set to rival with the recently launched Forward Industries (FORD) with a $1.65 billion war chest backed by Galaxy Digital and others. That firm confirmed on Monday that has already purchased 6.8 million tokens for roughly $1.58 billion last week.
Helius’ plan is to use Solana’s yield-bearing design to generate income on the holdings, earning staking rewards of around 7% as well as deploying tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi) and lending opportunities. Incoming executive chairman Joseph Chee, founder of Summer Capital and a former UBS banker, will lead the firm’s digital asset strategy alongside Pantera’s Cosmo Jiang and Dan Morehead.
«As a pioneer in the digital asset treasury space, having participated in the formation of the strategy at Twenty One Capital (CEP) with Tether, Softbank and Cantor, Bitmine (BMNR) with Tom Lee and Mozayyx as well as EightCo (OCTO) with Dan Ives and Sam Altman, we have built the expertise to set up the pre-eminent Solana treasury vehicle,» Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital, said in a statement.
«There is a real opportunity to drive the flywheel of creating shareholder value that Michael Saylor has pioneered with Strategy by accelerating Solana adoption,» he added.
Read more: Solana Surges as Galaxy Scoops Up Over $700M Tokens From Exchanges
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American Express Introduces Blockchain-Based ‘Travel Stamps’

American Express has introduced Ethereum-based ‘travel stamps’ to create a commemorative record of travel experiences, as part of the firm’s revamped travel app.
The travel experience tokens, which are technically NFTs (ERC 721 tokens), are minted and stored on Coinbase’s Base network, said Colin Marlowe , VP, Emerging Partnerships at Amex Digital Labs.
The travel stamps, which can be collected anytime a traveler uses their card, are not tradable NTF tokens, Marlowe explained, and neither do they function like blockchain-based loyalty points – at least for the time being.
“It’s a valueless ERC-721, so technically an NFT, but we just didn’t brand it as such. We wanted to speak to it in a way that was natural for the travel experience itself, and so we talk about these things as stamps, and they’re represented as tokens,” Marlowe said in an interview.
“As an identifier and representation of history the stamps could create interesting partnership angles over time. We weren’t trying to sell these or sort of generate any like short term revenue. The angle is to make a travel experience with Amex feel really rich, really different, and kind of set it apart,” he said.
The Amex travel app also includes a range of tools for travels and Centurion Lounge upgrades, the company said.
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