Stellar CEO Highlights Real Opportunity in Crypto Market Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), affirms that the “real opportunity” in blockchain has arrived—as the world steps into a new financial era now taking shape. Her remarks follow a Bloomberg report on BNY Mellon, Nasdaq, S&P Global, and iCapital joining a $50 million funding round for Digital Asset Holdings, underscoring Wall Street’s adoption of blockchain to manage traditional assets....

ChatGPT Growth Slows Amid Fierce AI Competition OpenAI is seeing a significant slowdown in ChatGPT user growth, per Sensor Tower data. Though still market-leading—with 50% of global mobile downloads and 55% of monthly active users (MAUs)—it now lags peers in growth velocity. Google’s Gemini, for instance, is outpacing it across three key metrics: downloads, MAU growth, and time spent in-app. From August to November, ChatGPT’s MAUs rose just 6% to 810 million, nearing saturation. Gemini, by co...

Bold Move: Texas’ Monet Bank Builds Crypto Infrastructure Amid U.S. Regulatory Thaw Monet Bank, based in Texas, has officially entered the digital asset sector as a dedicated infrastructure bank for crypto businesses—amid U.S. regulators under the Trump administration easing restrictions on institutions serving digital assets. This marks one of the most significant transformations by a traditional community bank into crypto in years—signaling a broader shift in financial institutions’ stance ...

France’s BPCE Targets Crypto Service Launch in 2025 Hexarq, a subsidiary of Groupe BPCE, has secured regulatory approval in France to offer crypto services—with a planned rollout in 2025. This marks BPCE, France’s second-largest banking group, entering the regulated digital asset space—enabling 35 million customers to access crypto through trusted, traditional banking infrastructure. This regulatory milestone reinforces France’s leadership in responsible crypto adoption. Hexarq is now officia...

Indonesian Crypto Exchanges at Risk as P2SK Bill Revision Looms—Centralization Sparks Concern Indonesia’s crypto industry faces a pivotal moment. The revised Financial Sector Development and Strengthening Law (P2SK) now explicitly regulates crypto under OJK oversight—a first-time formal recognition of digital assets as part of the national financial system. The draft introduces Crypto Asset Financial Service Institutions (LJK Aset Kripto), covering exchanges, custodians, and digital asset tra...

CoinPayments Becomes Global Partner of F1 Team Aston Martin Aramco CoinPayments, the global crypto payment gateway, has officially partnered with Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team as its Global Partner. The collaboration unites two entities sharing core values: innovation, speed, reliability, and high performance. The CoinPayments logo will appear on the AMR25 race car and team apparel, debuting at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend—initially on the drivers’ headrests. The partnership launch was...

Alphabet Investors Bullish on AI Chip Revenue Potential Alphabet investors are growing increasingly confident that its internally developed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) could become a major revenue driver—not just for internal optimization, but as a commercial product. Alphabet’s 31% Q4 stock surge—the S&P 500’s 10th-best performer—reflects market expectations that TPUs, long reserved for accelerating models like Gemini, may soon enter external markets. This optimism is data-backed: 1. In l...

Senior Kremlin Official Proposes Crypto Mining Be Classified as “Hidden Export” Maxim Oreshkin, a senior Kremlin official, has proposed classifying crypto mining as a formal export in Russia’s national trade accounts. His rationale: digitally mined assets—though never crossing physical borders—often get converted and used in cross-border transactions, exerting real pressure on the ruble and balance-of-payments. Speaking at the Russia Calling! investment forum, Oreshkin argued the sector gener...

Ripple CEO Targets $180K Bitcoin by End of 2026 Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s CEO, forecasts Bitcoin reaching $180,000 by end-2026—a projection shared during a panel at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai. At the time, BTC traded at $93,342, down 0.6% over 24 hours and 26% from its recent peak above $126,000. The event highlighted divergent outlooks: Richard Teng (Binance CEO) declined to cite a specific target, stressing long-term fundamentals over short-term price swings. Meanwhile, Lily Liu (Pr...

Pro-Crypto Candidate Emerges as Top Contender for Next Fed Chair Bitcoin’s recent rebound stems from rising market expectations of a December Fed rate cut, dollar easing, and focus shifting to Jerome Powell’s successor ahead of his term’s end in May 2026. Odds of a 25-bps cut now sit at 80%+, weakening the dollar for nine consecutive days and helping BTC recover from $84,000–$87,000 to $93,000 following November’s sharp selloff. Spot prices hover near $92,300, with 10-year Treasury yields ste...