During the 2026 Winter Olympics, travelers at airports in Milan, Rome, and Venice can receive instant VAT refunds in $USDC on Polygon. The rollout, supported by Global Blue and Shift4, speeds up digital refunds and accelerates cross-border settlement. Polygon is powering instant value-added tax (VAT) refunds in USD Coin ($USDC) for international travelers at Italian
Some investors saw the sharp decline in Bitcoin and altcoins as a buying opportunity and increased their holdings. At this point, the Coinbase CEO stated that individual investors buy cryptocurrencies during price drops. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, posting from account X, stated that individual investors tend to buy crypto during price dips. Armstrong noted, based
Bitcoin traded at $68,729 at 4:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, and the derivatives market is anything but sleepy. With $43.81 billion in futures open interest (OI) and call-heavy options positioning, traders appear to be bracing for movement — just not all in the same direction. Bitcoin Futures OI Dips 2.3% as Options
In its latest analysis, crypto asset research company Matrixport highlighted one of the key indicators used to determine whether Bitcoin has entered a bear market. According to the company, a common observation in market cycles is that larger price drops occurring more frequently within 30 days could be a harbinger of a bear market. Matrixport
Daily crypto activity in Russia has climbed to about $647 million (50 billion rubles), said Ivan Chebeskov, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister, at the Alfa Talk conference “Digital Financial Assets: New Market Architecture.” Officials estimate that this equates to more than $129 billion (10 trillion rubles) in yearly turnover, much of which currently operates outside formal
South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is upgrading its AI-powered VISTA platform with additional Nvidia H100 GPUs to strengthen real-time detection of crypto market manipulation. The move is intended to sharpen surveillance of suspicious accounts and trading anomalies as regulators intensify oversight of virtual asset markets. The FSS obtained a budget of 170 million Korean
Stablecoins are widely perceived as a way for crypto to bypass conventional financial institutions due to their unique services, such as offering borderless, 24/7 access to funds without relying on banks, providing instant, borderless financial freedom. Nonetheless, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a recent report presenting a contrasting view. In this report, the international
Strategy founder Michael Saylor has revealed the firm plans to convert its $6 billion in bond debt into equity — a move that reduces debt on the balance sheet. “Strategy can withstand a drawdown in $BTC price to $8,000 and still have sufficient assets to fully cover our debt,” stated the firm on X on
Quantra, a Real-World Asset (RWA) and artificial intelligence (AI) blockchain infrastructure Protocol that tokenizes computing power and energy assets, has disclosed its groundbreaking partnership with Chain Intelligence, an all-in-one Web3 intelligence and trading workspace. The primary objective of this partnership is to boost ecosystem visibility and elevate Web3 analytics. 🤝 PR Partnership Announcement Quantra has
Blockstream CEO Adam Back has opposed a proposal aimed at reducing Ordinals-like “spam” on Bitcoin, warning that the fix could do more harm than good to the network’s credibility. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-110) was proposed by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer Dathon Ohm in December. Nearly 7.5% of Bitcoin nodes — all of which are Bitcoin Knots