US employers added 130,000 jobs in January, nearly doubling the 65,000 consensus forecast and signaling unexpected resilience in the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency tracking employment data, reported the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, below the anticipated 4.4%. Healthcare drove much of the gain, contributing 82,000 positions, while social assistance
Ripple, the blockchain firm behind the $XRP Ledger, is teaming up with Aviva Investors to bring traditional investment funds onchain through tokenization, the companies announced Wednesday. Aviva Investors, the asset management arm of British insurer Aviva Plc, will use the $XRP Ledger’s infrastructure to convert conventional fund products into digital tokens. The deal marks Ripple’s
Africa recorded the highest median stablecoin-to-fiat conversion spreads among tracked regions in January, according to data observed by payments infrastructure company Borderless.xyz, covering 66 currency corridors and nearly 94,000 rate observations. The regional median spread was 299 basis points, or about 3%, compared with about 1.3% in Latin America and 0.07% in Asia. In Africa,
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the country’s central bank, said on Wednesday that its Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH) is piloting three regulatory sandbox programs to research and develop stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits. BNM’s initiatives center around using ringgit stablecoins, the fiat currency of Malaysia, for cross-border settlement and developing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), according
Hong Kong — Tokenization is gaining traction, but its success depends less on market hype and more on real-world utility, say executives from Ondo Finance and Securitize. “There’s no shortage of firms, of issuers, of companies that are interested in tokenizing,” said Graham Ferguson, head of ecosystem at Securitize, during a panel discussion at Consensus
Wall Street bank JPMorgan is striking a constructive tone on crypto despite the plunge so far this year, arguing that institutional inflows and regulatory clarity could underpin the next leg higher for digital assets. “We are positive in crypto markets for 2026 as we expect a further rise in the digital asset flow but more
The mood among top venture capitalists at Consensus Hong Kong was not retreat, but recalibration, as the crypto market experienced a prolonged downturn. Hasseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, described today’s venture market as a “barbell:” On one side, proven verticals compounding at scale; on the other, a narrow set of high-risk, next-generation bets. “There’s
After crashing throughout the week, bitcoin BTC$65,997.99 bottomed late last Thursday at $60,000 before a mammoth Friday rally took the price nearly 20% higher to just shy of $72,000. That bounce, however, is looking more and more like the “dead cat” type. In mid-morning U.S. trade, bitcoin is down sharply yet again, trading just below
Network News ROBINHOOD UNVEILS BLOCKCHAIN: Robinhood debuted the public testnet for its Ethereum layer-2 blockchain with plans for broader introduction later this year as the brokerage app aims to move more trading activity onchain. The new network, called Robinhood Chain, is built on Arbitrum and is designed to support tokenized real-world assets, including equities and
Bitcoin ($BTC) has fallen to $60,000 in its recent decline, and the debate continues as to whether this level will be the bottom. Some analysts argue there is more room for decline, while others suggest it may be the bottom. At this point, the analytics company K33 Research also predicts that Bitcoin may have bottomed