Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, says 2026 may be one of the most difficult years to forecast for bitcoin, even as the firm maintains a bullish long-term outlook. In a Dec. 21 post on X, Thorn said the coming year is “too chaotic to predict,” pointing to a mix of macro uncertainty, … Read more
Migrating Bitcoin (BTC) to post-quantum standards will take at least 5-10 years, according to Bitcoin core developer and co-founder of crypto custody company Casa, Jameson Lopp, who weighed in on the ongoing quantum computer debate. Lopp agreed with Adam Back, the CEO of crypto infrastructure company Blockstream, that there is no near-term threat to Bitcoin … Read more
It’s no secret that Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack has staked out a spot as perhaps the most hawkish member of the U.S. Federal Reserve since her appointment in 2024 after a career at Goldman Sachs. Next year, however, she will be in a more prominent position to advance those views. The Fed’s Federal Open … Read more
“DeFi is dead.” That’s how Maple Finance CEO and co-founder Sid Powell summarizes what he sees coming for crypto over the next few years. However, this doesn’t mean the end of decentralized finance; rather, it is the end of treating DeFi as something separate from traditional markets. “In a couple of years, institutions won’t distinguish … Read more
Klarna, a Swedish fintech company known for its “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) service, has partnered with crypto exchange Coinbase to add stablecoins to its institutional funding toolkit. Under the arrangement, the global payments and digital banking firm plans to raise short-term funding from institutional investors denominated in USDC (USDC), using Coinbase’s crypto-native infrastructure, according … Read more
The Ethereum ecosystem underwent something of a short revival in 2025. Early in the year, as many major cryptocurrencies surged to fresh all-time highs, ether lagged behind. Some in the community pointed fingers at Ethereum Foundation’s (EF) leadership, claiming the organization hadn’t done enough to reinvigorate the network’s momentum. This feature is a part of … Read more
Veteran Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr is at the forefront of one of the most hotly-discussed debates in cryptocurrency — what the original blockchain network should be used for. The advent of the Ordinals protocol in 2023, which allowed a form of NFTs to be minted on Bitcoin, and Runes a year later, which did something … Read more
Jeff Yan rarely speaks in public, avoids social media, and has never taken venture capital money. But in 2025, few individuals have had a bigger influence on the shape of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the crypto space itself. This feature is a part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list. Yan is the founder of Hyperliquid, a … Read more
The cryptocurrency industry is ever-growing and ever-changing, and it’s difficult to summarize the year’s zeitgeist with 50 names alone. To wrap up CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 series, we’re giving an honorable mention to a final slate of nominees, recognizing stories that really took off in the closing months of the year or who were on … Read more
Crypto activity in Brazil expanded sharply in 2025, with total transaction volume climbing 43% year over year as average investment per user crossed the $1,000 mark, according to a new report from crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin. The report, titled “Raio-X do Investidor em Ativos Digitais 2025,” claimed that the Brazilian crypto market is no longer … Read more