Metaplanet (3350), a Japanese bitcoin (BTC) acquirer, will be added to the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Japan index at the end of Feb. 28, according to the firm’s CEO Simon Gerovich. The MSCI index tracks mid-to-large-cap Japanese stocks, which serve as a key benchmark for institutional investors worldwide. As a result of inclusion, Metaplanet […]

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor. In this issue: Can Based Rollups solve Ethereum’s problem? Lido goes modular Uniswap finally unveils Unichain Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade is coming Network news BASED ROLLUPS TO THE RESCUE: In recent years, […]

Circle’s USDC, the second-largest stablecoin on the market, rose to a record market capitalization over $56 billion this week as stablecoin growth showed signs of reaccelerating. USDC added $10.2 billion to its market cap over the past month, driven primarily by rising Solana-based DeFi trading volumes, Artemis data shows. That’s more than double the $4.6 […]

Alexander Vinnik, the jailed former operator of once mighty bitcoin exchange BTC-e, is being released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. Vinnik, 44, is being swapped with jailed American teacher Marc Fogel, who returned to the U.S. last night after negotiators struck a surprise breakthrough with the Kremlin. It had […]

Bitcoin’s (BTC) Coinbase premium indicator, which measures the spread between BTC’s dollar-denominated price on the Coinbase exchange and tether-denominated price on Binance, has flipped negative for the first time since the Feb. 3 crash, according to data source Coinglass. It’s a sign that traders over the Nasdaq-listed exchange have turned cautious ahead of Wednesday’s U.S. […]