Traditional financial institutions are shedding their skepticism toward crypto, and the shift is accelerating in 2026.

Banks, brokerages, and exchanges are racing to offer crypto products as demand from retail investors, institutions, and wealthy clients reaches a tipping point. 

David Ripley, co-CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, told Axios that “nearly all traditional financial services companies are gonna offer crypto, bitcoin, ethereum to their customers” — a development he called “a big story of 2026.”

The turning point reflects a broader collision of mega-trends reshaping financial markets. Stablecoins, tokenization, AI, and extended-hours trading are converging…

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A new feature documentary is making the case that Bitcoin belongs in the boardrooms of professional basketball — and it has the access to back it up.

Bitcoin Season, directed by Mike Nicoll, follows Swan Bitcoin, an American Bitcoin exchange, on its mission to establish Bitcoin-only partnerships inside the professional basketball industry. The film centers on Swan’s groundbreaking deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers — described as the first Bitcoin-only partnership with an NBA franchise — and a separate agreement with Klutch Sports Group, the player agency founded by Rich Paul that represents some of the biggest names in the sport.

The film frames Bitcoin not as a…

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Hedge fund manager Dan Loeb has publicly claimed that the Department of Justice threatened President Donald Trump in the final hours of Trump’s first term in January 2021, warning it would “go after” him if he commuted the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Bitcoin-powered Silk Road marketplace. After the reported threat, Trump withdrew the commutation, forcing Ulbricht to serve four additional years in prison before receiving a full pardon in January 2025 during Trump’s second term.

Loeb, founder and CEO of Third Point LLC, made the revelation on the All-In Podcast while discussing his role in criminal justice reform and Ulbricht’s clemency efforts. “On the last…

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More than 60 of the most prominent CEOs and founders in the cryptocurrency industry sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on June 9, calling on the full Senate to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act with its blockchain developer protections intact — a provision the signatories described as a non-negotiable condition of their support.

The letter, signed by executives from Coinbase, a16z crypto, Uniswap, Solana Labs, Kraken, Paradigm, Galaxy, Ledger, and dozens of other leading firms, focused on Section 604 of the Clarity Act — the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, or BRCA — which shields non-controlling software…

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Five years ago yesterday, El Salvador’s Congress voted 62-to-22 to pass the world’s first Bitcoin Law, making the small Central American nation the first country on earth to grant bitcoin legal tender status. 

The date was June 8, 2021. Half a decade later, the government holds 7,677 BTC worth approximately $480 million — and it is still accumulating.

The country has run a dollar-cost averaging strategy since President Nayib Bukele announced a policy of purchasing one bitcoin per day in November 2022. In the 12 months since June 2025, El Salvador added more than 1,600 BTC to its stack, including a tactical purchase of over 1,000 BTC in a single week during a November…

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Second, a Bitcoin development lab, has officially launched Bark — its implementation of the Ark protocol — on the Bitcoin mainnet, opening up self-custodial bitcoin payments to developers and everyday users alike without the complexity traditionally associated with Lightning Network or on-chain transactions.

Bark is built on the Ark protocol, a layer-2 solution that allows large numbers of users to share on-chain UTXOs via trees of pre-signed, off-chain transactions, spreading fee costs across participants while preserving individual self-custody. 

Unlike Lightning, Ark requires no channel management or liquidity pre-allocation, addressing pain points that have long kept…

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SBI Shinsei Bank, part of Japan’s SBI Holdings, is introducing a cryptocurrency rewards program for its depositors. The bank, managing around ¥1 trillion in deposits, will provide vouchers equivalent to 20% of standard yen interest payments. These vouchers can be redeemed for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), or XRP through its affiliate crypto exchange, SBI VC Trade.

A three-month pilot program begins on June 10, 2026, allowing select customers to test the service. If successful, the full program is expected to launch this fall. Customers continue receiving their regular yen interest alongside the optional crypto vouchers, with redemption requiring an account at SBI VC Trade.

This initiative reflects ongoing integration of digital assets in Japan’s traditional banking sector. It builds on SBI’s prior efforts, such as XRP shareholder benefits and related financial products, without altering core deposit terms.