The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has officially lifted its four-year ban on retail access to bitcoin and crypto exchange-traded notes (cETNs).

Starting today, firms can offer retail investors exposure to bitcoin and other cryptoassets through ETNs traded on FCA-approved investment exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange or Cboe UK. 

The change came into effect today after months of consultation and signals a more open — though still cautious — regulatory stance toward crypto.

“Since we restricted retail access to cETNs, the market has evolved, and products have become more mainstream and better understood,” said David Geale, executive director of…

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Polymarket, the crypto-native prediction market, has added support for bitcoin deposits, giving users a direct way to fund their accounts with BTC alongside other existing crypto options.

The move coincides with bitcoin’s recent rally to all-time highs above $126,000, currently trading around $124,300, and reflects growing demand for crypto-native funding options on prediction platforms.

Polymarket has taken the world by storm over the past two years, emerging as the largest prediction market where users trade shares tied to the outcomes of real-world events — essentially betting on what the future holds.

On Polymarket, traders are bullish about the bitcoin price….

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Bitcoin is pushing above $124,000 after touching the mid-$120,000’s in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin hit record highs above $126,000 earlier this week, but it seems investors took some profits and a strengthening U.S. dollar challenged the so-called “debasement-trade” flows. At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $123,962.

Many investors have started to use bitcoin as a hedge against a potential devaluation of the dollar, known in trading circles as “debasement trades.”

The surge earlier in the week was fueled by heavy inflows into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) and speculative bets on fiat currency weakness amid a prolonged U.S. government…

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Polygon, the Ethereum Layer 2 network, has rolled out the Rio hard fork on its Proof-of-Stake mainnet — a major upgrade aimed at making the blockchain faster, lighter, and more efficient for global payments and real-world asset transactions. The update redesigns block production and introduces stateless verification to improve scalability.

At the center of Rio is the new Validator-Elected Block Producer (VEBloP) model, where validators select a small group of producers to create blocks for longer durations. Polygon says this innovation reduces chain reorganizations, shortens block times, and ensures fair fee distribution, keeping all validators incentivized.

The upgrade also includes PIP-72, enabling “witness-based” stateless validation so nodes can verify blocks without storing the full blockchain state — cutting hardware costs and improving speed. Part of Polygon’s “GigaGas” roadmap, Rio aims to process up to 5,000 transactions per second, marking a key step toward faster and more reliable crypto infrastructure.

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Square is rolling out a tool that could make Bitcoin usable in everyday business — from coffee shops to corner stores.

Square is bringing Bitcoin to your local small businesses.

The company announced a new product suite called Square Bitcoin today, designed to let small businesses accept Bitcoin payments, hold it in a built-in wallet, or automatically convert part of their sales into Bitcoin — all within the same dashboard they already use for point-of-sale and banking.

If unfamiliar with Square, Square is an all-in-one platform that helps small businesses accept payments, manage operations, and grow. The company offers a mix of hardware and software for POS systems,…

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In a market where most public companies still hesitate to touch Bitcoin, DDC Enterprise Limited is doing the opposite: accelerating its bitcoin purchases. 

The consumer brand and e-commerce company announced today a $124 million equity financing round, led by PAG Pegasus Fund and Mulana Investment Management, with participation from OKG Financial Services. 

Founder and CEO Norma Chu also joined the round personally, investing $3 million of her own capital.

The financing, priced at $10 per Class A share — a 16% premium to the company’s recent close — marks another step in DDC’s transformation from a retail operator into one of the most aggressive public Bitcoin…

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