Bhutan goes for gold, announces sovereign-backed RWA token

Cointelegraph

Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), a special administrative zone of Bhutan, announced on Wednesday that it is launching a sovereign gold-backed digital token called TER.

The physical gold deposits will be custodied by DK Bank, a digital asset bank regulated by the government of Bhutan, and issued on the Solana Blockchain network, according to GMC’s announcement.

Matrixdock, a real-world asset tokenization (RWA) platform, is the technology partner responsible for tokenizing the real-world asset on the blockchain.

Gold, Inflation, Tokenization, RWA Tokenization, Bhutan

In the first phase, the tokens will be held in custody at the bank, with the exact rollout dates still unclear. “Purchasing TER tokens is structured to be as secure and familiar as acquiring physical gold from a major financial institution,” notes the announcement.

Cointelegraph reached out to DK Bank and representatives of GMC, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

The rollout of a sovereign-backed tokenized gold product is a hedge against currency inflation in the digital age and another step in the country’s blockchain adoption strategy, according to GMC’s announcement.

Bhutan gets ahead of the curve by adopting crypto and blockchain tech

The government of Bhutan has embraced cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as a way to modernize the country’s payment system and boost the tourism sector, with the goal of becoming a regional cryptocurrency hub.

Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin (BTC) since 2019 with hydroelectric power, and the country holds nearly 6,000 BTC, valued at over $540 million at the time of this writing, according to Arkham Intelligence.

In January, the GMC announced a digital asset reserve containing BTC, Ether (ETH), and BNB (BNB), which later expanded to include modest sums of memecoins and other altcoins.

Bhutan partnered with DK Bank and Binance Pay in May to provide tourists with a method to pay for hotels, tour guides and tickets using over 100 cryptocurrencies.

Over 1,000 businesses in Bhutan accept crypto payments through the partnership with Binance Pay and DK Bank.

Damcho Rinzin, the director of Bhutan’s Department of Tourism, said the adoption of crypto payments helps the country’s tourism industry, which has struggled due to a lack of robust payment infrastructure.

Magazine: Bitcoin to suffer if it can’t catch gold, XRP bulls back in the fight: Trade Secrets

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Multicoin joins as lead investor in LI.FI’s $29 million Series A extension round

The Block

The CoinFund-backed crypto toolkit startup LI.FI has secured a $29 million extension to its Series A, bringing its total capital raised to $51.7 million, with Multicoin joining as a lead investor.

"The increased funding showcases investor confidence in LI.FI's growth and vision as our goal remains to make composability invisible and reliable, enabling the entire industry to build on it confidently," co-founder and CEO Philipp Zentner said in a statement.

LI.FI is a decentralized, open-source finance protocol that serves as a "universal liquidity layer" and intermediary between DeFi infrastructure (like bridges and DEXs) and end-user applications, enabling developers and users to move tokens from one blockchain to another with minimal friction.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Berlin, LI.FI has reportedly surpassed $60 billion in lifetime transaction volume, according to the release. Monthly volume grew by 595% year-over-year to $8 billion in October 2025 from $1.15 billion in October 2024.

The team plans to use its fresh funding to "support the next stage of innovation" and new product development, including building tools for AI agents and stablecoins, and to support the rollout of a previously announced open intent and solver marketplace in the first quarter of 2026.

There are reportedly nearly 1,000 B2B users of LI.FI's onchain swapping and cross-chain bridging toolkits, including the largest wallets like MetaMask and Phantom, major trading venues like Binance and Robinhood, as well as payments providers, hardware firms, and stablecoin issuers, among other businesses.

"LI.FI Protocol gives fintechs and web3 wallets a single API to offer both trading and cross-chain asset movement, handling on-chain routing and execution behind the scenes. By hiding that complexity from both developers and end users, they make it far easier for financial apps to launch truly multi-chain crypto products at scale," said Spencer Applebaum, investment partner at Multicoin Capital.

LI.Fi previously raised a $5.5 million seed round in July 2022 led by 1kx, and the first $17.5 million tranche of its Series A in March 2023, co-led by CoinFund and Superscrypt.

In July 2024, approximately 153 wallets using LI.FI were exploited for $12 million following a smart contract update.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

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Binance elevates Trump-backed World Liberty’s stablecoin by adding USD1 trading pairs

The Block

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has elevated the status of the stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial by allowing users to trade tokens like BNB, ETH, and SOL using USD1 trading pairs.

The exchange said on Thursday it is bringing USD1 "into several of the platform's most active spot markets."

Binance also said that within the week, it will be converting all collateral assets backing Binance-Peg BUSD (B-Token) into USD1 at a 1:1 ratio.

"The transition means USD1 will become an integral part of Binance’s updated collateral structure, further embedding the stablecoin within the exchange’s ecosystem," World Liberty said in a statement.

There are nearly $2.8 billion worth of USD1 circulating, according to DeFiLlama data. A large majority of the supply originates from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX, choosing to use USD1, earlier this year, to make a $2 billion investment into Binance.

"Binance's expansion of USD1 marks an important moment in WLFI’s effort to make digital US dollar stablecoins available to people everywhere," World Liberty CEO and co-founder Zach Witkoff said in a statement. "By integrating USD1 into liquidity, trading, and collateral systems on the world’s largest exchange, Binance is giving hundreds of millions of users improved access to USD1."

Trump and sons co-founders

President Donald Trump and his three sons are also listed as co-founders of World Liberty Financial, the DeFi protocol that debuted in October 2024.

This past October, Trump pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. That same month, Binance.US denied that political motives played a role in its listing of USD1.

Launched in March, World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin is said to be backed entirely by short-term U.S. government treasury, U.S. dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents.

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$400M in Crypto Liquidations Hit BTC & ETH — Is This a Reset or the Start of Risk-Off?

Coinpedia

A wave of liquidations rippled through the crypto market over the past 24 hours, wiping out more than $400 million in leveraged positions across major assets. Ethereum accounted for the largest share with over $180 million in liquidations, followed by Bitcoin at roughly $177 million. Solana, DOGE, Zcash and a broader tail of altcoins were also hit, underscoring how positioning had become crowded across the largest tokens, not just speculative small caps.

The shakeout reflects a mix of technical and macro drivers that converged at the same time, triggering a swift unwind in open interest and exposing how stretched leverage had become.

Bitcoin’s Rejection at Key Resistance Sparked the Initial Cascade

The liquidation cycle intensified shortly after the Bitcoin price failed to break above the $92,000–$93,000 resistance area, a level where long positioning had built steadily over the past week. The rejection forced late entrants out of their trades, initiating a wave of liquidations that spilt into Ethereum and then further across the market.

As seen in the above chart, the BTC price has faced constant rejections from the resistance zone between $92,800 and $93,900. Moreover, the volume has also been below the range that signifies the draining optimism among the traders. With open interest elevated, the move quickly accelerated as forced selling triggered additional downside.

What Comes Next: Reset or Risk-Off?

While disruptive, liquidation events of this scale often help rebalance positioning by resetting funding rates and clearing excess leverage. The next directional cue will likely depend on how open interest rebuilds in the coming days and whether Bitcoin makes another attempt at reclaiming its resistance zone with stronger liquidity behind it. A continued decline in market depth, however, could keep conditions unstable into year-end.

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$108 Million in XRP Shifts Mysteriously: What Are Whales Up To?

U.Today

XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has suddenly withdrawn from its recent rally, showing massive price declines over the last day.

Amid the negative price trend, a massive XRP transaction has raised eyebrows across the crypto community, as data from blockchain monitoring firm Whale Alert shows millions of XRP being mysteriously shifted at once.

According to the data, over 53.7 million XRP worth about $108,046,173 was transferred between two unknown wallets on the XRP Ledger on Wednesday, December 11.

With the XRP community closely watching onchain movements amid rising curiosities about the asset’s next price action, the transfer has immediately sparked speculation about the intent behind the mysterious whale activity and potential market implications.

Is XRP rally over?

While the addresses involved in the large XRP transfers were not identified with any exchange, crypto custody providers, nor a major institution, traders have expressed concerns about the mysterious nature of the transfer.

As the sender and destination of the transaction remain unknown, it is hard to tell if the move was a mere institutional redistribution or an attempt to sell or buy the asset in the specified quantity.

While the exact motive behind the transfer remains undisclosed, analysts have suggested that it has contributed to the drawdown in the XRP price movement and, obviously, the 18.59% surge in its trading volume over the last 24 hours.

Amid the plummeting market condition, XRP has lost its crucial $2 support level, revisiting $1.99 following about a 4% price decline over the last day.

Despite this negative trend, investors have expressed confidence that the ongoing correction will be short-lived and the asset will return to the upside zone, as the predicted $2.50 target remains intact.

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JPMorgan Chase Unit Facilitates Galaxy Digital Debt Issuance Over Solana Blockchain

Dow Jones Newswires

By Elias Schisgall

J.P. Morgan facilitated a U.S. Commercial Paper issuance for Galaxy Digital on the blockchain platform Solana, with notes purchased by Coinbase Global and Franklin Templeton.

The bank, a unit of JPMorgan Chase, said its transaction for Galaxy, a crytocurrency-focused financial-services firm, was one of the earliest debt issuances to be executed on a public blockchain. It added that the issuance sets a precedent for institutional investors looking to build blockchain-based securities into their portfolios.

"Today's transaction is an important step toward understanding the role blockchain will play in the future of financial markets," Scott Lucas, who leads J.P. Morgan's digital-assets-markets arm, said. "This trade demonstrates institutional appetite for digital assets and our capability to securely bring new instruments on-chain using Solana," he added.

J.P. Morgan created the on-chain token and managed the delivery and payment for the transaction. It said the issuance and redemption proceeds would be paid in USDC stablecoins issued by Circle.

The bank didn't disclose the size of the transaction.

Write to Elias Schisgall at elias.schisgall@wsj.com

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Texas grid is heating up again, this time from AI, not Bitcoin miners

Cointelegraph

Texas is rapidly emerging as an epicenter of artificial intelligence-driven energy demand, with an unprecedented surge in large-load power requests, a wave now dominated by AI data centers rather than Bitcoin miners.

The figures, highlighted in The Miner Mag’s latest newsletter and drawn from ERCOT’s new System Planning and Weatherization Update, point to a grid facing a fundamentally different kind of growth.

ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s independent power grid and oversees reliable electric service for about 90% of Texans, reported that its large-load interconnection queue has ballooned to 226 gigawatts of new requests, roughly 73% tied to AI facilities.

Developers have already filed 225 large-load requests this year, and on the supply side, ERCOT is reviewing 1,999 generation proposals totaling 432 GW, according to The Miner Mag.

However, the load is growing faster than the supply. While the generation queue is massive, it remains dominated by solar and battery projects, which are resources that don’t provide the around-the-clock power that AI data centers require. That mismatch is setting up future reliability and investment challenges.

State regulators are racing to adapt, The Miner Mag reported. New rules are being developed to classify any customer requesting 75 MW or more as a “special handling” case, and ERCOT has more than doubled the number of transmission projects under review.

Related: Bitcoin miners gambled on AI last year, and it paid off

What about Bitcoin miners?

The Miner Mag report drew a contrast between today’s surge in AI-driven power demand and the earlier boom from Bitcoin (BTC) miners, noting that Texas’ emerging grid crunch is now being fueled by AI, not crypto.

Bitcoin miners were once among the largest new power users in the state. Their impact was arguably positive: Miners frequently curtailed operations during peak demand and, according to a January study by the Digital Asset Research Institute, helped bolster grid stability and save the state an estimated $18 billion.

However, the landscape is shifting. Many miners and digital asset operators are reallocating their infrastructure toward AI computing to capitalize on the soaring demand for GPU capacity.

A recent example is Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy, which secured $460 million to convert its former Texas Bitcoin mining site into a large-scale AI data center.

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