Author: Chaimae Semdani

Bitcoin volume across MENA has tripled to $350 billion as remittances go on-chain and currency instability makes Bitcoin less of an investment and more of essential infrastructure.

Citi and Coinbase just split the stablecoin job: banks keep the relationship, while blockchain rails speed settlement. The future looks modular, and value may concentrate where rails become least substitutable.

After Bitget lost $351 million, Circle and Tether froze the hacker’s wallet within hours—highlighting that “decentralized finance” has a central freeze button when stablecoins are involved.

For two years, writing “AI” in a whitepaper was enough to raise money. That era is over—and the market is now charging for substance.

Crypto now has 559 million users, yet market cap is shrinking. That contradiction signals a shift from speculation to infrastructure—and the marketing playbook has to change.

Mastercard just paid $1.8 billion for BVNK—an acquisition that looks less like innovation and more like banks capitulating to stablecoin rails.

In 2026, the biggest crypto threat isn’t hackers breaking code—it’s AI-powered social engineering that exploits human judgment when it matters most.

Crypto companies are pivoting to “AI” as Bitcoin treasury stocks implode—but the market isn’t convinced. Investors have seen this narrative playbook before, and it’s failing faster.

Digital-native generations in emerging markets may never need a bank account—because crypto already covers storage, payments, credit, and system access. Banks are terrified because their business model depends on customers having no alternative.

LinkedIn promised to fight AI slop using an in-house algorithm. The twist: the announcement was written by AI—and the platform’s incentives still reward the same inauthentic content it claims to downrank.