Q: Mt. Gox began as a trading platform for which popular card game before pivoting to Bitcoin?

Binance announced it is working with Franklin Templeton to let institutions use tokenized money market funds as off exchange collateral. This is part of a broader shift where collateral quality, custody structure, and settlement mechanics matter as much as token narratives.

A notable policy trend this month is the push and pull over whether stablecoins should be allowed to pay yield, with banking lobby pressure and competing industry views surfacing more explicitly. If this hardens into guidance or legislation, it impacts a big slice of DeFi’s “safe yield” stack, especially stablecoin based lending and cash and carry structures.

Coinbase launched a new wallet architecture designed specifically to support autonomous AI agents, allowing software-based entities to directly hold assets, sign transactions, and interact with blockchain networks without human intervention. The system enables AI agents to execute programmatic transactions such as paying for services, managing treasury balances, deploying capital into DeFi protocols, or responding dynamically to onchain conditions in real time.

Hemi reached a major milestone with end-to-end ZK provability of hBitVM state transitions now operational, enabling contracts to verify Bitcoin-native data directly. The Fast Bridge routing system is also advancing toward ZK-verifiable key generation and resharing, strengthening the trust-minimized movement of assets between Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Preparation continues for the Jovian hard fork, which introduces new hBitVM precompiles and future proofs the protocol against Ethereum compatibility issues. Hemi is also developing a ZK-based proof-of-reserves system to cryptographically verify that hemiBTC remains fully backed by Bitcoin, replacing reliance on centralized attestations with provable onchain guarantees.

Work has begun on Hemi’s first L3 execution environment, enabling specialized rollups secured by Hemi’s Bitcoin and Ethereum settlement layer. Approximately 60 million HEMI is now locked in veHEMI staking, and the upgraded PoP mining reward algorithm is nearing deployment, introducing dynamic incentives designed to strengthen long-term network participation.

Long-term stakers receive protocol-fee-backed rewards.

Read more about the distribution.

A majority of institutional BTC holdings are unproductive, but they don’t need to be.

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A: Mt. Gox originally operated as an online trading platform for Magic: The Gathering cards. Its name was derived from “Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange,” which was later abbreviated to Mt. Gox before the platform was repurposed into one of the earliest Bitcoin exchanges.