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Payward plans to acquire Bitnomial for $550 million, accelerating its layout in the U.S. compliant derivatives market

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's parent company Payward announced that it will acquire 100% of the digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for up to $550 million (cash + stock). The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval.Bitnomial is the first crypto-native platform to obtain all three U.S. derivatives licenses (designated contract market, derivatives clearing organization, and futures commission merchant). This acquisition will help Payward quickly gain a complete compliant derivatives infrastructure, significantly accelerating its expansion in the U.S. market. After the transaction is completed, Bitnomial's clearing and trading capabilities will be integrated with platforms such as Kraken and NinjaTrader, offering products like spot margin, perpetual contracts, and options to U.S. customers, and will be regulated by the CFTC.This acquisition will also expand Payward Services, allowing banks, fintech companies, and brokerages to access the U.S. compliant derivatives market through a single API. Industry insiders believe that with the market warming up and valuations recovering, merger and acquisition activities in the crypto industry are on the rise, as leading institutions are accelerating their transformation into comprehensive trading platforms for institutional clients by acquiring key capabilities such as compliance, custody, and derivatives.

first_img Fortune Magazine: Paradigm, a16z crypto and other crypto VC asset management scales have significantly shrunk

According to Fortune magazine, in the context of a downturn in the crypto market in 2025 and the distribution of profits to investors, the portfolio values of crypto venture capital firms such as Paradigm and a16z crypto have significantly shrunk.According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the total assets under management (AUM) of four crypto funds under a16z crypto dropped nearly 40% from 2024 to 2025, falling to $9.5 billion. Part of the reason is that the firm began returning capital to investors from earlier funds, and the timing of the returns coincided with the market peak in 2025, with a net DPI (distributions to paid-in capital) of 5.4 for its first crypto fund.Multicoin Capital's AUM has more than halved, dropping to about $2.7 billion. Paradigm's holdings also slightly decreased by about 6%. Meanwhile, the total size of a16z crypto's parent company, Andreessen Horowitz, has exceeded $100 billion.The report points out that the shrinkage in assets under management reflects the decline in portfolio value due to the market downturn, and is also a sign of normal exits by VCs and the return of funds to limited partners (LPs). Some firms, such as Haun Ventures, have seen their AUM grow by over 30%, reaching around $2.5 billion.Currently, Paradigm is seeking to raise a new fund of $1.5 billion, and a16z crypto is also raising up to $2 billion for its fifth fund.

BitMEX Research proposes a new mechanism to mitigate the impact of quantum computing-related Bitcoin freezing

According to official news, BitMEX Research has released a new research article proposing that in response to the risk of future quantum computers potentially breaking elliptic curve signatures, the Bitcoin network could adopt an alternative soft fork mechanism to "directly freeze" to reduce controversy and increase flexibility.The proposal revolves around "quantum-vulnerable fund freezing," but suggests avoiding the direct freezing of all related assets without evidence, instead gradually implementing security strategies through a verifiable condition-triggering mechanism. The core of the proposal is to establish a "signal vault," which contains special addresses generated using "accidental numbers" to prove that no one possesses their private keys. If passive spending occurs from that address, it will be regarded as on-chain evidence that quantum computing capabilities genuinely exist, thereby immediately triggering a comprehensive freeze of quantum-vulnerable assets.At the same time, the fund could attract capital through a multi-signature structure as a "quantum bounty," aimed at incentivizing potential attackers to expose their capabilities. The article also mentions that there is currently a BIP-361 proposal promoting the phased disabling of the old signature system and ultimately freezing risky assets, but this proposal is controversial due to its involvement in "mandatory freezing."The newly proposed "signal-trigger + security window" mechanism aims to replace the fixed-time freeze path, reducing potential system shocks while retaining Bitcoin's censorship-resistant characteristics, but it also brings complexity and execution risk trade-off issues.
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