JUST IN: 🇮🇹 Italy's largest bank says it's preparing for potential Bitcoin demand from "bigger clients."

Last June, a sailing buddy (and aerospace engineer) asked if I could check out a family friend’s “bitcoin.” He forwarded me an image of a plastic bitcoin wallet held with a private key partially obscured. The family friend had received the card as some sort of “gimmick at a conference” and tossed it in a drawer.This is one of those moments where I find imposter syndrome perched on my shoulder, nodding its head, lips pursed. Two years in the business preceded by another two monkeying around in my personal account didn’t give me nearly enough crypto cred to say, “Oh, yeah, . I remember these.” Fine, I’m a noob. I made a no-promises disclaimer and quickly changed the subject.Back home, I opened the image and set to work with the solemn determination of (although forensic examination is an inapt metaphor, given the complete absence of foul play). How did these ancient wallets work? If the private key is printed on the card, how is that secure? I knew BIP39, but what’s BIP38?Learning ensued. Then, I checked the bitcoin blockchain and noted that exactly one bitcoin had been moved to this address nine-and-a-half years earlier, when a bitcoin fetched just over $325. No activity since. As for the obscured BIP38 “private” key, you need a passphrase to decrypt it. —This week, we were out to see a show with a different group of friends. I offered to reimburse them for our tickets with crypto. “Set up a Phantom wallet, copy and securely store the seed phrase, and send me your Ethereum address. I’ll pay you in ether or USDC, your choice.”I saw all the faces. Chuckle, eyeroll, are you serious, wait-a-minute, hmmm, why not, OK! I’m still waiting for that Ethereum address, but I have no doubt this will happen. Another “gimmick,” ten years later.Why ETH or USDC? Why not bitcoin? In 2025, bitcoin is no longer a mystery. Folks get it, and if they are thinking about buying a digital asset, they’ll find bitcoin on many shelves. It’s a store of value. It’s scarce. As more buyers enter the market over time, its value should rise.Many folks do get Ethereum, nor smart contract platform blockchains. Folks don’t get stablecoins either, nor the fact that they rely on other blockchains, and involve paying fees in ETH or SOL or a dozen other blockchain coins. For the “5%ers” — those who will eventually spend 5% of their investing energy and resources on crypto — this feels like the next key intuition unlock.There is no better way to get there than to put a few “learning dollars” (i.e., “investment dollars”) on-chain and move them around. I hope my friends take their new USDC and throw some on AAVE, bridge some to Solana, and buy something on Uniswap.This primary research might solidify an investor’s conviction in a single platform. Or, just the opposite: it may solidify conviction that picking winners is hard in what is likely to be a year of explosive growth. XRP, XLM, and HBAR sat atop the 2024 leaderboard of the CoinDesk 20 Index, an outcome few would have predicted. We feel — actually, we are expecting — that investors and advisors will choose diversified market beta over the possibility of selection alpha.The holders of the plastic-wallet bitcoin did not “take the bait” and become active bitcoin enthusiasts (presumably), although, , they did the right thing by throwing the wallet in a drawer for 10 years (along with a Post-it® with the passphrase; . These days, I’m trying to take as many opportunities as possible to get folks to fire up a wallet and get some blockchain experience. (But if not, I’ll still be good for the theater tickets with fiat.)

The U.K. government has appointed Emma Reynolds as the new Economic Secretary in charge of overseeing digital assets and central bank digital currencies — alongside the broader financial sector.The appointment was announced on Tuesday following the resignation of Tulip Siddiq, who set out the government's crypto agenda weeks ago.It is not yet clear what the appointment of Reynolds, the former Parliamentary secretary at the Treasury, will do for the country's crypto plans. However, the Financial Conduct Authority has already set out its agenda for a new crypto regime.Reynolds previously worked at TheCityUK, a trade body, as a managing director and in a bill discussion in 2022 said that there were positives to the U.K. being a second mover to the European Union and learning from it."CryptoUK and its members have a long-term working relationship with the U.K. government and, as such, we welcome the appointment of Emma Reynolds as the new City Minister, " a spokesperson from lobby group CryptoUK said.Siddiq, the former secretary, resigned on Tuesday due to mounting pressure regarding an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh. Siddiq, whose aunt was the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, was named in an investigation looking into allegations that her family had embezzled funds.In a letter, Siddiq said she had referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, where she was able to share the full details of her finances and living arrangements. Magnus had found that Siddiq had "not breached the ministerial code," her letter said.However, continuing her work would be a distraction to the government, she said.Siddiq had just announced that the U.K.'s new government, headed up by the Labour Party, would still follow the regulatory plans set by its predecessor the Conservative Party. Crypto and stablecoin legislation is expected to come out early this year.Many are looking at the U.K. to take steps forward to regulate the crypto sector as other major nations like the European Union install their crypto regimes and the U.S. waits for crypto friendly Donald Trump to begin his Presidency next week

Boerse Stuttgart, one of Germany’s leading stock exchanges, has seen its cryptocurrency trading business explode in recent years to now account for approximately 25% of its overall revenue.While not revealing the exact cryptocurrency trading volume, the exchange group shared in a press release at the end of last year that the metric “almost tripled” in 2024 to record its best performance ever. In custody, Boerse Stuttgart had around €4.3 billion ($4.45 billion).The relative success of the exchange's crypto business comes alongside a backdrop of spot ETF mania in the United States, the launch of which saw inflows of $36.2 billion in 2024.Bitcoin accounted for nearly 50% of the exchange’s cryptocurrency revenue, according to the firm’s CEO Matthias Voelkel, who told global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the exchange has been spending the last five years growing its cryptocurrency trading platform.The exchange’s focus on attracting both professional and retail investors within the German-speaking world has seemingly proven fruitful as the platform has now managed to attract over one million cryptocurrency trading clients.Voelkel himself, according to the AFP, invested in bitcoin after considering the benefits of the blockchain technology underpinning the cryptocurrency and over a belief that their popularity will keep on growing.Boerse Stuttgart offers services through it's digital exchange as well as the retail-focused trading app BISON.Last year, it launched a fully insured cryptocurrency staking service on the BISON app through a partnership with German insurance giant Munich Re and staking provider Staking Facilities.CoinDesk reached out to Boerse Stuttgart but did not hear back before press time.

The current total market value of cryptocurrencies is $3.51 trillion, with a 24-hour growth of $139.027 billion, an increase of 4.12%. Among them, Bitcoin accounts for 56.19% of the market value, while Ethereum accounts for 11.66% of the market value.