Business & Technology
Business and technology in crypto means the companies, infrastructure, and product moves that aren't pure protocol news. LeoDex News covers exchange business (earnings, executive moves, IPOs, geographic expansion), mining stocks (RIOT, MARA, IREN, CleanSpark), Layer-1 infrastructure providers, partnerships and acquisitions, gaming and NFT platforms with real users, and the wider Web3 product landscape.
We track the strategic moves: which exchange is winning institutional flow, which custodian is taking share, which infra provider quietly powers a category, which product launches are real and which are vapor. Skip the press-release noise — read what's actually shipping and who's actually using it.
Latest in Business & Technology
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Apple and Google Recruit Stablecoin Experts for Payments Push
Apple and Google posted job openings for stablecoin and blockchain roles in late September, signaling major tech companies are exploring stablecoins for payments. Neither has announced a proprietary stablecoin product, but the hiring spree suggests the technology is nearing mainstream adoption.
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IEA: AI data center power demand to double by 2030, straining grids
The International Energy Agency forecasts global data center electricity consumption will surge from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh by 2030, driven by AI infrastructure. The US and China will account for 80% of the increase, creating infrastructure bottlenecks as data centers can be built faster than power grids.
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Aptos launches Agent Cloud for AI agents to rent GPUs with stablecoin payments
Aptos is building machine-to-machine commerce infrastructure for autonomous AI agents, including the x402 payment protocol for micropayments and Agent Cloud for GPU rental. The system processes transactions in under 50 milliseconds with fees below $0.0005, using USDC for over 99% of settlements.
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Visa Closes Meme Coin Rewards Loophole After Block Investigation
Visa is moving to block meme coin purchases from being coded as "digital media," ending a rewards arbitrage that let users earn credit card points on crypto buys. The shift follows a Block investigation and comes after banks lost their broader push for stablecoin regulation.
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Bridgewater's Jensen calls for AI compute giants to face bank-style regulation
Bridgewater Associates' co-CIO Greg Jensen called for regulatory oversight of AI compute giants modeled on systemically important financial institutions, warning that OpenAI and Anthropic could control 35–50% of global AI compute capacity within two years.
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Kraken joins X Cashtag program, enabling direct trading from social feed
Kraken integrated with X's US Cashtag partner program on September 16, allowing users to tap ticker symbols on the social platform to view prices and trade directly through Kraken's app or website. The integration formalizes crypto's historically close relationship between social discovery and financial transactions.
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Ethereum staking queue hits 13.6x entry-to-exit ratio
Ethereum's staking queue has reached an extreme imbalance, with 13.6 times more ETH waiting to enter staking than exit. The buildup reflects strong institutional appetite and may reshape the network's liquidity dynamics as over a third of ETH's supply locks into staking.
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XRP Ledger Transactions Spike 8.9% as Price Rallies to $1.43
XRP Ledger processed 2.34 million transactions in 24 hours on September 18, an 8.9% surge from the prior day, as XRP price rallied roughly 8% to $1.43 following momentum shift after the CLARITY Act setback faded.
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Westinghouse Electric targets $50B+ valuation in confidential IPO filing
Westinghouse Electric, whose reactors power over half the world's operating nuclear plants, filed confidentially with the SEC on July 31 for a US IPO targeting a valuation exceeding $50 billion—a significant jump from its $8 billion acquisition price in late 2023.
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Pentagon reports tenfold rise in cybersecurity vulnerabilities due to AI
US Army Lt. Gen. Paul T. Stanton disclosed that AI has driven a tenfold increase in exploitable zero-day vulnerabilities across Pentagon computer systems, highlighting how aging infrastructure and deferred maintenance compound national security risks.
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SEC Grants Five-Year Innovation Exemption for Tokenized Stock Trading
The SEC issued a temporary Innovation Exemption on September 17 allowing qualified venues to trade tokenized National Market System stocks on public blockchains through permissioned AMM pools, with strict safeguards requiring tokens to convey full shareholder rights and liquidity providers to be US entities.
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SEC approves temporary framework for tokenized stock trading onchain
The SEC approved a temporary exemption allowing a limited number of venues to trade tokenized shares of US stocks onchain, marking a cautious step toward blockchain-based securities markets while regulators study the technology's impact.
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House crypto tax bill omits mining and staking reward deferral
The House Ways and Means Committee will consider a 114-page crypto tax package on Wednesday that restructures treatment of fees, stablecoins, and loans but excludes provisions allowing miners and stakers to defer taxation of rewards until sale.
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Strive Reaches 25,000 Bitcoin After $36.6M Stock-Funded Purchase
Strive purchased 469 Bitcoin for $36.6 million between September 8 and 11, bringing its total holdings to 25,000 coins. The entire purchase was funded through SATA preferred stock, pushing the stock's notional value past $1 billion for the first time and raising Strive's amplification ratio to 53.5%.
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India Tokenizes $620B Corporate Bond Market With Digital Rupee
India's SEBI and RBI launched "Demat 2.0," a pilot program that issues corporate bonds as blockchain tokens and settles them with the wholesale digital rupee. Three companies have already raised approximately $107 million through the framework.
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ByteDance Secures $29.6B Syndicated Loan for AI Infrastructure
ByteDance closed a $29.6 billion unsecured syndicated loan arranged by nearly 30 banks, making it Asia's second-largest dollar-denominated loan of 2026. The deal underscores the company's strategic pivot toward overseas AI expansion and data center infrastructure.
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Canada seeks $1 trillion investment as US trade tensions escalate
Prime Minister Mark Carney is pitching 167 infrastructure and tech projects to global investors at a September summit, targeting $1 trillion in new capital over five years as US-Canada trade relations deteriorate.
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XRP Ledger Warns of Impersonation Scams Targeting XRPL Users
The XRP Ledger building team has warned the community about a surge in fraudulent schemes targeting XRPL users, with scammers increasingly impersonating XRPL Commons to solicit money and sensitive account information.
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India launches Demat 2.0 blockchain pilot for tokenized corporate bonds
India's Reserve Bank and Securities and Exchange Board launched Demat 2.0, a blockchain-based pilot for tokenized corporate bonds and faster digital settlement, with the first issuance a Rs 500 crore Larsen & Toubro bond backed by major Indian banks and financial institutions.
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XRP Ledger Payment Volume Surges 26% to 462.9M XRP
XRP Ledger payment activity climbed 26% over 24 hours to approximately 462.9 million XRP, representing over $620 million in nominal value, though active user count fell 22.4% and account growth remained modest.
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Monad raises $269M in public token sale from 86,000 participants
Monad's Layer 1 blockchain sold 7.5 billion MON tokens at $0.025 each through Coinbase's platform in November 2025, raising $269 million from nearly 86,000 participants across 80 countries and implying a $2.5 billion fully diluted valuation.
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Consensys Splits Into MetaMask and Institutional Blockchain Infrastructure
Consensys Software Inc. is splitting its consumer wallet business and institutional infrastructure operations into two separate entities, with the consumer arm rebranding as MetaMask and a newly formed Consensys taking over Ethereum protocols and enterprise blockchain services by year-end 2026.
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ERG: Military-backed intruders resume illegal cobalt extraction at Metalkol
Eurasian Resources Group says soldiers and armed cooperatives have resumed illegal mining at its Metalkol cobalt operation in Congo's Kolwezi region, threatening to slash the mine's operational life and jeopardizing billions in future revenue amid enforcement gaps in the DRC's mining sector.
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Strive Adds $109M Bitcoin; SATA Preferred Stock Nears $1B
Strive, the Vivek Ramaswamy-founded asset manager, purchased 1,375 BTC last week for $109 million, lifting its total holdings to 24,531 BTC ($1.9 billion). Seventy percent of the capital came from SATA preferred shares, which now total $999 million in notional value.