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Nansen to Set Up Operations in Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City

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Nansen to Set Up Operations in Bhutan's Gelephu Mindfulness City

On-chain analytics platform Nansen is establishing an operational presence in Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC). The move marks another step in the small Himalayan kingdom’s push to build a sovereign digital asset ecosystem.

More broadly, the deal underscores Bhutan’s accelerating ambition to build a sovereign-backed digital asset jurisdiction from the ground up. For Nansen, it is a bet that the next wave of growth will come from exactly that kind of ecosystem.

Not a Relocation

Under the collaboration announced Tuesday, Nansen plans to incorporate a local entity in GMC and hire a Bhutan-based team. In addition, the company will develop on-the-ground analytics capabilities to support the special administrative region’s expanding digital asset infrastructure.

The move is not a relocation. Nansen CEO and co-founder Alex Svanevik told BeInCrypto the company is keeping its Singapore headquarters intact.

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“We’re not leaving Singapore — this is an additional entity,” Svanevik said. “We chose GMC because of the vision behind it. Most crypto-friendly jurisdictions are optimizing for what exists today. Bhutan is building something fundamentally different — a values-driven economic zone with digital assets baked into the foundation, not bolted on as an afterthought.”

Why Bhutan

Established as a purpose-built special administrative region in southern Bhutan, GMC is designed around sustainable economic development. The region has attracted attention for its integration of digital assets at the sovereign level. That includes holding crypto in its strategic reserves and developing a regulatory framework purpose-built for the sector.

For Svanevik, that sovereign-level commitment is the key differentiator.

“GMC has crypto in its strategic reserves, a progressive regulatory framework purpose-built for digital assets, and genuine sovereign conviction behind it. That’s rare. We want to be pioneers in that ecosystem,” he said.

Expanding Beyond Analytics

The partnership reflects a broader shift in Nansen’s own strategy. The company in January rolled out AI-powered trade execution on Base and Solana and launched its AI agent on the web, moving beyond its roots as a wallet-labeling and analytics tool toward a full-stack on-chain trading platform.

“Nansen is becoming an AI-first platform for on-chain investing — analytics, trading execution, and AI agents working together,” Svanevik said. “In GMC’s ecosystem, that positions us well as the infrastructure matures around custody, tokenization, and institutional liquidity.”

Nansen currently tracks over 500 million labeled wallet addresses across major blockchains.

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Building Blocks, Not Hype

Still, the Nansen collaboration is the latest in GMC’s series of digital asset partnerships, spanning custody infrastructure, tokenization, institutional liquidity, and legal frameworks.

Jigdrel Singay, a board director at GMC, framed the approach as deliberately incremental.

“At GMC, we are focused on building the supporting layers — data, governance, and human capability — that enable innovation to develop responsibly,” Singay said.

Svanevik described Bhutan’s model as forward-looking rather than reactive.

“Bhutan is building something genuinely new — a jurisdiction designed for the future of finance, not retrofitted from the past,” he said.

Meanwhile, specific details on team size, office setup, and hiring timelines are still being finalized. Svanevik said the operational buildout will take shape over the coming months.

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Arizona advances bill to hold Bitcoin and XRP in state reserve

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Arizona advances bill to hold Bitcoin and XRP in state reserve

Lawmakers in Arizona have taken a significant step toward formalizing state-level engagement with digital assets by advancing legislation that would create a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund, allowing the state to hold, invest and potentially lend seized cryptocurrencies.

Summary

  • Arizona lawmakers advanced Senate Bill 1649, which would create a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund allowing the state to hold, invest and potentially lend seized cryptocurrencies.
  • The fund would be administered by the State Treasurer and capitalized using confiscated or forfeited crypto assets rather than taxpayer funds.
  • Eligible assets include Bitcoin, XRP and DigiByte, marking a notable step toward formal state-level recognition of digital assets.

Arizona senate backs crypto reserve fund

The measure, Senate Bill 1649 (SB1649), cleared the Senate Finance Committee in a 4–2 vote and was subsequently approved by the Senate Rules Committee, moving it closer to a full Senate vote.

Under the proposed law, the Arizona State Treasurer would administer the reserve, using assets that have been confiscated, forfeited or surrendered through criminal or civil enforcement actions. Instead of relying on taxpayer dollars to acquire crypto on the open market, the fund would be capitalized with these seized holdings.

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Eligible assets named in the bill include Bitcoin (BTC), XRP (XRP) and DigiByte, alongside other digital assets that meet specified “fair value” criteria such as stablecoins and non-fungible tokens.

The inclusion of XRP in the reserve’s eligibility framework marks a notable development for the token, as it would represent one of the first instances of a U.S. government entity formally recognizing it as a potential reserve asset.

While the legislation does not require the state to immediately purchase or hold these assets, it establishes a legal structure for doing so in the future.

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The bill’s progress highlights a broader trend in U.S. crypto policy, with several states exploring ways to integrate digital assets into public finance strategies.

However, similar initiatives in Arizona have faced pushback in the past from Governor Katie Hobbs, who has expressed caution about exposing state funds to cryptocurrency volatility. SB1649 must still pass both chambers of the legislature and survive executive review before becoming law.

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Ethereum Foundation starts 70,000 ETH staking process to fund operations, bolster network

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Ethereum Foundation starts 70,000 ETH staking process to fund operations, bolster network

The Ethereum Foundation has started staking part of its treasury holdings, putting around 70,000 ETH to work as part of its plan to support ongoing operations in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The staking commenced with a 2,016 ETH deposit, and uses Dirk and Vouch, open-source validator tools developed by infrastructure firm Attestant, the Foundation said.

Dirk functions as a distributed signer that allows for coordination across multiple jurisdictions and reduces single points of failure, while Vouch handles validator duties.

The decision follows the public release of the Foundation’s treasury policy last year to manage crypto and fiat holdings in a way that balances long-term sustainability with Ethereum-aligned values such as decentralization, open-source access and user privacy.

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Rather than letting ETH sit idle, the Foundation now plans to earn staking rewards and redirect those back into funding protocol research, ecosystem development, and community grants.

Based on the CoinDesk Composite Ether Staking Rate (CESR), the current staking yield of the Ethereum validator population is around 2.808%. Data from Arkham Intelligence shows the Ethereum Foundation currently has 172,650 ETH it could deploy, along with an additional 10,000 wrapped ether (WETH).

The staking setup uses a combination of hosted infrastructure and self-managed hardware, including minority clients, spread across several countries, the Foundation said.

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Hashgraph Group Launches Hedera Tool for EU Digital Product Passports

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Hashgraph Group Launches Hedera Tool for EU Digital Product Passports

The Hashgraph Group, a Swiss technology company building on the Hedera network, launched TrackTrace, a platform aimed at helping prepare for upcoming European Union product-compliance requirements tied to digital product passports.

TrackTrace is designed to improve supply-chain visibility by tracking goods and recording product data, including emissions-related information, in a way that can be used for compliance reporting and authenticity checks, the company said in a Tuesday announcement.

The platform builds verifiable audit trails for product-specific data, sustainability credentials, durability and reparability, while incorporating agentic artificial intelligence (AI) to automate workflows for compliance reporting.

The blockchain-based solution comes in response to the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR), which went into effect on July 18, 2024. The ESPR creates a framework for product-specific rules that can include a Digital Product Passport (DPP) to standardize how key product information is recorded and shared across multiple supply chains.

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A major early milestone is the EU’s battery passport requirement under the EU Battery Regulation, which is set to apply from Feb. 18, 2027, for certain categories including electric-vehicle and industrial batteries above 2 kilowatt-hours.

DPP requirements will extend to textiles, apparel, iron, steel and other priority items starting July 2027.

Related: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027

EU climate targets drive data demands

The EU’s Green Deal aims to transform the bloc into a more resource-efficient economy and cut emissions by at least 50% by 2030. It also aims to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050 through the European Climate Act.

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“The European Green Deal strives to establish the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and needs infrastructure it can trust to transform Europe into a modern, efficient, and sustainable economy,” wrote Stefan Deiss, co-founder and CEO at The Hashgraph Group.

“With TrackTrace built on Hedera, we deliver that critical trust data infrastructure layer that enables companies to comply with DPP regulation, while strengthening global supply chain integrity and fostering the transition to a sustainable, transparent, and circular economy.”

Businesses targeting EU markets will have to rely on solutions such as TrackTrace to ensure compliance with the ESPR.

The Hashgraph Group said it is working with PwC on digital product passport implementations for enterprise clients and that TrackTrace can support traceability across a product’s lifecycle. Cointelegraph reached out to The Hashgraph Group for more details on the collaboration.

Related: Bitcoin treasuries log rare selling streak as BTC trades near $66K

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TrackTrace builds on identity tools

TrackTrace has integrated The Hashgraph Group’s existing decentralized identity solution, IDTrust, to provide verifiable credentials in a decentralized manner.

This enables the linkage between physical events and digital records in a tamper-proof environment, where digital business processes and immutable data audit trails are anchored on the Hedera network.

Hedera claims to be the world’s most energy-efficient distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is governed by a council of leading global organisations including Dell, Deutsche Telecom, EDF, FedEx, Google, Hitachi, IBM, Mondelēz and Standard Bank, among over 30 Hedera Council members.

Competing supply chain traceability solutions include the blockchain-based IBM Sterling Transparent Supply, TraceX, Circular for batteries and plastics, and TrusTrace for fashion and textile traceability.

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