SKALE Network has partnered with the PGA Tour, game studio Solis Interactive and the NODE Foundation to bring PGA TOUR Rise, a free-to-play mobile title that blends golf with empire-building strategy, to iOS and Android devices.
The game is positioned as a departure from arcade-style golf titles, emphasizing course construction, resource management and head-to-head competition in a “real-time global environment,” with players collecting equipment and cosmetics that can be bought, sold or traded through an in-game marketplace. The full game is slated for release in early 2026 and is currently pushing pre-registration and an early “starter box” incentive for sign-ups.
This article “PGA TOUR Enters Web3 Gaming with SKALE to Target Mainstream Sports Fans” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/pga-tour-enters-web3-gaming/
Read Also: Gen Z and Millennials are 5x more likely than Boomers to trust crypto
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Image Credits: SKALE Network, PGA TOUR Rise, Shutterstock, Canva, Wiki Commons
Earlier this week, Coinbase announced the creation of an Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain, aiming to safeguard the crypto ecosystem against emerging quantum threats.
The board will bring together leading experts in quantum computing, cryptography, and blockchain to assess risks and provide guidance to the broader industry.
Quantum computers, if scaled successfully, could compromise the cryptography that underpins major blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Coinbase, in their announcement, stressed that preparing for these future challenges is crucial to maintaining the security of digital assets.
The advisory board includes notable figures such as quantum computing pioneer Scott Aaronson, Stanford cryptography expert Dan Boneh, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, and Coinbase’s own Head of Cryptography, Yehuda Lindell.
The group says they will publish position papers, recommend best practices for long-term security, and respond to significant advances in quantum computing.
This initiative is part of Coinbase’s larger post-quantum security strategy, which also includes updating Bitcoin address handling, enhancing internal key management, and advancing research on post-quantum signature schemes. The board’s first position paper is expected early next year, laying out a roadmap for quantum resilience in blockchain systems.
Coinbase said the move underscores the importance of proactive planning, ensuring the crypto industry remains prepared, not reactive, as quantum technology evolves.
Is bitcoin at risk from Quantum Computing?
Over the last several months, concerns over quantum computing’s potential impact on Bitcoin have begun to ripple through traditional finance, prompting some investors to radically rethink their exposure to the cryptocurrency.
Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood recently removed Bitcoin from his Greed & Fear model portfolio, citing the existential risk that large-scale quantum computers could undermine the cryptographic foundations securing digital assets.
While the threat is not imminent, Wood and other institutional voices — including BlackRock and UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti — warn that quantum advances could eventually allow attackers to derive private keys from public ones, putting millions of BTC at risk.
As a result, Wood replaced Bitcoin with gold and gold-mining equities, emphasizing that long-term store-of-value claims for digital assets may be less reliable in the face of accelerating technological change.
The debate over quantum computing in the Bitcoin ecosystem is intensifying. Coinbase research indicates that roughly 20% to 50% of Bitcoin’s supply, particularly coins in older wallet formats, could be vulnerable to so-called long-range quantum attacks.
Crypto developers and researchers are divided over the urgency of implementing quantum-resistant solutions, with some advocating proactive upgrades and others arguing the risk remains distant.
Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor believes that quantum computing will actually strengthen Bitcoin rather than threaten it. Network upgrades and coin migrations will boost security, while lost coins remain frozen, Saylor posted.
A record surge in activity on the Ethereum network is likely being driven by scam-related behavior rather than genuine user growth, according to the bank’s analysts.
ARK Invest’s latest analysis affirms it still sees Bitcoin reaching close to a $1 million price tag in 2030 on growing adoption.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest predicts digital assets could grow into a $28 trillion market by 2030, with growth primarily linked to increasing Bitcoin adoption and its potential price appreciation.
ARK estimated in its “Big Ideas 2026” report on Wednesday that the crypto market would expand at a 61% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to meet the $28 trillion target by 2030, adding that Bitcoin could account for 70% of that figure.
Source: Cointelegraph
Given that about 20.5 million Bitcoin (BTC) are expected to have been mined by 2030, such a scenario could see Bitcoin’s price in the $950,000 to $1 million ballpark.
“Bitcoin is maturing as the leader of a new institutional asset class,” ARK Invest said, pointing out that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and corporate Bitcoin holders increased their share of Bitcoin’s total supply from 8.7% to 12% in 2025.
Last February, Wood said Bitcoin could reach up to $1.5 million over the same timeframe.
Bitcoin’s change in price in 2025 and key institutional milestones. Source: ARK Invest
The asset manager said the growth could also come from increased adoption of decentralized finance, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), with top smart contract chains like Ethereum and Solana tipped to benefit most.
ARK predicted these smart contract platforms could grow at a 54% CAGR to $6 trillion by 2030, noting that they currently generate annualized revenue of about $192 billion with an average take rate of 0.75%.
Related: Bitcoin eyes $90K as Trump sees crypto bill signing ‘very soon’
Total capital secured across various blockchains. Source: ARK Invest
However, ARK said the cryptocurrencies behind these smart contract chains will likely derive more of their market capitalization from their store of value and reserve asset traits than from discounted cash flows.
Tokenized RWAs could hit $11 trillion
ARK also tipped that $11 trillion worth of RWAs will be tokenized by 2030, on expectations of more regulatory clarity and improved institutional-grade infrastructure.
Data from RWA.xyz states that $22.25 billion worth of RWAs are tokenized onchain, meaning the market would need to grow at a 245.8% CAGR to meet ARK’s target.
Magazine: Davinci Jeremie bought Bitcoin at $1… but $100K BTC doesn’t excite him
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Bitcoin is due for another difficulty adjustment this week.
It’s expected that the next mining difficulty adjustment will drop.
That means a weaker network — should investors be worried?
Mining Bitcoin is about to get easier — but is that a good thing?
For the fifth time in a row, difficulty on the largest and oldest crypto network will drop on Thursday, making it even easier for mining operations to mint new Bitcoin.
Mining difficulty automatically drops to encourage more mining machines to join the network and earn new Bitcoin as a reward.
Thus, a decrease means that less computing power is being directed toward a crypto network, and with less computing power comes less security.
It also becomes easier for miners who stick around to add blocks to the blockchain and earn rewards.
“In my opinion this is quite bullish for miners that are staying online,” Nick Hansen, CEO and co-founder of the Luxor mining pool, told DL News.
The expected drop of around 3.38% comes as it becomes harder to make ends meet in the cutthroat mining industry, with many miners shifting their focus to high-powered computing and artificial intelligence.
Top publicly traded miners in 2025 all signed deals to make the pivot, with Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining all inking multi-year HPC contracts with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft.
Miners switching off from minting coins means less computing power — understood as hashrate — directed at the industry.
“I would say that a good portion of this hashrate drop is miners taking a different path with the megawatts that they have,” said Hansen.
Is the pivot to AI a bad thing?
Some companies have stopped mining Bitcoin altogether, while others have rebranded to “compute” or “digital infrastructure” companies, switching between minting digital coins and providing compute for AI, depending on which is more profitable.
Still, the two “are not in a zero-sum competition for power,” Canaan’s Head of Capital Markets Leo Wang told DL News.
He added that the two industries can work in harmony, with miners having flexible energy requirements — Bitcoin miners can quickly power up or down depending on an energy grid’s needs — while HPC operations need constant, reliable power.
Bitcoin’s price slump last year hurt miners. Source: CoinGecko.
American miners shutting off or directing their power to other industries means that operations from other countries can step in.
American miners currently control the highest share of hashrate on the network, at roughly 38%, according to the Hashrate Index.
When China’s government clamped down on Bitcoin mining in 2021, when the country led the industry, miners simply shut off and set up shop in the US.
“Today, Nasdaq-listed companies are expanding their footprints far beyond the United States, utilizing global diversification to offset regional risks and capitalize on more competitive power and labor costs,” Canaan’s Head of Capital Markets Leo Wang told DL News.
What should investors think?
A lower hashrate means the crypto network is less secure and vulnerable to attack, but investors shouldn’t be worried, Hansen said.
“Bitcoin’s still very secure — there are tens of millions of mining machines securing the network to this day,” he said. “There’s really no 51% attack risk or anything like that.”
Wang added that if miners do power off, “new energy sources, including previously stranded energy,” are harnessed elsewhere.
Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.
The report looks at foreign currency stablecoin adoption, namely of USD-pegged assets, in 45 emerging market countries.
S&P Global Ratings says stablecoins, primarily those pegged to the U.S. dollar, could gain a much larger share in emerging market economies, with holdings across 45 countries potentially climbing to $730 billion, up from a current value of about $70 billion.
The report, published this week, says stablecoins’ role in the financial system is “growing in lockstep with their rapidly expanding issuance.”
Even so, analysts note that stablecoin adoption at the upper end of their estimates “would not be significant enough to have a material impact on banks’ role in intermediation or the effectiveness of monetary policy.”
Stablecoin adoption simulation. Source: S&P Global Ratings
The New York-headquartered ratings firm bases its projections on three main forces: pressure on local currencies, cross-border remittance demand and broader digital-asset use.
“Adoption will be driven by, in order of importance, wealth protection, remittances and international trade, and general enthusiasm for digital assets,” the report reads.
Key Markets for Stablecoin Adoption
As S&P Global argues, countries with high inflation show the biggest potential for stablecoin adoption. In its most aggressive scenario, the firm projects stablecoins could reach a meaningful share of the value of traditional bank deposits in select markets, namely those where stablecoins are being used to preserve wealth — in countries where logical currency purchasing power is eroding.
“We assume stablecoin adoption could reach 10-20% of bank deposits in the top 15 countries where wealth preservation (purchasing power) is the most important factor,” the report notes.
The projections are based on bank deposit data from late 2024, with Argentina and Turkey leading the list by average inflation rate in the past two years.
Stablecoin adoption simulation. Source: S&P Global Ratings
Earlier in January, blockchain analytics firm Artemis estimated that stablecoin-linked Visa card spending reached a $3.5 billion annualized run rate in late 2025, growing about 460% year-over-year.
A geographic breakdown of stablecoin usage showed India and Argentina as “true global outliers,” where USDC accounts for 47.4% and 46.6% of usage, respectively. By comparison, USDT dominates stablecoin activity across most other markets, including Turkey, China and Japan, according to the data.
Over roughly the past year, discussion has grown more pointed over whether the accelerating pace of quantum computing could eventually threaten the Bitcoin network. This week, prominent crypto advocate and Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter contended that bitcoin’s “underperformance,” which he links to quantum-related anxieties, is the only storyline that truly deserves attention this […]
Open Banking Limited (OBL) is celebrating the eighth anniversary of open banking in the UK, marking the transition of the initiative from a regulatory requirement to a core component of the nation’s financial infrastructure.
Since its launch in January 2018, following the implementation of PSD2 and the CMA’s Retail Banking Market Investigation Order, open banking has grown to underpin a significant portion of the UK’s financial activity. According to new figures released by OBL, there are now more than 16.5 million live user connections across the UK.
A surge in adoption
The data highlights a robust uptake in account-to-account payments, with nearly 33 million open banking payments recorded in November 2025 alone. This growth reflects a shift in consumer and business behaviour towards faster, more secure, and cost-effective payment methods.
Beyond transaction volumes, the ecosystem has become a significant economic driver. OBL reports that open banking-enabled solutions have contributed over £4billion to the UK economy and created nearly 5,000 skilled digital jobs since the framework’s inception.
From regulation to infrastructure
The anniversary comes as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently identified open banking as a key driver for national growth in a letter to the Prime Minister, specifically highlighting its potential to unlock new use cases in SME lending.
Henk Van Hulle, CEO of Open Banking Limited, commented on the milestone: “In just eight years, Open Banking Limited has helped build an ecosystem that people and businesses across the UK now use as part of everyday financial life, sometimes without even realising. The UK has created something genuinely world-leading; the priority now is to put the right long-term structures in place so that advantage is protected and can continue to grow to support as many businesses and consumers as possible to better engage with, and make the most of, their finances”.
Looking ahead, OBL is setting its sights on the transition to Open Finance and Smart Data. With the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 providing the legislative framework, the standards developed for open banking are expected to serve as the foundation for secure data sharing across other sectors.
OBL suggests that real-world cross-sector value is already emerging, citing examples such as mortgages that recognise current account history and energy switching services based on real payment behaviour. The body argues that reusing proven open banking approaches will accelerate delivery and ensure interoperability across industries including pensions, insurance, and telecoms.
The organisation also noted its role in advancing Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs), which are expanding payment flexibility for consumers and businesses, further cementing open banking’s role in the UK payments ecosystem.
Judge Jed Rakoff’s essay “It’s a Racket!” reads less like analysis than confession.
He opens with a dictionary definition of cryptocurrency and proceeds to explain why systems that operate outside government control are dangerous. This framing reveals the core assumption beneath the essay: money is legitimate only when sanctioned, supervised, and reversible at the discretion of the state.
Bitcoin exists because that assumption failed.
The Genesis Block of the Bitcoin blockchain contains a timestamp referencing the 2008 bank bailouts. It marks the moment the modern financial system exposed itself as a closed hierarchy enforced by regulation, complexity, and rescue. Losses were socialized. Accountability vanished. Courts enforced the aftermath.
Bitcoin was created to exit that system.
Rakoff repeatedly treats “crypto” as a monolith, collapsing decentralized networks, centralized frauds, meme tokens, and algorithmic stablecoins into a single object of derision. This is not analysis; it is rhetorical convenience. The Terraform Labs fraud he describes depended on secrecy, centralization, and false representations — the very features Bitcoin was designed to eliminate.
Rakoff describes Bitcoin as gambling “untethered to economic reality.” But his definition of economic reality is faith-based: central bank discretion, elastic supply, and institutional trust. Bitcoin rejects those premises. It imposes a fixed supply. It makes monetary debasement impossible. It exposes failure instead of masking it.
That is why central planners hate it.
I watched the regulated financial system collapse in 2008 from inside a New York law firm. The catastrophe occurred not in unregulated back alleys but in the most supervised institutions on earth. When it ended, almost no one responsible was punished. Courts enforced the settlements. Central banks created money to paper over the wreckage.
Bitcoin refuses that bargain.
Rakoff leans heavily on blockchain surveillance claims asserting vast criminality. These claims rest on inference, not proof. The surveillance industry is unregulated, unvalidated, and commercially motivated. Yet courts increasingly treat its output as scientific fact. This is junk science with a badge.
The Silk Road prosecutions revealed the real anxiety. Ross Ulbricht proved Bitcoin was money. Goods and services could be exchanged without permission from banks or governments. His punishment was exemplary, not proportional. It was meant to deter autonomy.
Courts have always played this role. They enforced slavery. They upheld internment. They validated sterilization. They ratified segregation. Judicial neutrality is a myth told by the winners of each era.
Rakoff laments that regulation of cryptocurrency is being scaled back. What he calls deregulation, others call recognition: that Bitcoin cannot be regulated into submission without destroying the liberties it restores.
Tens of millions of Americans now hold Bitcoin. Institutions that once mocked it now custody it. A political constituency has formed around monetary sovereignty. That constituency is done asking for permission.
Rakoff calls Bitcoin a racket because it escapes the racket he knows: discretionary money, regulatory capture, and judicial enforcement of economic orthodoxy.
Bitcoin does not ask courts for legitimacy. It derives legitimacy from use.
The Genesis Block was not a marketing flourish. It was a declaration. The old system failed. A new one appeared. Courts can sneer, but code does not care.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
