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Kraken Debuts Bitcoin Staking With BABY Token Rewards

by admin June 20, 2025

In brief

Bitcoin holders will be able to earn rewards on Kraken’s exchange, the San Francisco, California-based firm said.
Investors will be able to do this via Babylon’s staking protocol.
Rewards will be paid out in Babylon’s native BABY token.

Kraken users will be able to stake their Bitcoin, the U.S. crypto exchange giant announced in a Thursday blog post.

The San Francisco, California-based company said that customers can lock their BTC up on the platform and earn rewards as BABY token thanks to the Bitcoin protocol, Babylon.

“A substantial amount of Bitcoin currently sits idle on our exchange, representing a significant opportunity cost for clients and a missed opportunity for the broader ecosystem,” Kraken Global Head of Consumer Mark Greenberg said in the post. “With this launch, clients can now earn a return on their BTC while also enabling emerging PoS blockchains to benefit from the economic weight of Bitcoin in order to validate transactions and bolster the security of their networks.”

The Babylon BTC staking feature will only be available in the U.S. (excluding California, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin), the U.K., Australia and the United Arab Emirates, Kraken said.

Last year, Decrypt reported that crypto startup Babylon was raising cash to allow Bitcoin investors to stake their assets. BABY is the project’s native token.

Staking is the process of pledging proof-of-stake coins or tokens to a network to help it function in exchange for rewards that could accrue in value.

Those who hold PoS assets—such as Ethereum or Solana—pledge it to the network by sending it to a specific blockchain address. Stakers may then receive rewards for as long as they keep their assets locked up.

Bitcoin isn’t a PoS coin—the network uses a proof of work consensus to process transactions on the blockchain. But Babylon’s technology will allow Kraken customers to use their BTC as collateral to secure proof-of-stake networks.

Kraken has been riding tailwinds in recent months after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dropped enforcement actions against it and two other crypto firms, ConsenSys, and Cumberland DRW LLC.

In April, Kraken started offering stocks and exchange-traded fund trading in certain states and the District of Columbia, adding traditional financial products to its core trading features.

Bitcoin was recently trading at about $104,300, roughly flat as the U.S. celebrated the Juneteenth holiday.

UPDATE (June 19, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ET): Adds detail to headline.

Edited by James Rubin

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June 20, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Avalanche Launches Free Gaming ‘Battle Pass’ With AVAX and NFT Rewards

by admin June 17, 2025

In brief

Ava Labs, Playfull, and Magic Eden have launched the free Avalanche Battle Pass NFT.
NFT holders can earn NFT and AVAX token rewards by playing participating games.
Eligible games include Off the Grid, Pixelmon: Warden’s Ascent, and Spellborne.

Crypto gaming on Avalanche is gaining steam thanks to high-profile launches like Off the Grid and MapleStory N. Now, the blockchain’s gaming ecosystem has its own NFT pass to connect games and reward players for diving into them.

Launched on Monday, the free Avalanche Battle Pass is a free-to-mint NFT available via the Magic Eden marketplace, created in collaboration with Ava Labs and Playfull.

Once the pass is minted, users can register it at the Playfull website and then make progress by playing partnered games.

As they fill out more spaces on the rewards path, they’ll earn rewards like in-game NFTs and even AVAX tokens.

The “battle pass” format was popularized by Fortnite and other games, letting players earn special items or in-game currency for playing a game and completing objectives, all the while.

Solana’s gaming ecosystem launched a Solana Game Pass earlier this year, as well, but now Avalanche has its own for crypto gamers.

“One ecosystem, one Battle Pass, one user experience,” Ava Labs Gaming Lead, Parker Heath, told Decrypt. “We’ve now got everything from AAA shooters (Off the Grid) to iconic IPs (MapleStory Universe) running on their own Avalanche Layer-1s. That’s awesome for scale, but it fragments discovery and can leave each community feeling siloed.”

“The Battle Pass is our on-chain watering hole—a single progression layer where players earn rewards no matter which game they drop into,” he added.

The Avalanche Battle Pass is available to mint for free for a month, and supports more than a dozen games, including Off the Grid, Spellborne, Forgotten Playland, Pixelmon: Warden’s Ascent, DeFi Kingdoms, and The Arena.

Broader blockchain gaming vibes have been down lately amid a spate of shuttered games and studios, not to mention declining token prices.

However, Heath pointed to some brighter stats—including Off the Grid’s 300,000+ daily users amid its in-game transition to the GUNZ mainnet, plus MapleStory N attracting over 770,000 users since last month’s launch.

“These titles highlight the increasing appetite for blockchain-enhanced gaming experiences and demonstrate Avalanche’s scalability and readiness to support complex, high-volume games,” Heath said.

The Avalanche Battle Pass is intended to reward those players, as well as incentivize them to explore games that may not have commanded as much attention yet.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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June 17, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Coinbase to launch Bitcoin rewards card powered by American Express

by admin June 13, 2025

Coinbase is set to launch the Coinbase One Card this fall, offering up to 4% back in Bitcoin on every purchase.

Developed in partnership with American Express, the Coinbase One Card is designed to reward users in Bitcoin (BTC), starting at 2% and increasing based on the amount of assets held on the platform. The card will available exclusively to Coinbase One members in the United States (excl. U.S. Territories).

In addition to earning Bitcoin on everyday spending, Coinbase One members will benefit from features such as fiat spending, integrated crypto access, and a mobile app that supports both Android and iOS.

Coinbase is also rolling out a new Basic tier of its membership program at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year, giving users access to the card, zero trading fees on the first $500/month in trades, up to 4.5% APY on USD Coin (USDC) holdings, and $10/month in sponsored smart wallet gas on Base.

The move adds to a growing trend in the crypto industry, where crypto exchanges are developing branded payment cards that allow users to spend fiat.

Earlier this year, Kraken announced that it will launch Mastercard-powered physical and digital debit cards for users in the U.K. and Europe, enabling crypto payments at over 150 million merchants through its Kraken Pay platform.

OKX exchange has also recently partnered with Mastercard to launch the OKX Card, a debit card enabling users to spend stablecoins and other crypto via the Mastercard network.

These new launches further broaden the range of crypto cards already available from major exchanges. Crypto.com provides the widely used Crypto.com Visa Card accessible across multiple regions including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Singapore, and Latin America. Bybit offers a rewards crypto card to select users, featuring up to 10% cashback on everyday purchases. MEXC also offers a prepaid Mastercard that enables users in select European countries to spend their digital assets worldwide.

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June 13, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Coinbase Launches Bitcoin Rewards Card to Drive Subscriber Growth

by admin June 13, 2025

On Thursday, Coinbase unveiled its first-ever branded credit card that rewards its holders in Bitcoin—a perk that could draw more customers to the crypto exchange’s subscription service, Coinbase One.

The Coinbase One Card will offer up to 4% Bitcoin back on cardholders’ purchases. Launching this fall in partnership with American Express, the credit card will be available exclusively to U.S.-based Coinbase One customers.

The subscription service touts zero trading fees and more robust staking rewards, among other benefits.

“Our customers are graduating from just creating [accounts] to now using Coinbase as a primary financial account,” Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s vice president of product, told Decrypt.

When asked if Coinbase One would offer rewards denominated in other cryptos such as Ethereum or Solana, Branzburg replied, “We might.”

“We’ve talked about every different flavor of this card that we could do, including different tokens,” Branzburg said, adding that the credit card will “evolve over time.”

He added: “We learn from the market… and we’ll integrate with that [to offer] more tokens, different types of rewards, different types of benefits, different designs for the card.”

The credit card’s debut comes as Coinbase continues to push for diversification of its revenue streams.

When Coinbase One launched in 2023, transaction fees accounted for the majority of the trading platform’s revenue. Recently, Coinbase’s subscription services have grown to account for a larger share of the market.

Coinbase notched $698.1 million in subscription and services revenue in the first financial quarter of 2025, up 9% from the previous quarter. Overall, Coinbase’s total revenue for Q1 was $2.03 billion, representing a 24% year-over-year increase but a 10% decline from the prior quarter.

Coinbase One’s subscriber base has also grown to over 1 million users in the past two years.

According to Branzburg, the U.S.’ recent overhaul of its crypto regulations and the “pace of innovation” across the industry informed Coinbase’s decision to unveil its Coinbase One Card now.

“We’ve been thinking about it for a long time and decided [that] with everything that’s happening…now is the right time.”

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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June 13, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Coinbase to Launch BTC Rewards Card With Amex, Eyes U.S. Futures Expansion

by admin June 13, 2025

Crypto exchange Coinbase is planning to launch a credit card that offers bitcoin

cashback, the company said on Thursday.

The Coinbase One Card, issued in partnership with American Express, includes perks such as earning 4% in BTC after purchases, boosted rewards on USDC stablecoin holdings and higher staking rewards and transaction credits on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network developed by the exchange, according to the card’s website. The card’s rollout is expected this fall.

The move comes as more crypto platforms and exchanges are rolling out payment cards to enable users to spend their blockchain-based token stash on everyday purchases. For example, self-custodial wallet MetaMask introduced its debit card last year, while Mastercard unveiled plans in April to launch debit cards with crypto exchanges OKX and Kraken.

It’s also not the first crypto endeavour for Amex, either: the company issued a credit card offering crypto rewards with Abra in 2022.

Coinbase’s announcement coincided with the company’s State of Crypto Summit event in New York, where the exchange also hinted at expanding perpetual futures trading to the U.S., according to media reports.

Perps trading has been limited to non-U.S. users at Coinbase Advance. However, the exchange said earlier this year in a blog post that it was working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) towards making “perpetual-style futures contracts” accessible to U.S. users.

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June 13, 2025 0 comments

Killjoy featured in VALORANT patch notes 10.11 key image.

Esports

New Finisher Cam, agent fixes, Premier rewards, and more

by admin June 11, 2025

VALORANT patch 10.11 just landed right in the middle of the game’s five-year anniversary, bringing visual upgrades headlined by the sleek Finisher Cam, quality-of-life improvements, and some cool new rewards for dedicated Premier mode players.

Riot Games has made sure to keep this patch light in terms of gameplay impact, so it won’t shake up the meta or interfere with the action at Masters Toronto 2025.

Here’s everything you need to know about VALORANT patch 10.11.

VALORANT patch notes 10.11 (June 10)

Finisher Cam

Riot has introduced the new Finisher Cam in VALORANT patch 10.11, and it’s pretty slick. Basically, whenever you get taken out by a skinline weapon that has a finisher, this feature kicks in, similar to how the Spike Cam works. It lets you spin around your downed agent and see the final moments from different angles.

Patch 10.11

New Death Cam triggers during skinline finishers 🎥

Same function as Spike Cam, better performance! pic.twitter.com/iB29r8KPEV

— VALORANT // UK, IE & Nordics (@VALORANTukn) June 10, 2025

But the real deal is that the Finisher Cam is designed to clean up a lot of the chaos that used to happen during finishers in the post-round. It helps reduce visual clutter, prevents sudden flashes or effects that might trigger photosensitivity issues, and fixes those janky camera bugs where your POV would glitch out mid-finisher. On top of that, it should also smooth out some of the performance hiccups players were running into when those finishers play out. It might be a small change, but it really tightens up the gameplay experience.

Agent bug fixes

VALORANT patch 10.11 brings a handful of much-needed visual and quality-of-life improvements to several agents, like Tejo, Reyna, Waylay, and Breach. These make their abilities feel much smoother to use or become clearer for spectators and observers. Here’s the list of agent adjustments:

Tejo’s ability maps are now clearer. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Fixed an issue where the visual indicator for Nightfall wouldn’t disappear for spectators if Fade dies with the ability equips.
Fixed an issue where area names on Guided Salvo ability maps were too large and overlapping due to decreased cast range. Removed area names from Tejo’s Guided Salvo and Armageddon ability maps for consistency.
Fixed an issue where Reyna’s targeting visual for Leer wouldn’t properly display for spectators, allies, and observer perspectives.
Fixed an issue where Waylay’s targeting indicator for Convergent Paths wouldn’t display properly for spectators, allies, and observer perspectives.
Fixed an issue where Clove’s Pick-Me-Up audio wouldn’t play properly for all players.
Fixed an issue where Chamber’s Trademark didn’t have team coloring applied on the minimap for observers.
Fixed an issue where Breach’s Fault Line area of effect VFX was not matching collision volume depending on charge duration.

Premier rewards (PC only)

Reserved for the Premier hustlers. Image via Riot Games

Playoff winners in V25A3 can unlock a dynamic player card effect at the start of V25A4, alongside the existing title and gun buddy available a day after the playoffs.

To earn all the rewards, you’ll need to meet a couple of simple requirements: you have to be on the winning roster at the time of the playoff victory and have played at least two weekly matches or one playoff match with that team during the stage. So, if you want get your rewards, don’t leave your team until the playoffs are finished.

Riot also shared more insight into what’s on the horizon for Premier, giving players a clearer look at upcoming features and improvements.

Other changes

Career page menu music has been updated to a remix of Ego by Qing Madi (the same track from VALORANT’s anniversary music video that’s been receiving love from the community).
Adjusted the appearance of in-game voice indicators to improve clarity.
Competitive updates (console only): Added the Performance view as part of the End of Game and Match Details screens where you can review how you matched up against each opponent.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Diablo 4’s Anniversary Celebration event won’t be one to remember for its rewards, but at least you won’t have to pay real money for it

by admin June 4, 2025

The time has come to celebrate the second anniversary of Diablo 4. Yes, the game has been out for two years now, even if it does not feel like it’s been that long. And with every anniversary, of course, comes a new event from Blizzard designed to commemorate it.

The second Anniversary Celebration is now live in-game. And, honestly, does not feel like that much of a big deal. At all.

The Diablo 4 Second Anniversary event is available from now until Tuesday, 17th June, giving you about two weeks to take part in the muted festivities. And you’d only really want to do that, of course, if you care about the rewards you could get from grinding through the activities; rewards which this event does actually have, even if they’re nothing to really write home about.

Now that Diablo 4 has adopted Call of Duty’s battle pass system, there’s a new Event Reliquary (which is essentially a mini-battle pass) that runs parallel to the Season 8 Reliquary. While the new system does offer more utility, and is practically designed for situations like this, it has not been well received by players because of how little of the premium currency it offers compared to the old style.

But we’re not here to talk about that, we’re here to reveal the rewards… all six of them. As part of the event Reliquary, you’ll be able to exchange your Gold for these rewards:

Sunflame Lantern Mount Trophy.
Burning Dawn Banner Mount Trophy.
Sunraiser Sword Cosmetic.
Sunflame Sword Two-Handed Sword Cosmetic.
Burning Barbs Polearm Cosmetic.
Burning Dawn Bow Cosmetic.

Look at my horse, my horse is amazing. | Image credit: Blizzard

Once you’ve collected all six of the skins above, you’ll automatically earn The Burning Dawn Mount Armor. Having Gold set as the currency of this particular event is certainly interesting, mainly because it doesn’t involve some other paid currency, or any sort of in-game grinding. You will, of course, need to have enough Gold to be able to afford everything, but farming Gold isn’t difficult, and gives you the freedom to do whatever you want in the game (rather than force you into certain time-gated events).

The recent Berserk collaboration event certainly reminded everyone why limited-time events exist to begin with, with its meagre in-game rewards, and a skin pack that would’ve run you £110 if you wanted the actually good cosmetics.

Given that, many players will no doubt be happy to learn that there are zero skins being sold for real money as part of the Anniversary event. As a bonus, a Mother’s Blessing event will also be running right alongside the two-year party, giving everyone 35 percent extra XP, and 50 percent extra Gold.

This improved version of Mother’s Blessing also means each time you turn in your Grim Favors at the Tree of Whispers, you’ll receive an extra cache, which includes items you’d find in a Collection of Chaos cache. If you’ve been away from the game for a while, or don’t know what that means, trust me when I say: it’s a pretty good boon to have.

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June 4, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

OpenSea Relaunches Trading Platform With Rewards Ahead of SEA Token Debut

by admin June 1, 2025

In brief

OpenSea’s OS2 trading platform is now fully live, enabling NFT and fungible token trading across 19 blockchains.
The platform’s new XP-based rewards program, Voyages, encourages on-chain activity ahead of the future SEA token launch.
The launch follows regulatory relief, with the SEC recently closing its probe into OpenSea.

OpenSea has ended the beta phase of its reengineered marketplace, dubbed OS2, bringing full token trading across 19 blockchains, a new on-chain rewards system called “Voyages,” and structural changes that hint at its upcoming token launch.

“OS2 is the foundation for the next generation of OpenSea,” CEO Devin Finzer told Decrypt. “We’ve rebuilt the platform from the ground up to become the best destination for everything on-chain, from NFTs to tokens, across chains and communities.”

The rollout replaces OpenSea’s original NFT marketplace experience, which had seen declining use amid broader NFT market stagnation and growing competition from prominent rivals like Blur and Magic Eden.

OpenSea has evolved.

Beta complete. Full token universe unlocked.

New rewards program live. Welcome to the new OpenSea — the best place to discover, own, and trade anything onchain. pic.twitter.com/ccycD0bgCA

— OpenSea (@opensea) May 29, 2025

OS2 combines cross-chain NFT and fungible token trading with real-time analytics, wallet tools, and liquidity aggregation from decentralized exchanges, per a statement shared with Decrypt. The 19 chains include prominent layer-1 networks like Ethereum, Avalanche, and Flow, along with an array of scaling networks like Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Soneium.

A major component of the launch is Voyages, a gamified system that rewards users with XP for completing actions like minting NFTs, swapping tokens, and holding assets.

While XP is already live, users widely expect it to play a role in the launch of the forthcoming SEA token, which will be issued by the OpenSea Foundation.

In an accompanying blog post, OpenSea CMO Adam Hollander noted that the Foundation “won’t release SEA until core utility is in place,” calling it “the TGE”— short for token generation event.

Early beta testers have already received digital artifacts known as “Treasures” to anchor their eligibility for future rewards. The team has also confirmed that historical platform activity and ongoing XP accumulation will influence eventual token allocations.

OS2 first launched in beta in February after a year-long rebuild that included team downsizing and a reimagining of OpenSea’s core model.

Initial XP rewards triggered backlash after incentivizing mass NFT listings, prompting the team to restrict rewards to more deliberate actions such as buying and holding.

The platform’s community infrastructure has also been overhauled. A streamlined Discord server now offers role-based channels for DeFi, gaming, digital art, and other on-chain interests.

The update arrives just months after OpenSea said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had closed its investigation into whether the platform violated federal securities laws. The SEC has ultimately ended nearly all of its lawsuits and investigations against crypto companies following the return of President Donald Trump to the White House.

“Classifying OpenSea and similar NFT marketplaces as securities exchanges or brokers would be regulatory overreach,” the company wrote in a letter to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, in the wake of the regulator’s decision to end its probe.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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June 1, 2025 0 comments