KuCoin launches Celestia Stage at Tomorrowland Belgium 2026.
Partnership blends crypto, music and immersive storytelling experiences.
More artists and community activations will be announced soon.

Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has unveiled the Celestia Stage at Tomorrowland Belgium 2026, marking a new phase in its multi-year strategic partnership with the global electronic music festival.

The announcement reinforces KuCoin’s role as Tomorrowland’s Official Exclusive Crypto Exchange and Crypto Payments Partner.

According to the company, the collaboration extends beyond traditional sponsorship and aims to create an immersive experience centered on trust, innovation, and community.

The Celestia Stage is designed to reflect the shared vision of both organizations, bringing together music, technology and storytelling while highlighting themes of transformation, curiosity and human connection.

Celestia Stage draws inspiration from Tomorrowland’s mythology

According to KuCoin, the new stage is inspired by the legend of Celestia in the Tomorrowland universe and takes the form of a celestial butterfly, symbolizing transformation, growth and new beginnings.

The stage combines organic landscapes, crystalline structures and digital design elements to create an environment where nature and technology coexist.

Throughout the festival, KuCoin Guardians will also appear across the venue as part of an interactive storytelling experience intended to extend the Celestia theme beyond the stage itself.

KuCoin said the project reflects its broader ambition of positioning itself as a trusted guide in digital finance, making innovation more accessible to users while emphasizing trust as a core principle.

Commenting on the partnership, BC Wong, CEO of KuCoin, said:

“Tomorrowland has always inspired people to discover something beyond themselves through music, creativity and imagination. That philosophy closely reflects our own vision. At KuCoin, we believe trust is what empowers people to embrace the future with confidence. Celestia is much more than a stage. It is a shared symbol of transformation, curiosity and connection. Together with Tomorrowland, we hope to create an experience where innovation feels approachable, communities feel connected, and every visitor is inspired to explore what comes next.”

Partnership brings together music and digital finance

Tomorrowland has built a global audience over nearly two decades through electronic music and large-scale live experiences.

KuCoin said it shares a similar community-focused approach, noting that its platform now serves more than 40 million users across over 200 countries and regions.

The exchange said the partnership aims to demonstrate how culture, technology and digital finance can come together through shared experiences rather than conventional brand sponsorship.

KuCoin added that it sees trust as the foundation for wider participation in the digital economy and believes the Celestia Stage reflects that vision by combining entertainment with interactive engagement.

More festival details to be announced

Throughout Tomorrowland Belgium 2026, the Celestia Stage will host an electronic music program alongside immersive artistic installations and storytelling experiences based on the Celestia narrative.

Festival attendees will also encounter KuCoin Guardians across the festival grounds as part of the activation.

KuCoin said additional details, including the full artist lineup, immersive stage experiences and community activations, will be announced in the coming weeks as the partnership continues to develop throughout the festival.

Kresus launches crypto inheritance service for self-custody users.
Users can pass crypto to heirs without sharing private keys.
New tool aims to simplify digital asset legacy planning.

Kresus has launched a new inheritance planning service designed to help cryptocurrency investors securely transfer their digital assets to beneficiaries after death without sharing private keys or relying on complex recovery procedures.

The company said the new subscription-based service, called Kresus Inheritance, is built directly into its self-custody wallet and aims to address one of the biggest challenges facing crypto investors: ensuring digital assets can be passed on across generations while maintaining user control during their lifetime.

The launch comes as cryptocurrency ownership continues to grow, while concerns persist over the long-term management and inheritance of self-custodied digital assets.

Kresus introduces inheritance planning for crypto holders

Kresus said self-custody gives users full control over their cryptocurrency holdings, but the supporting infrastructure available in traditional wealth management has not kept pace.

According to the company, beneficiary designations, estate transfer mechanisms, recovery pathways and long-term planning tools remain largely absent from the self-custody ecosystem.

Existing alternatives often require users to expose sensitive information, such as writing down seed phrases or sharing private keys, creating potential security risks.

“Too much digital wealth has already been lost because there was no plan for what happens next,” said Trevor Traina, Founder and CEO of Kresus.

“Self-custody shouldn’t mean your assets disappear if something happens to you. With Kresus Inheritance, we’re giving users a secure and affordable way to protect their legacy and ensure the wealth they’ve built can be passed on to the next generation.”

The service is priced at $99.99 per year and is integrated into the Kresus wallet.

How the inheritance service works

Kresus Inheritance allows users to designate a beneficiary who can gain access to the wallet owner’s cryptocurrency holdings only after a predefined inactivity period has elapsed.

The company said private keys are never shared during the transfer process, allowing users to retain full control of their assets while they remain active.

Kresus also emphasized that it does not take custody of customer assets.

The wallet owner remains in control unless the defined inactivity period expires and the succession process is triggered.

According to the company, a user holding $50,000 in Bitcoin can designate a spouse or adult child as a beneficiary without granting them access to the assets before a verified succession event occurs.

Crypto ownership grows as inheritance concerns persist

Kresus cited a Harris Poll study estimating that 55 million US adults, or 21% of the population, now own cryptocurrency.

At the same time, the company pointed to research from the Cremation Institute, which found that 89% of crypto investors worry about what happens to their digital assets after death.

The company said Kresus Inheritance is intended to address that concern by providing users with a built-in succession planning tool before it becomes necessary.

The launch also expands Kresus’ broader wallet platform, which the company said already serves millions of self-custody wallet users through the Kresus Wallet, mini-app experiences and enterprise solutions.

Kresus said the new offering reflects its strategy of expanding beyond digital asset storage into a broader wealth management platform, with inheritance planning becoming part of the self-custody experience for cryptocurrency investors.

REAL launches private execution layer for RWA institutions.
ZKsync tech enables confidential on-chain settlement via Ethereum.
Platform aims to bridge the privacy gap in institutional blockchain use.

REAL has introduced a confidential execution layer designed to support regulated financial institutions operating in tokenized real-world asset (RWA) markets, addressing one of the key barriers to broader institutional adoption of blockchain-based finance.

The new layer, built using ZKsync’s Prividium technology, operates alongside REAL’s public Layer 1 network.

According to the company, it enables institutions to keep positions, allocations, and counterparty data private while still benefiting from public settlement and liquidity through Ethereum.

The company said the confidential layer is intended to provide privacy controls without compromising compliance, liquidity, or distribution, allowing institutions to participate in onchain markets while maintaining the confidentiality required for regulated financial operations.

Confidential infrastructure targets institutional needs

REAL said the new execution layer is designed to bridge the gap between public blockchain infrastructure and the operational requirements of regulated financial institutions.

While public blockchains offer benefits such as global access, instant settlement, and composability, the company noted that institutions have been reluctant to conduct business on networks where sensitive information—including positions, treasury strategies, and counterparty relationships—is publicly visible.

Because the confidential layer settles transactions on Ethereum, institutions can access the broader onchain capital market while maintaining operational privacy instead of operating within isolated private networks.

Platform supports regulated financial workflows

According to REAL, the confidential execution layer is built to support a range of institutional workflows where privacy is considered essential.

These include wealth and asset management activities that require protected portfolio information, balance sheet operations, tokenized deposit models, and selective disclosure capabilities for auditors, compliance teams, and regulators when necessary.

The company said institutions using the platform will continue to benefit from blockchain-native settlement, distribution, and liquidity while avoiding the need to expose sensitive business activity on fully public networks.

The launch also expands REAL’s broader strategy of supporting the entire lifecycle of tokenized real-world assets within a compliance-focused infrastructure.

The company said its platform covers issuance, risk assessment, insurance, trading, and institutional execution under a single architecture designed for regulated financial markets.

REAL expands institutional blockchain offering

REAL describes itself as an institutional blockchain infrastructure provider focused on compliant real-world asset tokenization and risk-managed capital flows.

Built on Cosmos Tendermint, the platform supports multiple stages of onchain financial products, including issuance, compliance, liquidity, insurance, risk assessment, and trading.

The company said its dual-validator architecture combines technical validators with business validators such as tokenizers, risk scorers, insurers, and credit agencies to provide an infrastructure aimed at institutional trust.

The confidential execution layer uses ZKsync’s Prividium privacy technology, which is designed to enable regulated entities to operate onchain with configurable confidentiality, selective disclosure, and settlement on Ethereum.

GoMining mines first Stratum V2 Bitcoin block with DMND pool.
Stratum V2 enables miners to choose block transactions directly.
New system shifts power from pools to miners in Bitcoin mining.

GoMining has mined the first known Bitcoin block produced using the Stratum V2 protocol with the DMND Bitcoin mining pool.

The process demonstrates miner-controlled block creation in a live mining environment.

The block was created using Stratum V2’s Job Declaration functionality through the DMND pool.

The approach allowed GoMining to construct and declare its own block template rather than relying on a mining pool to select transactions.

Pool-controlled transaction selection has been the dominant model in Bitcoin mining for years.

The milestone marks an early real-world implementation of Stratum V2’s miner-driven architecture and highlights a shift toward giving miners greater authority over how blocks are constructed while remaining part of pooled mining operations.

Miner-controlled block construction demonstrated in production

The block included transactions linked to GoMining’s GoBTC Pay, an open-source Bitcoin instant payments protocol developed by the company.

By incorporating GoBTC Pay transactions into the block template it created, GoMining demonstrated a practical use case for Stratum V2’s Job Declaration feature and showed how miners can directly influence the contents of blocks they help produce.

“This block demonstrates that miners can now participate in pooled mining while retaining control over block construction,” said Mark Zalan, CEO at GoMining. “For years, mining pools have largely determined which transactions are included in Bitcoin blocks. By creating our own block template and including GoBTC Pay transactions, we’re demonstrating one of the practical capabilities that Stratum V2 makes possible.”

The successful mining of the block provides an example of how miners may be able to gain more autonomy while continuing to benefit from the shared resources and economics of mining pools.

Stratum V2 aims to expand miner participation and flexibility

Stratum V2 is an open-source mining protocol developed with contributions from multiple participants across the Bitcoin industry.

In addition to improvements in security and efficiency, the protocol enables miners to create their own block templates while still participating in pooled mining.

The latest development demonstrates that miner-controlled block construction can operate in a production environment, potentially supporting broader adoption of Stratum V2 across the mining ecosystem.

The deployment also illustrates how the protocol may allow miners to integrate their own applications and services directly into the block creation process.

“A miner just mined the first Stratum V2 block to power their own product end to end. GoMining declared the template and included their GoBTC Pay payments with no pool in the way. We built DMND for exactly this.” said Alejandro De La Torre, CEO & Co-founder at DMND.

The milestone comes as the bitcoin mining industry continues to explore technologies that improve efficiency, security and decentralization.

By demonstrating that miners can build and declare their own block templates while remaining part of a mining pool, GoMining and DMND have provided an early example of how Stratum V2’s architecture could reshape block creation and transaction selection within the broader Bitcoin mining ecosystem.

World expands AgentKit for verified AI agents using World ID.
AI agents can act online on behalf of verified human users.
System aims to prevent bots while enabling trusted automation.

World is expanding access to AgentKit, its framework designed to create human-verified AI agents and allow individuals to connect those agents to a verified World ID.

The system enables AI agents to act on behalf of users across the internet while maintaining identity verification through World’s network.

The development comes as AI agents become increasingly capable of performing online tasks such as shopping, making reservations, navigating websites, and interacting with digital services.

This growing capability has created a challenge for businesses in distinguishing between agents representing real users and automated bot networks.

AgentKit is positioned as a response to that issue by linking AI agents directly to World ID, allowing websites and applications to verify when an agent is acting on behalf of a unique human.

The framework is designed to support task delegation while maintaining safeguards tied to identity verification and user control.

How AgentKit links AI agents to verified identity

To begin using AgentKit, individuals require a verified World ID, access to World App, and a supported AI agent, including tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Hermes, or OpenClaw.

Users connect their proof of human through World’s ToolRouter interface, generate an API key, and link their AI agent within minutes.

Once connected, the agent can interact with services that support AgentKit and perform tasks on behalf of the user.

The system is designed to allow individuals to delegate digital tasks to AI agents while preserving controls tied to verified identity.

According to the framework description, this structure is intended to ensure that AI activity remains attributable to a real human user rather than anonymous or automated systems.

Demo shows real-world use case

The technology was recently demonstrated through a limited-edition release of 500 “Human in the Loop” hats available exclusively to verified World ID holders.

During the demonstration, AI agents discovered the drop, verified eligibility, navigated the storefront, and completed purchases on behalf of users while maintaining one-item-per-person limits tied to verified identities.

All 500 hats were claimed by verified individuals across multiple countries, including the United States, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The demonstration was used to show how AI agents can execute real-world transactions while preserving identity-based constraints designed to limit abuse.

The example highlighted how businesses could allow AI agents to complete tasks on behalf of users while still preventing exploitation by bot networks.

Building a trust layer for the agent economy

As more services integrate AgentKit, World aims to create what it describes as a trust layer for an emerging agent economy.

The goal is to enable AI agents to transact and interact online while remaining accountable to the humans they represent.

The system is intended to support a growing range of use cases where AI agents operate autonomously but within a framework of verified identity and user authorization.

This includes both commercial applications and broader digital service interactions.

The World project was originally conceived by Sam Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania, and aims to provide proof of human, finance and connection for every human in the age of AI.

The company says AgentKit is part of its broader effort to support identity verification in an environment where AI agents are becoming increasingly capable of acting independently across online platforms.

ZIGChain adds Ondo tokenized stocks and ETFs to its ecosystem.
Partnership expands onchain access to US financial markets.
Rollout begins in phases across selected ZIGChain applications.

ZIGChain announced on Monday that it is integrating with Ondo Finance to bring tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to users across its blockchain ecosystem, expanding access to on-chain versions of traditional financial assets.

The partnership combines ZIGChain’s infrastructure for regulated investment products with Ondo Finance’s tokenized securities platform, extending their shared goal of making publicly traded US assets more accessible through blockchain technology.

According to the companies, the integration strengthens ZIGChain’s broader real-world asset (RWA) ecosystem, which already includes Valdora Finance’s Liquid RWA Vaults and Beehive’s tokenized small and medium-sized enterprise private credit pipeline.

Partnership expands tokenized asset ecosystem

ZIGChain said the integration aligns with its strategy of bringing established financial products onchain rather than creating entirely new investment instruments.

Ondo Finance has developed infrastructure that enables publicly traded US stocks and ETFs to be represented as programmable blockchain-based assets.

Through the partnership, these tokenized products will become available across the ZIGChain ecosystem, with a particular focus on expanding access for users in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and beyond.

The companies said the collaboration is designed to provide onchain exposure to institutional-grade financial products while reducing traditional barriers such as intermediaries and minimum investment requirements.

“The next phase of onchain finance is not about replicating access that institutions already have. It is about taking those instruments and making them genuinely accessible to a broader universe of participants, through transparent, scalable onchain infrastructure, without the minimums and intermediaries that have always stood in the way,” said Abdul Rafay Gadit, Co-Founder, ZIGChain.

“Ondo has done the hard work of bringing these products onchain. ZIGChain is the infrastructure through which that reaches a new generation of users. For us, this is deeply aligned with our mission: to make high-quality financial opportunities more open, more programmable, and more globally accessible.”

Ondo aims to broaden distribution

Ondo Finance said expanding access to tokenized securities across new blockchain ecosystems is a core part of its strategy.

The company, which focuses on tokenizing real-world assets, has built infrastructure intended to bridge traditional financial markets with decentralized networks.

Through Ondo Global Markets, investors outside the United States can gain economic exposure to US stocks and ETFs using blockchain-based tokens backed by the corresponding underlying assets.

“Bringing tokenized US stocks and ETFs to new ecosystems and user bases is core to what the Ondo Global Markets platform enables. ZIGChain’s infrastructure gives investors across the GCC onchain exposure to the world’s most in-demand securities, with the execution quality and transparency that institutional markets demand. This is exactly the kind of distribution that expands the reach of tokenized finance where it matters most,” said Oya Celiktemur, EMEA Director, Ondo Finance.

Rollout to begin in phases

According to the announcement, access to Ondo-tokenized products through ZIGChain will be introduced gradually, beginning with selected ecosystem applications and partners before expanding more broadly over time.

The companies noted that the integration does not represent a token launch and does not guarantee investment returns or yield.

Underlying assets are issued by Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited, while ZIGChain does not custody the underlying real-world assets.

The partnership comes as blockchain companies continue to focus on tokenizing traditional financial instruments, seeking to combine regulated market exposure with the accessibility and programmability offered by decentralized infrastructure.

OpenAI is aiming for a late 2026 debut of its first hardware device, said policy chief Christopher Lehane at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos.

Lehane sees AI in devices as a near-future innovation that brings AI into people’s daily tools and gadgets.

“I think maybe towards the latter part of the year, you’ll see AI in devices. It’s well known that we’re working with Jony Ive, the maker of the iPhone, on a device, and there’s a lot more that will be coming on that,” he said, when asked about major developments in AI that the world should be prepared for.

Lehane also predicted that 2026 would be a year in which AI accelerates scientific research, leading to discoveries that impact everyday life. This builds on last year’s advances in agentic AI, which allows even non-coders to create programs, opening the door for everyday users to harness AI in ways that were previously limited to specialists.

Lehane has kept timelines and specifics of the product under wraps.

In a separate interview with Axios’ Ina Fried, he said that devices are among OpenAI’s biggest priorities for 2026 and that updates would come “much later in the year.”

Multiple reports suggest the company is developing small, screen-less devices, possibly wearables, designed around conversational interaction.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously described the product as more “peaceful” than a smartphone and simple to use.

Key Takeaways

The social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, experienced a major outage, affecting tens of thousands of users.
The disruption occurred on Friday morning and peaked at more than 56,000 reports by 10:12 a.m. ET, according to DownDetector.com.

Share this article

Elon Musk’s social platform X returned to service after widespread disruption on Friday morning.

Data from DownDetector.com, which tracks real-time user complaints, shows the outage peaked at more than 56,000 reports around 10:12 a.m. ET. Users reported being unable to load timelines, post updates, or access the core features of the platform.

The majority of complaints were tied to X’s mobile app, which made up 57% of reports, while 33% of users said they had trouble accessing the website. Only 10% cited server connectivity issues.

The disruption appeared to last less than an hour before service was restored.

Musk and X’s engineering team have yet to comment on the temporary outage. At the time of the outage, X’s developer platform status page still listed all systems as operational.

X has seen periodic service disruptions. In March 2025, a major outage led to more than 40,000 user reports of login and service problems, with Musk suggesting the platform may have been targeted by a nation-state or a group with comparable technical expertise.

Key Takeaways

BNY Mellon launches tokenized deposit services on its Digital Assets platform, mirroring client deposit balances for real-time transactions.
The initial focus is on collateral and margin workflows using a private blockchain while maintaining traditional record-keeping for regulatory purposes.

Share this article

BNY has initiated the tokenization of deposit balances to support near real-time, on-chain settlement between institutional participants, the company announced Friday.

The capability is enabled through tokenized bank deposits. When a client holds cash at BNY, the bank creates a digital version of that deposit on its private blockchain. These “on-chain book entries” mirror the client’s actual balance, ensuring the real deposit stays safely in BNY’s regulated system.

With this structure, clients can move that value across blockchain rails in near real time to meet margin requirements or transfer collateral between institutions.

The initial rollout focuses on collateral and margin workflows and is built on a private, permissioned blockchain integrated with BNY’s existing systems.

Over time, tokenized deposits are expected to support programmable payments, improve liquidity efficiency, and serve as a foundational component of the always-on market infrastructure, BNY Chief Product and Innovation Officer Carolyn Weinberg said in a statement.

“Tokenized deposits provide us with the opportunity to extend our trusted bank deposits onto digital rails — enabling clients to operate with greater speed across collateral, margin, and payments, within a framework built for scale, resilience, and regulatory alignment,” Weinberg stated.

Several industry leaders have participated in the initial launch of BNY’s tokenized deposit service, including Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Anchorage Digital, Citadel Securities, DRW Holdings, Circle, Ripple Prime, Baillie Gifford, WisdomTree, and Zero Hash, to name a few.

Commenting on the launch, Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley said tokenized deposits will move institutional finance closer to a programmable future by allowing money to move at the speed firms require within a framework they already trust.

Theo Golden, tokenization lead and investment manager at Baillie Gifford, said the tokenization of cash is a critical enabler of broader asset tokenization and a turning point for market infrastructure.

He added that the technology has crossed a credibility threshold and that BNY’s role as a regulated institution in bringing tokenized money into the core of the financial system demonstrates how interoperability and efficiency can be achieved at institutional scale.

Key Takeaways

X is developing Smart Cashtags for real-time asset pricing and tracking.
The feature allows users to specify assets or smart contracts when posting tickers.

Share this article

Elon Musk’s X plans to introduce Smart Cashtags, a new feature aimed at improving how financial assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies are referenced on the platform, Nikita Bier, X’s Head of Product, said Sunday.

The feature allows users to specify the exact asset or smart contract when tagging a ticker, reducing ambiguity across crypto, equities, and other financial instruments. Tapping on a Smart Cashtag will show real-time price data alongside posts referencing the same asset.

X is the best source for financial news — and hundreds of billions of dollars are deployed based on things people read here.

We are building Smart Cashtags that allow you to specify the exact asset (or smart contract) when posting a ticker. From Timeline, users will be able to… pic.twitter.com/nFtuA2ISqJ

— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) January 11, 2026

The latest development reflects X’s growing importance as a real-time hub for financial information, with platform activity influencing hundreds of billions of dollars.

X will collect user feedback while testing Smart Cashtags ahead of a wider public rollout expected next month.