Nikhilesh De

Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He won a Gerald Loeb award in the beat reporting category as part of CoinDesk's blockbuster FTX coverage in 2023, and was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers' Journalist of the Year in 2020.

Nikhilesh De

Latest from Nikhilesh De


Policy

Wall Street giants push back on exemptions for tokenized securities in SEC meeting

Executives and industry groups pressed regulators to apply traditional securities rules to blockchain-based trading, pushing back on exemptions even as DeFi enters the debate.

SEC headquarters (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)

Tech

The Protocol: Ethereum to roll out new AI agents standard soon

Plus: Solana’s latest phase, OP token buybacks and EF post-quantum security team.

AI agent tokens has garnered significant mindshare among crypto traders, growing into a multibillion dollar asset class. (Getty Images/Unsplash)

Policy

Criminal use of crypto spikes after years of steady decline, TRM report says

While the increasingly professional bad guys' crypto rocketed to $158 billion in 2025, it's still a decreasing share of overall digital assets activity.

Consensus 2025: Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy, TRM Labs

Finance

Circle faces first major 'threat' for institutional dollars from Tether’s USAT

While Circle's USDC has operated without a "credible domestic competitor," Tether's USAT has the potential to shake up the landscape, analysts said.

Circle logo on a building

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Policy

Crypto faces fork in the road as Clarity Act support wavers, Bitwise says

The asset manager argued that without federal legislation, the industry has three years to become indispensable before political winds potentially shift.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan

News Analysis

Rick Rieder, a rising favorite for Trump's Fed chair pick, sees bitcoin as new gold

As Trump mulls the next leader of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the BlackRock executive has caught a surge of online wagers, and he'd bring a pro-crypto view.

Rick Rieder of BlackRock (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Yahoo)

Finance

Privacy-focused Miden, Korea Digital Asset agree to build crypto infrastructure for institutional adoption

The partnership focuses on privacy, compliance and standards for regulated digital-asset adoption in South Korea.

South Korea (Photo by Daniel Bernard on Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)

Tech

Deus X CEO Tim Grant: We aren't replacing finance; we're integrating it

The Deus X CEO discussed his journey into digital assets, the company's infrastructure-led growth strategy, and why his Consensus Hong Kong panel promises "real talk only."

Deus X CEO Tim Grant (Deus X)

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Finance

U.S. Marshals investigate claims that son of government contractor stole $40 million of seized crypto

The threat actor was captured on video flaunting millions in crypto allegedly siphoned from U.S. government seizure addresses, later traced back by ZachXBT.

(Photo by Kevin Horvat on Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)

Policy

Wall Street's Jefferies sees market structure bill as tokenization inflection point

Infrastructure gains and regulatory momentum are accelerating tokenization. A market structure bill is the missing link for the next phase of digital asset adoption.

U.S. Capitol, the seat of Congress in Washington (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)