Aoyon Ashraf

Aoyon Ashraf is CoinDesk's Global Head of News and is responsible for all of the editorial content and strategies. He spent almost a decade at Bloomberg covering equities, commodities and tech. Prior to that, he spent several years on the sellside, financing small-cap companies. Aoyon graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in mining engineering. He holds ETH, BTC, and SOL that are above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000. He also holds LINK, ATOM and some other altcoins that are below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Aoyon Ashraf

Latest from Aoyon Ashraf


Finance

Crypto exchange Kraken targeted in extortion attempt but says there was no breach and no client funds at risk

The firm said a criminal group is attempting to extort it over limited insider-related data access incidents affecting about 2,000 accounts. Kraken says it will not pay and is working with law enforcement.

Kraken on phone (PiggyBank/ Unsplash)

Markets

Bhutan has sold 70% of its bitcoin in 18 months. It may have stopped BTC mining too.

The kingdom's holdings have dropped from 13,000 BTC to 3,954 since October 2024, with $215.7 million moved out this year alone. Its last mining inflow over $100,000 was recorded more than a year ago.

Bhutan (Sittichok Glomvinya/Pixabay)

Markets

Trump-backed WLFI token drops 12% to record lows after team defends multi-million lending position

World Liberty Financial responded to CoinDesk's reporting by saying it would "simply supply more collateral" if markets moved against it, a statement that did not reassure holders.

World Liberty Forum at Mar-a-Lago. (WLFI)

Finance

Potential buyers are circling Winklevoss-backed crypto exchange Gemini

Interested parties are considering buying select parts of the business, particularly its shuttered European operations, to secure regulatory licenses, rather than pursuing a full takeover.

Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss at White House (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)

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Finance

Standard Chartered is looking to take over crypto custody provider Zodia: Bloomberg

While the British financial institution refused to comment on potential takeover plans, sources close to the matter revealed that plans are in place and could be announced as soon as this month.

Standard Chartered Bank Building, Hong Kong

Tech

‘Don’t waste time with crypto': Here is what Solana Foundation's cryptic message really means

The foundation says it is becoming a leading network for “agentic payments.”

Solana ad in San Francisco, CA (Solana Foundation)

Finance

DeFi yields are crashing so hard that they can't compete with a traditional savings account

DeFi yields have collapsed below TradFi rates, forcing investors to face higher smart contract risks for lower returns as regulation and exploits mount.

DeFi yields struggle to keep up with TradFi (James Coleman/Unsplash)

Tech

How North Korea's 6-month long secret espionage program has crypto community rethinking security

For years, the DeFi industry has treated security as a technical problem: something that could be solved with better code. But the Drift incident suggests something far more complex: that the real vulnerabilities may lie outside the codebase altogether.

(Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock)

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Markets

Polymarket reveals a 'full exchange upgrade' to take control of its own trading and truth

The $20 billion prediction market is overhauling its infrastructure and launching a native stablecoin to streamline trading as it prepares for a major U.S. expansion.

Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Haddad Media)

Tech

A simple explainer on what quantum computing actually is, and why it is terrifying for bitcoin

Most simplifies the complex process of quantum computing as "it can be 0 and 1 at the same time." That is not an explanation for why it threatens Bitcoin. This is.

(Misha Friedman/Getty Images)