Crypto custody specialist Fireblocks denies it's in talks to be acquired by Visa

Fireblocks told Cointelegraph that reports of a potential $2.5 billion acquisition by Visa are “not true at present time,” while Visa declined to comment on the reported talks. Crypto custody and infrastructure provider Fireblocks is disputing a report that payments giant Visa is in late-stage talks to acquire the company for about $2.5 billion. “We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time,” a Fireblocks spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Thursday. Axios reported Thursday, citing multiple sources, that the payment giant was in advanced discussions to acquire Fireblocks for approximately $2.5 billion. The reported price would represent a steep discount from Fireblocks’ last publicly disclosed valuation of more than $8 billion, announced by the company following a $550 million Series E funding round in January 2022. Data provider Traxcn lists the $8 billion valuation as recently as Dec. 11, 2025.

The meeting is the first such gathering since 2005, when premiers and then-prime minister Paul Martin met with Indigenous leaders in Kelowna, B.C.

Oct 24, 2026, 12:00 p.m. EDT3 min readNYSE trading floor (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)SummarySince 2025, preferred stocks funded purchases of 135,979 BTC through Oct. 5, Fidelity said. Bitwise expects ETFs to remain the larger demand source, with preferreds attracting yield investors. Dividend obligations and buybacks could constrain further bitcoin purchases. Bitcoin BTC$84,459.46 treasury companies like Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST), whose purchases help maintain demand for the largest cryptocurrency, have a tough balancing act, according to Fidelity Digital Assets and analysts who spoke to CoinDesk. On the one hand, they need cash to fund their purchases. On the other, they need to maintain investor appetite for new sales of the perpetual preferred stock that is their favored fundraising vehicle. As the number of shares in circulation grows, so do the dividend payments. The securities, which sit between debt and common equity in the capital structure with regular payouts and no voting rights, have financed purchases of some 136,000 bitcoin in the 20 months since their introduction, Fidelity research analyst Zack Wainwright wrote in a Tuesday report.

Greentank, started by the grandsons of Shoppers Drug Mart founder Murray Koffler, have developed a device they say reduces the dangers of vaping to nearly zero

Oct 24, 2026, 11:21 a.m. EDT2 min readJack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block (CoinDesk)SummaryBlock unveiled Dessa, a voice AI trained only on human speech that talks without text and runs locally on a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip. Reactions split between amazement at how human it sounds and fears it could fuel scams and deception, with CZ eyeing uses in children’s education. Block hasn’t disclosed model size, benchmarks or a release date; the research preview is going first to a small group of AI safety researchers. Jack Dorsey's payments company Block XYZ$76.45·Market Closed has unveiled a voice AI model that sounds remarkably human in company demonstrations, prompting reactions ranging from amazement at its conversational abilities to warnings that such technology could make phone scams harder to detect. Called Dessa, the model was trained entirely on human speech rather than text and can listen while speaking, allowing it to handle interruptions, laughter and changes in tone during a conversation, according to the Block’s announcement. “Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence,” Dorsey wrote on X.

SummaryThe U. S. is quickly evacuating personnel across the Middle East on threat of Iranian attacks, the WSJ reported. Crypto prices are in broad decline on Saturday, with bitcoin slipping to its weakest level in more than one month. The U. S. is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases throughout the Middle East as intelligence suggests Iran is prepping attacks against Americans, the WSJ reported Saturday morning. “Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U. S. personnel,” wrote Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, in a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U. S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”These evacuations appear to go well beyond reports from earlier this week that the U. S. was ordering some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia to vacate. President Trump, meanwhile, has threatened a re-escalation in the war against Iran after the midterms in early November. “We may do another little ‘Epic Fury,’” Trump said at a rally in Florida on Friday. Crypto prices are sinking to multi-week lows, with bitcoin now down by 2