Top Magazine Stories of The Week
Federal court ends Custodia Bank’s legal bid for a master account
A US federal court has rejected Custodia Bank’s final attempt to challenge the Federal Reserve’s authority over granting master accounts — effectively ending the crypto-focused bank’s five-year-long battle for direct access to the central bank’s payment system.
The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said in a filing on Friday that it wouldn’t hear Custodia’s final appeal on that point in a 7-3 vote.
Custodia first applied for a master account in October 2020, which allows financial institutions to hold reserves directly at the Federal Reserve and access its payment rails, enabling them to settle transactions without relying on intermediary banks.
After the Fed rejected its master account application, Custodia turned to the courts, arguing the Monetary Control Act entitles state-chartered banks to access Fed services and therefore a master account.
Ethereum Foundation publishes mandate clarifying role and goals
The Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit organization that stewards the development of the Ethereum ecosystem, published its mandate on Friday, reaffirming its role and core pillars.
The foundation’s two stated goals are that Ethereum remains decentralized and that users have a “final say” over their onchain assets and data, while the protocol achieves mass scale, according to the mandate.
Censorship resistance, open source code, privacy, security and freedom-preserving technology are the core properties of Ethereum that will be upheld, the document said.
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson calls Bitcoin a ‘Ponzi scheme’
Boris Johnson, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, called Bitcoin a “Ponzi scheme” that has less value than Pokémon cards.
Johnson wrote an opinion article published in the Daily Mail on Friday that began with a story about a friend who had given 500 British pounds, or about $661, to a man who promised to “double his money” by investing it in BTC.
The friend continued to pay additional “fees” to the scheme’s promoter over the next three and a half years, but was never able to retrieve his funds. In total, 20,000 British pounds were sunk into the scheme (about $26,474), which Johnson said had led to financial hardship.
BlackRock says ‘exotic’ crypto ETFs not part of its strategy
BlackRock’s digital assets head, Robert Mitchnick, said the $14 trillion asset manager won’t get too creative with the types of crypto exchange-traded funds it offers, even as it launched a staking-focused Ether ETF on Thursday.
Speaking on CNBC’s Crypto World segment on Friday, Mitchnick acknowledged that some of the crypto ETF structures that other asset managers are experimenting with may appeal to certain investors, but said BlackRock will continue to take a more measured approach:
“Will we see some more exotic structures coming into the space? I think no question,” Mitchnick said. “Some of those will be interesting. Some of them will resonate with investors.”
However, “We will take a discerning approach in thinking about where else we would expand in this,” he said.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs extend inflow streak to five days for first time in 2026
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) logged their first five-day inflow streak of 2026, bringing in roughly $767.32 million this week.
The funds recorded $180.33 million in net inflows on Friday, extending the run of positive flows that began earlier in the week. The strongest day of the streak came on Tuesday, when spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $250.92 million, according to data from SoSoValue.
The last time the funds saw a comparable streak was in late November 2025, when spot Bitcoin ETFs logged five consecutive days of net inflows from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2, bringing in a combined $284.61 million.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $71,718, Ether (ETH) at $2,118 and XRP at $1.41. The total market cap is at $2.44 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are River (RIVER) at 53.01%, Bittensor (TAO) at 46.23% and DeXe (DEXE) at 44.48%. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Kite (KITE) at 26.09%, Midnight (NIGHT) at 9.63% and Decred(DCR) at 5.11%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“My worry is that large-scale coordinated political action with big money pools is a thing that can easily lead to unintended outcomes, cause backlashes, and solve problems in a way that is both authoritarian and fragile, even if it was not originally intended that way.”
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder
“By bringing together spot ether exposure and staking rewards in an ETP, ETHB provides…
cointelegraph-magazine.com