Speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami 2026, Burt said the country plans to do another airdrop of USDC stablecoin this year and to onboard merchants that can accept digital payments, CoinDesk reported Wednesday.

Bermuda announced its “on-chain economy” initiative in January and aims to build a payment infrastructure that will provide an alternative for small businesses that face high transaction fees on traditional card networks and banking rails as well as limited access to financial apps, according to the report.

Burt said Wednesday that even before the launch of this initiative, Bermuda was building a digital asset framework through its Digital Asset Business Act, and the Bermuda Monetary Authority was working with firms on issues related to digital assets.

“You cannot regulate out failure,” Burt said, per the report. “But you can put in place the items which allow responsible innovation to happen.”

In a Tuesday (May 5) press release issued by the government of Bermuda, announcing that Burt would participate in Consensus 2026, the government said Bermuda aims to be the leading jurisdiction for regulated digital assets and financial innovation.

Burt said in the release that Bermuda’s participation in the event “underscores our commitment to building the world’s first fully on-chain national economy.”

“Since announcing this initiative at Davos in January, we have been working closely with leading digital asset companies, including Circle and Coinbase, to help us execute this vision,” Burt said.

When Burt, Circle and Coinbase announced the initiative in a January press release, they said it would build on an existing partnership in which the government of Bermuda and the two companies helped Bermudian businesses begin accepting digital payments and financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins and tokenized finance.

They said that under the initiative launched in January, the government and the two digital finance companies will help government agencies begin piloting stablecoin-based payments, financial institutions integrate tokenization tools, and residents increase their digital literacy.

Bermuda announced in 2019 that it had begun accepting U.S. dollar-backed digital currencies for the payment of government taxes, fees and services.

Key Takeaways:

• Babylon and Gomining announced a Trustless Bitcoin Vault (TBV) integration for up to 1,000 BTC.
• BTC holders earn Gomining mining rewards via Babylon’s vaults without bridging, wrapping, or custody loss.
• Babylon holds 56,853 BTC in staking vaults and raised $15M from a16z crypto in January 2026.

How the Integration Works

Bitcoin owners will be able to lock their BTC into Babylon’s Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV), a mechanism that holds bitcoin on its native blockchain under programmatic rules, without moving it off the Bitcoin network. From there, users can programmatically borrow and self-commit those locked funds to Gomining’s mining products, earning rewards from Gomining’s industrial-scale operations in the form of native bitcoin yield.

The key distinction, per the official announcement, is that users never wrap their BTC into a synthetic token, never bridge it to another chain, and never hand custody to a third party. The bitcoin remains onchain on the network throughout, with vault rules enforced at the protocol level rather than by a centralized operator.

David Tse, co-founder of Babylon, said the integration “extends the reach and adoption of TBV within a Bitcoin-aligned ecosystem,” while Mark Zalan, CEO of Gomining, added that the partnership “extends infrastructure to Bitcoin holders who refuse to compromise on self-custody.”

The initial rollout targets up to 1,000 BTC, approximately $82 million at current prices, committed through the aforementioned vault system.

Why It Matters for Bitcoin DeFi

The persistent challenge in Bitcoin decentralized finance ( DeFi) has been generating yield on BTC without compromising the properties that make it valuable, i.e. self-custody, onchain transparency, and censorship resistance. Wrapped bitcoin solutions, such as WBTC, require trusting a centralized custodian, and cross-chain bridges have repeatedly proven to be attack vectors, accounting for billions in losses across the broader crypto industry.

Babylon has been building around this constraint since its founding. Its staking protocol already holds 56,853 BTC in staking vaults, approximately $5.64 billion at current prices, making it the largest Bitcoin staking protocol by total value locked. The firm raised $15 million from a16z crypto in January 2026 to develop Bitcoin collateral infrastructure.

Written by: Dong Jing

Source: Wall Street News

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, announced layoffs of approximately 14% of its workforce, citing AI as a core driving factor in reshaping its operating model. This is the latest example of a new wave of AI-driven layoffs in Silicon Valley.

Coinbase disclosed in a regulatory filing on Tuesday (May 5) that the layoffs will affect approximately 700 employees, representing more than one-seventh of the company’s nearly 5,000-person team. The company expects to pay approximately $50 million to $60 million in severance pay, severance benefits, and related expenses.

CEO Brian Armstrong posted on social media, “AI is profoundly changing how businesses operate, and we are reshaping Coinbase to lead this new era.” He also cited the continued volatility of the cryptocurrency market as another important reason, stating that the company is “currently in a bear market and needs to adjust its cost structure immediately.”

This news of layoffs places Coinbase among the tech companies that have recently cut staff citing AI as a reason, further demonstrating the profound impact of AI on the employment structure of the tech industry—especially its direct impact on software engineers.

AI-driven restructuring: smaller teams, more “AI agents”

In his statement, Brian Armstrong outlined Coinbase’s future organizational structure: the company will form smaller teams whose members will be responsible for managing AI agents (digital bots) capable of handling programming tasks, while human managers will also need to “work hand-in-hand with the team.”

Armstrong characterized the current moment as a “turning point,” stating that the biggest risk is inaction. He said the company is “making proactive and conscious adjustments to rebuild Coinbase into a lean, fast, AI-native enterprise,” and that the future company structure will reduce management layers below the CEO and COO to improve decision-making efficiency.

This statement aligns closely with the logic of several tech giants recently—the rapid leap in AI tools’ capabilities in code generation is directly impacting software engineers, a core group in digital business.

Silicon Valley AI Layoff Wave: Coinbase is Not an Isolated Case

Coinbase’s layoffs are part of a recent wave of large-scale workforce reductions in the tech industry, citing AI as a reason.

In February of this year, fintech company Block laid off about 40% of its employees, affecting approximately 4,000 people, citing rapid AI iteration as the reason.

Last month, Meta announced plans to lay off about 10% of its employees (about 8,000 people) and close another 6,000 open positions, while the company is investing heavily in AI research and development.

Microsoft also offered early retirement plans to a large number of long-term employees last month to support its major investments in AI.

Analysis points out that although various industries are discussing how AI will change the way we work, the technology industry itself is undoubtedly undergoing profound disruption.

Double pressure: AI transformation coupled with a downturn in the crypto market

Coinbase’s restructuring reflects the dual pressures the company faces.

On the one hand, the rapid evolution of AI technology has prompted management to proactively seek change and accelerate the transformation towards an “AI-native” model; on the other hand, the cyclical fluctuations of the cryptocurrency market have a direct impact on the company’s revenue.

Coinbase has previously stated that its revenue is highly dependent on crypto asset prices and platform trading volume, and its profitability will be significantly pressured during market downturns.

In its statement, Armstrong characterized the layoffs as a proactive rather than reactive measure, emphasizing that the company is using the market downturn to streamline its organization and prepare for the next cycle.