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Andrew Hayward

Andrew Hayward

Andrew is Decrypt's Managing Editor. He began writing for Decrypt in 2019 as part of a 15-year freelance career, which included bylines at Rolling Stone, Vice, Playboy, Polygon, and more. Andrew has also worked on a film and several books. Disclosure: No significant crypto holdings, but he owns some NFTs. Find him at @ahaywa on both Twitter and Telegram.

Stories by Andrew Hayward

  • Image: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    Yield Guild Kills Crypto Game Publishing Arm, Lays Off 35 in AI Pivot

    Yield Guild Games, a blockchain-based gaming organization, announced Monday that it is shutting down YGG Play, its publishing arm for crypto-infused casual games, citing the crypto market downturn alongside broader video game industry struggles. The unit's closure marks a retreat from a strategy the Web3 company had championed as recently as this year: building "casual degen" games—bite-sized titles laced with crypto incentives—for crypto enthusiasts who don't consider themselves traditional gam...

    NewsGaming
    4 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Bitcoin and Ethereum. Image: Decrypt

    Crypto Shorts Get Rekt as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Rise to Weekly High Prices

    Major cryptocurrencies are broadly in the green Thursday with Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and other top coins showing gains as crypto liquidations climb—with short positions making up the majority of the carnage. Bitcoin topped the $62,000 mark Thursday morning for the first time in more than a week, rebounding to $62,078 after falling to a 21-month low under $58,000 earlier in the week. At a recent price of $61,808, Bitcoin is up about 3% on the day and 4% in the last week. Other major cryptocurren...

    NewsMarkets
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Bitcoin. Source: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Strategy Shares Crash Below $100 as Bitcoin Sinks Towards $60K

    Shares in Bitcoin treasury giant Strategy (MSTR) fell to their lowest price in more than two years Wednesday as the price of the leading cryptocurrency sank to a two-week low—and as concerns over the $52 billion Bitcoin accumulator grow. MSTR shares fell as low as $97.30 on Wednesday, about 30 minutes after the opening bell, and were recently trading at $98.05 per data from Yahoo Finance—a nearly 5.5% drop so far on the day. The latest dip has only accelerated a recent tailspin for Strategy's c...

    NewsMarkets
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Coinbase flag. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    'Rapidly Evolving': Benchmark Analyst Bullish on Coinbase After Stocks, Options Moves

    Coinbase held an event Tuesday to showcase an array of incoming product additions, including tokenized equities trading and the offering of options trading for both crypto and stocks alike, and one prominent analyst sees significant upside in the crypto exchange as it broadens its horizons even further beyond crypto trading. On Wednesday, Benchmark-StoneX Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst Mark Palmer said the firm is reiterating its COIN price target of $270—a nearly 60% increase ov...

    NewsMarkets
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Low Taper Frog. Image: Decrypt/Pudgy Party

    Pudgy Penguins NFT Game 'Pudgy Party' Shuts Down Less Than a Year After Launch

    Pudgy Party, the Pudgy Penguins-themed mobile battle royale party game, was suddenly shut down on Friday after less than a year and is no longer available for download across iOS and Android. According to a post on the game's official X account, the crypto-native brand decided to shut down the game in an effort to divert more focus towards its other active game, Pudgy World. "Pudgy World continues to grow rapidly, delivers one of the most fun and novel web experiences out there, and being wholl...

    NewsGaming
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Bitcoin and the U.S. Dollar. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Nasdaq-Listed Bitcoin Firm Nakamoto Sells BTC, Cuts Debt and Authorizes Share Buyback

    Nakamoto Inc., the Nashville-based Bitcoin company that operates a BTC treasury and runs Bitcoin Magazine, said Thursday that it sold some of its Bitcoin to shore up its balance sheet through a series of debt reduction and refinancing transactions, while also authorizing a $25 million share buyback program. The company reduced its outstanding debt by $45 million and extended roughly 105 million USDT of principal to June 2027. To fund the paydown, Nakamoto sold approximately 600 BTC and related d...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Bitcoin. Source: Decrypt

    Bitcoin Dives Below $60K Following Strong Jobs Data, Zcash Crash Shaking Crypto Confidence

    Bitcoin continued its recent dive on Friday, falling below the $60,000 mark for the first time since 2024. The leading cryptocurrency by market cap was recently trading at $59,909, down about 6% on the day and 18.5% over the last week. Other top coins have taken similar hits amid a broader market decline, with Ethereum down 23% on the week at a recent price of $1,555 and Solana falling 22% in the last seven days to $63.75. Bitcoin has now fallen more than 52% from its all-time high mark of $126...

    NewsMarkets
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Source: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    TON Price Pumps After Telegram CEO Says Token Will Be Rebranded to Gram

    Years after abandoning its crypto network plans in the face of regulatory scrutiny, Telegram has taken control of The Open Network—and now plans to embrace the original planned name for the Toncoin (TON) token. On Monday, Telegram CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov wrote on his official channel that Toncoin will be rebranded as Gram, the original proposed name for Telegram's native token before the project was scrapped and taken over by community developers. "Gram was the original name of TON’s cur...

    NewsCoins
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Image: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    Bitcoin Dives Below $75K for First Time in a Month as Crypto Liquidations Near $1 Billion

    Bitcoin is starting to rebound after a rocky night that saw the top cryptocurrency by market cap dive below $75,000 for the first time in over a month, dipping as low as $74,344 in the early hours of Saturday. The coin is currently trading around $75,500, showing a 1.8% drop over the last 24 hours and 2.7% in the last week. Bitcoin had traded above the $80,000 mark as recently as last week before leading a broader crypto market dip in the days since. Other major cryptocurrencies are showing sim...

    NewsMarkets
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • OpenAI. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    OpenAI Set to File for IPO Within Days, Targeting September Listing: WSJ

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly aiming for a September initial public offering, accelerating plans after Elon Musk's failed lawsuit removed a key obstacle to the AI company's public market debut. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the plans, the AI company has engaged Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to prepare IPO paperwork that could be filed confidentially with regulators within days or weeks—potentially as soon as this Friday. OpenAI has raised approximat...

  • Bitcoin ETF. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Bitcoin, Ethereum ETFs Bleed as Crypto Funds Shed $1.07 Billion, Ending 6-Week Win Streak

    Crypto investment products suffered $1.07 billion in outflows last week, ending a six-week run of gains and marking the third-largest weekly withdrawal of 2026, according to a Monday report from CoinShares. Analysts attributed the reversal primarily to renewed geopolitical anxiety tied to Iran, which rattled broader risk markets and sent investors fleeing the largest cryptocurrencies. Total assets under management slipped to $157 billion from $159 billion the prior week. The damage was almost e...

    NewsMarkets
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Chainlink. Image: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    Wall Street's Clearinghouse DTCC Enlists Chainlink for Collateral Management

    The firm that serves as the backbone of American securities markets is making its most ambitious bet yet on blockchain, announcing Tuesday that it will integrate infrastructure from Chainlink into its digital collateral platform as part of a push to bring Wall Street's notoriously slow back-office systems into the 24/7 era. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation said its Collateral AppChain platform will leverage Chainlink's Runtime Environment and data standard to enable near real-time co...

    NewsTechnology
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Image: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    Bitcoin Price Crashes Near Zero on Revolut, Blamed on Third-Party Service Disruption

    Trading platform Revolut briefly showed a Bitcoin price near zero overnight, with push notifications of the apparent drop sparking confusion among users—but it was only a glitch, which the firm says is now fixed. Some Revolut users received notifications claiming Bitcoin had reached a 52-week low at $0.02 Thursday morning. The erroneous price display lasted only moments between 7:45 and 7:50 GMT+1, according to user reports. A Revolut spokesperson told Decrypt that the pricing error was due to...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Coinbase flag. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Coinbase Shares Slide as Crypto Giant Reports $394 Million Q1 Loss

    Coinbase on Thursday posted a second consecutive quarterly loss of $394 million in Q1 2026, following an announcement earlier this week that it would cut 14% of its workforce. The U.S. crypto exchange saw net revenue fall 31% to $1.4 billion in the first quarter, missing analyst expectations. Transaction revenue, which forms the core of Coinbase's business model, dropped 40% to $756 million from the same period last year. Coinbase stock fell more than 5% in after-hours trading following the ear...

    NewsMarkets
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Bitcoin and the U.S. Dollar. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Andreessen Horowitz Raises $2.2 Billion to Fund Next Wave of Crypto Startups

    Andreessen Horowitz said Tuesday that it has raised $2.2 billion for its fifth crypto fund, bringing the firm's total crypto capital under management to nearly $9.8 billion. The firm’s a16z Crypto arm has backed some of the industry’s biggest companies, including crypto exchange Coinbase, prediction market giant Kalshi, blockchain network Solana, and decentralized exchange Uniswap. Now the venture capital giant has fresh billions to pour into crypto infrastructure and products. "A new financial...

    NewsBusiness
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • BitMine Chairman Tom Lee. Image: André Beganski/Decrypt

    BitMine Buys $240 Million in Ethereum as Tom Lee Heralds Arrival of 'Crypto Spring'

    Top Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies just revealed its third straight weekly buy of more than 100,000 ETH, extending its buying streak as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap shows a 15% rise in the last month. BitMine purchased 101,745 ETH over the last week, following previous weekly buys of 101,901 ETH and 101,627 ETH—the former being the firm's largest haul so far in 2026. At Ethereum's recent trading price of $2,365, that makes its latest weekly purchase wort...

    NewsBusiness
    3 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Source: Twitter/Decrypt

    Strategy Skips Bitcoin Buy as BTC Hits $80K for First Time Since January

    The price of Bitcoin rose above the $80,000 mark overnight for the first time since late January, marking a fresh milestone in the leading cryptocurrency's rebound after dipping below $65,000 at multiple points in recent months. And it comes as the leading holder of Bitcoin, the publicly traded Strategy, took a rare week off in accumulating the coin. Bitcoin touched a recent high of $80,529 early Monday Eastern Time, and has since dipped to a recent trading price of $79,300. At that price, it's...

    NewsMarkets
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Meta. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

    Meta Launches USDC Stablecoin Creator Payouts on Solana and Polygon via Stripe

    Meta has begun allowing content creators to receive earnings in USDC stablecoin directly to their crypto wallets on Solana and Ethereum scaling network Polygon, marking the social media company's first foray into cryptocurrency payments since abandoning its Diem project in 2022. The crypto payment system supports popular wallets including MetaMask, Phantom, and Binance, with Stripe serving as the payments provider to handle the technical infrastructure. Only creators in Colombia and the Philipp...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • BitMine Chairman Tom Lee. Image: Fundstrat/Decrypt

    Tom Lee's BitMine Makes Biggest Ethereum Buy So Far in 2026, Hitting 5 Million ETH Milestone

    BitMine Immersion Technologies, the top Ethereum treasury firm by total holdings, said Monday that it made its largest weekly purchase so far in 2026, pushing its total Ethereum stash past the 5 million mark. The company added 101,901 ETH over the last week, edging out the previous week's haul of 101,627 ETH to rank as the firm's largest weekly ETH buy so far this year. Last week's total included a 10,000 ETH over-the-counter purchase from the Ethereum Foundation, which announced the sale on Fr...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
  • Ethereum is the second biggest crypto asset by market cap. Source: Decrypt/Shutterstock

    Tom Lee's BitMine Buys Another $23 Million in ETH From Ethereum Foundation

    The Ethereum Foundation said Friday that it finalized a deal to sell 10,000 ETH to the largest Ethereum treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, marking its second treasury sale of the cryptocurrency to the publicly traded firm. The over-the-counter sale agreement was finalized at an average price of $2,387 per ETH, putting the total value of the sale at $23.87 million. Ethereum was recently trading at $2,313, down about 1% on the day and 5% over the last week. BitMine's stock (BMNR) is u...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Andrew Hayward
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