The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission went ham on crypto exchanges last week by filing toothy lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. While crypto exchanges and altcoins are in the hot seat, the regulator is leaving BTC and ETH alone, at least for now. When news of the SEC’s lawsuit against Binance and Coinbase hit markets,...Read More
Just one day after launching a slew of charges against Binance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a 101-page lawsuit against Coinbase – America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Similar to Binance, the agency alleged that Coinbase has failed to register as either a broker, national securities exchange, or clearing agency, despite serving the...Read More
Watch that little blue line on Google Trends for “bitcoin” hit the ceiling if the U.S. defaults on its debt. BTC might suffer at first as markets go risk-off, but could easily shine in another global financial crisis. House Republicans reached a tentative deal with President Joe Biden’s White House over the Memorial Day Weekend....Read More
The company behind the world’s largest stablecoin announced on May 30 that it wants to mine BTC using sustainable energy in the South American country. To do so, Tether has decided to invest in “renewable energy sources to support and promote sustainable Bitcoin mining.” The company’s statement noted that the South American nation is among the...Read More
Speaking on the Unchained podcast on May 23, Dan Berkowitz muddied the regulatory waters even further by stating that crypto assets can be both commodities and securities. The notion goes against the opinion of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler who asserts they are all securities with investment contracts. Referring to Ethereum, he said...Read More
Today- May 22 – is the 13th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, a historic event that marked the first time BTC was publicly used as a medium of exchange. On 22 May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer and early Bitcoin adopter, forever etched his name in history by purchasing two Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000...Read More
Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) is being hailed as the world’s first comprehensive set of rules that aims to bring the largely unregulated cryptocurrency markets under government regulation. It is part of a broader digital finance package, aka ‘Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA),’ which aims at protecting the financial services sector from fraudulent activities and...Read More
Tether – the company behind the largest stablecoin by means of total market cap – USDT – will be buying Bitcoin. It joins the rank of other large corporations by adding the primary cryptocurrency to its balance sheet. Tether revealed today that starting this month (May), the company will “regularly” allocate as much as 15%...Read More
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) players have been left unscathed as the unmonitored control of off-chain capital of centralized crypto entities led to misdeeds and bad trades, and subsequent collapses. Be it multi-billion dollar bankruptcies, fraud allegations, rampant scandals, or plunging crypto-asset prices, 2022 was characterized by tragic events, culminating mostly from CeFis, which, in turn, enhanced...Read More
Litecoin’s third halving is officially 100 days away, with the event expected to occur on August 2, 2023, at block 2,520,000. However, the date may change due to the network’s hash rate fluctuations. Halving is a mechanism in which the rewards that crypto miners receive for validating transactions on a blockchain are cut in half....Read More
The deal was previously halted by the SEC, given the green light, and stopped again by the CFTC and U.S. District Courts. After Binance US and Voyager Digital reached an agreement for a buyout, the process of getting the deal approved began. At first, the SEC and the DOJ requested more time to gather evidence...Read More
The number of countries approving different types of bitcoin futures trading continues to increase, with the UK being the latest example. The London Stock Exchange Group has tapped Global Futures Options to start offering the nation’s first regulated trading clearing in bitcoin index futures and options derivatives. Although the exact date of the product launch...Read More
Bitcoin appears to have hit a ceiling as the price continued to hover below the psychological resistance level of $30,000. This has led some to believe that the rally may soon come to an end since futures OI has been relatively flat throughout the year. But the options market has a different story to tell....Read More
MicroStrategy, the Michael Saylor-founded business intelligence giant, which is also the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, made another notable purchase ($29.3 million worth of the asset). It helped the company to round up its massive BTC stash to 140,000. After several months of keeping relatively quiet when the cryptocurrency’s price was struggling below $20,000, the...Read More
The world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin has resumed its accumulation spree after three months on the sidelines. Additionally, the Michael Saylor-founder business intelligence giant has repaid its Bitcoin-collateralized loan to Silvegate at a substantial discount. The former company CEO took it to Twitter on March 27 to announce the latest bitcoin purchase from his...Read More
Nearly 3 weeks after SVB unceremoniously collapsed, it seems the U.S. authorities have finally found a buyer to take over and revive the bank. SVB, the bank that powered much of the startup culture ever-present in the Bay Area and beyond, collapsed following a bank run once it became apparent that trouble was brewing for...Read More
Silicon Valley Bank and the crypto-friendly – Signature Bank – disclosed operational difficulties and were closed down by regulators. While some expect the collapse to prompt a domino effect, numerous cryptocurrency-related companies have already suffered losses because of their exposure to the aforementioned institutions. Let’s have a closer look. SVB’s Impact As CryptoPotato reported last week,...Read More
Following the second-largest bank collapse in American history on Friday, market participants are worried about which firms might be caught up in the contagion surrounding Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Here’s what venture capitalists and major crypto executives had to say about the failure – and why the crypto community is keeping an eye on Circle...Read More
After Grayscale presented its first oral arguments in its lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, CEO Michael Sonnenshein walked away feeling “very encouraged.” The executive spoke on Wednesday about the crux of Grayscale’s argument and why the SEC’s refusal to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF is “arbitrary and capricious.” The Relationship...Read More
The SEC has been the driving force behind a recent spree of investigations into the crypto industry and a push for hard-hitting regulation to prevent further meltdowns. Although the Commission’s caution is definitely warranted, certain entities believe that the U.S. regulator is casting far too wide of a dragnet – including, in this case, a...Read More
Since being embroiled in a regulatory tussle, BUSD’s market cap went on a steep downward spiral. Since hitting an all-time high of $23.04 billion in November 2022, the market cap of the once-major stablecoin declined by more than 60% to $9.17 billion at the time of writing. The Paxos situation is indicative of the larger...Read More
The cash withdrawal restrictions imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have made a strong case for Bitcoin as a solid store of value and a censorship-resistant currency. Nigeria is currently facing a shortage of physical cash after the CBN redesigned its banknotes, causing the old bills of the local naira currency to become...Read More
The past 24 hours have seen the entirety of the crypto market trade in the green as Bitcoin’s price reached a high of just around $25K. The last time BTC traded around this level was back in August 2022, and the market seems ecstatic. But why did Bitcoin pump? Mystery Bitcoin Whales Behind the Rally?...Read More
The United States Department of Labor outlined the inflation numbers for the first month of 2023, which were slightly different that the expectations. Bitcoin reacted with an immediate price drop that drove it from $21,900 to $21,600 in minutes. The US government announced the latest CPI numbers on February 14, indicating that the Consumer Price...Read More
The US-based blockchain infrastructure platform – Paxos Trust Company – will stop the issuance of new Binance stablecoins (BUSD) from February 21. Despite this, the firm said it has a “strong corporate balance sheet” and vowed to continue servicing new and existing clients. Ending the Relationship With Binance As directed by the New York State...Read More
Lebanon is adopting a new official exchange rate, devaluing its local currency by nearly 90%. The new rate is set at 15,000 Lebanese pounds against the U.S. dollar, according to a January 31 report, which cited a statement from the country’s central bank governor, Riad Salameh. This marks a significant shift from the old rate...Read More
Less than a month into the new year, the market is already showing sustainable signs of recovery, and the “creative destruction” that transpired could ultimately be a huge win not just for the consumer but also in terms of regulatory protections and rapid innovation, as well as lowered cost structures. Despite the many ups and...Read More
Vitalik Buterin’s first tryst with the Bitcoin community dates back to 2011. He began participating in ‘Bitcointalk,’ a forum created by Satoshi Nakamoto. It was then that he co-founded and started writing articles for Bitcoin magazine. He began traveling to speak with BTC developers around the world in a bid to construct a new, potentially...Read More
Stocks and bonds got a nice lift in January out of fizzling inflation, strong consumer and job confidence, and hopes of lower interest rates. But the cryptocurrency spot exchange market absolutely surged on a Bitcoin price rally at the same time. The BTC price has recovered so dramatically since the start of the year that...Read More
The scandal around the cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo has triggered a massive verbal fight between the leading political parties in Bulgaria. GERB (the party that ruled between 2009 and 2021) alleged Democratic Bulgaria and We Continue the Change of having close ties with the distressed entity and even receiving significant donations from it. On the...Read More
