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Crypto analytics firm Santiment says big players in the world of cryptocurrency are buying XRP at a frantic pace. The market insights agency says that the current rate of XRP’s whale accumulation has been topped just once in the last half-decade. “The second-largest XRP accumulation in the past five years by top-tier whales is in progress. There are currently 336 XRP Network addresses that hold 10 million XRP or more. Many of these undoubtedly belong to exchanges, but this is still a notable anomaly.” Since December 2021, the largest XRP wallets have picked up 897 million XRP worth over $708…
It’s been a rollercoaster three months since Torrance-based Unify Federal Credit Union became the first credit union in the U.S. to begin offering its members the ability to trade Bitcoin. In November, Unify, which holds $3.6 billion in assets, forged a partnership with New York-based Bitcoin trading platform NYDIG to provide its 286,000 members with access to the cryptocurrency. At the time, it seemed like as good a time as any for Unify to enter the crypto fray: Bitcoin was traded at all-time highs exceeding $60,000 and had a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion. But no sooner did…
Back in 2010, my college boyfriend had encouraged me to mine bitcoin, but I thought the idea of digital currency was silly, so I never bought in. I was vaguely aware of the cryptocoin’s price in the years that followed, but I paid little attention to it. Fast forward to 2017. I had a degree in finance and had started a business teaching people how to invest in the stock market. Bitcoin was making headlines and still I hadn’t bought into the idea that crypto was the future of money. But I wasn’t going to completely dismiss it the way…
In a landmark decision that can have its ramifications in several countries battling the rise of cryptocurrencies, a court ruling in the US has made it clear that influencers and promoters could be held liable for “peddling shady crypto investments”. The ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US has come in a 2018 case where some investors filed a class-action lawsuit against open-source cryptocurrency BitConnect and its promoters for running a Ponzi scheme and persuading them to invest for high returns. BitConnect’s promoters told its victims that if they handed over their Bitcoin for a period of time, their…
Younger generations are tech-savvy, happier to challenge institutions, and financially vulnerable. This might be great news for crypto scammers. Earlier this year, American magazine The Baffler published an article by English professor Patrick McGinty, titled ‘Everywhere in Blockchains’. The piece details McGinty’s journey in crypto, which begins with his musings on the 2008 financial crisis and the need for political and economic change, and steadily charts his course from crypto enthusiast to crypto sceptic (he still holds ethereum and bitcoin). I could relate to his origin story. In December I wrote about the appeal of cryptocurrency for people who feel excluded and…
The future of currency! Central Banks’ slayer! Harbinger of a decentralised world! These are some of the radical visions associated with the rise of cryptocurrencies around the world. With more than 3,000 different coins being traded on exchanges, and billions of units mined already, it seems, the world is set to change faster than we can imagine. But a new world order brings its own set of challenges, especially at a time when the world is trying to reduce energy consumption to avert doomsday. Cryptocurrencies consume energy like no other in this world. In fact, many believe that if the world has…
Binance has joined the Association of Russian Banks (ARB), where its Russia and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) lead will head a new crypto department. According to Prime, the crypto exchange has circulated a press release on the matter to major Russian media outlets, where it explained that its Russia and CIS head Olga Goncharova would head the ARB’s newly created Expert Center for Digital Financial Assets and Digital Currencies (literal translation). The exchange stated that its membership would help “provide a dialogue with federal authorities, legislators, experts in the field of digital financial assets and digital currencies.” The new “Expert Center” will help…
Industry experts are of the opinion that there are bigger questions that need to be asked regarding the whole issue of cryptocurrency in the country. Budget 2022 saw Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announce a 30 per cent tax on all digital assets that includes cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Many industry players saw this as the first step towards the regularisation of cryptocurrency in the country, but that’s not exactly the truth. While it did mean that cryptocurrencies were not going to be banned in India and they were not “illegal”, crypto experts and policy makers believe that there’s a…
The two lifelong friends from Florida never sought the limelight, but then they built a multi-million-dollar empire selling digital art and people wanted to know who they were. Under the pseudonyms “Gargamel” and “Gordon Goner”, they created the “Bored Ape Yacht Club”, a collection of 10,000 cartoons of apes with various hairstyles and outfits. They sell these images as digital tokens (NFTs), and it is now hard to get one for less than $280,000, thanks partly to celebrity endorsements from the likes of Paris Hilton to Serena Williams. US news outlet BuzzFeed did some sleuthing earlier this month and uncovered…
Law and technology overlap in many ways, but scholars and regulators tend to focus on incompatibilities between the two. I propose that they also explore synergies between law and tech, and address frictions in a way that preserves them. This exploration should begin with blockchain and antitrust. In recent months, a body of blockchain antitrust cases has emerged. Looking at the cases in isolation could give the impression that the interaction between blockchain technologies and antitrust laws is only a point of friction. In Gallagher v. Bitcointalk.org, a Bitcoin enthusiast filed a claim against the Bitcoin Foundation and the forum owners for excluding…