Author: Staff Writer
Fintech company Ripple is making great strides in its legal feud with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC on Monday. Garlinghouse said he expects the case, which centers on XRP, the world’s seventh-biggest cryptocurrency, will likely reach a conclusion next year. “We’re seeing pretty good progress despite a slow-moving judicial process,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy. “Clearly we’re seeing good questions asked by the judge. And I think the judge realizes this is not just about Ripple, this will have broader implications.” Garlinghouse said he was hopeful there would be closure next year. Ripple, which is…
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are, once again, making headlines and generating conversations. While most of these conversations center around the valuation of certain NFTs, which certainly have been volatile and headline-worthy, simply focusing on that singular aspect misses the broader point. To better understand this point, setting aside the dramatic swings in value that – and have – occurred, it is worth taking a step back and examining just what exactly an NFT is, and why the value of these instruments is much more than recent volatility would suggest. At the core of the idea an NFT is a non-fungible token,…
China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining in May triggered an exodus of miners and a global race to relocate millions of the clunky, power intensive machines they use to solve complex puzzles and earn bitcoin. Fourteen of the biggest crypto mining companies in the world have moved more than 2m machines out of China in the months following the ban, according to data gathered by the Financial Times. The lion’s share of machines was hastily moved to the US, Canada, Kazakhstan and Russia. Bit Digital, one of the largest US-listed crypto mining companies, hired an international logistics firm to extract its…
Bond investors have taken a dim view of El Salvador’s plans to borrow $1bn to fund a volcano-powered “bitcoin city”, saying the scheme could push the country further from access to traditional debt markets. President Nayib Bukele, who in September made bitcoin legal tender in the central American country, said on Sunday that half the proceeds would be used to buy the cryptocurrency with the rest going towards infrastructure and bitcoin mining. Emerging markets fund managers expressed little interest in buying the new bonds, which El Salvador plans to issue next year with an annual coupon of 6.5 per cent.…
Cryptocurrency products and funds posted inflows in the latest week, with investors undeterred by the latest price corrections, weekly data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday. Institutional investors poured in $154 million in the crypto sector in the week ended Nov. 19, with a year-to-date total of $9.2 billion, already exceeding total inflows of $6.7 billion in 2020. Bitcoin got the lion’s share of inflows with $114.4 million, equivalent to 74% of the total. So far this year, total inflows into bitcoin products and funds hit $6.7 billion. The inflows came despite a 10.4% drop in bitcoin last…
Shannon Bray, a U.S. Navy veteran and North Carolinian, is hoping the second time — and one particularly frothy memecoin — will be the charm for his political aspirations. Previously, Bray ran for Senate in 2020 with no luck. This time around, the 49 year-old dyed-in-the-wool Libertarian honed his agenda to focus on cryptocurrencies — with the Shiba Inu digital coin taking center stage, and China’s crypto mining crackdown the impetus for his ambitions. He’s part of a vanguard of crypto-friendly politicians looking to use the booming digital coin movement to forge a path to Washington. Bray’s call to politics…
The first bitcoin upgrade in four years has just gone live. It is a rare moment of consensus among stakeholders, and it’s a big deal for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. The Taproot update means greater transaction privacy and efficiency – and crucially, it will unlock the potential for smart contracts, which can be used to eliminate middlemen from transactions. “Taproot matters, because it opens a breadth of opportunity for entrepreneurs interested in expanding bitcoin’s utility,” said Alyse Killeen, founder and managing partner of bitcoin-focused venture firm Stillmark. Unlike bitcoin’s 2017 upgrade – referred to as the “last civil war”…
A seemingly run-of-the-mill trial is playing out in Florida: The family of a deceased man is suing his former business partner over control of their partnership’s assets. In this case, the assets in question are a cache of about one million bitcoins, equivalent to around $64 billion today, belonging to bitcoin’s creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Who Satoshi Nakamoto is has been one of the financial world’s enduring mysteries. Does the name refer to one person? Or several? And why has he or she or they not touched a penny of that fortune? The answers to those questions are at…
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has “practically kidnapped” Russian national Denis Dubnikov in Mexico, later arrested in Amsterdam on Nov. 1, his lawyer Arkady Bukh alleged, speaking to Sputnik. The co-founder of crypto trading platforms Coyote Crypto and Eggchange was first held at the airport in Mexico City while on vacation and then boarded a flight to the Netherlands where he was detained by Dutch authorities. The defense attorney explained: Mexico has not let him enter the country. The US intelligence services have put him on a plane to the Netherlands and sent him there having paid for…
Sotheby’s has announced that it will be holding another auction where it will accept payment in Ethereum. This is not the first time that the auction house will accept crypto payment for pieces. However, it will be the first time that it will be accepting live bids in Ethereum. Sotheby’s had made its mark in the space as one of the first auction houses to accept payment in crypto earlier in the year. Sotheby’s had also begun to expand its footprint in the space by turning famous artworks into NFTs. In July, the auction house had auctioned off a rare…