Author: Staff Writer
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta approved a change in law that will allow the central bank to regulate digital lenders, his office said on Tuesday, a move that will give the bank power to rein in lenders who violate consumer privacy. Kenyatta’s office said in a statement he had signed into law the Central Bank of Kenya (Amendment) Bill. “The amended Central Bank Act, 2021, gives the Central Bank of Kenya powers to license digital lenders in the country as well as ensure the existence of fair and non-discriminatory practices in the credit market,” it said. The law gives the central…
President Joe Biden says his administration is focused on policing cryptocurrency crimes to combat corruption globally and is taking advantage of a newly formed Department of Justice task force, according to an anti-graft report released Monday. The White House is particularly focused on crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services — platforms that obscure owners and recipients in Bitcoin transactions — and bad actors who facilitate money laundering, according to the report from U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, which includes the State Department, Treasury and Justice Department. The Department of Justice task force, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, was…
ABL announced it has received a $6M Series Pre-A investment to fund the launch of its crypto wallet VIBRA (https://www.vibra.one), to drive the mass adoption of digital assets in Africa. The Pre-A round was co-led by a consortium of global investors, including renowned African venture capital firms Lateral Frontiers VC, CRE Venture Capital, Musha Ventures as well as international blockchain investors Dragonfly Capital, Hashkey Capital, SNZ Capital, Fenbushi, Cadenza Capital, Head & Shoulder X, LeadBlock, Hash Global, Bonfire, Krypital, Despace and more. Mia Deng, Partner at Dragonfly Capital, expressed her belief in VIBRA, “Dragonfly has a long history of investing in…
The 2021 Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI) of 2000 Australians found that the number of women who currently or have previously invested in crypto rose from 10.3% in 2020 to 20% in 2021. The percentage of female Bitcoin owners also rose from 8.3% to 14.8% according to the survey. “I think that it tells you that investing in crypto is less risky and is just one of many different ways you can invest. I think it’s sort of giving the signal that if a bank thinks it’s okay, then you know it’s a safer place to invest.” Karen Cohen, Deputy…
Non-fungible tokens are one of the hottest things in cryptocurrencies right now, with the prospect of big gains should the latest collection rise in value. But a new study from Chainalysis shows that a small portion of participants reap most of the gains. Investing frequently in a wide array of collections appears to lead to the highest profits, Chainalysis said in its report. It added that whitelisting — the practice of allowing a certain set of followers or others to purchase new NFTs at a much lower price than other users during minting events where a digital file is turned…
Cryptocurrency products and funds received $184 million in net inflows as of last week, data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday. Friday’s price weakness, however, did lead to $40 million outflows that day, CoinShares said. For the year, total inflows amounted $9.1 billion, slightly below the record peak of $9.5 two weeks ago. Bitcoin, meanwhile, attracted $145 million net, its 12th straight week of inflows. It did see outflows of $42 million on Friday, as it bore the brunt of investor jitters amid sharp price declines. Traders said the weekend fall in prices was connected to a broad…
Bitcoin rose 1.5% in early Asia on Tuesday, after firming overnight in line with equity markets and other risk assets, but many crypto traders remained on edge after Saturday’s sharp and sudden plunge. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last around $50,800, having closed a choppy day on Monday 2.2% higher. “The general confidence in crypto is still high and market sentiment is coming back as we saw a general risk-on mood on Monday. Omicron’s effect looks a lot milder than the market has digested,” said Edison Pun, senior market analyst at Saxo Markets in Hong Kong. Tuesday’s calm followed quite…
The ‘overall weakness across the financial markets should be considered when trading crypto into the foreseeable future,’ one analyst says. Cryptocurrency prices were mixed Monday and analysts cited the Federal Reserve’s hawkish stance and overall market weakness as key factors in the weekend’s rout. Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, inched higher to $48,756 at last check, after falling roughly 20%, since mid-day Friday. Ether was off less than 1% to $4,057. “The overall weakness across the financial markets should be considered when trading crypto into the foreseeable future,” said Jake Wujastyk, chief market analyst at TrendSpider. “The hawkishness from Jerome Powell is also something…
Terraform Lab’s Luna cryptocurrency is now one of the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, according to CoinGecko, rocketing past popular dog-based meme tokens Shiba Inu and dogecoin despite a market-wide selloff that erased hundreds of billions in value over two days and saw prices of major cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and Cardano, drop double-digit percentages. KEY FACTS Terra’s luna was trading at $61.05 a token Monday morning, down nearly 20% from a record high of $77.73 on Sunday but still up 22% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko. Luna’s gains mean the token’s market capitalization jumped to around $23.6…
“Okay, so now what?” That was basically what the bitcoin market was saying over the past few weeks. Then a sell-off in the spot market over the weekend triggered several hundred million dollars’ worth of futures liquidations that helped to send prices plummeting further. Ever since the massive rally culminating in the all-time high of $68,990.90 on Nov. 10, prices came down and stayed south of $60,000 over for the most recent couple of weeks. Some of the hype, it seems, was related to the bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) launch, and the subsequent letdown seems likewise to reflect a…