This week saw more exchange drama rock the crypto markets. OKEx, one of the industry’s largest crypto-fiat exchanges, suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals, saying one of the exchange’s key holders has “been out of touch” with the exchange because they are “currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations.” Coming hard on the heels of the BitMEX indictments from a couple of weeks ago, this surely […]
Crypto
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OKEx has frozen withdrawals, audit firms are experiencing a backlog of DeFi projects and the Trump administration is examining DLT for national defense. Top shelf Audit (back)logsCrypto code audit firms say they are swamped with decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. Three of the most well-regarded auditors in the space – OpenZeppelin, Quantstamp and Trail of Bits – told CoinDesk’s William Foxley they are all booked until at least Q1 […]
When will we ever learn? Not your keys? Not your coins. On Friday morning as the OKEx withdrawal-freeze story twisted and turned, CoinDesk’s editors had an off-the-cuff discussion about the fundamental realities and unique challenges of security for even the largest exchanges. Source link
The Huobi cryptocurrency exchange assured users its trading platform is “currently operating normally” after one of its biggest competitors, OKEx, announced it suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals indefinitely. “Huobi’s cold wallet uses multi-signature and threshold signature technology to ensure the security of the private key signature process,” Ciara Sun, vice president of Huobi Global Markets, told CoinDesk in a Wechat message. “Multiple people and multiple backups ensure […]
The U.S. Department of Justice charged the six individuals for alleged involvement in laundering funds from Mexican drug cartels after an investigation spanning years. Source link
Between bitcoin treasury holdings growing and crypto-focused SPACs, private crypto markets and public equities markets are closer than ever. Today on the Brief: Initial jobless claims rise to highest level since August BTC as a DeFi reserve asset Twitter reactions as Filecoin goes live Our main discussion focuses on the convergence of the crypto and public markets. NLW looks at: Narratives of bitcoin’s correlations to stocks Growing […]
As well as making cryptocurrency transactions, the man is alleged to have bought luxury cars and property to launder funds. Source link
COVID has not slowed crypto M&A. To wit, the value of industry acquisitions in the first half of 2020 has already surpassed that of full year 2019, according to a report released Thursday by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Around $597 million was spent in 60 deals in the first half of 2020, compared to $481 million spent in all of 2019 for 125 deals, according to data that […]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) just fired a warning to crypto exchanges worldwide: Comply with U.S. law or face the potential wrath of the federal government. Last week, the DOJ published an 83-page cryptocurrency enforcement framework detailing its approach to the nascent space and discussing potential crimes. The document also suggested the U.S. government would enforce its laws regardless of where exchanges – referred to as […]
The planned bill comes as part of broader legislation aimed at cracking down on tax fraud, a government spokesperson said. Source link
Peer-to-peer crypto marketplace Paxful said it’s partnering with BiLira, the group behind the Turkish lira-backed stablecoin bilira (TYRB), and crypto trading platform Cointral as part of a push to trade cryptocurrencies in Eastern Europe. Paxful said the move follows strong growth in trading registrations by Turkish users over the past year. Both BiLira and Cointral are based in Turkey. In an emailed statement, Paxful said it recorded […]
For Coinbase users who don’t want to keep their funds on an exchange, the buying and storing crypto just became a lot easier. On Monday afternoon, the company announced that Coinbase Wallet users would now have a fiat on-ramp within the wallet itself. Previously, users holding their crypto in the non-custodial wallet would have to buy crypto on the Coinbase app (or elsewhere) and then send […]
In the seven months since India’s top court allowed banks to legally service crypto platforms, users and trade volumes at local exchanges have increased. But regulators have said little about the rules for crypto trading. Confusion can be detrimental to market growth. So to introduce more clarity, some in the Indian crypto community are pitching a way to let platforms stay active but in a cordoned […]
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to ban individual investors from speculating on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is likely to have a minimal impact, partly because the market is so small, according to analysts and industry executives who track the trading business. Some U.K.-based brokerages that had offered the crypto derivative products to retail traders could see a drop-off in revenue, though big cryptocurrency exchanges including […]
This week the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates the country’s financial services, issued a ban on the sale of crypto derivatives and ETNs to retail investors. While this may not seem particularly material to crypto asset markets overall – U.K. retail investors weren’t that much into crypto derivatives anyway, and the market hardly reacted at all – it is worth paying attention to for […]
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Hester Peirce, well known for her pro-cryptocurrencies views, said increased interest in the space will necessarily force the regulatory body to shift toward a more accommodating stance, according to a recent interview with Cointelegraph. Source link
Between BitMEX action, the U.K.’s derivative ban and the new U.S. Department of Justice enforcement framework, regulations are coming for crypto. On this week’s Breakdown weekly recap, NLW looks at a cross-section of regulatory news, including: NLW discusses why these might reflect a new moment in crypto history, what it means for current builders in bitcoin and DeFi, and why recruiting corporate allies like Square will become more […]
So, you’re trying to get a job in crypto. Do you need a degree to showcase your mastery of blockchain technology? “No,” said Columbia University adjunct professor Omid Malekan, “because that almost doesn’t exist.” This story is part of the CoinDesk U series about blockchain at universities. See our ranking of U.S. universities here. Blockchain was expected to be the top-demanded hard skill in the job […]
Ethereum’s success drives imitation. Just take a look at the latest report from the crypto-industry publication DappRadar: In the third quarter of 2020, Ethereum accounted for 96% of the total transaction volume over decentralized applications, including the blockchain-based trading and lending networks that have exploded in popularity in recent months. Prices for ether (ETH), the Ethereum blockchain’s native token, have nearly tripled in 2020 to about $350. Such […]
The largest U.S. regulated market for bitcoin futures has been sounding out cryptocurrency traders to gauge their interest in a listing of futures and options on the Ethereum blockchain’s native tokens. Source link
Residents of the southern Chinese city will have access to 10m yuan ($1.47m USD) of the country’s sovereign digital currency in a weekend lottery in a bid to trial and boost the emerging technology, media reported on Friday. 50,000 “red packets” of a state blockchain-based currency are set to be dispersed to lottery participants in Shenzhen’s Luohu district via the public services application iShenzhen, the South […]
U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice (DOJ) believes cryptocurrencies pose an emerging challenge to law enforcement activities, according to a new publication filed Thursday. The DOJ’s “Cryptocurrency: An Enforcement Framework” document, published by the Attorney General’s Cyber-Digital Task Force, outlines what cryptocurrencies are and their potential use cases, including sections on both legitimate and illicit uses (though the “legitimate uses” section was shorter and […]
Draper Associates is backing the round for the Bangalore-based cryptocurrency exchange, with $3.5 million raised so far. Source link
Eosfinex has launched a beta version of its mainnet, saying it brings liquidity from the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange to the EOS community. Source link
LVC, the crypto exchange operator and blockchain business unit of LINE, is launching a service that allows users to lend crypto assets like bitcoin and ethereum to its exchange BITMAX. In return lenders will receive a rental fee, which is like the interest on a bank loan. Source link
In such a fast-growing industry as crypto asset markets, it can be overwhelming to try to extract the main themes driving liquidity and investor interest. Yet, doing so helps to understand how relatively new markets evolve, and what the catalysts will be for the next big steps forward. The latest CoinDesk Research Quarterly Review focuses on three features that have exhibited astonishing growth in Q3 and […]
CoinDesk is preparing for the invest: ethereum economy virtual event on. Oct. 14 with a special series of newsletters focused on Ethereum’s past, present and future. Every day until the event the team behind Blockchain Bites will dive into an aspect of Ethereum that excites or confuses us. The Top Shelf news you subscribed to is down below. Now, a few words from CoinDesk tech reporter Will Foxley. Making consensus Scaling for […]
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published final rules banning the sale of derivatives and exchange traded notes (ETNs) that reference certain types of crypto assets to retail consumers. The U.K. financial regulator said it considers these products to be ill-suited for retail consumers due to the harm they pose, asserting they cannot be reliably valued by retail consumers because of the: Specifically, the ban will […]
Three of the largest asset managers are diversifying their funds to hold blockchain stocks, throwing more establishment financial might behind bitcoin’s technology. Charles Schwab has begun purchasing shares of Riot Blockchain, joining Fidelity and Vanguard – already investors in Riot, HIVE Blockchain Technologies, Hut 8 and BC Group – in allocating mutual fund holdings to a cryptocurrency company, according to financial filings with the U.S. Securities […]
A potential partnership between Binance and TaoTao fell through, 10 months after first being revealed. Source link
Former software guru and one-time presidential candidate John McAfee has been nabbed in Spain on tax evasion and cryptocurrency fraud, ending his year long stint as a globetrotting fugitive. He now faces extradition to the US. The US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission both announced charges for McAfee on Monday, hitting the security software founder with 10 counts linked to dodging the IRS […]
As if the ructions of the year aren’t giving us enough cause to re-examine things we thought we understood, now we find ourselves questioning what a company is for, and what role it should occupy in society and in employees’ lives. Earlier this week, Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong published a post in which he stressed the company’s focus on the mission of creating “an […]
A bunch of my friends from high school back in Kansas were getting together for a birthday at a hometown bar a little while back and I, now a New Yorker, couldn’t be there. So I told one of my buddies to buy everyone a round and Venmo me for whatever it cost. His response: “What’s Venmo?” It was one of about a billion times life […]