Bitcoin

The coronavirus pandemic has had a highly damaging effect on the capital markets, and eventually, the effect was felt in other asset classes like cryptocurrencies as well. While this did affect the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has made a remarkable recovery over the past 24 hours. BTC gained 10% in the last 24 hours, and

U.S. central bankers pledged Thursday to inject some $1.5 trillion into the financial system in an effort to calm panicky markets after the spreading coronavirus triggered steep price declines on everything from stocks to bitcoin. The move by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York comes as investors in traditional Wall Street markets have rushed

Washington state resident Kenneth Warren Rhule has been charged with laundering over $140,000 in bitcoin after agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) made a series of undercover cash-for-crypto deals with the 26-year-old. Rhule faces multiple counts of operating an unlicensed bitcoin money transmitter business and laundering monetary instruments after allegedly meeting with government agents “posing

The fifth anti-money laundering directive (AMLD5) has unexpectedly increased institutional interest in cryptocurrencies, according to an executive at the crypto trading subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart. Speaking at the CryptoCompare London conference Tuesday, Boerse Stuttgart’s chief digital officer, Dr. Ulli Spankowski, admitted he had been “surprised” by the positive effect 5AMLD had on attracting traditional financial

Monday’s historic financial tumult reached beyond stocks, sinking commodities and even bitcoin markets. “I don’t think any asset is safe right now – except cash, U.S. dollars,” said Ali Khedery, formerly Exxon’s senior Middle East advisor and now CEO of U.S.-based strategy firm Dragoman Ventures. While bitcoin prices dropped nearly 10 percent over the weekend,

The Supreme Court of India has ruled against a decision imposed by the country’s central bank nearly two years ago that curbed crypto trading in Asia’s third-largest economy. According to a report from Bloomberg, a three-judge bench of the court ruled on Wednesday in favor of petitions by crypto exchanges and startups that opposed the

BitGo, one of the largest and oldest custodians for digital assets, is joining the fast-growing business of lending out bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to big investors. The Palo Alto-based company announced Thursday it is now offering institutional digital asset lending services.  Founded in 2013 by CEO Mike Belshe, BitGo started testing the new service a

GrainChain, a commodities tracing platform that uses smart contracts to open up liquidity for low-income farmers, has raised $8.2 million in its latest funding round, the company announced Friday. Luis Macias said the money will bolster GrainChain’s burgeoning operations in Mexico, Honduras and the southwest United States. “This funding is really going to allow us

Unstoppable Domains, a censorship-resistant web developer, has released a Google Chrome extension in its bid to open up web 3.0. The extension will give users access to .crypto domain names directly from the Chrome browser, currently the most-used web browser. Developed by Unstoppable Domains, .crypto domains are smart contracts on the Ethereum network, meaning to

Hours before the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also cut interest rates in hopes of curbing market reaction to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. In a meeting held on March 3, the RBA announced it would be cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 0.50 percent, its lowest on

On March 3, Bitcoin (BTC) price gained the most on speculation that the US Federal Reserve, as well as other central banks, will be supporting markets even as concerns of the coronavirus outbreak continue to grow. Bitcoin Jumps Over 4% After Last Week’s Plunge Bitcoin gained 4% to take its price to $8,895, having suffered

Bitcoin prices slid Tuesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced an emergency cut in interest rates to counteract risks to the economy from the spreading coronavirus.  The largest cryptocurrency by market value was down 2.2 percent to $8,722 as of 15:28 UTC (10:28 a.m. ET). Prices had surged 4.6 percent on Monday, rising alongside U.S.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has added 20 new bitcoin addresses associated with two individuals to its list of sanctioned individuals. According to an update to OFAC’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list, Jiadong Li and Yinyin Tian are accused of being linked to the Lazarus Group, a cybercrime group possibly affiliated

Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are grappling with the future of payments – so much so that their newest quarterly report, released Sunday, is entirely dedicated to what that potential revolution holds. In its 138-page look at what lies beyond the financial horizon, the Swiss-based institution reckoned with coming trends that may

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business is set to discuss the benefits blockchain technology can bring to entrepreneurs. Slated for March 4 at 16:30 UTC, the “Building Blocks of Change: The Benefits of Blockchain Technology for Small Businesses” hearing will explore the ways in which some startups are utilizing blockchain technology to

U.S. stocks continue to reel over coronavirus-related fears, and investors are increasingly betting the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates to stabilize the economy and markets. But whether those investors turn to bitcoin (BTC) as a crisis hedge remains to be seen. Such action by the Fed could, in theory, help bitcoin prices since lower

The spreading coronavirus sowed a new bout of fear among investors, triggering a stock market sell-off and flight to safe-haven assets like gold and U.S. Treasury bonds, with 47 countries now reporting infections amid widespread reports of travel cancellations, shipment delays and business interruptions. U.S. stocks fell for the sixth straight day, Treasury yields slid

A lawsuit claiming Ripple violated securities laws will be allowed to move forward – though with a caveat favorable to the San Francisco-based payments firm. In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, of the Northern District of California, allowed a putative class-action lawsuit by retail XRP buyers to proceed. Hamilton said the suit

Revolut, the London-based bank that allows users to purchase cryptocurrencies on its app, has raised more than $500 million in a Series D funding round. Revolut announced Tuesday the round, led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm TCV, means the bank is now valued at over $5.5 billion. Although investors from previous rounds have also

As central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) march into view, a privately-run version of digital fiat is adding a key tech partner. Utility Settlement Coin (USC), the blockchain-based payments system involving commercial and central banks, will be working with ConsenSys-backed startup Adhara, CoinDesk has learned. Adhara was behind Project Khokha, which used enterprise blockchain client Quorum

The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations. Earlier this week the Let’s Talk Bitcoin! Show gathered to discuss catalysts and CEOS in the world of blockchain projects, the organizational and organic structures of decentralization and to wonder whether crypto even needs Satoshi-like catalysts now that the fire of blockchain burns bright. On today’s podcast

CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen is joined by Isaiah Jackson, author of “Bitcoin and Black America” and co-founder of KRBE Digital Assets Group, to talk about financial discrimination in the United States and the unique value bitcoin can offer minority communities. According to a survey of 5,126 Americans conducted by Coinbase and Qriously, “Twice as many

Sweden’s central bank will soon trial a blockchain-based digital currency – but it’s still in its very early stages, at best. Announced Thursday, Sveriges Riksbank’s e-krona pilot is the latest attempt at a central bank digital currency (CBDC) from an institution that for years fretted over basing any such project on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The crypto space can be highly volatile for traders, and over the years, Bitcoin (BTC) has proven to be among the more volatile cryptocurrencies. Over the past few days, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market cap had managed to make a comeback of sorts, but the volatility returned once again today. Such volatility was last

Insurance works in crypto so far, though it hasn’t had many big tests yet. Not many people had insurance on assets locked up in bZx’s Fulcrum, but after a bug yielded an exploit of its smart contract, a couple of accounts that did were covered by Nexus Mutual, the London-based crypto insurance company. Nexus Mutual

Steve Chen, the ringleader behind the $100 million-plus Gemcoin fraud of 2013-2015, agreed to plead guilty Wednesday to tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The 62-year-old San Gabriel Valley resident will face a minimum of 10 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). As part of his plea agreement, Chen

The Internal Revenue Service has invited a number of undisclosed crypto startups to a summit on March 3 to discuss its existing approach to taxing cryptocurrencies as well as enforcement efforts, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by CoinDesk. The summit, to be held at IRS’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, will consist of four

The Australian entrepreneur who claims to be the inventor of bitcoin has suggested he might take legal action against the cryptocurrency’s developer team over claimed infringement of his intellectual property. In a blog post published last Thursday, Craig Wright said while forks of bitcoin would be allowed under the open-source MIT license under which bitcoin

Viktor Bunin is a protocol specialist at Bison Trails, a company that offers one-click access to various blockchain nodes. While the number of Bison Trails users is, according to Bunin, headed “up and to the right,” he addressed concerns with Libra and the recent drop-out of major banking and business players. In short? He’s not

Decentralized finance (DeFi) project bZx has suffered an attack in which a hacker successfully gamed multiple DeFi protocols to extract $350,000 from the platform, about 2 percent of the assets under management. In response, the company took down its lending and trading protocol Fulcrum at 7 AM UTC. The company was presenting at ETHDenver during