A set of 30 crypto wallets from 12 exchange accounts that have been linked to the terrorist group Hamas based in the Gaza Strip were seized on Monday by Israeli authorities. Crypto exchange al-Mutahadun held the wallets where 12 accounts were allegedly being used by Hamas leaders to fund terrorist efforts against Israel. The Times of Israel reported that Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Feb. 28 that al-Mutahadun has helped Hamas’s military wing “by transferring funds amounting to tens of millions of dollars a year.” The exact value of the seizures and specifically what crypto assets seized is not yet clear, however, Israeli officials believe Hamas uses “tens of millions of dollars” in crypto funds to fund its military. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a Feb. 28 statement “We c...
Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister has asked crypto exchanges worldwide to freeze assets held by Russian users Mykhailo Fedorov pointed at NFT platform DMarket that had already initiated such restrictions None of the major crypto exchanges has so far withheld ordinary user assets in Russia In an occurrence that sparked contrasting emotion, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, yesterday asked all global crypto exchanges to block addresses linked to users in Russia. Fedorov particularly insisted on ensuring that freeze actions had to also impact everyday users in addition to political leaders. “I’m asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. It’s crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicia...
The e-commerce platform is looking to integrate cryptocurrencies as a payment form to attract the millennial generation Markedly, this is not the first time the company has talked about plans to bring crypto payments to the platform California-based e-commerce company eBay is exploring the possibility of adding cryptocurrency payments to its platform, according to a Sunday report by TheStreet. The report detailed that the rationale behind the move is to attract the young generation (Gen Z & millennial) that is heavily leaning towards digitalisation and has a liking for cryptocurrencies. eBay has floated the idea of integrating digital assets on several past occasions to appeal to a wider consumer base. The company first showed interest in accepting Bitcoin payments in 2014. Early May l...
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement director has reportedly said cryptocurrency companies will not receive amnesty for reporting themselves for possible violations of securities laws. According to a Monday report from Reuters, the SEC director of the agency’s division of enforcement, Gurbir Grewal, said the agency may view crypto companies’ conduct “more favorably” if they reach out first for self-reporting securities law violations. However, he added that though firms may face smaller penalties, they will not be completely off the hook. “Our message to [crypto companies] is not, ‘Register your product and we’ll just ignore the billions you have under management in this crypto lending product and your violations of the securities laws,’” said G...
Bitcoin (BTC) rallied above $41,000 on Feb. 28 in a new sign of buying sentiment returning after last week’s brutal selloff across the risk-on markets, including the S&P 500. BTC’s price jumped by over 9% to reach $41,300, in part, as traders reacted to the ongoing development in the Russia-Ukraine crisis. In doing so, the cryptocurrency briefly broke its correlation with the U.S. stock market indexes to perform more like safe-haven gold, whose price also went higher in early trading on Feb. 28. BTC/USD versus XAUUSD and S&P 500 daily price chart. Source: TradingView Bitcoin downtrend exhausting — analyst Johal Miles, an independent market analyst, spotted “significant buying pressure” in the market, adding that its downtrend might be heading towards exhaust...
It’s been a wild ride for Neo investors in the past few years, especially as China began to incrementally introduce harsher crypto regulations applicable to the project, which has been dubbed by some as “Ethereum of China.” But despite the odds, the community appears to be resilient, with a dedicated society of developers worldwide and bourgeoning decentralized finance, or DeFi, hub that came into prominence via the launch of the Neo N3 mainnet last year. As told by Neo investors Lucas and Jiří, who spoke to Cointelegraph, they were not expecting such a “huge drop in price” for Neo. Nevertheless, they decided to hold their Neo tokens through all the price turmoil, citing the project developers’ dedication to its underlying technology. Luc...
Bitcoin (BTC) soared above $40,000 on Feb. 28 even though the S&P 500 remained soft. This suggests that the correlation between Bitcoin and the U.S. equity markets may be showing the first signs of decoupling. If bulls sustain the price above $38,500 till the end of the day, Bitcoin would avoid four successive months of decline. The volatility of the past few days does not seem to have shaken the resolve of the long-term investors planning to stick with their positions. Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode showed that the amount of Bitcoin supply that last moved between three to five years ago soared to more than 2.8 million Bitcoin, which is a four year high. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Interestingly, an experiment by Portuguese software developer T...
The government wants to boost the growth of its metaverse ecosystem, with ambitions that it could host businesses in the future Last month, South Korea launched a five-year strategic plan to become the global metaverse leader The government of South Korea is taking significant strides towards evolving into a metaverse future. Yesterday, the nation’s Ministry of ICT, Science, and Future Planning guaranteed a KRW 223.7 billion ($186 million) investment into advancing the country’s metaverse ecosystem. According to an official statement sent out by the ministry, the endgame for this investment is to achieve an all-inclusive metaverse ecosystem, dubbed the ‘Expanded Virtual World.’ It would enable the virtual expansion of cities, education initiatives, and the media. The ministry will channel ...
United States dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT) witnessed a spike of over 30% in five days against the Russian ruble — highlighting the negative and immediate impact of the ongoing war on the traditional financial system. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and crypto exchange Binance show that the ruble is undergoing inflation as the USDT/RUB trading pair — for the first time in history — crossed 105 rubles. USDT/RUB price performance. Source: TradingView Prior to the spike, the USDT/RUB pair maintained a comparatively steady market price below 80 rubles. However, the ruble’s market price against USDT surged on Thursday, momentarily exceeding 90 rubles. As tensions escalated, on Sunday, the European Commission announced plans to remove Russian banks from the Society for Worldwid...
Bitcoin network’s proof-of-work mining consensus has been a topic of environmental, social and governance debates for a long time, and a new study may only add to the growing controversy around Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. A new research report titled “Revisiting Bitcoin’s carbon footprint” published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Joules has highlighted that the Chinese crypto mining ban might not have contributed to the reduction in the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network as propagated by many Bitcoiners; on the contrary, it has increased by 17%. China was the primary hub for Bitcoin miners before May 2021 and accounted for more than 60% of the total Bitcoin network hash rate. However, the blanket ban imposed by the government led to the migration of most of the mining fa...
Bitcoin (BTC) is both the first and the most prominent cryptocurrency in the world when it comes to market capitalization as well as trading volume. These factors are quite significant, considering that all cryptocurrencies trade against Bitcoin and Bitcoin’s dominance can actually serve as a valuable indicator when trading all different types of cryptocurrencies. This post will offer insight on how to trade cryptocurrency while utilizing the Bitcoin dominance indicator and how to read the Bitcoin dominance index chart overall. What is the BTC dominance chart? Bitcoin dominance is uncovered by comparing Bitcoin’s market capitalization to the capitalization of the entire crypto market. The higher Bitcoin’s market capitalization the more Bitcoin dominance is at play, and we have the answer t...