Crypto

South Park, the animated TV series that often tackles topical issues with a comedic twist, showed Bitcoin being used as a mainstream means of payment in the not too distant future. In the “Post COVID” episode of its 24th season which aired Thursday, South Park depicted one of the show’s protagonists, Stan Marsh, paying for a stay in a cheap motel using Bitcoin (BTC) roughly 40 years from now, when the pandemic is jokingly about to end for good. The fictional Super 12 Motel Plus — in a future where nearly all brand names have “plus” and “maxx” included — only accepts “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency,” with the show having Marsh pay using a plastic card with the BTC logo and a QR code. “It’s the future — we’ve all decided centralized banking is rigged so we trust more in fly-by-night Ponzi ...

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action hasn’t been bullish despite the $69,000 all-time high on Nov. 10. Some argue that th descending channel formed 40 days ago is the dominant trend, and $56,000 marks its current resistance. BTC/USD price on FTX. Source: TradingView Such bearishness follows scrutiny from United States regulators, after a Nov. 1 report from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets suggested that stablecoin issuers in the United States should be subject to “appropriate federal oversight,” similar to banks and savings associations. On Nov. 12, the Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF) request was rejected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. To justify the denial, the regulator cited the lack of ability of its participants to deter fraud and market manip...

Russian people are among the world’s most active participants of the cryptocurrency market, according to the country’s central bank. The Bank of Russia published a fresh review on financial stability on Thursday, pointing out the country’s growing role in the $2.8 trillion market. Citing estimations reported by major local banks in July 2021, the Bank of Russia suggested that the total annual volumes of crypto transactions of the Russian population amount to 350 billion rubles, or $5 billion. It is unclear whether the Bank of Russia has converted these estimations as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has almost doubled since July, surging from around $30,000 to over $60,000 in November. In the report, the Bank of Russia also noted that the Russian Federation is among global leaders in terms of vi...

Ether (ETH) investors have no reason to complain after the 344% gains accumulated in 2021 until Nov. 24. Still, analysts fear that the $4,000 resistance test on Nov. 19 is forming a descending channel that aims at $3,600 by mid-December, an 18% correction from the current $4,400 price. Despite outperforming Bitcoin (BTC) by 16% in the past month alone and the ETH/BTC pair climbing to 10-week highs, Ether seems to be struggling with its own success. Ether/USD price on Bitstamp. Source: TradingView Users continue to complain about Ethereum gas fees, averaging over $45 over the past three weeks. However problematic that can be, it leaves no doubt that the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFT) markets continue to thrive on Ethereum. Tried to buy something for $5 usi...

Join Cointelegraph host and analyst Benton Yaun alongside resident market experts Jordan Finneseth and Marcel Pechman as they break down the latest news in the markets this week. Here’s what to expect in this week’s markets news breakdown:  [embedded content] After the market news update, we have a chat with our special guest Michaël van de Poppe about Bitcoin’s dominance, its next all-time high, the factors he considers when looking at new coins and what indicators he uses to determine entry and exit points in the markets. Using insights from Cointelegraph’s Markets Pro, a platform for crypto traders who want to stay one step ahead of the market, the Cointelegraph experts identify two altcoins that stood out this week: AMP and SAND. Finally, Cointelegraph market analyst Jordan ...

Government documents from 2019 have been cited by an Indian crypto expert to suggest that the proposed ban on all “private cryptocurrencies” could include just about every crypto.  The Indian government this week announced it would introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 when it convenes at the Winter Session on Monday. The bill seeks a legislative vote on creating an official digital currency while imposing a ban on “all private cryptocurrencies.” However, there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding what exactly constitutes a “private cryptocurrency,” with some users speculating it could refer to “privacy” coins such as Monero (XMR) or Zcash (ZEC). Naimish Sanghvi, founder of crypto news website Coin Crunch India, explained in a Thursday&...

Crypto investment giant Grayscale has published a bullish report on metaverses, estimating that the “market opportunity” for bringing the metaverse to the mainstream may be worth over $1 trillion in the next few years. The November report titled “The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies” was authored by Grayscale head of research David Grider and research analyst Matt Maximo. The duo explores the burgeoning sector primarily from the perspective of open metaverse worlds backed by an “interconnected crypto-economy” such as Decentraland. The report highlights that metaverse platforms integrated with crypto tokens, decentralized finance services such as staking and lending, nonfungible tokens (NFT), decentralized governance and decentralized cloud storage have “created a new online exper...

Hot on the heels of the rising cryptocurrency hype, Finnish regulators have dropped a formal notice. On Nov. 24th, the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) stated: “Only registered virtual currency providers can market virtual currencies and related services in Finland. The marketing of virtual currencies in Finnish and in Finland is only allowed for entities registered as virtual currency providers in Finland.” Finland is a highly economically free country, ranking 17th in the Index for Economic Freedom. However, as LocalBitcoins CEO Sebastian Sonntag told Cointelegraph upon receiving their FSA license in 2019: “The controls in the financial sector are of particularly high quality and the position of the clients is well protected.” It appears that the FSA is keen to protect investors...

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) do not pose any significant risk to the financial system at their current level of adoption, according to Bank of Canada’s Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry. Beaudry spoke about the risks to the stability of the Canadian financial system at the Ontario Securities Commission Dialogue 2021 on Nov. 23. When asked whether cryptocurrencies are a risk, the deputy governor responded that the Bank of Canada doesn’t think that crypto is “developing in a way that creates a systemic type of risk for a financial system” up to now. This is because cryptocurrencies are “quite removed from a financial system,” Beaudry noted. But as the crypto market grows bigger with more people investing in it, crypto becomes more of a risk, which could mean a certain level of vulnerabilit...

Crypto wallet provider BRD said “nothing will change” for users following an acquisition from major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase. In a Wednesday letter to BRD users, CEO Adam Traidman and co-founder Aaron Voisine said some of the company’s team members would be moving to Coinbase to continue working on crypto wallets. Coinbase Wallet said on Twitter that the addition of the BRD team would “help accelerate web3 adoption” as well as provide “deep expertise in self-custody.” “Nothing will change in the BRD wallet app and as always, your funds are safe and secure,” said the BRD execs. “In the future, BRD wallet users will have an optional migration path to self custody with Coinbase Wallet.” Formerly known as Breadwallet, BRD is behind the utility token Bread (BRD). According to data from Coi...