Crypto

Bitcoiner Allan Flynn has settled his first complaint with the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) over being unilaterally debanked in 2018 due to his occupation as a Digital Currency Exchange (DCE).  The settlement comes 20 months after the Canberra resident first filed complaints with the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal against ANZ. In the settlement, the ANZ noted that it closed his accounts due to the risk of money laundering and terrorism funding (ML/TF) that it perceives among exchanges. It also acknowledged that the act of unbanking Flynn could “have amounted to unlawful discrimination contrary to sections 7(1)(p) and 20 of the Discrimination Act 1991.” However ANZ denied any liability saying that if it had “discriminated against Mr. Flynn by closing his account...

Bitcoin has surpassed the $60,000 mark briefly for the first time since April 2021. The price has been boosted by reports suggesting a Bitcoin futures ETF is likely to begin trading in the United States as early as next week.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro indicate that Bitcoin prices have been on a slow grind upward since the beginning of this month. Before the upward price action began, prices had hovered around $42,000 from Sept. 20 to Oct. 1. The $60,000 mark was first breached on Bitstamp exchange just after 5 AM (UTC), and Bitcoin is now just 7% away from reclaiming its Apr. 14 all-time high of $64,804. The price has since eased slightly and at the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $59,500. Bloomberg reported earlier today that sources familiar with the matter had...

Filecoin has officially become the storage collaborator for the Flow Blockchain. Filecoin said in an Oct. 13 announcement that the move was a part of a push to ensure holders’ and issuers’ NFTs are “securely available everywhere.” The announcement follows from a previous move in August in Which Dapper Labs was working to integrate Filecoin’s storage services with the Flow Blockchain. The collaboration enables Flow users to mint NFTs, leverage InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) content addressing, and store the tokens in decentralized storage hosted by Filecoin. According to Filecoin, IPFS content addressing is a solution to location addressing which retrieves online information from specific locations on the web, such as from behind URLs. Filecoin asserts that this m...

Bitcoin (BTC) is hot and clearly in the hands of bulls. Yes, eventually an exchange-traded fund (ETF) is coming and after that a $100,000, no $120,000, scratch that, $150,000 BTC price will be on the board.  Blah, blah, blah. Anyone logging onto crypto Twitter is going to be bombarded with all this bullish drivel straight from the jump and that’s great, we’re all happy Bitcoin is doing well. I’ve been a holder since early 2016 so of course, I’m happy. But, isn’t there more to crypto than just Bitcoin? Aren’t there other assets that are moving? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear about them before they go on some parabolic 150% run and then your favorite anon Twitter trader with a Rolex and an Audi advises you on which support levels to buy on the next pullback? Let’s take a ...

MintGreen, a Canada-based cleantech cryptocurrency miner, will be partnering with the Lonsdale Energy Corporation to supply heat to residents of North Vancouver in British Columbia starting in 2022. In a Thursday announcement, MintGreen said its “digital boilers” — which it claims can recover more than 96% of the electricity used for Bitcoin (BTC) mining — will prevent 20,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per megawatt from entering the atmosphere during its arrangement with North Vancouver. The recovered energy will be used to heat 100 residential and commercial buildings in the Canadian city with a population of roughly 155,000. Colin Sullivan, the CEO of MintGreen, said the partnership was aimed at tackling issues related to climate change. According to a December 2020 report from the ...

Ether (ETH) entered a slightly bullish channel earlier this month, and currently the price is marching toward the $3,800 level. Despite the recent turbulence, Ether bulls are set to bag a $53 million profit on this Friday’s weekly options expiry.  Investors also appear to be disinterested in Ether’s recent underperformance versus Bitcoin (BTC), and to date, the altcoin’s gains stand at 265%. If Ether manages to stay above $3,600 on Friday, 99% of the $180 million put (sell) options will become worthless. Ether price at Bitstamp in USD. Source: TradingView Ethereum smart contract competitors continue to pressure the leading network and at the time of writing, Ethereum’s average gas fees remain above $20. Polkadot (DOT) is scheduled to begin its sidechain auction...

On Oct. 14, bulls flexed their muscles and showed their intent to push the price of Bitcoin (BTC) closer to its $65,900 all-time high. One reason for the move is the steady chatter about the possibility of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) being approved by the end of October.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $54,103 on Oct. 13, the price of Bitcoin rallied 8.2% to an intraday high of $58,532 on Oct. 14 as the ETF discussion made fresh rounds on Crypto Twitter. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView The spike above $58,500 is also significant because it marks a 100% increase in the price of BTC since bottoming at $29,193 on July 20, signaling a strong recovery and increasing demand. Bitcoin’s price performance is also a ...

After almost two years, Bitwise Asset Management has once again applied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to create a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.  In an Oct. 14 Twitter announcement from Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan, the investment firm will be pursuing a Bitcoin (BTC) ETF with NYSE Arca that holds “actual BTC,” and not derivatives or other indirect exposure to cryptocurrencies. According to Hougan, the Bitwise team has spent more than two years analyzing the firm’s ability to “surveil and enforce” any attempts at manipulation and concluded that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or CME, is a “regulated market of significant size” for the crypto market. “The market has matured,” said the Bitwise CIO. “An actual BTC ETF can now be approved.” The company’s...

Join Cointelegraph host and analyst Benton Yaun alongside resident market experts Jordan Finneseth and Marcel Pechman on “The Market Report” — which is live right now! Here’s what to expect in this week’s markets news breakdown: $820 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) options are set to expire on Friday. The bulls are ready to celebrate as they target prices above $58,000. Billionaires are backing Bitcoin over gold as governments in the West print more and more money. What does this mean for the crypto market? Could we soon be able to pay using crypto at a variety of stores and online markets via Google Pay? After the weekly news round-up, Mati Greenspan, founder and CEO of Quantum Economics, joins to talk about how more institutions are getting involved in Bitcoin, the approval of a...

With an increasing number of people forced to work from their homes, data suggests that ransomware attacks are at their all-time highest with the frequency of these incidents increasing by 45% over the course of April 2021 alone. Not only that, some are adamant that the rise in ransomware attacks is closely connected to the meteoric growth of the crypto sector. Also, in the midst of the recent positive crypto market activity, news of the United States regulators aggressively studying the link between crypto and ransomware seems to be dampening the mood somewhat, especially since various government agencies are seemingly seeing crypto ransomware as a big issue requiring stringent action. As digital asset adoption continues to spread across the U.S., it appears as though lawmakers are lookin...

Open interest (OI) for Bitcoin (BTC) Futures trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) inched toward a new record high Thursday as BTC reclaimed its five-month high of $58,550 on BitStamp. The total number of outstanding derivatives contracts on CME Group’s Bitcoin Futures market reached $3.22 billion, according to data provided by ByBt.com, just $40 million below its record high logged in Feb 2021. Nonetheless, the OI came out to be higher than it was at the Bitcoin price’s peak in mid-April. In detail, the Bitcoin Futures OI on CME was $3.02 billion on April 14, the day on which the BTC price—nearly reached $65,000. But on Thursday, the OI was more than 6% higher than the readings from mid-April, even as the BTC price wobbled inside the $57,000-$58,550 price range. CME...

The NFT space has attracted numerous digital artists over the past few months, but more are expected to join in the coming months and years Payment giant Visa has intensified its efforts to attract more digital artists to the non-fungible token (NFT) space. The company wants to support more digital artists to launch NFTs and help grow the emerging market faster. The financial services giant said it has partnered with Micah Johnson to launch a programme that supports digital artists who want to use non-fungible tokens to sell their work. Micah Johnson is an ex-Major League Baseball player turned NFT artist. Johnson stated that “NFTs unlocked an opportunity for me to build a community of people interested in supporting my work — in a way that goes way beyond simply liking or sharing. With gu...