Crypto

A senior executive for Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, or SFC, believes more needs to be done to tackle cryptocurrency fraud, offering clues about future guidance on digital asset trading in the special administrative region.  Deputy chief executive Liang Fengyi said the SFC is obligated to expand the scope of cryptocurrency supervision in the city-state, especially as it pertains to unlicensed trading, according to an English translation of an article published in local newspaper ETNet. She explained that, since crypto assets are not recognized as securities or payment methods, they fall outside the jurisdiction of the SFC. As a result, many investors who have participated in the nascent asset class have suffered significant losses. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong per...

Traders were caught flat-footed on Sept. 7 after a sharp collapse in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) saw the digital asset fall below $43,000, and this led to widespread liquidations in derivative markets as more than $3.54 billion was liquidated.  Amount of Liquidations in the past 24 hours by exchanges in total $3.54 was liquidated! In the past 24 hours, 330,243 traders were liquidated. The largest single liquidation order happened on @HuobiGlobal #BTC $BTC value $43.7M Data source: @bybt_com pic.twitter.com/hNgctWgCgP — CryptoDiffer (@CryptoDiffer) September 7, 2021 Bullish sentiment had been on the rise coming out of the Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States because Bitcoin was officially recognized as legal tender in El Salvador, but the celebration was quickly extinguis...

The real-world adoption of blockchain technology is a slowly developing process that requires the right use cases and a willing public who are open to new experiences to be obtained when one ventures outside of their comfort zone.  An increasing number of real-world applications appear to be the motivating factor behind the recent gains seen in Fetch.ai (FET), a protocol focused on building an open access, tokenized-based decentralized machine learning network that aims to support the smart infrastructure being built around the digital economy. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.658 on Sep. 6, the price of FET spiked 70% to a new record high at $1.12 on Sep. 7 as its 24-hour trading volume surged 538% to $590 million. FET/USDT 4-ho...

The European Commission’s blockchain initiative has selected the Iota Foundation as one of seven projects to participate in the preliminary stage of designing an EU-wide distributed ledger technology platform.  The initiative seeks to increase the efficiency and accountability of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), a network of nodes dedicated to facilitating the efficiency of EU-centric transactions, as well as the expansion of the region’s supply chain through the adoption of emerging technologies, all the while reducing European carbon footprint. The Iota Foundation — a non-profit organization supporting the Tangle, an open-source DLT platform — will support EBSI in cross-border relations between governments, businesses, and citizens for the “digital...

Despite the Russian state maintaining a mostly unfriendly stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), a major state-backed museum is benefiting from the industry by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The Russian State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum in the world, has finished its first auction on the NFT platform by Binance — the world’s largest crypto exchange — selling five tokenized collectibles depicting masterpieces from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. The auction included five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks, including Wassily Kandinsky’s “Composition VI,” Giorgione’s “Judith,” Da Vinci’s “The Madonna and Child,” Claude Monet’s “Corner of the Garden at Montgero...

Bitcoin (BTC) fell sharply as trading continued on Sept. 7 as a volatile day took BTC price action below $43,000 in one of the most volatile days of the year. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart. Source: TradingView Whales blamed for major BTC sell-off Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView captured the volatility as Bitcoin suddenly lost the psychological $50,000 level. The move came just hours after analysts jointly agreed that BTC/USD must hold $50,000 in order to preserve bullish momentum. One of them, Cointelegraph’s Michaël van de Poppe, highlighted $49,500 as the point of no return should it fail to stick as support. After that, he said, $44,000 could be next. He subsequently noted that Bitcoin had closed the weekend’s CME futures gap. At the time of writing, w...

Bitcoin (BTC) holders took profits on Tuesday, just as El Salvador moved to recognize the digital currency as legal tender in a landmark move that could have significant implications for global adoption.  After hitting local highs north of $52,800 on Monday, Bitcoin’s price plunged all the way to $42,900 in Tuesday trading, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro. Peak to trough, the flagship cryptocurrency plunged nearly 19% over the previous 24 hours. BTC price appears to have bounced off the intraday low of $42,900. It was last seen trading just below $47,000. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed that his government bought the dip by snatching up 150 BTC during the depths of the selloff. As Cointelegraph reported, El Salvador made its f...

The past few months have seen an influx of institutional investors seeking exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Union Investments, one of the largest asset management funds in Germany, intends to add Bitcoin (BTC) to some of its investment funds. This latest development is part of the fund’s targeted pilot programme for its institutional investors. The investment firm currently holds over $500 billion in assets under management. It told Bloomberg yesterday that it wants to add Bitcoin to a small number of investment funds. The funds will be available to private investors. According to Union Investment, each of the funds would hold 2% of its total portfolio in Bitcoin. Portfolio manager Daniel Bathe stated that the investment products would be available in the fourth quarter of t...

Layer-two scaling protocols for Ethereum have surged in adoption in recent months as gas prices climb again, and the L2 ecosystem is now processing more daily transactions than the Bitcoin network according to recent findings. According to CoinMetrics data collated by industry analyst and Week In Ethereum News founder Evan Van Ness, there were more transactions on Ethereum layer-two than on the Bitcoin network on Sept. 6. Layer-two protocols processed around 250,000 transactions for the day whereas there were around 210,000 on BTC. Fun fact: There are already more daily transactions on Ethereum’s layer2 (~250k) than on Bitcoin (~210k yesterday per @coinmetrics) $ETH layer2 is just getting started — Evan Van Ness (@evan_van_ness) September 6, 2021 The analyst revealed that StarkWare p...

Dolce & Gabbana knocking on the Dior of NFTs Luxury Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana is entering the NFT sector with a nine-piece collection of tokenized fashion pieces in collaboration with the Polygon-based UNXD marketplace. The firm was founded by designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in 1985 and has since evolved into a multinational giant that offers high-end fashion items for eye-watering prices. Dubbed “Collezione Genesi” the collection consists of nine one-of-one NFTs that are up for auction starting Sept. 20. The NFTs depict illustrations and digital art of garments designed by Dolce and Gabbana, which can be utilized as wearables in an unspecified metaverse. Ordinary NFT fans won’t be able to ape into this one as the firm is only allowing “approved bidders” to...