Crypto

Speaking at an online event organized by the Council of the Americas, Roberto Campos Neto, president of the Central Bank of Brazil, shared his views on transparent payments networks, the country’s central bank digital currency project and crypto regulation. Campos Neto has been a staunch advocate of the cryptocurrency space since taking office in 2019. His progressive policy-making has been an encouragement to investors and organizations alike, ambitious to modernize the Brazilian financial infrastructure. During the event, Campos Neto mentioned several ongoing discussions with Brazil’s Securities and Exchange Commission on how to welcome cryptocurrencies into the regulatory landscape: “The financial market is changing so much that it’s all becoming data. We need to reshape ...

While the value of cryptocurrencies has varied wildly in the last year, this has not diminished crypto’s attractiveness to criminals. Many of them are moving their illegal activities underground and outside the view of law enforcement. Because of the public nature of most blockchains, however, this rapid movement shouldn’t be a major concern to law enforcement agencies. With the right tools and training, following the proceeds of crypto-enabled crime is actually not as difficult as it may seem. However, intelligence agencies must have a cryptocurrency investigation plan that includes the right tools to lawfully collect digital evidence and the properly trained personnel to investigate these types of crimes when they arise. Digital intelligence (DI) is a two-part definition — the data colle...

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Infrastructure bill passes US Senate — without clarification on crypto On Tuesday, the controversial infrastructure bill passed in the U.S. senate In a 69-30 vote. The bipartisan bill proposes roughly $1 trillion of funding into transportation and electricity infrastructure projects. The bill also puts forward more stringent rules for firms handling crypto assets while expanding reporting requirements for brokers, who will be required to report digital asset transactions worth more than $10,000 to the IRS.&nbs...

Bitcoin (BTC) may be the last thing one might consider when thinking about ways to ensure a clean-energy future. This has especially become the case following a tweet sent by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk back in May, in which he stated that Tesla would stop accepting BTC payments due to the increasing usage of fossil fuels for mining.  Yet raising awareness around the high energy costs typically associated with Bitcoin mining didn’t negatively impact the crypto ecosystem — in fact, it did just the opposite. Following Musk’s tweet, a number of cryptocurrency mining companies came out of the woodwork to explain how Bitcoin can be mined using renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal energy. It’s also important to point out that leveraging renewable energy to mine Bitco...

The second half of 2021 just started and there is already a rise in the number of unicorns emerging in the crypto world as years of resistance towards crypto from mainstream investors start to fade. Since the year began, more than 50 cryptocurrency and blockchain-related projects have risen to the much-coveted unicorn status, with market analysts predicting more to come. A unicorn is a company that has been valued at more than one billion dollars by venture capitalists. A few examples of unicorns in the mainstream include the likes of Airbnb, Uber and Elon Musk’s Space X that have all managed to garner a valuation in the tens of billions. In the crypto sphere, Coinbase, the giant United States-based crypto exchange, is a keen example of how fast companies in the crypto industry can r...

In a business school lecture hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a senior executive for Safaricom gave a prediction of decentralized finance and the future of commerce to a room of keen but confused MBA students. “You will be able to buy your first home on WhatsApp! Smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain will take care of everything and you won’t need a broker,” he said with conviction, pointing to a slide. “How will the house’s title change hands? What about the funds? Can the blockchain do escrow? What role for lawyers? How could we possibly buy something worth a million dollars with the click of a button?” the class wondered. Students in April 2017 — who hadn’t yet seen Bitcoin (BTC) crest above $20,000 — had little reason to believe that blockchain would change...

Most of the stories coming out of the crypto industry this past year have centered around enormous numbers flowing in and out of the space. From stablecoins topping over $100 billion, with Circle raising $440 million in private investment in the spring, to decentralized finance (DeFi) projects like Solana completing a $314 million fundraiser, people love to discuss the huge amounts of money being made in DeFi as new all-time highs break records across the board. What we don’t see enough of are the use cases on how this technological innovation underpinning these new financial instruments can benefit important causes and impact organizations outside of the bullish and bearish markets. Although blockchain technology has progressed rapidly over the past decade, the remaining high entry b...

Bulls officially made their claim clear today as Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied 4.18% to $49,163 and captured the attention of investors who’ve been waiting for BTC to reclaim the $50,000 mark. The uptick in bullish momentum translated into a wave of green candles from altcoins and the majority of the tokens in the top 200 registered gains. Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Syscoin (SYS), TrustSwap (SWAP) and PARSIQ (PRQ). Syscoin celebrates its seventh birthday The best performing coin over the past 24-hours has been Syscoin, a platform that offers low-cost tokens, assets and NFTs secured by the hash rate and censors...

Less than two days after submitting separate applications to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), asset managers VanEck and ProShares have seemingly decided not to pursue exchange-traded funds (EFTs) with exposure to Ether. In individual Friday filings with the SEC, legal representatives of VanEck and ProShares both said the firms had elected not to proceed with registering their respective Ether-based exchange-traded funds. VanEck had submitted a filing to launch an “Ethereum Strategy ETF” with the SEC on Wednesday, while ProShares applied for an “Ether Strategy ETF” the same day. Both products had seemingly aimed to provide exposure to Ether (ETH) by investing in futures contracts as well as pooled investment vehicles and other exchange-traded products. It’s unclea...

Wells Fargo, in partnership with NYDIG and alternative assets manager FS Investments, has registered a new investment fund dubbed “FS NYDIG BITCOIN FUND I,” which will offer the bank’s wealthy clients an opportunity to gain indirect exposure to Bitcoin (BTC).  In another sign of growing institutional interest, filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by BlackRock show a 6.71% stake in Marathon Digital Holdings and a 6.61% stake in Riot Blockchain. BlackRock’s total investments in both the publicly traded Bitcoin mining firms are roughly valued at $384 million. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced on Aug. 20 that the company’s board had approved a proposal to add $500 million worth of crypto to the balan...

Blockchain mining networks are often victims of their success. The two contemporary realities that demarcate the mining landscape and cause blockchains to fall short of what they promise are 1) the ongoing technological arms race driven by inherent competitive greed; and 2) the rising energy costs associated with proof-of-work (PoW) mining. Blockchains built on the PoW consensus have become highly unequal and increasingly centralized in terms of their hash rate. This concentration of mining power in fewer and fewer hands is an attack on the fundamental requirement for distribution and decentralization that blockchains possess. In addition, the motivation to ramp up mining power has a knock-on effect in terms of runaway energy costs, which have the potential to cause irrevocable environment...

With thousands of Afghans currently being accepted as refugees in different countries following the Taliban’s takeover of many highly populated areas, many nonprofit organizations are accepting donations in cryptocurrency. Thousands, if not millions, of Afghans are attempting to or are in the process of fleeing their home in fear of what the Taliban may do now they are largely in control of the country. Organizations helping refugees and those on the ground have put the word out: They need funds to support Afghans arriving on foreign soil with often little more than the clothes on their backs. Hearts & Homes for Refugees, a New-York based grassroots nonprofit, is currently calling for donations to assist the roughly 20,000 Afghans still in the country waiting for United State authoriti...