Crypto

Bitcoin (BTC) staged yet another classic comeback on Aug. 13 as a day of losses abruptly flipped positive. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bitcoin routs bears in classic style Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD rising from below $44,000 to top $46,300 in hours. Friday’s 5.5% gains erased the entire previous day’s downtrend, once again proving bulls’ staying power at price levels above $40,000. “Well, hello Bitcoin,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe summarized ahead of a YouTube update on the day. The latest return to strength for Bitcoin coincided with fresh noises from the United States, where an increasing number of senators were taking issues with language on cryptocurrency in the newly-passed infrastructure bill....

The high-flying optimism generated earlier this week when Bitcoin and altcoin prices rose was tempered on Aug. 12 as BTC dropped below $43,000. This led some analysts to warn that the price action seen over the past week was nothing more than a dead cat bounce.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that an early morning wave of selling pushed the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to a low of $43,752 and at the time of writing bulls are struggling to pull the price back to $45,000. BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Here’s what analysts are saying about Bitcoin’s current price action and what they expect for the short term. $43,600 and $43,000 are key levels of support According to market analyst and Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, Bitcoin’s fall...

Though Okcoin chief compliance officer Megan Monroe said that there are still certain grey areas over cryptocurrencies in the United States, further regulation may not be the best solution. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Monroe said current U.S. regulations are sufficient to police cryptocurrency exchanges, token issuers and custody wallet providers, but “jurisdictional boundaries of these federal financial regulators are neither clear nor collaborative.” Rather, she advocated for a framework with greater clarity to determine which crypto firms should be subject to regulation and let investors know which protections are available. “A clear regulatory framework with established jurisdictional boundaries, flexible compliance standards and open communication channels with registrants (as we...

Ether’s (ETH) 81% rally over the last three weeks caught professional traders off-guard, and this week’s upcoming options expiry reveals that of the $430 million in contracts set to expire, only 7% of the neutral-to-bearish put options will be available if Ether holds above $3,200 on Aug. 13. Ether price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView Curiously, the crypto market is holding its recent strength despite the Senate’s ‘crypto-critical’ infrastructure deal that recently passed. Although the $1 trillion infrastructure bill may encounter some lengthy hangups in the House of Representatives, the approved version did not clarify what constitutes a cryptocurrency broker, and this is expected to harm the industry in the future. Institutional investors were likel...

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.   After ThorCHAIN and Chainswap were exploited, it’s safe to say that hacking cross-chain bridges seems to be the style of the season. This week, it was local project Poly Network that was fleeced of $615 million before leading the crypto community on a dramatic witch hunt to track down the attacker. While most news outlets have covered this story extensively, there are still a few points worth dissecting.  Who are these projects? The first point is that most western DeFi users had never heard of Poly Network despite them amassing over $600 mil...

A Bitcoin (BTC) on-chain indicator that spotted dead cat bounces during the yesteryear bearish market corrections has flashed again in August 2021. Dubbed “Bitcoin: Short Term Holder NUPL,” the indicator takes into account the unspent transaction output, or UTXO, of BTC transactions not more than 155 days old. In doing so, it attempts to determine whether an investor is profitable within 155 days of purchasing and holding Bitcoin. Therefore, if the NUPL, which stands for “net unrealized profit/loss,” returns a reading below zero, it means investors are making a loss on their Bitcoin investments. Conversely, a NUPL above zero shows that investors are making a profit. Glassnode reported Aug. 12 that the Bitcoin NUPL for short-term investors recovered back above z...

Hackers have stolen funds out of more than 5,000 user accounts with crowdfunding platform DAO Maker, a site aimed at raising money for crypto projects. According to a report from DAO Maker CEO Christoph Zaknun, hackers were able to remove roughly $7 million in USD Coin (USDC) from 5,251 user accounts at approximately 1:00 am UTC today. The platform said the attacker used a smart contract exploit to initially steal 10,000 USDC, then made 15 more transactions to acquire additional funds. “One of the reasons why this did happen is probably that the amount of deposits within the [Strong Holder Offering] contract really exceeded our expectations,” said Zaknun in an AMA on Twitch. “Initially, we never expected more than $2.5 million to be deposited in there, but over time,...

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairperson Gary Genslerannounced this month that the crypto industry should not escape the purview of the regulator. He highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) trading and lending protocols need particular attention when it comes to investor protections. Regulation can extend into a menu of options that covers custody, reporting, counterparty verification and asset classification and issuance. Reports are surfacing that people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, but Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, also known as BaFin, has found a way to apply existing securities law to the crypto sector. Related: FATF draft guidance targets DeFi with compliance Decentralized does...

The crypto industry began with Bitcoin’s launch in 2009, flowering into a bustling industry filled with many different assets and blockchain-based solutions in the years following. The sector, however, is no longer in its infancy, according to Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg. “I think we’re already past the stage of crypto early adoption,” Stonberg told Cointelegraph, adding: “Crypto has now gone mainstream. We have double digit percentage adoption in both developed and developing countries. We even have Bitcoin adopted as legal tender in a country and many other countries considering adopting Bitcoin as legal tender.” El Salvador’s government gave Bitcoin (BTC) the official nod in June 2021, making the asset legal tender across the country. The BTC green light in El Salvador means bus...

Australian crypto influencer Alex Saunders is being sued by a disgruntled follower of his YouTube channel and advice service Nuggets News. The plaintiff, New Zealand-based Ziv Himmelfarb, filed a formal written order on Aug. 11 in the Victorian Supreme Court demanding that Saunders repay 479,270 Australian dollars ($353,027) in losses and damages for unpaid loans and investments that are yet to materialize. Speaking to the Australian Financial Review on Aug. 12, Himmelfarb said that he had followed Saunders’ crypto commentary since 2017, stating, “He made some great calls and to me he was the No. 1 person to follow in the crypto space.” “It was a no-brainer for me to trust him.” Himmelfarb claimed to have first invested four Bitcoin (BTC) on Feb.17 with Saunders after the influencer offere...

Congestion on the Ethereum network has forced an online casino to temporarily close shop. The development came into light after KingTiger Casino’s official website announced the company’s temporary closure of services. According to KingTiger’s statement: “We have had to temporarily close our casinos due to the Ethereum network congestion, making it impossible to run our games in their current format.” The crypto-centric online casino is currently on the lookout for new solutions that can host “a new range of features and games” for its participants. Although the casino services have been temporarily suspended, the platform is allowing users to access their digital wallets. The parent company, Funfair Technologies, still allows users to create new wallet accounts, and KingTiger maintains th...