Crypto

Canadian entrepreneur, investor, and reality television personality, Kevin O’Leary — also known as “Mr. Wonderful” — appears to now be singing Ethereum’s praises as a deflationary asset. Clearly reading from a script, O’Leary took to Cameo — a website that allows users to purchase personalized video messages from celebrities — to espouse the benefits of Ethereum’s August 5 London upgrades. Most notably, the upgrades saw EIP-1559’s highly awaited burn mechanism introduced into Ethereum’s fee market. Mr. Wonderful talks about #ethereum #EIP1559 and #EIP3675 (the merge) and Ethereum becoming cashflow positive and https://t.co/VLOOtk2Wyu pic.twitter.com/lzTNCq1rtU — Taras.eth | Taras Bobrovytsky (@TarasBob) August 9, 2021 “It introduced a very important change to the monetary policy of Ethereu...

Institutional crypto products have seen their fifth consecutive week of outflows despite the bullish momentum in the markets.  In its August 9 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, institutional asset manager CoinShares estimated that outflows totaled $26 million for the week. However, the report notes that outflows have shrunk compared to during May and June, when outflows surged to a record $141 million per week. Despite BTC gaining 17.5% over the past week, Bitcoin funds shed $33 million this past week. CoinShares’ own BTC product was the biggest loser for the period with an outflow of $63.3 million while the world’s largest crypto asset manager, Grayscale, remained flat. According to Grayscale’s latest update on August 10, the combined value of assets managed by its funds has cl...

Brett Redfearn, the former director of the division of trading and markets at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has reportedly left his position at Coinbase after less than five months. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Redfearn resigned as the head of Coinbase’s capital-markets group at the end of July. People familiar with the matter claimed his departure was due to the crypto exchange shifting its priorities away from digital asset securities. During his time at Coinbase, Redfearn was responsible for the crypto exchange’s strategy for crypto capital markets, including digital asset securities. The U.S.-based crypto exchange has hired a number of individuals formerly involved with the government prior to and following its initial public offering in Apri...

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery from $29,482.61 on July 21 has continued to surpass one resistance after another. Today, Bitcoin has risen above the 200-day simple moving average, an indicator watched by institutional investors to determine whether the asset is bullish or bearish. A positive sign about today’s rally has been that Bitcoin was not affected by the flash crash in gold, which momentarily dipped to a four-month low. This suggests that traders are focusing on the fundamentals of the sector and are not affected by the performance of other asset classes. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Glassnode noted that investors holding Bitcoin for more than a year have not dumped their positions after the recent rally to $45,000. This is in contrast to the 2018 bear market “w...

A compromise which proposed amending provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure deal on crypto failed to meet the requirements of a unanimous consent request in the Senate, making the bill likely to go to a full vote without additional changes. This afternoon, Senator Tom Carper, the Democratic floor manager for infrastructure bill HR 3684, put forth the compromise amendment agreed upon earlier today by Senators Pat Toomey, Cynthia Lummis, Rob Portman, Mark Warner, Kyrsten Sinema and Ron Wyden on providing clarity for what defines a crypto broker. However, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby objected when Carper did not agree to add Shelby’s own unrelated amendment to the bill — a proposal which would add $50 billion in defense funding. In just two words — “I object” — the Alabama lawmake...

Luxembourg-based Blocktrade has become the latest cryptocurrency exchange to receive major backing from venture capitalists, offering further evidence that digital asset startups are becoming a prime target for investment funds.  Private investors across 33 countries participated in the $25.8 million, or 22 million euros, Series A round, Blocktrade announced early Tuesday in Europe. The investors were not disclosed. Blocktrade said the funding will go towards improving internal operations, especially in the areas of security, fiat onramps and market-making. The company also said it would allocate more resources to growing its potential user base, as well as pursue other business partnerships. “Blocktrade is more than a classic crypto exchange: we are building a complete ecosystem arou...

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has charged crypto exchange platform Poloniex for breaching securities trading regulations. According to an announcement by the SEC on Monday, Poloniex offered trading of cryptocurrencies deemed securities to U.S. investors on its platform between July 2017 and November 2019 without duly registering as a securities broker in violation of Section 5 of the Exchange Act. The SEC’s indictment also stated that employees of the exchange actively sought to circumvent securities regulation in a bid to increase the company’s market share. According to the Commission’s enforcement chief Kristina Littman: “Poloniex chose increased profits over compliance with the federal securities laws by including digital asset securities on its unregist...

Coinbase Custody, the crypto custodial solution offered by United States exchange giant Coinbase, has been chosen by Deutsche Telekom to store its Celo tokens. According to a release issued on Monday, the telecoms giant identified the robust security protocols offered by Coinbase Custody as a major reason for choosing the service. Deutsche Telekom invested in Celo back in April, becoming the first telecom member of the Celo Alliance for Prosperity. Apart from making a “significant purchase” of Celo tokens, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems MMS subsidiary also became a validator on the mobile decentralized finance Celo network. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, United States-based venture capital behemoth Andreessen Horowitz, aka a16z, delegated its Celo assets to T-Systems MMS. At the ti...

Canadian public art exhibition organization Vancouver Biennale is preparing to unveil an art installation that combines physical and digital realities withblockchain technology. Located on the south side of the Cambie Street Bridge in Vancouver, the new Voxel Bridge installation is a blockchain-based augmented reality (AR) experience that can be viewed with iOS or Android devices. According to local enthusiasts, the installation is getting ready for the public launch this Tuesday and will run until spring 2023. The art object is a 1,800 square meter installation by New York-based artist Jessica Angel that explores how public space can be constructed and utilized in both digital and physical realities. Shaped in the real world in the form of a massive two-dimensional vinyl mural, the piece ...

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $46,000 on Aug. 9 as macro factors failed to dent enthusiasm after 18% weekly gains. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD trading above $45,500 at the time of writing Monday. After reaching local highs overnight, Bitcoin saw a comedown as the new week began, but this quickly U-turned to produce a three-month peak of $46,090. With a correction yet to kick in, analysts were firmly bullish on coming moves for BTC/USD. Among them was PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow BTC price model. “Bitcoin at $46K,” he summarized to Twitter followers alongside a chart of price performance after each block subsidy halving event. “We are 16 months after the halving (red line), awaiting the second...