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SEBA Bank AG, a fully regulated Swiss-based institution with a focus on the offering of digital cryptocurrency assets, has today announced the approval of a CISA license from the Swiss Financial Market Authority, or FINMA, to facilitate an institutional-grade custodian service for nation-native collective investment schemes. This announcement enables the bank to become Switzerland’s, and indeed one of the world’s first, digital asset centric banks to gain a custody license. The endorsement will allow the institution to provide greater investment opportunities to professional clientele in the emerging cryptocurrency markets. Founded in mid-2018 advocating a philosophy of next-generation digital banking, the firm soon rose to prominence as a pioneer in the regulated digital asset sector. One...

Resistance is mounting to U.S. President Joe Biden’s reported plans to tap a staunch banking and crypto critic to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The proposed nomination of law professor, Saule Omarova, to head the federal bank regulatory agency has raised eyebrows in political and financial circles as she is widely seen as anti crypto and anti big banks. Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has become the latest crypto ally to speak out, claiming that her decisions, if nominated, could change the future of the industry in a tweet on Sept. 28. “Not only is Saule Omarova, Biden’s pick to lead the OCC, a threat to our traditional economy, she also wants to regulate crypto into oblivion. Crypto faces future-defining government regulations. This nomination needs to be sto...

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is considering creating its own utility token to capitalize on the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies. Named after the agency’s acronym, the plan to launch TAT coin will have to navigate through Thailand’s complex legal framework and regulations before coming to life. The Bangkok Post reported today that the TAT is in discussions with the Stock Exchange of Thailand regarding its ambitions and how the transfer of value can be achieved without introducing the speculative aspects of trading. TAT coin “would involve the transfer of vouchers into digital tokens that could help operators gain greater liquidity,” according to the report. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT governor, said he values the potential that technologies like cryptocu...

“Don’t fight the trend” is an old saying in the markets, and there are other variants of the phrase like “never catch a falling knife.” The bottom line is that traders should not try to anticipate trend reversals, or even worse, try to improve their average price while losing money. It really doesn’t matter whether one is trading soy futures, silver, stocks or cryptocurrencies. Markets generally move in cycles, which can last from a few days to a couple of years. In Bitcoin’s (BTC) case, it’s hard for anyone to justify a bullish case by looking at the chart below. Bitcoin price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView Over the past 25 days, every attempt to break the descending channel has been abruptly interrupted. Curiously, the trend points...

The blockchain ecosystem has evolved significantly over the past decade as smart contract capabilities have moved the industry from being a simple medium of exchange to a bustling ecosystem full of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFT). One project that has benefited from the increased capabilities of blockchain technology and the recent launch of smart contracts on Cardano is COTI (COTI), an enterprise-grade fintech platform focused on helping organizations create their own payment solutions and digitize any form of currency as a way to facilitate decentralized payments. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since bottoming out at a low of $0.0884 on July 20, the price of COTI has rallied 652% to reach a new all-time high at $0.6665 on Sept. 25...

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, is ordering crypto exchange Kraken to pay more than a million dollars in civil monetary penalties related to allegations the exchange is violating the Commodity Exchange Act. In a Sept. 28 statement, the CFTC said U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken — operating under the name Payward Ventures — has failed to register as a futures commission merchant and is illegally offering margined retail commodity transactions in digital assets. The order requires the exchange to pay a penalty of $1.25 million and “cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act,” the law under which the CFTC derives much of its enforcement power on commodities and futures trading. “This action is part of the CFTC’s broader effort...

Last week was challenging for crypto traders, with Sept. 24’s FUD-triggering crypto-ban news out of China wiping out much of the gains investors managed to rake in earlier in the week. Between Sept. 18 and Sept. 25, the top 100 altcoins shed as much as 14.4% of their aggregate value, while Bitcoin (BTC) lost 12.5%. The number of altcoins posting double-digit returns was unusually low as well. Data from Markets Pro, Cointelegraph’s subscription-based data intelligence platform, shows that only eight assets out of the hundreds tracked gained more than 10% against the U.S. dollar. While trading is an activity marked by a steady flux of gains and losses, how can investors spot ahead of time the coins that are well-positioned to weather the storm? The top performers of a tough week The table be...

Bitcoin (BTC) analysts are eyeing short-term volatility as whales begin unprecedented behavior. Fresh data shows that whales have not only been highly active on the market — they’ve been moving record amounts of BTC. Whale activity beats Bitcoin all-time highs Despite BTC price action staying in a narrow, uninspiring range of around $40,000, large-volume Bitcoin investors are anything but calm. In recent weeks, these whales have shifted more coins around the network than ever before — even more than during all-time BTC/USD highs of $60,000 and above. Transactions involving $10 million and over recently hit more than $10 billion. Whales have been moving record amount of #Bitcoin last two weeks. Total transfer volume of $10M+ transactions keeps staying at ATH lately. It’s even hig...