crypto blog
The US Federal Reserve is making some analysts bullish on Bitcoin again
Signs of a steady Bitcoin (BTC) price recovery emerged earlier this week as investors shifted away from the U.S. dollar on weaker-than-expected economic data. In detail, Bitcoin’s drop last week to below $33,000 met with a healthy buying sentiment that pushed its per token rate to as high as $39,300 on Feb. 1. As of Thursday, BTC’s price dipped below $37,000 but was still up 13% from its local bottom. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index (DXY), which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of top foreign currencies, rose to 97.441 last Friday, logging its best level since July 2020. However, the index corrected by nearly 1.50% to over 96.00 by Feb. 3. DXY vs. BTC/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView Some market analysts saw the dollar’s renewed weakness...
Bitcoin education center launches in El Salvador to boost adoption
Major peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin (BTC) platform Paxful is working to help Salvadorans better use BTC as the cryptocurrency became legal tender in El Salvador last year. Paxful on Wednesday announced the launch of “La Casa Del Bitcoin,” a new educational and training center in El Salvador to enable free learning opportunities related to BTC. https://t.co/qSPHy997JJ — Paxful (@paxful) February 2, 2022 As part of the effort, Paxful will hold educational workshops and talks focused on Bitcoin and financial inclusion in the country. The center will focus on growing awareness around the benefits of buying and selling BTC as a means of exchange for the local community to further drive the next wave of Bitcoin mass adoption. The center will also be home to the Built With Bitcoin Foundation offices...
Bitcoin bounces at $36.6K as Meta adds 20% losses to US tech stock rout
Bitcoin (BTC) recovered above $37,000 on Feb. 3 after a stocks rout took the wind out of bulls’ latest attempt to crack $40,000 resistance. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Extraordinary moves” for stocks Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD staying lower after briefly hitting $36,650 on Bitstamp Wednesday. The weakness followed shock losses for U.S. equities at the Wall Street open on Wednesday, with major names such as PayPal shedding huge portions of their value after underwhelming performance reports. Major stocks have been experiencing extraordinary moves post earnings after hours this season Netflix -22%Apple +7%Google +11%Paypal -20%Facebook -22%Spotify -23% Liquidity and the Fed’s put are both go...
Crypto donations jumped nearly 16x in 2021, new report says
2021 was not just the year of institutionalization of crypto and new all-time highs; it also turned out to be the biggest year for crypto philanthropy. According to research data from The Giving platform, crypto donation volume rose to $69.6 million in 2021 compared to $4.2 million in 2020. Crypto donation volume spiked 1,558% or nearly 16x over the same period. The average crypto donations also saw a 236% increase, rising from an average of $3,109 in 2020 to $10,445 in 2021. The data further revealed that the average crypto donation size was 82x larger than an average cash donation. The average donation in crypto was estimated at $10,455 compared to $128 in cash. The monthly donation data revealed several interesting aspects about crypto donors. The report highlighted that the crypto...
Bitcoin price dips below $37K as a descending channel pattern comes back into play
The crypto market is once again in the red on Feb. 2 as global financial markets continue to see increased volatility. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after spending the morning hovering around $38,200, BTC was hit with a wave of selling that pushed the price to $36,800. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here is what several analysts and traders are saying about Wednesday’s Bitcoin price action and what areas to keep an eye on moving forward. Bulls are in trouble below $36,700 Insight into the major support and resistance zones of note for Bitcoin was provided by crypto trader and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘HornHairs’, who posted the following chart indicating a solid level of support near $37,400. BTC/USDT 1-hour chart. Source: Twitter Ac...
Wormhole token bridge loses $321M in largest hack so far in 2022
The Wormhole token bridge experienced a security exploit today, resulting in the loss of 120,000 wETH tokens ($321 million) from the platform. Wormhole is a token bridge that allows users to send and receive crypto between Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Oasis, and Terra without the use of a centralized exchange (CEX). This is the largest crypto hack of 2022 so far and the second largest DeFi hack to date. The Wormhole team has offered a $10M bug bounty for the return of the funds. The hack took place on the Solana side of the bridge and there are fears Wormhole’s bridge to Terra could be similarly vulnerable. The Wormhole team has assured the community that its ETH supply would be replenished to “ensure wETH is backed 1:1,” but there is no word yet on where those funds will com...
UK tax agency cracks down on rules around DeFi lending and staking
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the U.K.’s tax agency, on Wednesday, has released a controversial set of guidance that could affect innovation in Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The updated regulation focuses on the treatment of digital assets specifically for DeFi lending and staking in the UK, and whether returns or rewards from these services are deemed as capital or revenue for taxation purposes. Owing to the cutting edge nature of DeFi these services had fallen into a grey area with tax professionals unsure of how the existing rules apply. “The lending/staking of tokens through decentralized finance (DeFi) is a constantly evolving area, so it is not possible to set out all the circumstances in which a lender/liquidity provider earns a return from their activities and the natur...
Aussie billionaire sues Facebook over crypto scams with AG’s consent
Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is taking Facebook to court over scammy cryptocurrency ads that he alleges used his name to defraud victims. The Fortescue Metals chairman is accusing Facebook of breaching Australia’s money-laundering laws, claiming that it “knowingly profits from this cycle of illegal ads” that it failed to remove. An initial court hearing in the Western Australian Magistrates court is scheduled for Mar. 28, with a committal hearing expected later in 2022. Forrest is bringing forward the charges under Part 10 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, with the consent of the Attorney-General Michaelia Cash. According to the filings, one Australian victim lost $952,000 AUD after falling for the scam. The court documents stated that the scam “defrauded victims out of ...
Bitcoin, Ether and NFTs will ‘never become legal tender’ in India, says Finance Secretary
T.V. Somanathan, the finance secretary for the Indian government, is reportedly pushing back against the narrative that cryptocurrencies will be widely accepted in the country — by dismissing the possibility of using them as legal tender. According to a Wednesday tweet from Asian News International, Somanathan said that a digital rupee backed by the Reserve Bank of India, or RBI, will be accepted as legal tender, but major cryptocurrencies have no chance of doing so. The finance secretary added that because digital assets including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) do not have authorization from the government, they will likely remain “assets whose value will be determined between two people.” “Digital rupee issued by RBI will be a legal tender,” said Somanathan. “Rest all aren’t legal t...
Cryptocurrencies are the “new frontier” says financial researcher
In an exclusive television interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, JMP Securities director of financial technology research, Devin Ryan spoke candidly on a range of topics within the cryptocurrency industry. This included the macroscopic regulation amid the impending expectations of a White House policy framework, states within the United States accepting Bitcoin as legal tender as well as the vast potential for consumer adoption in the coming year. Cryptocurrency assets have experienced significant volatility over the past month, with leading asset Bitcoin falling almost 44% from all-time highs and Ethereum recording a similar demise. Despite price drawbacks, capital investment, consumer adoption, community optimism and corporate valuations for the digital asset space has never been hig...
Price analysis 2/2: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, SOL, XRP, LUNA, DOGE, DOT, AVAX
Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $39,000 on Feb. 1 but the sharp fall in the shares of PayPal may have resulted in aggressive selling by the short-term traders. However, in the long-term, large investors seem to be viewing the decline as a buying opportunity. On-chain monitoring resource Whalemap said that whales holding between 100 to 10,000 BTC have accumulated during the recent decline. Fidelity recently released a paper dubbed “Bitcoin First,” which highlights that Bitcoin is the most “secure, decentralized form of asset” and is unlikely to be overtaken by any of the altcoins “as a monetary good.” The report said that Bitcoin combines “the scarcity and durability of gold with the ease of use, storage and transportability of fiat.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 I...
$5 wrench attacks appear to be on the rise in the crypto community
Normally, the only way to access one’s crypto funds is through their private key, which, thanks to advances in cryptography, would take nothing less than an advanced futuristic quantum computer to decipher. That said, mafias and gangs have managed to think outside the box. Instead of wasting their efforts on breaking the underlying cryptography, they’ve turned their attention to targeting crypto owners, themselves. A $5 wrench attack is when someone finds out you have a lot of crypto and physically attacks or threatens you for your private keys. On Wednesday, at least eight men, including a police officer, were arrested in the city of Pimpri-Chinchwad, India, for allegedly kidnapping a crypto trader and demanding ransom. The arrested officer, Constable Dilip Tukaram Khandare, r...
