Crypto news
Russia officials fail to reach a compromise over crypto regulation
Discussions held on Tuesday between the Russian Finance Ministry and Central Bank officials on crypto regulation bore no fruit President Putin has urged deliberations between the central bank and the government to reach a common ground Russia President Vladimir Putin recently chipped on the cryptocurrency conversation – a matter that has brought forth divided opinion in the country. While one facet has strongly pushed for a blanket ban on these digital assets, the other has appeared to lean towards regulating them. Putin urged both sides of the aisle to have a sit-down to reach a resolution. Bloomberg reported that senior government personnel held a meeting regarding the matter on Tuesday, citing individuals who requested not to be identified as the meeting had not been disclosed to the pu...
US SEC is investigating two of Binance.US trading affiliates
The regulator wants to establish the relationship between Binance.US and two affiliate firms associated with Changpeng Zhao Several US authorities have in the past, on more than one occasion, probed Binance over other compliance matters The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into two trading firms associated with crypto exchange Binance’s US arm. The financial markets regulator is said to be investigating the relationship between Binance.US and these firms which hold ties with Binance CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao. According to a report published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Merit Peak Ltd and Sigma Chain AG are the entities in question. The two firms trade on Binance.US as market makers. The WSJ detailed that the unnamed sources said that the regulator is se...
CryptoPunks community reacts to the ongoing copyright battle between v1 and v2
During its initial release, 10,000 CryptoPunks were sold and made it to the secondary market before users discovered a critical smart contract exploit that made it possible for Punks’ buyers to withdraw their Ether (ETH) post-purchase. As a result, creator Larva Labs withdrew recognition of the v1 collection, fixed the exploit and released the v2 Punks collection we have now. Though, they’ve also sent mixed messages about the collection by selling off dozens of their own V1 Punks. The battle over the copyright of the CryptoPunks v1 collection is heating up as the images recently gained in market value, with Larva Labs filing a DMCA take-down notice to OpenSea and members of the v1 community striking back with their own. To complicate the matter, Larva Labs purposefully coded th...
Traders say $4,000 Ethereum back on the cards ‘if’ this bullish chart pattern plays out
Global and macroeconomic concerns ranging from rising inflation rates in the United States to the prospect of Russia invading Ukraine continue to spark volatility in financial markets. To the surprise of many analysts, the mood in the cryptocurrency market shifted in a positive direction on Feb. 15 after Bitcoin (BTC) climbed to $44,500 and Ether (ETH) regained support at $3,100. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after bouncing off a low of $2,826 in the early trading hours on Feb. 15, the price of Ether rallied 11.4% to a daily high of $3,148. ETH/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what several traders in the market are saying about the recent price action for Ether and what to be on the lookout for in the weeks ahead. Ether is in a heavy ...
NYSE files a trademark application for trading NFTs
The New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, has filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, on Feb 10 to register the name “NYSE” for several blockchains and crypto related products and services. The goods specified include virtual reality and augmented reality software, nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and online marketplaces. According to the application, the financial exchange would be able to provide “downloadable virtual goods” for NFTs and digital collectibles, as well as “authentication of data in the field on NFTs using blockchain technology.” This is not the NYSE’s first foray into NFTs or the Metaverse. In April 2021, six NYSE NFTs were minted to commemorate the first trades for Spotify, Snowflake, Unity, DoorDash,...
Nifty News: Anime-ca Brands, Steve Aoki’s NFTs more profitable than decade of studio albums
Anime and Animoca Brands Blockchain gaming and Metaverse company Animoca Brands has launched a strategic subsidiary in Japan after raising $10 million in seed funding. The new subsidiary, named Animoca Brands KK, plans on expanding popular Japanese content into NFTs, the Metaverse, and fungible tokens through Web3 applications. The content includes anime such as My Hero Academia and Dragon Ball, games, art, sports, and others. Funds for this latest expansion were raised in a $10 million seed round led by Japanese investment firm MCP Asset Management’s MCP IPX One Fund. Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu told Cointelegraph that “this one is really big” because of the content being brought into the NFT space and the size of the firms now involved. Siu also said in the o...
Grayscale Bitcoin ETF proposal sees support from the public
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a provision for comments from the people on the subject of Grayscale converting its BTC Trust into a spot ETF The financial watchdog has in the past publicly shown inclination towards indirect crypto ETFs as opposed to spot ETFs Earlier this month, the SEC shared its concerns on the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) conversion proposal – mostly revolving around manipulation, fraud and investor protection. The commission also expressed its uncertainty over the propriety of Bitcoin as the underlying asset, asking the public to give its views on the same. The agency set a 21-day window for providing the comments and 14 days for replies to the shared view. The US markets regulator has since received many comments regarding t...
Here is why crypto strategist de Poppe believes Bitcoin’s $41k support is crucial
Crypto markets analyst Michael van de Poppe has identified crucial $41k support for Bitcoin He theorised that Bitcoin going above $46k is a trigger for altcoins to start performing better Van de Poppe expects extended sideways action for Ethereum unless it breaks above $3,100 Crypto strategist Michael van de Poppe has reviewed how the crypto community should expect the market to shape up over the next few days. Bitcoin Speaking on the king cryptocurrency, Van de Poppe observed in a recent YouTube session that the coin is dancing around a crucial support level, which he says is likely to determine the direction Bitcoin could take in the short term. He pointed out that $41k was an important price level for Bitcoin, explaining that should support persist at this level, then Bitcoin could test...
Canada enforces restrictions on crowdfunding and crypto payment platforms
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act to stop funding to the ongoing protests against COVID-19 mandates in the country Crowdfunding platforms and crypto payment providers associated with them will be required to register with FITRAC They are also to flag unusual transactions and report them to the regulator. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the country’s Emergencies Act for the first time. The Act is a set of regulations coined in 1988 that temporarily gives the federal government leeway to exercise additional powers for the good of the public. Assistant Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also serves as the Minister for Finance, confirmed yesterday that following the invocation of the Act, the government has expanded the scope of anti-terr...
Monero community concerned as leading mining pool nears 51% of ecosystem’s total hash rate
On Tuesday, privacy coin Monero (XMR) mining pool MineXMR’s hash rate surpassed over 1.4 GH/s, accounting for 44% of the hash rate of the XMR network. MineXMR has about 13,000 miners and charges a 1% pool fee. According to a screenshot from Archive.org last August, the pool only contributed to 34% of the hash rate of the XMR network. The rapid rise in the network’s hash rate has spooked some XMR enthusiasts, with Reddit user u/vscmm writing: “We need to talk with MineXMR to take some action right now! Please send an email for support@minexmr.com to MineXMR admins to take action; a 51% pool is not in the best interest of the community or the pool.” If a 51% attack were to occur, the bad actors involved could potentially overturn network transactions to double-sp...
Concerns over Fed nominee may stop Senate from confirming Biden’s picks: Report
Members of the U.S. Senate Banking committee have reportedly divided along party lines regarding President Joe Biden’s pick of Sarah Bloom Raskin as vice chair for supervision for the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve. According to a Tuesday report from Reuters, Senator Pat Toomey, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said he had asked the 12 Republican senators on the committee to not attend a meeting in which members were expected to vote on President Biden’s nominees for the Fed. Toomey reportedly said that Democratic leadership can proceed with “five of the six nominees” put forth by the President and expect Republican support — with the exception of Raskin. Republicans’ boycott is reportedly due to concerns over allegations that the prospective Fed vice chair fo...
OpenSea customer service migrating from Discord to Metalink to more adequately protect its community
On Tuesday, nonfungible token, or NFT, platform OpenSea launched a server on Metalink to give the verified owners of its collections a direct channel for support, feedback and updates. In addition, OpenSea said it would no longer offer customer support over Discord DMs. Metalink is a collaboration app for NFT communities that offers users a place to view their collection’s value and monitor its associated real-time transaction feed. In addition, channels hosted on Metalink are token-gated, meaning that proof of ownership of an NFT or social token is required to access the content. According to OpenSea, the platform is making the switch after fraudsters began impersonating support associates on its Discord page. As one crypto enthusiast, @seanbonner writes: “[It happens li...
