Crypto News

The corporate bitcoin whale, MicroStrategy, has made another big bitcoin purchase. With an average price of $48,099 per coin, the company bought another 5,050 bitcoin worth $242.9 million in cash. MicroStrategy said in their statement in the SEC that they now hold 114,042 bitcoins worth $3.16 billion.

The biggest bank in El Salvador, Bancoagricola, has now included Bitcoin as support in its financial instruments.  With its partnership with the payments network, Flexa, cryptocurrency capabilities are now included in its software. The financial institution also accepts bitcoin to pay for debts.

The UK Post Office now allows its customers to make in-app Bitcoin purchases. On its partnership with the German-based crypto exchange, Swarm Markets, it is now possible for users who have verified identities via Post EasyID app to directly access and buy crypto from Swarm’s websites. The customers can also have access through purchasing crypto vouchers that are redeemable for Bitcoin.

The Ukrainian Parliament has adopted a new law that legalises and regulates cryptocurrency. In nearly unanimous votes, the bill was passed and is about to be signed by the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Following El Salvador’s move in adopting bitcoin, Ukraine is the fifth country to lay down ground rules for digital currencies.

On September 7th, El Salvador has officially declared Bitcoin as a legal tender. A social media campaign on Twitter went around encouraging people to purchase Bitcoin with the hashtag #7SeptemberBuyBTC. This is to show support for the launch of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law.

Ripple has filed a response on SEC’s opposition against Ripple’s letter Motion to Compel Sec Employees’ pre-clearance data. This motion to compel will serve as proof that SEC employees had permission to trade in crypto, including XRP and other digital assets. However, SEC argued and refused to provide data because it contains confidential financial details collected by the SEC’s Office of Ethics Counsel.

MicroStrategy, a Nasdaq-listed software company, was able to get away with losing multi-billion dollars. The CEO, Michael Saylor, tweeted last Sunday about choosing bitcoin over gold last year. During the past 12 months, bitcoin returned 376.34% while gold returned –5.88%. Moreover, the return of gold vs. bitcoin was -80% during the last 12 month period.

Following the steps of El Salvador, the Congressman of Panama Gabriel Silva introduced a bill for regulating the use of cryptocurrency. On his social media post via Twitter, he mentioned that the government of Panama is interested in making its country compatible with blockchain, crypto assets, and the internet. Will Panama be the next country to adopt Bitcoin?

A multinational investment bank, Morgan Stanley, holds shares in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. According to the SEC filings, Morgan Stanley Insight Funds owns over 928,051 GBTC, worth $36 million in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. With institutions like this jumping into huge crypto investments, it will be no surprise that other major institutions will eventually follow.

The announcement of having bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador had been all around the news. The crypto community has been waiting for the next country to step up and embrace cryptocurrency. Cuba, a North American country,   has taken consideration of recognizing and regulating cryptocurrencies for payments. A resolution published in Official Gazette stated that the rules for this currency and the process of licensing the service providers in Cuba will be set by the Central Bank.

Microsoft was awarded a U.S Patent for software to help users develop blockchain applications. This will make the creation of crypto tokens easier and more efficient. Creating and managing tokens are “difficult and cumbersome” because of the lack of standardization across the blockchain. The system is useful for the developers to not worry about token-specific code to interact with.

Nigeria has finally taken action on its CBDC. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) partnered with Bitt Inc for the rollout of its e-naira digital currency. Bitt Inc has been chosen based on  “technological competence, efficiency, platform security, interoperability, and implementation experience,” according to CBN. The fintech’s experience in the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank’s currency’s development is considered in the selection.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Thursday, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are the two major financial services to launch Bitcoin Funds. These institutions would work withthe NewYork Digital Investment Group (NYDIG). The filings of JP Morgan and Wells Fargo in the bitcoin fund state seem like the first sale has yet to come.

The payment platform PayPal will now allow its UK users to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies. Users can freely choose from four types of cryptocurrency– bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, and bitcoin cash. The service would be available in the PayPal app and website. PayPal's big move received a lot of hype from crypto folks in the UK as they are looking forward to more crypto adoption in the future.

We have read on news sites and social media platforms about how institutions are experimenting with NFTs. One of the major companies, Visa, jumped on the NFT craze. It has now acquiredCryptoPunkfor nearly $150,000 worth of Ethereum last Monday.

Citigroup, a U.S. banking giant, is considering offering bitcoin futures to some of its institutional clients. In addition, it was reported that Citi is waiting for its regulatory approval to start trading bitcoin futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The bank is still contemplating its options in providing crypto-related services.

Michael Saylor has been an all-out supporter of Bitcoin for a long time. We have seen and read his tweets about pumping Bitcoin and how his company, MicroStrategy, bought bitcoin despite the volatility. Another tweet from Saylor caught the interest of the crypto community when he said that Bitcoin is hope for Canada. Canada has unused hydroelectric power to operate the whole Bitcoin Network.

Walmart, a multinational retail corporation, seeks a cryptocurrency expert who would help expand the virtual payment options as the Fortune 500 companies are now taking a look at digital currencies. The position will be a Walmart senior director who will serve as Cryptocurrency and Digital Currency Product Lead. Whoever gets this position will handle and develop the digital currency strategy and product roadmap.

After leaving FC Barcelona, football star Lionel Messi signed a two-year deal with the Paris Saint-Germain club. He received crypto fan tokens as part of his sign-in package. This made Messi the very first player who received a large amount of PSG fan tokens.

In an interview with Argentina’sPresident, AlbertoFernandez, the country’s leader has stated that he is open to and is willing to adopt cryptocurrencies as legal tender in his country. There has always been a continuous discussion about the use and importance of cryptocurrencies, not just in Argentina, but all over the world. The president acknowledged that this should be carefully looked into as he admitted that he’s not yet well knowledgeable in the world of cryptocurrencies.

The theater chain AMC will start accepting bitcoin as payment in buying movie tickets and concession items online. This will take effect by the end of 2021 in all US theaters with  IT systems ready for all crypto payments. This big move received a lot of hype in the crypto community and many are excited for more amazing news like this.

Despite the odds of US regulators allowing cryptocurrencies into the structure, Grayscale has decided to build out its ETF team. They have appointed David LaValle, a former chief executive officer of custom index provider Alerian, as its global head of exchange-traded funds. Lavalle will oversee the conversion of $25 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.

The much-awaited Ethereum 2.0 upgrade has been all over the headlines and social media platforms. More than 6.5 million Ethereum coins have been staked under the deposit contract. Now, Etherscan.com, Ethereum’s analytics platform, reported ETH 2.0 has a stake in ETH under a deposit contract with a total value of $20 billion.

It has been shown in the data of the Bitcoin P2P trading that nearly $40 million worth of the top cryptocurrency was moved in the last 30 days by Nigerian Bitcoin users. The ban of crypto in Nigeria was not a hindrance for it to be the forefront country that has adopted the flagship asset in Africa. On its record, Nigeria now has $30 million worth of Bitcoin trading volume in the past few months.

The Paypal crypto services believe in the potential of blockchain.  As it continues to expand globally in the crypto space, it aims to bring its encryption services to the UK in the coming months. This made the UK crypto community delighted with PayPal’s huge step in crypto.

As we have read and heard the downsides in making Bitcoin a legal tender, Bank of America highlighted its potential benefits in El Salvador on its adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender. These benefits are low-cost remittances, financial digitization, more choices, and greater investments from foreign companies. The report said that the adoption of bitcoin could bring foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in El Salvador such as from Strike, bitcoin miners, and ATM manufacturers.

In 2018, it was all over the news that Google had banned any advertisement related to crypto companies and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Now on Google’s new policy, it allows advertisements for regulated cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services. This has taken full effect on August 3rd.

We have been waiting for the launch of the  Ethereum Hard Fork which nodes are now ready to sync.  There are five Ethereum Improvement Proposals in which if implemented, will lessen or remove the direct interaction of traders and miners. This upgrade promises improvements in scalability and solution in the growing gas fee problem.

Another big step has been taken by the Cardano blockchain right after they have successfully deployed the Alonzo White Hard Fork. This is a multi-phase upgrade wherein each phased arenamed – blue, white, and purple. This will bring smart-contract functionality to the blockchain and will include more users and features.

The CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, announced the company’s plan of launching a decentralized finance (Defi) business mainly for bitcoin. According to Dorsey, a project initiated by Square’sCashappstrategic director will allow “non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services.” Dorsey added that this project will be open on its strategic planning and development.

The conference featuring a live discussion about Bitcoin between Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla; Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter; and Cathie Wood of ARK invest is confirmed. This started when Musk and Dorsey exchanged tweets on Twitter. The conference will take place on Wednesday, July 21, at noon ET. We can only imagine how many Bitcoin enthusiasts are looking forward to this event.

In the discussion of US Bitcoin ETF, Grayscale’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein emphasized that the US Bitcoin ETF is not a matter of “if” but “when”. Grayscale describes it there are just only a “few maturation points” that separates the United States from its first exchange-traded fund (ETF) Bitcoin (BTC). As of now, regulators have 13 ETF applications under consideration in which the US is being left behind.

The payments company of Twitter, Square, decided to make a bitcoin hardware wallet. This was confirmed by Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey. This offers multi-signature transactions. It is also necessary to have two private keys to sign to get a transaction done.

Visa declared that their consumers spent $1 billion worth of the cryptocurrency using their crypto-linked cards in the first half of this year. According to Visa, they only got a fraction of that amount in the same periods last year and 2019. To date, they are creating an ecosystem that makes the cryptocurrency more usable and more like any other currency.

The Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, mentioned his stand on cryptocurrencies and the blockchain last July 8 in Jalisco Talend Land Digital in 2021. In his statement, he describes bitcoin as a “miracle of technology” because it is a unique and complete mathematical formula. He also added that bitcoin being limited makes it “better than gold”.

Grayscale declared the effectiveness of its registration with SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) on behalf of its GLDC Fund. This fund is the first diversified digital asset investment product for it to be the first SEC-reporting company.  It has also filed three additional registration statements with the SEC on behalf of Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust ($BCHG), Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust ($ETCG), and Grayscale Litecoin Trust ( $LTCN).

Approximately 650 banks in the United States will be allowing Bitcoin purchases to their roughly 24 million clients. Thanks to the deal between payments giant NCR and NYDIG, it will be possible for the community banks and credit unions to offer clients crypto trading through apps developed by the payment provider. The NCR president, Douglas Brown, has said that they are firm believers in the benefit of crypto and the strategic application. Let’s see how this step brings us to greater adoption.

Even on its current involvement in the lawsuit filed by SEC, Ripple continues to do business as usual and achieves its goals and obligations. On July 1, one billion XRP tokens have been withdrawn by Ripple from its escrow account. This massive release of XRP amounts has been programmed to occur on the first day of each month.

JP Morgan’s two senior analysts estimate that the Ethereum upgrades could jumpstart a $40 billion staking industry. They claimed that in the current zero-rate climate, staking returns are a good investment in which it refers to the low-interest rates that banks offer on their customer’s savings. Will the launch of ETH 2.0 lead to more ETH adoption?

Grayscale Investments has added Cardano (ADA) to the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC). It has been reported that Grayscale liquidated proportional amounts of the fund’s existing components to raise money to buy ADA. It now has six coins: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Chainlink, Ethereum, and Cardano. With BTC being the dominant cryptocurrency, Cardano (ADA) is now the third-largest fund component, accounting for 4.26% of Grayscale’s portfolio.

Due to the recent power shortages in Iran, it has been announced that there would be a blanket ban on mining operations. The ban will be up until September after the series of blackouts related to the energy-intensive process. However, this did not prevent Iran from issuing crypto mining licenses to 30 crypto mining operators.

President Nayib Bukele announced that every adult in El Salvador would receive $30 worth of Bitcoin (BTC). The Bitcoiners welcomed this announcement and the influencers speculating that the country might need to buy the required BTC it intends to distribute, which will add more than $100 million in purchasing pressure on markets. The President also mentioned that the “bitcoin law,” which recognizes Bitcoin as a legal tender, will be on September 7th.

Securitize, a digital asset securities firm has excellent plans for the adoption of tokenized securities. It has raised $48 million in a Series B fundraising co-led by Morgan Stanley and Blockchain Capital. This would be Morgan Stanley’s first investment in the crypto space.

In a blog post, the prominent venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz announced its third crypto venture fund, which is a $2.2 billion fund. This is the largest crypto of its kind as they believe that the next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto.

A prohibition on mines in China’s southern region has widened China's grip on its vast cryptocurrency mining sector. We have seen the red candlesticks on crypto price charts recently, which makes China’s crypto mining ban one of the primary reasons. However, the former crypto miner has emphasized that this should not be something to be concerned about as bitcoin will be a free technology which means that it’s working, not failing.

Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, was trending this week as he announced the company’s purchase of additional 13,005 bitcoins worth $489 million in cash. It was a buzz in the crypto community since bitcoin’s price has fallen shortly these past few days. With MicroStrategy buying the dip, does this encouraged the bitcoin supporters to hold more?

Goldman Sachs, a multinational investment bank, has taken a step forward in its efforts to help hedge funds and other huge institutional clients to stake on bitcoin. The company began trading bitcoin futures with Galaxy Digital’s network. With its partnership with Galaxy Digital, other banks might be pressured with their clients who want bitcoin exposure.  This signal is given by Goldman Sachs for other banks to step up their game.

Just this month, El Salvador made a huge step in its announcement of making Bitcoin a legal tender. However, as El Salvador seek help from the World Bank on its new implementation, the World Bank has made it clear that this is something they can’t support because of bitcoin’s shortcomings in terms of transparency and its environmental impact. Many have expressed their disappointment but this is something that’s never really a surprise.

This is not the first time that MicroStrategy has sold bonds to purchase bitcoin. Last year,  it has sold $1.6 billion of convertible bonds. Before bitcoin’s price dropped last month, MicroStrategy is one of the catalysts for this coin’s hot rally in 2020 and early 2021. Now, it has sold $500 million corporate bonds for financing purchases of bitcoin.

We can’t deny the fact that one of the issues of Bitcoin is its energy consumption. Headlines about the recent crackdown on coal-powered Chinese miners and Tesla’s environmental concerns were all around news outlets. With El Salvador’s proposal of having, “power crypto-mining with 100% cheap, renewable geothermal energy”, it boils down to the question if El Salvador can prove that it can be a more friendly location for operations from both a regulatory and environmental stance.

A lot happened with Bitcoin and Elon Musk this year. It went from Tesla buying $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin to halting bitcoin payments for Tesla car purchases. Recently, Elon Musk’s tweet about accepting bitcoin again with the condition of bitcoin mining to be transitioned to more sustainable energy skyrocketed the bitcoin’s price.

The multinational investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is furthering its crypto offerings aside from Bitcoin. It has been reported that the investment bank intends to offer both options and futures in Ethereum. This is not the only bank that raises the stakes on crypto and this kind of effort made by Goldman Sachs greatly gives significance to the crypto market in the investing world.

In the Miami conference, El Salvador President, Nayib Bukele announced that he will send proposed legislation to the country’s congress that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in Central America.   Bukele mentioned that he hopes that this will help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy.  A lot of bitcoiners praised Bukele for this one big move towards his country’s bitcoin adoption.

The report of the European Central Bank (ECB) has stated the threat of monetary controls to those countries that did not consider launching their own central bank digital currency (CBDC). It has set out the advantages of issuing CBDCs in which a “foreign digital money” could leapfrog the adoption of a digital euro, becoming the accepted standard for domestic and international payments.

Jack Dorsey, Square’s CEO, has been a strong bitcoin supporter. The exciting news was announced when he tweeted about collaborating with the larger crypto community on his consideration of developing a Bitcoin hardware wallet. As one of the institutions that strongly supports bitcoin, it has now looking to extend its influence in the community.

Last December, FCA established a temporary registration regime as they struggled to deal with hundreds of applications. This allows existing crypto firms, who have applied to be registered with the FCA, to continue trading. The deadline for the existing crypto firms’ registration has been extended which will now be March 31, 2022.

Many are not happy with the delays of the Financial Conduct Authority’s crypto register in the UK. The British politician, Philip Davies MP, was concerned over these delays and called out the chancellor, Rishi Sunak. The UK is known as a hub for financial innovation and the handling of the registration process would greatly affect its reputation.

With its latest pump, meme stock GME is back on its track. GameStop has decided to join the NFT craze as it will launch its non-fungible token platform (NFT.GameStop.com) in the second largest network, Ethereum. They also plan to release a dedicated token GME. On its announcement, they left a message: “Power to the Players. Power to the creators. Power to the collectors.”

It has been announced by the IOHK that the first testnet of the Cardano’s Alonzo upgrade will be launched. This upgrade serves as an introduction of smart contracts to the blockchain. The testnet is codenamed Alonzo Blue and it is the upgrade’s early alpha network that provides core Alonzo-node networking capability.

The US SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler, was questioned about the probability of a brand new regulatory class for digital assets.   He responded that the scale of business makes it difficult enough to create client protection. With the thousands of cryptocurrencies, the agency has only introduced 75 actions. He also stated that it had developed into expedient for the company to work on bettering investor safety by regulating crypto exchanges.

With the recent Bitcoin drop, a lot of traders just dump and run. The Ark Investment Management boss, Cathie Wood, said that the recent crypto market was currently “very emotional” so it was not yet possible to know where the bottom would be for Bitcoin. Moreover, she added that the recent decline is an indication that it “ is a very good time to buy”.  

The CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, is a bitcoin proponent who stands that bitcoin is environmentally friendly as it promotes sustainability with the use of clean green energy. Many have proposed that bitcoin should use Proof of Stake (PoS) as it is believed to consume 90% of energy. However, Dorsey claimed that PoS is highly centralized and gives less security than PoW.

In January, US billionaire Ray Dalio, states that Bitcoin has features that could make it an attractive store hold of wealth. It has been known that Dalio hates cash and bonds, however, he’s also known for making good investment calls. Now, he claims that he owns bitcoin.

Amidst the rise of cryptocurrencies, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the US Government is exploring the possibility of issuing a new type of digital currency. This summer of 2021, they will be publishing a discussion paper about the creation of possible creation of a central digital bank currency (CDBC). In line with this, they are also exploring the risks and benefits of CBDCs.

The Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin has been known for being a beneficiary of the 50% of SHIB’s total supply. Recently, it’s been reported that Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB, worth $1.2 billion to India’s covid relief fund. Now, it was confirmed he’s burnt  90% of his SHIB tokens worth $6.7 billion and plans to send the remaining 10% to a charity.

In 2019, Samsung started to support cryptocurrencies on its mobile phones with the Galaxy S10.   It has first supported bitcoin but now the built-in Samsung Blockchain Wallet lets its users manage and transact cryptocurrencies like ethereum, ERC tokens, Tron, and TRC tokens. This year, Samsung plans to also support hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X .

We can still remember how Tesla’s bitcoin purchase worth $1.5 billion and its announcement of accepting bitcoin as payment hyped up the crypto community. Bitcoin has environmental impacts that offset Tesla’s efforts by having electric cars which put Tesla under scrutiny. An announcement has been made that Tesla will stop accepting bitcoin payments.

NFTs are all the rage in the community these days. eBay is the very first e-commerce company to dive into the recent NFT trend. It has allowed the sale of non-fungible tokens for digital collectibles like trading cards, images, or video clips on its platform.  eBay is also open to the possibility of accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment in the future.

The New York Giants will be the first National Football League team to form a cryptocurrency partnership. It has been announced that they will be partnered with the crypto manager Grayscale who will act as a presenting sponsor for the Giants Foundation’s annual golf outing. There will be annual educational seminars that will be hosted by Grayscale for the Giants.

Nokia announced the launch of the Nokia Data Marketplace which is the company’s enterprise-grade blockchain-based data marketplace infrastructure service. This new blockchain service offers data transactions and analysis of a secure private, permissioned blockchain infrastructure.

Funded entirely by Dogecoin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch a satellite to the moon. It will now accept Dogecoin as payment. In the first quarter of 2022, the dubbed DOGE-1 will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This will be the first-ever commercial lunar payload in history.

Mark Zuckerberg named his two new goats, Bitcoin and Max. This made the crypto fans excited in which gave a hint that Zuckerberg might be a bitcoin maximalist. Also, it was announced in the previous week that Facebook will soon launch the Diem pilot test.

In a town just outside of Moscow in 1994, Vitalik Buterin was born. He later moved to Canada and was raised in Toronto. Buterin also co-founded and wrote for Bitcoin Magazine and was awarded a prestigious fellowship - the Thiel Fellowship. In 2015, Buterin helped launch Ethereum. As Ethereum’s value soars high, Buterin is now the world’s youngest crypto-billionaire and the second youngest self-made billionaire ever.

An announcement has been made about the partnership of a mobile payment firm, HIPS, and the taxi payment rail, The Payment House. This is to allow cabs in the UK and Scandinavia to accept cryptocurrency as payment. After the debut of the beta test, there will be 10,000 taxis in the UK and 20, 000 taxis in Scandinavia that can use the payment gateway soon.

According to the accounting firm, UHY Hacker Young Group, the United Kingdom’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are starting to collect cryptocurrency holdings from those whom it suspects to have evaded or avoided taxes. They will get information on cryptocurrencies, assets on e-wallets like Paypal, and assets in value transfer systems like Black Market Pesos, etc. The need for this data occurred with the spike in crypto and its usage in organized crime.

In December, Ripple has been charged by SEC alleging they raised more than $1.3 billion through an unregistered securities offering. Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, commented that the lack of clarity in U.S. regulation of cryptocurrencies is “frustrating.” He also added that the cryptocurrency industry should focus more on utility.

Bitcoin’s high-energy consumption has been criticized in the past few years. As the crypto prices increase, the energy consumed in crypto-mining is also expected to grow. With the growing competition of cryptocurrencies, developers are now seeking fast and efficient mining methods. Ripple’s co-founder, Chris Larsen, encouraged the use of eco-friendly models of bitcoin mining to maintain Bitcoin’s market dominance.

In June 2019, Facebook introduced its first digital currency named Libra. It has faced oppositions from regulators around the world which led to losing its major backers Visa and Mastercard. After two years, the Facebook-backed digital coin named Diem is expected to launch this year.

The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of LawtechUK (UKJTL), chaired by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, has published the Digital Dispute Resolution Rules.  The Taskforce notes that the new rules allow parties to resolve their disputes by an arbitrator

There were 200 million XRP coins released by the former Ripple CTO and one of the company's co-founders, Jed McCaleb. McCaleb helped found Ripple’s Labs in 2012 has made 11 transactions from his "tacostand" XRP wallet.

The Berlin Fork upgrade has already taken place with four Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP). These are EIPs  EIPs 2565, 2929, 2718, and 2930. By April 7, ETH node operators and miners should have downloaded the latest version of the Ethereum client. If they haven’t downloaded it yet, there’s a possibility that they might be stuck on an incompatible chain.

The head of the Turkish Central Bank, Sahap Kavcioglu, released a statement about the new regulation that will be implemented on April 30th. In the said regulation, cryptocurrencies will not be used as payments directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, cryptocurrency deposits are still allowed.

The Bank of England is exploring a potential UK Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Alongside the cash and bank deposits, a CBDC will be a new form of digital currency to use for households and businesses. Moreover, it has been announced that there will be a CBDC Engagement Forum and CBDC Technology Forum. As of now, the Bank of England hasn’t decided yet whether to introduce a CBDC in the UK.

It has been announced that Venmo is now allowing users to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency on its app. With the conditional license from the  New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) received by Paypal, the functionality of crypto in Venmo became possible.  The said launch shows PayPal's commitment to supporting cryptocurrencies.

We have heard and read from the news that two-thirds of cryptocurrency mining in the world takes place in China. China’s involvement in Bitcoin has risen suspicion to Paypal’s Founder, Peter Thiel. He commented in a virtual event that BTC is a threat to fiat currency especially the US dollar.

The US SEC was requested to provide its external and partially internal documents about the classification of Bitcoin and Ethereum as non-securities. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn has made a decision which was in favor of Ripple that has led to a possible early settlement of the case and for Ripple’s fair notice defense. Moreover, there were documents also presented by Ripple’s attorneys highlighting the SEC’s inconsistency. These documents were from third parties that have met the SEC for a “guidance” asking “whether XRP must be treated as a security”.

The second-largest digital currency, Ethereum, has jumped by nearly 3% on Monday. It has reached its all-time high with a $2 197 price. Ethereum has now crossed the $250 Billion market cap which makes the highest value recorded. ETH is now considered more valuable than the largest US Banks, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs.

Bringing the NFTS to mainstream adoption, Google Cloud Marketplace is partnering with Origin to create and sell Non-Fungible Tokens. The transactions will be made in Origin’s e-commerce platform known as Dshop. This platform allows users to create and manage businesses on a decentralized platform.

With the growing demand in the Asia-Pacific region, Ripple got a 40% stake in Tranglo, a Kuala Lumpur-based cross-border payments fintech.  Since the closing of the stake is still subject to regulatory approval, Ripple and Tranglo did not state comments about the value of the stake.

The U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) required the cryptocurrency exchange and wallet operators to submit an annual financial crime reporting document or REP-CRIM starting from March 30, 2022. The REP-CRIM framework was initially introduced by the regulator in 2016 and has later consulted the number of firms that should submit the REP-CRIM return.

In February 2021, a strategist of JP Morgan published a research note about BTC’s volatility being a massive issue for large organizations. But now, JP Morgan sees the potential of BTC and says that because of its declining volatility, it will attract more institutional investors.

The new ATHs of the cryptocurrency market is something that we should celebrate for. All the issued coins now reached $2trn. With Bitcoin representing more than 50% of the crypto market cap, we can say that year 2021 is a huge blast for the crypto industry. JP Morgan gives a target price of $130K.

Elon Musk has been around the headlines lately as he has been tweeting about cryptocurrencies on and off. From the recent tweet of Tesla’s CEO, it has been announced that you can now buy Tesla with Bitcoin. He added that Tesla’s using “internal” and “open-source software” to accept payment and that they “operate bitcoin nodes directly.”

In July 2020, Paypal declared its active development on crypto payment solutions. After a long wait, they have announced that consumers can finally use the cryptocurrency in their Paypal account to pay for goods and services online. The cryptocurrency will be converted to fiat currency before finalizing the transaction so it will not affect anything to the merchants. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin are the supported currencies on Paypal.

The ETH 2.0 Deposit Contract just reached 3.6 Million ETH. A report from Glassnode states that the total ETH value amounts to nearly $6.1 billion. Since the staking contract launched, there was a noticeable growth on the staked ETH rising from 300,000. The ETH 2.0 upgrade will have improvements with a roll-centric roadmap, a simplified merge, and parallelization of phases.

With the growing recognition and acceptance of cryptocurrencies, Visa now allows settling transactions to its network. They had a pilot program with payment and crypto platform Crypto.com. Visa’s steps came from the move of the finance firms including BNY Mellon, BlackRock Inc, and Mastercard Inc which make more use of cryptocurrencies for investment and payment purposes.

The Bank of Thailand cautioned the citizens that the baht-pegged stablecoin,  Thai Baht Digital (THT), has no legal assurances or protection and violates the country’s currency act. This coin was issued by the South Korean firm Terra.  However, the Bank of Thailand is now leveling up as they are now considering the regulation of asset-backed and foreign currency-backed stable coins and algorithmic stablecoins, but not decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether.

200 companies were trying to sign up under the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Money Laundering Registration (MLR) regime. However, out of these 200 companies, only four of them have received a decision. CryptoUk Chairman, Ian Taylor, called out the FCA for this delay since it has already been more than eight months without hearing from the regulator.

Morgan Stanley is now allowing its wealthier clients to access Bitcoin. In an internal memo, it is said that they will be launching access to three funds that enable ownership of bitcoin.

The research note of the Bank of America suggests that the BTC price appreciation of 1% just takes a net inflow of $93 million. With Bitcoin’s nearly $1.1 trillion market cap, the research suggests Bitcoin is twice as volatile as gold per-dollar in-flows.

Vitalik Buterin has discussed the envisioned future of the Ethereum network once the second-layer scaling model rolls out.  The layer-two solutions are designed to help scale applications by handling transactions off the main Ethereum chain or layer 1.  Without declaring the exact date, Buterin says that it may take off in the next few months.

Gary Gensler’s nomination as Chairman of the SEC role may affect how Ripple’s lawsuit will play out. Gensler is the former Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman under the Obama administration and is well known for his expertise in the blockchain industry. He promotes digital assets as a “catalyst for change”. The former SEC Commissioner, Paul Atkins, expressed his thoughts that Gensler may withdraw the case

In Elon’s Musk tweet, he mentioned that he would be selling an NFT which is “a song about NFTs”. This particular NFT has a strong electronic music vibe and includes words and phrases as “HODL” and “Vanity Trophy.” The Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu mascot has also been included. It has caught the attention of the would-be investors and attracted a $1.1 Million bid.

The House of Representatives in Georgia state proposed a bill to develop a program focused on financial literacy, recognizing cryptocurrency as a part of the special learning area on the curriculum. Other sectors already recognized crypto and the educational sector was not left behind.

The crypto investors in the UK were happy as the Chancellor decided to freeze the CGT threshold at £12,300 until 2026. Becky O’Connor, the Head of Pensions and Savings at Interactive Investor, expressed her opinion as she believes that the allowance freeze is a wealth tax by another name. Nonetheless, the short-term investors are still glad for this movement.

Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said in a documentary that XRP will keep trading even if Ripple will go away. It has been all over the news when Ripple faced the SEC lawsuit case filed against them. Despite the accusations that XRP is unregistered security, the judge will always have the final say.

Uniswap has surged by nearly 50% this week which made it the eighth-largest crypto asset. On March 5th, it also had a place in crypto’s top 10 as the first DeFi DApp token to hold the distinction. Also, UNI’s surge comes amid increasing speculation that Uniswap’s V3 upgrade will be coming in the way soon.

Kjell Inge Røkkes Aker, the second-richest man in Norway, has established a cryptocurrency company named Seetee. He invested NOK500 million ($60 million) into Bitcoin. The company will step into Bitcoin mining with green energy as energy sources. While it advocates sustainability and lessening the fears of Bitcoin’s energy use, it also aims to HODL its entire BTC holdings.

The money transfer giant, Moneygram, announced that it will not be using XRP for remittance services. Ripple also gave an official statement about this confirming the end of their partnership. Because of the SEC lawsuit against XRP, Moneygram was sued by Rosen Law Firm for allegedly misleading investors over XRP. Though the partnership did not last, it was fruitful for both of them.

As the institutional support for crypto keeps on growing, Square did not miss the opportunity on the temporary Bitcoin dip and has gotten approximately 3,318 Bitcoins when the cryptocurrency’s price was trading around $50,000. Square believes in the potential of Bitcoin as an investment as they have claimed that this is an instrument of economic empowerment.

The crypto prices have been added to the finance.google.com domain. The “Compare Markets” category has the section named “Crypto” that provides key pricing information for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The cryptocurrency market got the mainstream attention and now the institutional investors and corporations have started to jump aboard in the cryptocurrency investment.

Before correcting lower, Cardano’s smashed to its new all-time at $1.48. ADA declined below $1.20 but the price has risen up when it reached to $1.15 level. According to Assetdash data, Cardano has surpassed Tether's dollar-backed stable coin (USDT) and Binance's (BNB) to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market value, with a market capitalization of $39,792,277,652 after by Bitcoin and Ethereum.

JP Morgan Chase and Co suggest that investors should allocate 1% of their portfolio in bitcoin as a hedge. One of the most popular topics of discussion in the crypto community is how big should be the percentage that investors should invest in.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit new lifetime highs of more than $51,200 on Feb. 17 as it tackled what trader Peter Brandt confirms is a “parabolic advance.” Tuesday had seen Bitcoin hit $50,000 for the first time ever, that level nonetheless failing to hold for more than a matter of minutes. With its return, the largest cryptocurrency is in a "parabolic advance" — the fourth in its twelve-year history, analysts say.

Financial and investment advisory giant The Motley Fool has announced it will invest $5 million into Bitcoin (BTC) with the expectation that it will rise to $500,000.Announced earlier today via a blog and Twitter post, the firm stated it won’t be “buying overpriced ETFs” but will be “buying Bitcoin directly.” Currently ranked fifth globally in the investing category, according to Similar Web, and with 87 million website visits per month, The Motley Fool outlined three core reasons behind the purchase: Bitcoin is a better store of value than gold, it's an effective hedge against inflation and it has the potential to become a transactional asset.

Ether (ETH) is up 150% in 2021, causing its market capitalization to soar above $200 billion. Most traders are fixated on the unitary price, even though it is entirely arbitrary, therefore missing relevant milestones and comparables.o evidentiate myopia caused by unitary prices, Cardano (ADA) is priced below $1, although its market capitalization is over $26 billion. Therefore, the outstanding number of coins matters just as much. At the other extreme, Cover Protocol (COVER) unitary price is nearly USD 1,600, even though its market capitalization remains sub $100 million.

Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, has disclosed that Tesla is smiling all the way to the bank after cashing in approximately $1 billion in profits from its Bitcoin (BTC) investment. Earlier this month, the American electric carmaker revealed a purchase of Bitcoin worth $1.5 billion, and this move was propelled by its quest for more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns. Moreover, Tesla stated that it may start accepting payments in BTC in exchange for its products. Ives believes this decision has paid off because the company will continue making more profits from this investment. He noted: “The company is on a trajectory to make more from its Bitcoin investments than profits from selling its EV (electric vehicle) cars in all of 2020.”

The pretrial hearing between Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission is set to happen today. The outcome of this case will undoubtedly have huge repercussions for the cryptocurrency industry, and it may pave the way for how other cryptocurrencies are regulated in the United States. Urgently, the SEC is suing Ripple for unlawful sales of XRP, as they deem that the cryptocurrency should be considered a security, therefore placing Ripple Labs and chief executives Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse in violation of securities laws. Former SEC chair says that agency is “dead wrong” Former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mary Jo White is one of Ripple’s attorneys. In an interview with Fortune, she expressed her thoughts on the Ripple case. According to White, the Commission has made a mistake in suing Ripple over XRP for unregistered securities. The agency places XRP sales as a violation of securities laws, having pinpointed that XRP should be classified as a security. White said: “There’s no way to Sugar-coat it. They’re dead wrong legally and factually.”

Crypto market capitalization has been gaining momentum amid an ongoing crypto rally this year, breaking the $1 trillion mark in early January. Total crypto market cap previously surpassed the market cap level of Tesla, which amounts to around $815 billion at the time of writing. Soon after crypto markets broke Tesla’s market cap, the company made a massive announcement on Feb. 8, reporting a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin to the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission. Crypto's recent pump now puts the market behind Amazon, Microsoft and Apple in terms of market cap.

The firm believes this may open merchants up to new customers and build loyalty with existing customers who are already migrating to digital assets over traditional fiat options. "We are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value — traditional or crypto — however they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money." MasterCard already devoted significant resources into exploring distributed ledger technology, with the company currently holding 89 blockchain patents while a further 285 applications are pending.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced the creation of a blind Bitcoin (BTC) development trust worth 500 BTC ($23.7 million), along with rapper Jay-Z, for teams working on the project in India and Africa. Dorsey revealed the creation of the trust on Feb. 12 while sending out a call for three board members to oversee the blind trust initially. Dubbed the ₿Trust, the application form for board members reveals the mission statement, “Make Bitcoin the internet’s currency." The Twitter CEO’s tweet appeared just hours after news broke concerning India’s alleged plans to completely ban the use of cryptocurrencies within its borders. The world’s second-most populated country could soon move to ban all crypto-assets, giving users a 3–6 month grace period to liquidate their holdings, according to an anonymous source who spoke to Bloomberg.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said today that he would support the top holders of Dogecoin selling a big portion of their DOGE stash to ease out the altcoin’s distribution, as per a tweet this morning. Founded in 2013 as a joke cryptocurrency, Dogecoin’s meme value, the usage of a Shiba Inu dog as a mascot, and a cutesy narrative has pumped its market cap to billions of dollars over the years.