Month: July 2019

Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Tom Lee believes that recent interest rate cuts in the United States by the Federal Reserve are a boon for Bitcoin (BTC).   Lee remarked on how the rate cuts positively impact Bitcoin investment in an interview with Fox Business on July 31, saying: “Bitcoin’s becoming increasingly a macrohedge for investors against things that could go wrong. Rate cuts are adding liquidity. Liquidity is pushing money into all these risk assets and also hedges, which is helping Read more …

Security tokens platform TokenSoft has officially added Know Your Business (KYB) services following a successful alpha test in 2018. The San Francisco-based token issuance platform said in a press release on July 31 that the KYB feature was added in order to enhance customer due diligence (CDD) requirements in compliance with an amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act. Per the press release, the KYB test launched on the eve of the effective date of the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Read more …

Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have a lot in common. Both are genius tech entrepreneurs and both are at the helm of multiple companies – Twitter and Square for Dorsey and Tesla, The Boring Company, and SpaceX for Musk. But only two out of three publicly traded companies named are beating the S&P 500, while the other has shed one-fifth of its value. Spoiler alert: The company that’s not doing so hot in the stock market is Elon Musk’s Tesla. Read more …

A Justice of the High Court of England and Wales has dismissed a libel lawsuit against Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponent and Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver. Justice Matthew Nicklin of the Queen’s Bench Division threw out the case earlier this week, according to a decision published on July 31. Back in May, Craig Wright — an Australian computer scientist who claims he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin — served Ver with a libel suit in London. Wright accused Ver Read more …

Although the crypto industry has been closely watching to see when the highly anticipated physically settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures platform Bakkt officially launches, they have now been beaten by their competitor – LedgerX – who officially launched today. The platform is open to all US-based investors with a government issued ID and is not limited to institutional clients or high-net-worth clients. Despite this, most analysts believe that the benefits that physically settled futures contracts will bring to the crypto markets Read more …

The long-anticipated Sony PlayStation 5 took a step closer to launch this week when a Swedish retailer began taking PS5 preorders. However, the announcement left gamers speechless for another reason: the device’s insane SEK9,999 (~$1,050) price tag. However, with all due respect to the Twitter outrage machine, you’d have to be an idiot to believe Sony would charge more than $1,000 for its next generation of hardware. *spits out tea* HOW MUCHhttps://t.co/5aEzruHZOd — Theo (@tprstly) July 31, 2019 Why Sony Read more …

Bittrex cryptocurrency exchange is partnering with Bahrain-based crypto exchange and custodian provider Rain Management WLL to launch a digital asset trading platform for customers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The new platform will purportedly combine Rain’s staff and expertise in the MENA region with Bittrex’s technology and security infrastructure, according to an announcement on July 31.  The platform will offer all the tokens that are currently available on Bittrex and Bittrex International. It will also offer four Read more …

On July 30, the United States Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hosted a hearing on cryptocurrencies in a regulatory context. Lawmakers are showing renewed interest in digital currencies against the backdrop of Facebook’s crypto odyssey: This week’s testimony followed two Libra-focused hearings, which were held in Congress earlier in the month. Indeed, while the recent session’s scope was meant to be broader, Libra remained one of the key topics. The main consensus was that the influx of cryptocurrencies Read more …

Yesterday, ethereum celebrated its fourth birthday. Four years ago, on July 30, 2015, the world’s first general-purpose blockchain platform went live. Called ethereum, the platform was the first of its kind to feature a Turing-complete virtual machine and native programming language able to deploy code of any algorithmic complexity. “Before ethereum, developers had to design and write extremely complex software,” Mariano Conti, the MakerDAO Foundation’s head of smart contracts, told CoinDesk. “Ethereum introduced a generic programmable layer which abstracted this whole Read more …

More than 50% of bitcoin users across the European continent have not even finished their university program, according to BitPanda’s latest study. Too Cool For School Titled ‘Understanding Cryptocurrency Holders in Europe,’ the report explored personalities of the men and women who hold cryptocurrencies as a part of their portfolio. It found that about 54% of the European cryptocurrency investors did not have a university degree; including 30% who only attended school until age 18, 5% who have done the Read more …

Far-East Trading and Industrial Company, an importer of cryptocurrency mining gear, is being investigated by law enforcement authorities in Russia.  In its report on the investigation, CoinDesk revealed that the miner importer is alleged to have evaded up to $1.2 million in taxes on about 6,012 ASIC miners brought into Russia between August 2017 and February 2018.  According to a search warrant, the Moscow-based company (also known as DTPK) reportedly presented falsified documents to authorities throughout this period, with the Read more …

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned the public that is should beware of investing in crypto assets. The regulator states that digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have no intrinsic value and therefore offer a high level of risk. The comments come as part of the FCA’s newly-published guidelines for companies operating in the space. The document aims to provide information to firms to assess their own compliance with the UK’s existing financial regulations. FCA Guidelines to Read more …