Month: April 2020

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company to Bakkt, spent close to $300 million helping the bitcoin warehouse acquire loyalty rewards provider Bridge2 Solutions, CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said Thursday. The revelation came during a discussion of the financial strength of ICE, the parent company to several major trading venues, include the New York Stock Exchange. Sprecher said during ICE’s Q1 earnings call that the company had “opportunistically repurchased shares,” spending $300 million at $92 per share during the quarter while maintaining the Read more …

As the global economy trembles, investors continue to find sanctuary in stablecoins. In the most recent 12-month period (ending April 29, 2020), the three top stablecoins — Tether (USDT), Circle (USDC) and Paxos (PAX) — increased their market capitalization by 161%, 191% and 146%, respectively. Kim Grauer, head of research at Chainalysis, told Cointelegraph that with the use of a different metric, “We can confirm a 250% increase in the amount of Tether moved on-chain in the past 12-months (ending Read more …

Bitcoin price recently exploded from under $7,800 to over $9,400, just twelve full days before the asset’s block reward halving. The powerful push from last month’s extreme low set during Black Thursday, to current levels, has caused a bullish engulfing candle to form on monthly Bitcoin price charts. But what exactly does this mean for the asset if tonight’s critical monthly closes as a bullish engulfing? Bitcoin Price Could Close Monthly With Powerfully Bullish Statement At the start of 2020, Read more …

Advertisment How many Bitcoins are left? There are currently close to 2.644 million Bitcoins left that aren’t in circulation yet. With only 21 million Bitcoins that will ever exist, this means that there are about 13.35 million Bitcoins currently available. Out of those 18.35 million, it’s estimated that 30% of those may be lost forever as a result of things like hard drive crashes and misplaced private keys. What determines how many Bitcoins are left? The remaining Bitcoins not in Read more …

Is Bitcoin’s current rally just a bull trap, or is it actually headed for the moon? Trader Alessio Rastani and co-founder of Wintermute Trading, Yoann Turpin, explain why Bitcoin’s upward momentum may be impulsive in nature rather than corrective.  Don’t miss the latest episode of Cointelegraph’s crypto market discussions for further analysis of the long term future of Bitcoin and a glance at which altcoins are looking promising at the moment! Bitcoin to Keep Going Higher? Rastani is a believer Read more …

In less than 48 hours, Bitcoin price has gone parabolic and risen by $1,700 and over 22%, touching nearly $9,500 before falling back to refuel. However, it isn’t just Bitcoin price that’s gone parabolic. Google Search Trends for the term “Bitcoin halving” has also spiked considerably, and could be partially what’s driving this epic rally. BTC Price Rallies More Than 20% In 48 Hours, Rocketing Over $9,000 The recent explosive Bitcoin rally has sent the price of the leading cryptocurrency Read more …

BTSE, a Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange, has upped the limit for its over-the-counter request for quote (RFQ) due to April’s increasing demand for bitcoin. The limit, which has been changed from $100,000 to $1 million, represents a ten-fold increase resulting from growing investor demand in digital assets, the exchange says. It comes at a time when bitcoin’s continuous rally from its March 13 “Black Thursday” low of $3,850 saw prices reach as high as $9,463 on Thursday. “After being extremely undervalued Read more …

For tech-savvy yet unbanked young adults in communities often overlooked by traditional big business, the crypto and blockchain industry offers opportunities that others don’t. “Hodl” has become quite the rallying cry in the crypto industry today. But to boost adoption, that might be the wrong trend.  So says Carlos Acevedo, director of sales and the regional lead of Latin America for Brave, the crypto-powered web browser. In this episode of CoinDesk Live, hosted by Consensus organizer Stephanie Izquieta, Acevedo seemed Read more …

Block.one, the company behind EOSIO (EOS), issued a $50,000 grant to Genobank for its open-source app on April 29. The grant is designed to facilitate anonymous access to COVID-19 testing. Genobank announced at the start of April that its app, Agerona, was being developed alongside the Eos-based blockchain platform, Telos. Block.one issued the grant in partnership with its venture capital wing, EOS VC, and German fintech incubator, FinLab EOS VC. Block.one invests in Eos-based COVID-19 testing app Agerona connects users Read more …

Digital asset security specialist Fireblocks announced April 30 that its platform has been used to secure $30 billion of digital assets to date, with current monthly volumes in excess of $7 billion. It is also expanding to meet increased demand in the Asia-Pacific region, with the opening of new offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, providing support to local customers and encouraging new institutions onto its Secure Transfer Environment. APAC customers require speed, security and compliance The company has seen Read more …

Fireblocks, a platform that secures digital assets in transit, is expanding its business in Asia with two new offices, one in Hong Kong, the other in Singapore.  The New York-based firm now provides its secure transfer services to major Asian crypto firms including trading platform Amber, investment firm Blitz Group and hedge fund Three Arrow Capital, Michael Shaulov, CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, told CoinDesk.  “With the region’s unique ecosystem of trading, payment and exchange activities, there has been a Read more …

The cryptocurrency project launched by video live-streaming platform YouNow is ditching its private network and migrating onto public blockchain Algorand. The move comes as the Props project seeks higher throughput for its continued expansion, according to an announcement Thursday. Props said it has now raised $2 million in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures (USV) and Borderless Capital that will fund the chain migration. GSR, Lvna Capital and the Dating.com Group also invested. A wholly owned subsidiary of Read more …