Month: February 2021

In an apparent rebuke of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinbajo says the country’s monetary authorities must consider regulating crypto assets. He adds that instead of “killing the goose that might lay the golden egg”, Nigerian monetary authorities must consider providing a “robust regulatory regime” that addresses their concerns. The Importance of Disruptive Technologies Still, in his address at a Bankers Committee meeting, Osinbajo says “he fully appreciates the position” that has been Read more …

“Why won’t bitcoin die?” is a common question I’ve heard asked throughout the years by people sitting on the sidelines watching the bitcoin price hectically rise and fall, time and time again.  The mainstream media will tell you that bitcoin is a speculative bubble, your financial advisor will tell you that you’re wasting your time by investing in it, your friends and family will tell you that it’s a scam and economists will tell you that it won’t work. So, Read more …

As China keeps paving the way to adopt its central bank digital currency (CBDC), scammers are also actively emerging on the scene. The police in a Chinese province are now warning about a “sophisticated” CBDC-themed scam. Bogus Platform Is Set to Be Launched in March, Say Scammers According to a post from the cybercrime unit of the Weifang police force in Shandong Province, a scam named “Central Bank’s International Wallet” is claiming to be a digital yuan wallet platform. The Read more …

Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, delivered a speech at an economic summit on Friday in which he spoke positively of crypto and blockchain.  “There is no question that blockchain technology generally, and cryptocurrencies in particular, will in the coming years, challenge traditional banking, including reserve banking, in ways that we cannot yet imagine,” Osinbajo said on Friday during the Central Bank of Nigeria, or CBN, Bankers’ Committee Economic Summit. “We need to be prepared for that seismic shift, and it Read more …

The cryptocurrency market faced another day of downward pressure as the unease in the traditional markets continues to spread following the recent interest rate spike on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell to a low at $44,710 late on Feb. 25 before buying at the key support returned to help the digital asset recover back above $46,500 but generally, analysts are looking for $50,000 to become an Read more …

A regional report from China indicates that bitcoin mining rig manufacturers have seen a massive surge in demand since the price of the leading crypto asset skyrocketed. Companies such as Canaan Creative have placed significantly sized mining rig orders while other companies like Bitmain are completely sold out. Bitcoin Mining Rig Manufacturers Experience a Device Demand Boom Bitcoin (BTC) prices in February have spiked considerably in value and this has fueled the BTC mining sector a great deal. On Friday, Read more …

Alpha Finance Lab (ALPHA) experienced a price breakout on Feb. 25 as a series of significant partnerships has brought renewed interest in the cross-chain DeFi platform.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that following the announcements, ALPHA price surged to $1.78 but Bitcoin’s recent struggle to hold $50,000 as support led to a sell-off among altcoins and ALPHA currently trades at $1.31. ALPHA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView One of the reasons for the sudden surge was the Feb. 25 Read more …

Curio, a platform which sells non fungible tokens, is helping to bring to life NFTs based on the TV series American Gods. The show is based on a novel of the same name by author Neil Gaiman.  “We are working with Fremantle on creating officially licensed digital collectibles for the hit TV show American Gods, which airs on STARZ in the U.S. and Amazon Prime Video internationally,” Curio’s CEO, Juan Hernandez, told Cointelegraph, adding: “This is a first-of-its-kind use of NFTs Read more …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note One day in the not-so-distant future, the curious experience of episodic television with its week-by-week gaps will be a weird thing that old people strain themselves not to talk about around the youths, until they eventually get, like, really old and stop caring and start turning all of the logistical inconveniences of their early memories into little moral parables. Read more …

The Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Examinations published on Friday a blueprint for investment managers and institutions on how the division will inspect the handling of crypto assets, or “digital asset securities,” moving forward.  The division (formerly the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations) is the second-largest wing of the SEC and is tasked with overseeing securities industry players to ensure regulatory compliance. Targeted toward investment advisors, broker-dealers, exchanges and transfer agents, this Risk Alert provided a broad list Read more …

A 177-year-old bank in Switzerland has enabled cryptocurrency trading within its services, with expectations to expand. Bordier & Cie SCmA added bitcoin and other cryptos to its list of services by partnering with a well-known domestic crypto player. Bordier Customers Can Also Buy and Hold Other Cryptos According to the announcement, the Swiss bank, founded in 1844, argued that a surge in demand from their clients encouraged them to include cryptocurrencies. Bordier & Cie SCmA management believes that they needed Read more …

Listen To This Episode: In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed activation of the Taproot soft fork upgrade, and more specifically, the lock-in on timeout (LOT) parameter. The LOT parameter can be set to either “true” (LOT=true) or “false” (LOT=false). LOT=false resembles how several previous soft forks were activated. Miners would have one year to coordinate Taproot activation through hash power; if and when a supermajority (probably 90 percent) of miners Read more …