Crypto Currency

A judge has ruled that the $100 million ICO conducted by the Canadian messaging platform Kik in 2017 violated federal securities laws. U.S. District Judge Alvin Kellerstein has sided with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ), ruling that the Canadian technology firm Kik’s $100 million initial coin offering ( ICO ) violated federal securities laws. On September 30, Judge Kellerstein responded to both parties’ requests for summary judgment , determining that Kik ’s 2017 token sale meets the definition of a securities issuance according to the Howey test, as the ICO participants had a reasonable expectation of profit. “In public statements and at public events promoting Kin, Kik extolled Kin's profit-making potential. Kik's CEO explained the role of supply and demand in driving the value of Kin: Kik was offering only a limited supply of Kin, so as demand increased, the value of Kin would increase.” The judge noted the unique nature of the case, highlighting tha...

Australia’s Prime Minister has announced the Federal Government’s biggest investment in blockchain to-date, with two pilots set to receive almost $5 million. The Australian government this week unveiled its $574 million Digital Business Plan that includes seven-figure grants for distributed ledger technology initiatives.  Announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison ahead of next week’s Federal Government budget, the plan outlines $4.95 million in support for “two blockchain pilots directed at reducing business compliance costs.” Morrison said: “The plan supports Australia’s economic recovery by removing out-dated regulatory barriers, boosting the capability of small businesses, and backs the uptake of technology across the economy.” Piper Alderman partner Michael Bacina told Cointelegraph that these two projects are important “to help demonstrate and unlock the value of blockchain": “With blockchain adoption accelerating around the world, this funding is a very welcome boost...

Bitcoin SV users appear to have got very excited ahead of the conference. Active addresses and transaction counts on the Bitcoin SV network saw unbelievable growth in the two days leading up to the CoinGeek Live conference in New York this week. Active BSV addresses grew from 110,000 on September 28, to 947,400 addresses today. That's an astonishing growth rate of 761%, in just two days leading up to CoinGeek Live , which kicked off on September 30 at 9am New York time, and will run until October 2. The spike in active addresses raised eyebrows on Crypto-Twitter. Bitcoin SV and Craig Wright antagonist Arthur van Pelt reposted SirToshi's chart that calls attention to the fact BSV has managed to overtake the Ethereum network in the middle of a DeFi boom. He said sarcastically: "Seems legit. Organic Growth I think. Has nothing to do with #CGLive I bet'." Bitcoin influencer ‘Holdlonaut’ responded with a facepalm emoji . Transactions on the Bitcoin SV netwo...

Institutional trading platform Wootrade has raised $10 million in a private fundraising round that will be used to expand its team and launch leveraged trading products. Wootrade, a Taiwan-based liquidity provider platform and crypto asset exchange aimed at institutions, has concluded a $10 million private investment round led by Dragonfly Capital.  Investors in the round include crypto notables including Haskey Capital, Three Arrows Capital, and DeFi Capital's venture wing. The newly raised funds will be used to expand the Wootrade team, and to support the launch of future products. The platform is currently in closed beta, where roughly one dozen institutions and early investors are already driving seven-figure spot volumes for crypto assets on behalf of their 65,000 clients. Wootrade expects to fully launch within six to nine months, and claims its liquidity will surpass that of top exchanges including Binance. Wootrade will soon launch futures trading and a native governa...

This potential move will swap the native AGI token from ERC20 to Cardano SingularityNET, the AI company behind the expressive robot Sophia, is “ seriously discussing ” a migration from Ethereum to Cardano, after announcing a collaboration with IOHK. IOHK is run by the founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, and drives the development of the blockchain platform. SingularityNET is a full-stack AI platform that lets anyone create, share, and monetize AI services at scale. The potential move to Ethereum is driven by concerns around speed and costs that have been badly affected lately by demand from DeFi platforms, with gas cost peaking as high as $17 per transaction. The team also has doubts about the feasibility of Ethereum 2, which has been in development for the past few years but is still some way off being a practical solution. “Current speed and cost issues with the Ethereum blockchain have increased the urgency of exploring alternatives for SingluarityNET’s blockchain underpinn...

Emerging Ethereum-powered predictions platform Polymarket produced six-figure volume amid the first presidential debates. The first debate of the 2020 U.S. presidential election had no clear winner, but crypto-powered prediction platforms are having a field day.  Election futures on crypto derivatives exchange FTX boomed, with the platform’s CEO reporting more than $4 million in open interest trying to pick the winner between Democrat Joe Biden, and Republican Donald Trump. On FTX, Trump’s brash debate performance got a big thumbs down and drove a 10% crash in the price of futures contracts backing his re-election. Price of TRUMP futures on FTX: FTX Volumes on FTX are amplified by leverage. On predictive platforms that do not offer leverage, more modest six-figure volumes were recorded. Polymarket saw more than $100,000 in volume flow into its ‘Will Trump win the 2020 U.S. presidential election?’ market on September 30, with sentiment similarly shifting against the incumbe...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has called out Coinbase for seeking to suppress political activism and suggesting employees who think differently should leave. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has taken major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase to task over its open letter to employees published on Sep 28.  The letter, written by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, explained why the firm intends to avoid political and social distractions, and instead focus on its core mission of building an open financial system for the world. The new direction has met with strong support in some quarters and pushback from others. In a Twitter post to his 4.7 million followers, Dorsey argues that “Bitcoin (aka crypto) is direct activism against an unverifiable and exclusionary financial system.” He goes on to add that the exchange cannot simply ignore social issues as this will leave its customers behind: #Bitcoin (aka “crypto”) is direct activism against an unverifiable and exclusionary financial system which negati...

The IRS has named the winners of its bounty program to track transactions on privacy tokens and layer-2 protocols. On Wednesday, the IRS awarded two $625,000 contracts looking for tracing tools for privacy token Monero and Layer 2 protocols. The winners were blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Integra FEC. The IRS initially publicized its quest for a privacy-busting analytics solution at the beginning of the month. An IRS representative told Cointelegraph that the agency had selected the two winning firms out of a field of 22 proposals received, though the only rationale the representative gave for the agency’s decision was “comparative analysis was used.” Chainalysis is among the leading firms in crypto analytics and routinely wins such contracts with a range of government agencies. Integra FEC is a relatively unfamiliar name, despite millions of dollars in contracts with, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission for “Other Scientific and Technical Consulting ...

Hint: It's not a blockchain company. Frederik Gregaard, t he incoming CEO of the Cardano Foundation , shared his perspective on FinTech's competitive landscape and major technology trends with Cointelegraph. Discussing competition, Gregaard said that the protocol's biggest opponents do not come from within the blockchain space: “I think the biggest competitor, it's really the largest technology companies today around, the large tech platforms such as Google, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba, those kind of players”. Gregaard believes that social media-based big technology providers have morphed from supplying their customers with meaningful tools to essentially owning and manipulating their users. He went so far as to call them “an addictive, mental, manipulative technology environment — that is where social media is. It's not just a tool waiting to be used, it has its own goals.” In his view, distributed technology represents the opposite of that, with Blockchain enab...

The KuCoin hack is the first high-profile case of a decentralized exchange being used to launder stolen funds. Cybercriminals have continued to come up with new, innovative attack vectors that a lot of prominent crypto platforms are still falling prey to. For example, Johnny Lyu, the CEO of Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, stated on Sept. 26 that the exchange had been on the receiving end of a major hack that resulted in the firm’s Bitcoin ( BTC ), Ether ( ETH ) and ERC-20 hot wallets being affected. Commenting on the hack, Charlie Cai, the media manager at KuCoin, told Cointelegraph: “Following the incident, KuCoin is acting quickly and transparently to deal with it. We are trying our best to mitigate the impact of the incident by working with many blockchain projects, security firms and crypto exchanges.” In all, it’s estimated that KuCoin lost upward of $200 million in customer funds . However, despite the security breach, the price of most premier cryptos, as w...

Having the world use one distributed ledger will support technical uniformity, interoperability of applications and a more honest planet. Despite being, perhaps, the biggest tech buzzword of the last decade, blockchain technology has largely remained just that: a buzzword. While its best-known implementation, Bitcoin ( BTC ), has become a household name, the technology that underpins it remains little more than a mystery for most. By and large, this can be attributed to slow progress in the adoption of the technology for consumers and businesses, caused by divided attention. Rather than a collective push to build advancements only on the Bitcoin blockchain, we’ve instead seen a clamor to build too many alternate blockchain platforms. Resources that could have been used to scale the Bitcoin blockchain and develop new applications of its underlying technology have instead been applied to proliferating thousands of competing digital currencies and hundreds of alternate blockchain or d...

Crypto garnered another mention in one of Maduro's bombastic speeches. The President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro says that the country's government is now looking at diverse cryptocurrencies as a potential way of avoiding sanctions. On Sept. 29, Maduro presented a new bill that intends to help the country overcome the impact of United States’ sanctions.  As part of the bill, Venezuela will study the possibility of using various cryptocurrencies in both domestic and foreign trade. Maduro claimed that the new anti-sanctions bill involves both private and state-backed crypto initiatives like Venezuela’s oil-pegged cryptocurrency, the Petro : The anti-sanctions bill is the first response [...] to give new strength to the use of Petro and other cryptocurrencies, national and global, in domestic and foreign trade, so that all cryptocurrencies of the world, state and private, could be used. This is an important project that is under development.” According to online reports , ...

Holders of these coins have a new way to get passive income. Crypto exchange Bitfinex is now offering a way for holders of three different cryptocurrencies to earn up to 6.2% annual interest. According to a Sept. 30 announcement, Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ethereum ( ETH ) holders are now eligible to earn up to 6.2% annual percentage yield (APY) through a partnership with Celsius Network , while XRP holders can earn up to 4.91% APY. The lending platform, which currently has more than $1 billion in coins from roughly 150,000 users, said it would allow interest on the tokens to be accrued daily, with rewards paid in weekly intervals. “We expect this offering to appeal to customers that have bought Bitcoin as a long-term store of value, and who also want to earn on their assets while they hold,” said Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino. The exchange is offering BTC, ETH, and XRP holders better APY rates than the average for fiat savings accounts, making Bitfinex competitive in some respects with ba...

Investors should keep an eye on the tight inverse correlation between the strength of the U.S. dollar and Bitcoin. A widespread debate among investors is the correlation of Bitcoin ( BTC ) with other markets. A high degree of correlation between the equity markets and Bitcoin has existed, particularly in the last few months. In other periods, gold and Bitcoin appear to move in tandem. However, the correlation that should be watched the most is the dollar since the global economy is based on the strength or weakness of our world reserve currency, the United States dollar. Weaker USD drove up Bitcoin prices in Q2, Q3 2020 BTC/USD vs. Gold vs. DXY 1-day chart. Source: TradingView The chart above shows gold, Bitcoin, and dollar values since the crash in March. The orange line is gold, the blue line the U.S. Dollar Currency Index (DXY), and the regular price of Bitcoin is shown by the black line. The sudden impact of the global pandemic increased the demand for U.S. Dollars, surgin...

Borrowers in the U.S. can now get funds with a DeFi-powered Visa card by Swipe. Swipe, a Binance-owned cryptocurrency debit card provider, is expanding its offering with a new crypto Visa card that allows users to borrow funds using blockchain technology. Dubbed the “LendFi Visa Card,” the new product deploys major decentralized finance protocols to provide “near-instant access to lending balances.” The card is integrated with the LendFi app — a decentralized lending platform that is connected with the borrower through their mobile device. At launch, the platform will support major DeFi protocol Compound, a spokesperson for Swipe said. According to an announcement, the new blockchain-based lending platform approves loans for users and disburses them to accounts. The LendFi App also offers a stablecoin aggregator so users can deposit various stablecoins to spend via their card. Swipe developed the card with California-based payments company Marqeta. Marqeta vice president of ...

IOVLabs believes the missing link is the developer-friendliness, not the type of blockchain. A new enterprise initiative launched by IOVLabs, the company behind the RSK Bitcoin sidechain, seeks to simplify blockchain development for governments and enterprises. The joint venture, called Extrimian, was established with Argentinian software provider Grupo Sabra to create the RSK Enterprise Cloud platform. The blockchain-as-a-service platform is designed to allow governments and businesses to develop decentralized solutions and set up permissioned networks with ease. The platform is said to help integrate blockchain DApps into existing infrastructure used by enterprise and government entities. Guillermo Villanueva, the CEO of Extrimian and co-founder of Grupo Sabra, told Cointelegraph that the focus of the initiative differs from existing offerings: “There are many Blockchain-as-a-Service offers, but they focus on solving the problem of deploying permissioned networks. Our vision is...

The terror financing ring reportedly bought cryptocurrency coupons in licensed tobacco shops across France. A large goup of accomplaces allegedly financing a jihadist network in Syria have been arrested after a sting operation by French police — despite choosing cryptocurrency coupons in an attempt to cover their tracks. In a statement, police said that "constant surveillance of these networks prompted terrorist organisations to seek more opacity by using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin," as reported on Sept. 30. Since 2019, the 29 accomplices have allegedly been supporting the operations of an  Al-Qaeda affiliate terror organization, called “ Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham .”  The network’s architects are reportedly two French jihadists in their mid-20s, who are both thought to be in northeastern Syria at present. Both were sentenced to 10 years in prison in absentia in 2016. The 29 members of the network were busted after being caught purchasing cryptocurrency coupons worth b...

A 36-year-old man from Kerala was arrested under charges of cryptocurrency fraud. District police have arrested a 36-year-old man from the Malappuram district of the south Indian state of Kerala on charges of operating a cryptocurrency scam. Nishad has been charged under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act by the district police chief U Abdul Karim. A team led by police inspector P Vishnu seized several documents from Nishad’s house and alleged that he has duped thousands of people from across India of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Nishad, who is also the managing director of a Bengaluru-based startup Long Rich Technologies, allegedly lured investors into investing in the cryptocurrency “Morris Coin.” According to the police, the investors were promised a daily return of 270 rupees (~$3.60) for 300 days if they deposited a minimum amount of 15,000 rupees ($200) into  Morris Coin.  The scheme suggested that the investors would be able t...

Data shows Bitcoin should seal both its best Q3 on record and its second-highest lifetime quarterly close on Sep. 30. Bitcoin ( BTC ) is on track for its best third quarter ever, data shows as Q3 2020 has just one day left to go. According to price records from on-chain analytics resource Skew , this year should produce Bitcoin’s strongest Q3 in its history. BTC price challenges Q2 2019 close BTC/USD traded at around $10,680 at press time on Sep. 30. That number comfortably beats any other Q3 close on record, the next highest being last year’s $8,310. What’s more, Bitcoin may seal the second-best quarterly close of its lifetime — but that depends on whether it can stay above Q2 2019’s $10,590. “One more day to go and still looking like second-best quarterly close for bitcoin but it's a close call with Q2 2020,” Skew commented. Bitcoin quarterly closing prices summary. Source: Skew/ Twitter Bitcoin has stabilized in a $1,000 trading corridor since losing momentum after hit...

Bitcoin exchange reserves dropped by $5 billion in the past year, showing signs of accumulation. The Bitcoin ( BTC ) reserves of exchanges are continuing to drop, which suggests retail investors and whales might be accumulating. According to data from CryptoQuant, all exchanges’ reserves dropped to 2.4 million BTC, which is equivalent to $25 billion. In contrast, in October 2019, exchanges had around 2.8 million BTC, currently worth $30 billion. Bitcoin reserves on all exchanges throughout the past year. Source: CryptoQuant There is a clear decrease in selling pressure from whales and retail investors The reserves of exchanges increase when investors deposit Bitcoin. Typically, deposits or inflows are considered selling pressure, because traders have to send BTC to exchanges in order to sell. Hence, when exchange inflows decline, it often signifies that the appetite to sell BTC by investors is declining. Another chart from CryptoQuant depicts the trend of net inflows of Bitcoi...

Singapore continues to apply blockchain in its public administration. In a pandemic era of unprecedented health data collection and surveillance, Singapore is turning to blockchain technology for the infrastructure that can make it work.  Government-owned investment firm SGInnovate and Singaporean startup Accredify have jointly developed a new blockchain-powered digital health passport, according to a report on Sept. 30. Development work on the application, which allows personal medical data to be stored in a blockchain-secured digital wallet, began in May.  A successful pilot in July showed that the app was capable of managing and verifying digitized healthcare documents — including COVID-19 discharge memos, swab results, immunity proof, and vaccination records — more than 1.5 million times. For the pilot, the health passport app was introduced as a new feature in the Singapore Manpower Ministry's FWMOMCARE app. The latter is a mobile application which was launched in...

Physical crypto events come back, but with a set of strict COVID-19 measures. As the world is battling to recover from the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a major cryptocurrency event in Switzerland prepares to take return to a physical format. Crypto Finance Conference (CfC), an international crypto event held in St. Moritz, will take place from Jan. 20–22, 2021, and feature speakers from key industry firms and institutions like Winklevoss Capital, Swiss National Bank, the European Parliament, Ledger and others. Cointelegraph will serve as the main media partner for the CfC St. Moritz 2021. The upcoming conference is the fourth annual iteration of CfC and will be different from previous events — the conference will prioritize the health and safety of attendees with a comprehensive COVID-19 strategy. Available on the CfC website, the strategy outlines a wide set of preventive measures for pre-event and on-site safety like mandatory face masks, strict cleaning and disin...