Crypto Currency

The SEC has appointed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal as the Director of the Division of Enforcement. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal as Director of the Division of Enforcement. The appointment will be effective from July 26, with the SEC adding the veteran prosecutor to its ranks to play a key role in regulating financial markets in the U.S. “He has the ideal combination of experience, values, and leadership ability to helm the Enforcement Division at this critical time. I look forward to working closely with him to protect investors and root out wrongdoing in our markets," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Grewal is a replacement for Alex Oh, who was appointed by Gensler, but was forced to step down in April after only a few days on the job. Oh’s appointment sparked backlash over the history of her work defending corporations as a lawyer, in particular her representation of ExxonMobil...

Around $18 million worth of NYCE’s common shares will be tokenized and supported for secondary trading on tZERO’s security token trading platform. tZERO, an alternative trading system for security tokens, has announced a partnership with real estate crowdfunding company, NYCE Group, to tokenize $18 million worth of the firm’s shares. NYCE’s stock will be tZERO’s first new listing since launching its ASPN pairing in August 2020, representing fractionalized ownership in a Colorado ski resort . Announced June 30, tZERO will support secondary trade for NYCE’s tokenized common shares once the real estate company has completed its upcoming Regulation A+ offering, subject to regulatory approval. NYCE’s shares will be tokenized using tZERO’s proprietary smart contract technology. Philip Michael, CEO and co-founder of NYCE, stated: “Through our partnership with the leader in liquidity for digital securities, tZERO, we are excited to provide investors with liquidity optionality.” The...

Tether supplies on Ethereum are dwindling as USD Coin demand grows and grows. USDC has grown much faster than Tether (USDT) in 2021 and it is emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum thanks to its popularity in DeFi according to Messari. Research by the analytics firm revealed that the demand for USD Coin has grown so much that it has consumed a large chunk of Tether’s market share this year. Researcher Ryan Watkins predicted that in the coming weeks, this could result in Tether' share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum falling below 50%. He added that over half of the total USDC supply now sits in smart contracts, which is equivalent to around $12.5 billion. Citing data from CoinMetrics, Messari estimates that more than 40% of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum is USDC. In coming weeks it is very likely USDT’s share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum will fall below 50% for the first time. USDC is quickly emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum in large...

Reports suggest that Steve Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund is searching for a “head of crypto” as the firm weighs up its options before entering the crypto market. New York billionaire Steven Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 Asset Management, is reportedly searching for a “head of crypto.” Cohen, the 65-year-old dubbed the “Hedge Fund King”, founded Point72 in 1992 and it has approximately $22.1 billion worth of assets under management. The investor also owns the New York Mets Major League Baseball team. The Street reported it has spoken to sources in the know who claim Point72 is seeking to hire a head of crypto, as the firm gears up to enter the crypto sector. If accurate it fits with other signals emerging from the fund. Cohen recently stated in an interview with macro research firm founder, Jawad Mian, that “I’m fully converted to crypto,” and added that “I have an old saying at the poker table, you got to pay to learn. There’s no way around it. You can talk all you want, but you’ve got...

Tracer DAO has raised $4.5 million from the likes Framework Ventures, Maven 11, and Apollo Capital. Decentralized derivatives platform, Tracer DAO, has announced a successful $4.5 million fundraising round to expand its team and product suite. They hope to launch innovative derivatives for “any market with an oracle price feed,” with plans to one day allow ordinary consumers to hedge the cost of commuting and other household bills using tokenized derivatives. This week’s raise saw participation from crypto venture heavyweights, including Framework Ventures, Maven 11, DACM, and Apollo Capital. The investors will share 10% of the project’s governance token supply, which will be vested linearly over two years. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Pat McNab, Tracer DAO founder and co-founder of Mycelium — the Australian development team working to build Tracer DAO — emphasized that the team is currently working to launch v1 of its open-source perpetual swap contracts to Arbitrum mainnet in the ...

Those that are never gonna give up BTC are still accumulating according to the analyst. Bitcoin technical analyst Willy Woo believes that this is not a bear market because on-chain indicators are signaling a recovery and the asset is still being bought by long-term hodlers. The popular analyst’s comments came in an interview on the “ What Bitcoin Did ” podcast on June 28. Woo stated that he does not believe that Bitcoin is in a typical bear market due to signs of accumulation showing on-chain. Referring to the 1980’s hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by British pop artist Rick Astley, Woo stated: “The ‘Rick Astley’ is the holder that keeps buying and never tends to sell much ... And of course Rick was very active over 2021, and then suddenly all the coins moved away from Rick to the weak hands — the speculative traders that buy and sell. Now we’re seeing that cross back into moving to Rick.” He added that we are currently in a speculative phase and those coins that were sold ea...

The source code for the World Wide Web has been sold by the inventor for $5.4 million. The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has sold an NFT of the web's source code for $5.4 million at fine art auction house Sotheby’s . The piece titled ‘This Changed Everything’ includes a time-stamped file of the source code's 9,555 lines, a high-fidelity image, a 30-minute animation of the code being written, along with a letter written by Berners-Lee. While $5.4M is a significant sum, it’s a far cry from the $69 million record set in March for Beeple’s Everydays and less than some observers had predicted. Delphi Digital’s Piers Kicks said he’d been expecting a sale around $10M, noting: Huh, it only fetched $5M. Of course internet memes go for more than this... https://t.co/WHPhNFY1LY — Piers Kicks ️ (@pierskicks) June 30, 2021 According to Berners-Lee, he and his wife will donate the proceeds of the auction to causes supported by the family. In a statement to...

“There’s nothing better than building a factory that makes Bitcoin,” said Celsius CEO, Alex Mashinsky. Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of centralized crypto money market Celsius, has revealed that a share of profits from the company's recent $200 million investment into Bitcoin mining infrastructure will be redistributed back to depositors. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Mashinsky stated the firm's mining expansion has added a fifth stream of yield generation for its crypto depositors — alongside lending funds to institutional investors, leveraging DeFi protocols, retail lending, and market making on centralized exchanges. In early June, Celsius announced it had invested more than $200 million into North American Bitcoin mining infrastructure and positions in Core Scientific, Rhodium Enterprises and Luxor Technologies. “A big chunk of our community owns Bitcoin and they want to be paid in Bitcoin,” he said, adding: “So, there's nothing better than building a factory that makes Bi...

The realm of metaverses is growing, with gaming, nonfungible tokens and contemporary performance art all contributing to create interactive and immersive digital-only ecosystems. Welcome to Lobsteropolis District of Lobster Land is the welcome notice that greets netizens upon entering Lobsteropolis city. Existing within the blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland, Lobsteropolis is a digital-only city based on British contemporary artist Philip Colberts Lobster Universe. The ambitious project offers arguably more than a glimpse into the emerging movement at the intersection of art and blockchain technology, more specifically, open-world spaces that allow people to interact with art inside a computer-generated environment.   Welcome to Lobsteropolis; Philip Colbert’s digital pop art world set in the Decentraland.   Born in Scotland and now living and working in London, Colbert is an alumnus of the University of St Andrews. Before coming about the idea of Lobsteropol...

Bitcoin itself has seen very little change over time — what has changed is the dominant perception of it. Over the years, Bitcoin has been able to overcome naysayers by frequently reinventing its narrative. Because Bitcoin ( BTC ) is multifaceted, it is able to quickly change to confront new criticism. We have seen this over the years. For example, Bitcoin used to be frequently assailed by the media for its volatility — many articles pushed the notion that Bitcoin was too volatile to ever succeed as a currency. We do not hear too much about Bitcoin’s volatility today, in part because observers have been accustomed to its frequent price swings, but mostly because “Bitcoiners” have coalesced around the notion of Bitcoin as an investment, specifically digital gold. They argue that the only reason BTC experiences such strong price movements is because it has not yet fully matured to a market capitalization that would sap this kind of volatility, such as that of gold. Consequently, the d...

Sendi Young has over 15 years of fintech experience and has previously worked at prominent payments firms. The Ripple and XRP community has been long-betting on mainstream adoption growth rather than its market price. In this continued effort, Ripple has announced the appointment of Sendi Young as managing director of its European operations.  Strengthening Ripple’s vision to rule the cross-border payments landscape, Sendi brings over 15 years of fintech experience to “oversee strategy and champion the expansion of Ripple’s global financial network technology, RippleNet.”  Most recently Young worked at Mastercard where she spent five years in “strategy, commercialization, bank-fintech partnerships and business development.” RippleNet general manager Asheesh Birla said, “Sendi’s appointment represents a huge opportunity for our European operations given her leadership experience, deep understanding of the payments landscape, and knowledge of how to grow and scale a netwo...

The Puell Multiple — and Bitcoin price — can still dip further before a rebound takes hold, cautions analyst Rekt Capital. Bitcoin ( BTC ) kept traders guessing with rangebound action on June 30 after a push beyond $37,000 resistance ended in rejection. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Wyckoff stresses $32,300 support Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView  showed a day of reversal for BTC/USD on Wednesday, the pair down 4.5% hitting $34,500. After accelerating upwards the day before, Bitcoin ran out of steam at $36,630 to begin a retracement which erased most of its gains. For popular trader Crypto Ed, even the run higher was lacking in substance, and after the subsequent correction, a bounce was sorely needed to preserve the bull case. "Stronger move down=start of move to green," he added as part of comments alongside a chart showing a downside target of $26,900. BTC/USD price scenarios with targets. Source: Crypto Ed/ ...

Beijing's rail transit service now accepts digital yuan for subway rides through an integration with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. China continues expanding the scope of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) by debuting digital yuan payments for transport services. According to an official Wednesday announcement, the Beijing subway has launched a pilot program enabling passengers to access 24 subway lines and four suburban railway stations using the digital yuan, also known as e-CNY. The new service is only available for customers witb a bank account at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a major bank involved in China’s CBDC tests . “You need to download a mobile app that is linked with your bank account to access the service,” a spokesperson for the Beijing rail transit network reportedly said . The announcement notes that Beijing rail transit service providers will continue promoting diverse applications of the digital yuan in order to optimize ...

India’s regulatory stance on crypto has been shaky at best and prejudiced at worst, but what is India actually doing about crypto? India’s reserve bank has long since condemned the use of cryptocurrencies, but other than the Supreme Court striking down its 2018 bill last year, the Indian government’s stance on cryptocurrencies has been largely uncertain.  On one hand, top sources tracking the government’s stance say it has shifted away from the idea of a complete ban . On the other hand, more banks have started barring cryptocurrency-related businesses from accessing their services, including ICICI Bank, Paytm Payments, Yes Bank and, most recently, IDFC First Bank. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) stance is understandable. As the body responsible for ensuring the country’s ability to absorb financial shocks, it has repeatedly pointed out the risks of using cryptocurrencies. Some banks still cite the 2018 circular as the reason for freezing accounts dealing in cryptocurrencies...