Day: July 26, 2022

Is Bitcoin Getting Ready to Rebound in the Wake of Interest Rate Hikes?

by Blockchain News

Despite Bitcoin’s volatility sinking, this might indicate its quest to return to winning ways, according to Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone.

McGlone stated:

“The lowest-ever Bitcoin volatility vs the Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) may portend a resumption of the crypto’s propensity to outperform. Our graphic showing the elongated upward trajectory of Bitcoin’s price vs. the BCOM is typical compared with most assets.”

Bitcoin has recorded incredible bull runs in the past. For instance, the leading cryptocurrency scaled heights and recorded a new all-time high (ATH) price of $69,000 in November last year. As a result, McGlone pointed out:

“Bitcoin may be regaining its propensity to outperform in 2H. The long commodity unwind, copper’s fastest decline since 2008 and the bond future’s recovery from the steepest dip vs. its 50-week mean since the 1987 stock crash, all coming amid an aggressive.”

Bitcoin’s upward momentum has been dented by tightened macroeconomic factors that have made risk assets unfavourable. 

For instance, the Federal Reserve (Fed) has resorted to interest rate hikes, with last month’s being the highest in 28 years at 75 basis points (bps). 

This notable factor has made Bitcoin range in the lower $20K range. Market insight provider Glassnode highlighted:

“Bitcoin has attempted to escape the gravity of the $20k zone in a long-awaited relief rally. Momentum in the short term is favorable, however, longer-term indicators suggest additional time may be required to form a firm foundation.”

With this month’s interest rate review slated for tomorrow, July 27, all indicators are that it might be hiked by 75 bps, which has had a bearish impact on the crypto market in the past. 

Market analyst under the pseudonym Banks stated:

“Choppy sideways to down tomorrow. Dump during the meeting is likely; then relief is my base case right now if we get what the market expects. Obviously, history doesn’t always repeat, but FOMC meetings and CPI days always provide great opportunities up or down.”

Image

Source: TradingView/Banks

Therefore, it remains to be observed whether Bitcoin’s low volatility will spur significant momentum in the second half amid interest rate hikes. 

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Crypto Mining Firm EZ Blockchain Launches Low-Emission Custody Hosting Service

by Blockchain News

Crypto miner EZ Blockchain will promote its low-emission custody all-inclusive hosting service at the Mining Disrupt conference in Miami from July 26-28.

Currently, the hosting service will serve cryptocurrency mining investors in four states, including Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and South Carolina.

EZ Blockchain is committed to solving the global problem of wasting energy and connecting the blockchain ecosystem with sustainable energy.

The company also said it would be working on a 1.5mW mobile submerged mining vessel solution shortly. The product has already started mass production and is expected to be delivered in the fourth quarter.

The mining firm added this immersion-cooled mobile data centre will provide high efficiency, lower operating costs, longer equipment life, and more precise cooling capabilities.

Using Georgia State’s underutilised power resources, Crypto mining company EZ Blockchain plans to expand its mining rigs to 16 megawatts.

To achieve environment-friendly objectives, more than 60% of the electricity at the EZ Blockchain Data Center Campus in West Point, Georgia, comes from emission-free sources, primarily using nuclear power.

In April, EZ Blockchain created an Immersive Liquid-Cooled Data Center, Simultaneously Unveils Newest Product for Cooling Crypto Mining Containers, SmartBox 1500i.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Titanium Blockchain’s CEO Pleas Guilty of ICO Fraud worth $21m

by Blockchain News

Michael Alan Stollery, CEO of Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services Inc. (TBIS), has admitted of involving multiple fraudulent accounts in a 2018 initial coin offering (ICO).

In May 2018, Stollery and his company were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with conspiracy to defraud investors.

Stollery admitted that he had conspired to defraud millions of cryptocurrency investors through ICOs. And by forging the white paper of TBIS’s ICO, implanted false customer recommendations to create ICO’s planned marketing activities and legitimacy and publishing misleading and false information with development potential.

In the cryptocurrency’s marketing campaign, Michael Alan Stollery asserted how TBIS is different from other cryptocurrency opportunities and the lucrative prospects of the offering.

They also assured investors that their precious tokens run on the Titanium Blockchain. Coaxing investors into buying the cryptocurrency token “BAR” through a series of false and misleading statements. Or the coins offered by the ICO of TBIS.

Stollery is not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the ICO of TBIS’ cryptocurrency investment product, nor is there a valid exemption from the SEC’s registration requirements.

The company raised about $21 million from investors in the U.S. and overseas through an initial coin offering (ICO).

He admitted that instead of investing the client’s money, he mixed it with personal assets, using a portion of the funds to pay his own credit card and bills for his Hawaii vacation home.

The lawsuit is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 18 and Stollery faces up to 20 years in prison, according to court documents.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Tesla Earns $64m Profits from Selling 75% of BTC Holdings

by Blockchain News

Electric car manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) announced it earned a profit of $64 million from the sale of 75% of its BTC holdings, despite a $170 million impairment loss through the second quarter of 2022.

According to the statistics of “BitcoinTreasuries”, Tesla currently holds 10,800 bitcoins (current price is about $237 million), which is still the second largest listed company in the United States, followed by MicroStrategy.

Previously, Tesla announced that it had sold $936 million worth of its Bitcoins or 75% of its holdings in the second quarter. The company reported the revelation in its earnings report last Wednesday.

The company added $936 million worth of cash sales to its balance sheet to increase its cash flow in response to China’s lockdown due to COVID-19.

The company may increase or decrease its digital asset holdings over time, according to the SEC filing:

“As with any investment and consistent with how we manage fiat-based cash and cash equivalent accounts, we may increase or decrease our holdings of digital assets at any time based on the needs of the business and on our view of the market and environmental conditions. “

This should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk added that Tesla is open to increasing its crypto holdings in the future.

In addition, in the filing, Tesla earned $2.27 per share in the second quarter on revenue of $16.93 billion. Although profitability was down compared to the first quarter, it was up from a year ago.

Tesla also raised its capital project spending plan for this year and the next two years by about $1 billion, which the company said is expected to reach between $6 billion and $8 billion a year in the next few years.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / /

Institutional Investment in ETH Turns Positive, with Inflows for Four Weeks in a Row

by Blockchain News

Ethereum crypto investment product inflows reached $120 million over the past week (up to July 15). The last time this happened was in June 2021, according to digital asset management firm Coinshares. 

Digital investment products exposed to ETH assets have seen inflows for four consecutive weeks. ETH investment products had experienced 11 weeks of outflows before this week.

This week’s data from Coinshares showed that Bitcoin (BTC) accounted for these funds with an inflow of $19 million, pushing year-to-date investments to $241.3 million.

Ether investment products saw inflows of $8.1 million this week, up from $120 million last week, making it the largest weekly inflow since June 2021.

Source: CoinShares

“It also suggests that as The Merge progresses to completion, investor confidence is slowly recovering,” the report said.

Solana (SOL) also reached $1.8 million in investment, making Solana the ninth largest crypto investment product with $116 million in assets under management.

Coinshares added that most other altcoins saw inflows last week, most notably Cardano, which saw an influx of $600,000.

These statistics showed that July-to-date inflows reached $394 million, with total assets under management (AuM) recovering to $30 billion in early June 2022.

Bitcoin has fallen 2.98% over the past seven days to hit $21,087 during intraday trading, according to CoinMarketCap. Over the past 24 hours, the second-largest cryptocurrency has lost 6.59% to trade at $1,417 during the session.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Coinbase Facing SEC Probe over Crypto Listing: Sources

by Blockchain News

Coinbase is facing a new probe as the crypto winter wages on.

coinbase_1200.jpg

Three people familiar with the probe said that the crypto exchange platform is facing a US probe into whether it improperly let Americans trade digital assets that should have been registered as securities.

Bloomberg reported that Coinbase has come under heavy scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the platform’s expansion of the number of tokens which is offered to trade.

This case has come at a critical time as Coinbase is still recovering from last week’s allegation of an insider trading scheme where a former company manager and two other people involved were sued by the SEC.

The SEC and Coinbase declined to comment, Bloomberg said.

“As the largest US trading platform, Coinbase lets Americans trade more than 150 tokens. If those products were deemed securities, the firm could need to register as an exchange with the SEC,” Bloomberg reported.

The SEC is necessary to apply for a legal test to check if a digital asset is a security. A token is generally considered to be under the SEC purview if it involves investors kicking in money to fund a company and make a profit.

However, a recent report from Blockchain.News stated that Coinbase’s new derivatives unit is capturing the interest of new retail traders who are eyeing the crypto exchange’s “nano” bitcoin futures products amid the company’s collapsing trading volumes.

Coinbase’s “nano” bitcoin futures product saw volumes touch records three straight days in the last week even after its spot trading volume collapsed from $200 billion in May 2021 to $59 billion in July, the report added.

The nano bitcoin futures product was launched in June. 

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Binance Sues Bloomberg Businessweek for Defamation in HK

by Blockchain News

A Bloomberg media subsidiary in Hong Kong is under legal challenge and being sued for defamatory comments on an article published by the publication about Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

This action comes after CZ filed a defamation lawsuit on last Friday against Modern Media, as a publisher of the traditional Chinese-language edition of Bloomberg Businessweek in Hong Kong High Court, according to local media reports.

The lawsuit stems from how Bloomberg‘s subsidiary Modern Media company highlighted Zhao’s image in an article published on July 6. The original article title by the media outlet stated: “Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold?” But the plaintiff indicated Bloomberg Businessweek‘s context inaccurate and portrayed Zhao as running a Ponzi Scheme.

According to Zhao’s legal representative, the headline design by Bloomberg’s Chinese subsidiary was aimed to promote hatred, contempt, and ridicule for the world’s richest crypto billionaire.

Zhao’s defence stated that Modern Media is an influential publication with a broad reach in Hong Kong. The publication damaged his public image within the crypto community and other business circles and caused distress and embarrassment.

Zhao, through his representatives, has asked Modern Media to withdraw the defamatory comments on the article and also requested a formal apology and compensation, including aggravated damages.

CZ has separately filed a motion for discovery against Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for defamation stemming from the original profile piece in June.

This is not the first time CZ has taken matters to court against media publications to protect the image of his personal brand and that of Binance exchange.

In November last year, Binance sued Forbes Media LLC, alleging a story by reporter Michael del Castillo and contributor Jason Brett made false allegations about the cryptocurrency exchange. Binance sought to have Forbes pay damages and pull down the article.

In February this year, Binance voluntarily dropped the suit against the century-old business publication without any conditions. And within that month, Binance invested $200 million into 104-year-old publisher Forbes to boost the media company’s digital initiatives. The deal was part of a larger effort by Forbes to become a publicly-traded company.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Binance Sues Bloomberg Subsidiary for Defamation with Misleading Publication

by Blockchain News

A Bloomberg media subsidiary in Hong Kong is under legal challenge and being sued for defamatory comments on an article published by the publication about Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

This action comes after CZ filed a defamation lawsuit on Monday against Modern Media, as a publisher of the traditional Chinese-language edition of Bloomberg Businessweek in Hong Kong.

The lawsuit stems from how Bloomberg‘s subsidiary Modern Media company highlighted Zhao’s image in an article published on June 23. The original article title by the media outlet stated: “Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold?” But the plaintiff indicated Bloomberg Businessweek‘s article translated the context inaccurately and portrayed Zhao as running a Ponzi Scheme.

According to Zhao’s legal representative, the headline design by Bloomberg’s Chinese subsidiary was aimed to promote hatred, contempt, and ridicule for the world’s richest crypto billionaire.

Zhao’s defence stated that Modern Media is an influential publication with a broad reach in Hong Kong. The publication damaged his public image within the crypto community and other business circles and caused distress and embarrassment.

Zhao, through his representatives, has asked Modern Media to withdraw the defamatory comments on the article and also requested a formal apology and compensation, including aggravated damages.

CZ has separately filed a motion for discovery against Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for defamation stemming from the original profile piece in June.

This is not the first time CZ has taken matters to court against media publications to protect the image of his personal brand and that of Binance exchange.

In November last year, Binance sued Forbes Media LLC, alleging a story by reporter Michael del Castillo and contributor Jason Brett made false allegations about the cryptocurrency exchange. Binance sought to have Forbes pay damages and pull down the article.

In February this year, Binance voluntarily dropped the suit against the century-old business publication without any conditions. And within that month, Binance invested $200 million into 104-year-old publisher Forbes to boost the media company’s digital initiatives. The deal was part of a larger effort by Forbes to become a publicly-traded company.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Top Brazilian Investment Broker to Roll Out Crypto Trading Services in August

by Blockchain News

XP Inc., a leading Brazilian investment brokerage firm, plans to establish a crypto trading platform by mid-August for long-term objectives.

With a customer base of 3.6 million, XP plans to offer token trading of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) first on its crypto platform dubbed Xtage. Later, the firm will add ten additional cryptocurrencies by the end of December. 

XP acknowledged it was looking at the long-term picture by establishing these services despite the crypto market experiencing headwinds. 

Lucas Rabechini, XP’s director of financial products, noted:

“You can say ‘the volume has been weak, there will be few orders,’ but we see this market systematically growing over time, and our long-term view is not just focused on price, but also technology.”

Rabechini added that they had created a swift order execution platform in partnership with Nasdaq Inc. to cement the company’s commitment to blockchain technology.

XP employees started testing Xtage in early July, with plans underway to roll out to clients with significant investment profiles by next month, according to Rabechini.

More Brazilians continue jumping on the crypto bandwagon based on factors like runaway inflation rates. 

A year after setting foot on Brazilian soil, Bitso, a Mexican crypto exchange, has already reached one million users. This milestone was achieved earlier than expected, Blockchain.News reported. 

Furthermore, a recent study by crypto exchange KuCoin revealed that 26% of Brazilians had invested in cryptocurrencies in six months.  

With inflation in Brazil doubling over the past year to hit 10% annually, the survey suggested that young people who represented a majority of the population without bank accounts were seeking shelter in cryptocurrencies as an alternative option. 

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /

Curve Finance Submits Application for 1 Million OP Token Grant

by Blockchain News

Curve Finance has submitted a governance proposal on Optimism for a 1 million OP token grant, according to a post on the Optimism forum submitted on July 24.

Curve Finance_1200.jpg

Curve’s total Optimism value currently stands at $17.4 million. On Curve pools in Optimism, the average is at $3.4 million in weekly trading volume.

While Optimism is an Ethereum Layer 2 protocol, Curve is the top liquidity pool for token swaps.

The Block reported that the grant proposal states currently 1 million OP tokens worth $850,000 will be distributed over 20 weeks on Curve. The statement means that 50,000 OP tokens will be distributed per week to Curve pools if it passes.

“These tokens will serve as incentives to liquidity providers (LPs) on gauged Curve pools on Optimism. Gauged pools on Curve receive token emissions on a weekly basis. These pools are decided by a weekly on-chain DAO vote on Curve,” The Block reported.

Three synthetic type tokens are available, including sUSD, sETH, and sBTC, which are the only three gauged Curve pools available on Optimism currently that will receive the weekly 50,000 OP tokens emissions. The number has been planned to increase over time, the announcement said.

According to the proposal, the grant will help incentivise Optimism liquidity via Curve-based emissions. 

“These rewards could help to attract more LPs to seed their liquidity to Optimism pools, thus expanding the Layer 2 network’s decentralised finance footprint,” The Block reported.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 44,120.82 1.64%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,355.01 0.26%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 78.02 5.73%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 254.43 2.59%