European Bank criticises digital currency sector for facilitating illegal activity

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance on Thursday announced new details about its industry recovery fund, which aims to prop up struggling players in the wake of FTX’s calamitous bankruptcy. In a blogpost, Binance said it will devote $1 billion in initial commitments to the recovery fund. It may increase that amount to $2 billion at a point in time in the future “if the need arises,” the company added.

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey recently had some remarkably positive remarks about bitcoin. Predicting the future of finance, he suggested that the “father of cryptocurrencies” is likely to become the world’s only currency within the next 10 years.

Days after its lending unit was forced to halt withdrawals in wake of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, Genesis Global Trading has mentioned bankruptcy as a potential option as it seeks fresh capital, reports Bloomberg citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Bitcoin was a genuine technological innovation. But the crypto industry has become filled with scams, Ponzi schemes and bad actors.

Scarce City, a bitcoin-focused marketplace, has launched a marketplace that sells anything in exchange for bitcoin known as SatsCrap, per a release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. SatsCrap allows users to list or purchase products with bitcoin and thus maintain user privacy. Anyone with a device connected to the internet can list or purchase a product with no Know Your Customer (KYC) data collected. The marketplace does not use logins, bank accounts or a registration process.

Lately, I’ve been pondering whether we are witnessing a rhyming of history. For those who have had the chance to dig into our monetary history, you may have encountered a little-known policy called Executive Order 6102. It was a momentous attack on the sovereign individual and the free market. An event that corralled U.S. citizens away from gold, into the U.S. dollar and assets from which the U.S. government benefits.

Crypto exchange AAX said it had suspended activity, citing a scheduled upgrade that had been delayed by turbulent markets. The failure of a third-party partner means services will be delayed for as long as 10 days, the Hong Kong-based company said Sunday. The exchange did not identify the partner, and has said it has no exposure to FTX, a rival whose collapse has caused chaos in the industry.

If you spend enough time in the crypto ecosystem then you'll no doubt come across arguments that some projects have unfair token distributions because they were "premined" / "instamined" / "fast mined" by the project founders, effectively enriching themselves from the initial launch of the project.

Amid the fallout of the implosion of FTX, once the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, at least $1bn in investor assets appears to be missing, according to multiple reports. On Saturday morning, Reuters reported that FTX was missing at least $1bn in client funds, according to two anonymous sources who held senior positions at FTX and said they had been briefed on the company’s finances. The sources claimed the funds were part of $10bn in client funds that the FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, secretly transferred to Alameda Research, the hedge fund he owns.

Tom Brady is gradually realizing that you can’t win them all, even if we are simply referring to the 2022–23 NFL season and his current losing record. The former quarterback had invested in the crypto exchange FTX and even served as the company’s public face before it abruptly collapsed this week. We can only speculate on how much money Brady truly lost, given that FTX is already bleeding $8 billion and is rapidly approaching bankruptcy.

Sam Bankman-Fried is on a race to secure $4 billion to save FTX, after rival Binance ditched its 11th-hour bid to buy the collapsing crypto exchange. Bankman-Fried reportedly told investors on Wednesday evening that FTX is facing a shortfall of funds up to $8 billion and is in danger of bankruptcy if the company doesn’t receive at least $4 billion to stay solvent, according to separate reports from Bloomberg and the Financial Times. Bankman-Fried said FTX is willing to take the cash in whatever form it comes in, be it debt, equity, or a mixture of both.

The US Department of Justice has revealed it seized $3.36bn (£2.9bn) of Bitcoin last year which was stolen from an infamous darknet website. The stash of 50,676 Bitcoin was found hidden on various devices in a hacker's home in an underfloor safe and inside a popcorn tin. James Zhong has pleaded guilty to hacking the funds in 2012 from the illegal Silk Road marketplace.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that it seized about $3.36 billion in stolen bitcoin during a previously unannounced 2021 raid on the residence of James Zhong. Zhong pleaded guilty Friday to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

After months of tears and tantrums, bitcoin wants to split up with stock markets. The cryptocurrency, which has been closely correlated with tech stocks for much of its torrid 2022, is staging one of its strongest efforts yet to break away. Its 30-day correlation with the Nasdaq slid to 0.26 last week, its level lowest since early January, where a measure of 1 indicates the two assets are moving in lock step.

While Hong Kong has complied with China’s cryptocurrency policy, it looks like retail trading will be permitted again in the coming months. This position contrasts with that of China, which is always opposed to cryptocurrencies.

Cash App now allows users to receive BTC payments instantly through the Lightning Network using QR codes or links, the platform’s Product Lead announced on Twitter. The move comes several months after Cash App announced it has integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

Magnus Granath, known on Twitter as “Hodlonaut,” won a lawsuit against Craig Wright on Thursday, a Norwegian judge ruled. Granath sued Wright in Norway to try and preempt a defamation suit Wright planned to bring against Granath in the U.K., where defamation laws are heavily tipped in favor of the plaintiff and monetary damages can be enormous.

As mentioned in the Bank of Canada’s Financial System Review, cryptoasset markets have been growing rapidly in recent years and have become somewhat more integrated into the traditional financial system. The most well-known cryptoasset is Bitcoin, which launched in January 2009.

Another day, another Ponzi. Yesterday morning, 100 police agents spread across three of Brazil’s federal states raided 20 addresses linked to a crypto fraud network controlled by Francisco Valdevino da Silva, aka “Sheikh dos Bitcoins.” De Silva’s group is suspected of having defrauded and laundered up to 4 billion Brazilian reals (about $766 million) from “thousands” of Brazilians and citizens from at least ten other countries, according to the authorities.