Select Menu
26-Apr-24
Featured Flow
Menu
Yao Qian, the first director of CBDC development at China’s central bank, is reportedly under investigation for suspected law violations.
China authorities have reportedly launched an investigation into local pro-blockchain official Yao Qian on suspicion of legal violations.
According to an April 26 report by the Shanghai Securities News, Yao is currently under investigation by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on suspicion of “serious violations” of discipline and law. The specific reasons for the investigation are not disclosed.
Currently serving at the China Securities Regulatory Commission as director of the Science and Technology Supervision Bureau, Yao is a significant figure in the Chinese blockchain community.
The transaction fees are the “wild card” for Bitcoin miners, with the current increase representing a crucial revenue boost for BTC miners, according to TeraWulf’s CEO, Nazar Khan.
The rise in transaction fees from Bitcoin Runes — a new protocol for issuing fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network — is offering a significant revenue boost for Bitcoin miners, according to Nazar Khan, the co-founder and CEO of TeraWulf.
Khan told Cointelegraph in an exclusive:
As the rest of the Bitcoin block reward is fixed issuance, the transaction fees are the “wild card” for Bitcoin (BTC) miners, explained Khan.
The trader received a $6.28 million payday trading BONK, $9.51 million trading WIF and $7.04 million from BODEN.
A memecoin trader cashed out millions in profits from several positions on meme-themed tokens in Solana (SOL).
On April 26, blockchain analysis firm Lookonchain flagged the movements of a trader with the Solana Name Service account called “paulo.sol.” The crypto wallet realized profits on meme tokens like Dogwifhat (WIF), Jeo Boden (BODEN) and Bonk (BONK).
The trader invested in BONK as early as Nov. 11, 2023. The user noticed that the memecoin was rising and bought tokens. The trader then performed swing trades, buying at lows and selling at highs. In total, the trader made about $6.28 million trading BONK.
Microsoft and Google’s Q2 earnings reports highlight significant revenue and profit increases driven by their investments and advancements in AI technologies.
Big Tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet — the parent company of Google — unveiled their second-quarter earnings reports, showcasing impressive growth fueled by their strategic investments in artificial intelligence (AI).
The recent earnings reports released on April 25 painted a clear picture that the AI market is still booming and has played a significant role in driving growth while boosting product and financial performance.
Microsoft revealed a 17% increase in revenue, soaring to $61.9 billion, up from $52.9 billion in 2023. Additionally, the company saw a 20% surge in profits, reaching $21.9 billion, in both instances outperforming analysts’ forecasts.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy are asking federal agencies about their technical capacity to combat crypto payments in the sale of child abuse material.
A crackdown on individuals buying and selling child sexual abuse material (CSAM) using cryptocurrencies is underway in the United States.
U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy want to ensure that federal agencies are fully equipped to track down crypto transactions linked to the sale of child abuse content.
In an effor to bring an end to CSAM, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were asked to reveal their current technical capacities.
Bitcoin and crypto may still have a friend in U.S. treasury secretary Janet Yellen if liquidity comes roaring back to the economy next week, says Arthur Hayes.
Bitcoin (BTC) could see a “re-acceleration” of its bull market thanks to new United States economic shifts.
That is the latest macro forecast by Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX.
Bitcoin and altcoins have little hope in the U.S. Federal Reserve dropping interest rates soon to attract more liquidity into the economy.
Crypto swapping allows users to quickly and easily switch between currencies on both centralized and decentralized exchanges.
Crypto-to-crypto swaps are the direct exchange of one cryptocurrency for another at the prevailing market rate. Unlike traditional exchanges, which would require fiat currency deposits and a longer process, crypto-to-crypto swaps facilitate the exchange seamlessly.
Swaps play a major role in enhancing the liquidity and efficiency of cryptocurrencies. The feature enables users to barter their cryptocurrencies with other coins in their wallets, enhancing the efficiency of the ecosystem as a whole and reducing the risk of censorship or control.
Even a small 2.25% decline this weekend could trigger the liquidation of over $500 million in Ether long positions.
More than half a billion dollars worth of Ether (ETH) long positions could face liquidation if Ether experiences the same price volatility as last weekend.
This comes amid mounting concerns that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might reject spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in May.
At the time of publication, Ether is currently trading at $3,134, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The SEC alleged Geosyn Mining’s co-founders misappropriated $1.2 million of its investors’ funds, spending it on holidays, nightclubs and firearms.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Geosyn Mining and its co-founders, alleging they defrauded investors out of $5.6 million by lying about the number of crypto mining rigs it operated while using customer money for personal expenses.
The SEC’s April 24 lawsuit in a Fort Worth, Texas federal court claimed Geosyn, its CEO Caleb Joseph Ward, and former operating chief Jeremy George McNutt defrauded around 64 investors through service agreements sold as securities between November 2021 and December 2022.
The SEC alleged the agreements to buy and run crypto miners on customers’ behalf for a fee “falsely claimed” Geosyn had contracts with electricity providers for cheap energy, but in reality, the costs were “as high as 40-50% above” the rates it told customers.
Airdrops from two cat-themed memecoins may have paid off the entire pre-order value of the Solana ‘Chapter 2’ mobile device.
Pre-order holders of Solana’s ‘Chapter 2’ mobile phone had a brief chance to profit from the yet-to-be-released mobile phone — after memecoins airdropped to buyers briefly exceeded the cost of the phone.
In April, the teams behind two cat-themed memecoin projects: Cat in a dog’s world (MEW) and Maneki (MANEKI) airdropped tokens to the wallets of crypto users who pre-ordered the new Chapter 2 device — which initially cost $450 upfront.
On April 1, the team behind MEW airdropped 37,600 of its tokens to each holder. At its peak post-airdrop price of $0.0089, this allocation was worth $334, according to CoinGecko data.
The Pantera Fund V will invest in a range of blockchain-based assets and is slated for launch in April 2025.
Digital asset investment manager Pantera Capital is reportedly looking to raise more than $1 billion for a new fund that offers investors exposure to a “full spectrum” of blockchain-based assets.
Slated for an April 2025 launch, the Pantera Fund V is set to serve as the firm’s ‘all-in-one’ fund, a slight change of tune from its existing Liquid Token Fund, Early Stage Token Fund, Bitcoin Fund and Venture Funds — which offer a more specific investment focus.
The fund requires a minimum $1 million allocation from qualified investors. The first close is scheduled for April 1, 2025. Limited partners will need to contribute a minimum of $25 million, according to an April 25 report from Bloomberg.
Crypto analysts believe the large transfers could have a “big impact” depending on where the capital is getting deployed.
A total of $1.3 billion of USD Coin (USDC) in transfers from apparent whale addresses to crypto exchange Coinbase on Thursday could potentially be a “giant buy signal” for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), according to market observers.
“USDC moving onto exchanges is a giant buy signal, as the saying goes on the internet ‘money printer go brr,’” crypto trader Blockchain Mane told Cointelegraph.
The five transfers totaling $1.3 billion — with the amounts ranging from $150 million to $350 million — were made to Coinbase on April 25 at 08:15 UTC, according to Etherscan data.
CoinShares found a significant increase in hedge funds and wealth managers survey respondents who have allocated to Solana compared to earlier this year.
Institutional investors appear to be “broadening their exposure to altcoins” including Solana (SOL), which has seen a “dramatic increase in allocations” from wealth managers and hedge funds, says CoinShares.
“Investors are more optimistic for Solana,” the asset manager’s head of research, James Butterfill, wrote in an April 24 report based on its survey of 64 investors with a combined $600 billion in assets under management.
Nearly 15% of surveyed investors said they had invested in SOL, a significant bump from CoinShares’ January survey which showed none of the respondents had any investment in the altcoin.
A recent FBI announcement urging Americans not to use unlicensed money-transmitting services misses “a great deal of nuance” about how crypto services operate, says Piper Alderman Partner Michael Bacina.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s recent warning to Americans from using unregistered cryptocurrency money-transmitting services might be aimed at smart-contract-driven privacy tools, according to a crypto lawyer.
In an April 25 public service announcement, the FBI urged Americans only to use registered Cryptocurrency Money Services Businesses that comply with existing Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
In its announcement, the FBI wrote that it had recently conducted law enforcement operations against cryptocurrency services that were not licensed in “accordance with federal law,” adding that anyone using unlicensed services could “encounter financial disruptions” during law enforcement actions, particularly if the money is intermingled with illegally obtained funds.
If Marathon reaches its 50 EH/s target, it would mark more than a 100% increase in the firm’s hash rate since the start of 2024.
Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital has announced it is increasing its 2024 hash rate target from 35-37 exahashes per second to 50 EH/s, citing expanded capacity after recent acquisitions.
“Given the amount of capacity we have available following our recent acquisitions and the amount of hash rate [...] we now believe it is possible for us to double the scale of Marathon’s mining operations in 2024,” explained Marathon’s CEO Fred Thiel.
Thiel said its target would be “fully funded” as there is no need for the firm to raise additional capital to achieve its new target hash rate.
The Bored Apes founder was diagnosed with a heart condition with a 50% fatality rate. But things are looking up for Wylie Aronow and BAYC.
Bored Ape co-founder Wylie Aronow also known as Gordon Goner online struggled through a decade afflicted by an autoimmune disease before recovering to launch the worlds hottest NFT project three years ago this week.
After hitting stratospheric heights of money and success, with BAYC being feted by major celebrities like Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg, Aronow came crashing back to earth after being diagnosed with a heart failure condition in January 2023.
Being in your mid-30s and being told you have a condition that 50% of people pass away from within five years is hard to comprehend. Aronow has drawn upon his spirituality to help with the gravity of the situation he faces.
One satoshi is currently worth $0.00065 — but some sats hold inherent “collectible value” in the Bitcoin ecosystem, cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx Global explained.
An “epic sat” — an exceptionally rare satoshi mined from the fourth Bitcoin halving block — has sold for 33.3 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $2.13 million.
The sale of the satoshi — the smallest unit of Bitcoin — took place on cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx Global on April 25 — roughly five days after one of its partners, Bitcoin mining pool viaBTC, mined it in block 840,000 on April 20.
The auction, which commenced on April 22, saw 34 bids before an unidentified bidder won ownership rights to the epic sat — with “sat number 1,968,750,000,000,000.”
There’s only one way left for Chinese nationals to access the Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs, $6B scam accused in court, and more: Asia Express.
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments.
A Chinese national is alleged to have scammed over 130,000 mainland China investors out of 43 billion Chinese yuan ($5.94 billion) and used Bitcoin to launder the proceeds.
Yadi Zhang was apprehended by United Kingdom authorities and, during her appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court on April 20, indicated through a translator that she intended to plead not guilty to two charges of criminal possession of cryptocurrency. She was remanded in custody.
Caroline Crenshaw may continue to serve at the SEC for an additional 18 months after her term ends in June if the White House doesn't nominate a replacement.
Caroline Crenshaw, one of five commissioners of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), could be leaving the financial regulator after roughly four years.
As of April 25, President Joe Biden’s administration will have 41 days to decide whether to nominate someone to replace Crenshaw before her term ends on June 5. The commissioner was nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2020 to fill a seat left vacant by former SEC commissioner Rob Jackson but may continue to serve until the end of 2025 if no replacement is found.
During her time at the SEC, Crenshaw, a Democrat, was one of the seemingly anti-crypto voices. In January, she voted against approval of listing and trading for spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds, claiming the underlying markets were “marred by fraud and manipulation.”
Memecoins in the Solana ecosystem defy the recent bearish downtrend in the crypto market by managing to generate double-digit gains.
Nearly every corner of the crypto market has corrected at some point in April, but, memecoins in the Solana ecosystem seem to be charting a different path.
According to CoinGecko data, the total market capitalization of memecoins on Solana has significantly risen in the last 24 hours, climbing 4.2% to $8.261 billion.
Bonk (BONK) gained the most, rising 15.2% over the last 24 hours and 8.7% in the last hour. Popcat (POPCAT) followd with double-digit gains of 10.7% over the last 24 hours and 214% over the last seven days.
Stripe customers will be able to pay with USDC beginning this summer, president Jack Collison said, after the company canned BTC payments in 2018.
Payment service Stripe is bringing back crypto in the form of stablecoin payments, co-founder and president John Collison has announced. The new service will be available this summer, he said.
“Crypto is finally making sense as a means of exchange,” Collison told the audience at the company’s developers conference in San Francisco on April 25. Since Stripe discontinued its Bitcoin (BTC) payment option in 2018, transaction times have increased, fees have decreased and stablecoins are performing stably.
“If we’re in a crypto winter post 2021, nobody told the stablecoins,” Collison said, referring to a chart of stablecoin value transferred. Therefore:
The top memecoins are far from previous highs, yet retail investors may view them as fairer opportunities than VC-backed coins with high fully diluted valuations.
While Dogecoin (DOGE) price fell during the past month, historical data indicates that it could start its rally to new all-time highs around seven months after the Bitcoin halving.
Dogecoin price is down nearly 8% on the daily chart and over 18% over the past month, but remains in line with the previous cycle’s price action, suggesting that it could be on track toward new all-time highs.
During the previous crypto bull market, Dogecoin started rallying in May 2020, or seven months after the 2020 Bitcoin halving, according to TradingView.
Block gets 1% of every conversion.
Jack Dorsey’s fintech firm, Block, recently announced that it was integrating a new feature for Square merchants that would allow them to allocate a portion of their daily sales to Bitcoin, with on-demand payouts via CashApp.
Qualified merchants in the U.S. can currently allocate between 1% and 10% of their daily sales to Bitcoin (BTC). According to a TechCrunch article, the fiat funds are collected until the end of the day, at which point they’re converted to Bitcoin and deposited into the user’s Cash App account. Merchants will be required to pay a 1% fee on each conversion.
In a statement, Square said this move will empower small businesses and individual proprietors to participate in the global financial economy:
Bitcoin bulls tend to celebrate when BTC’s funding rate is negative, but is it really a “generational buying opportunity?”
The demand for leveraged buyers using Bitcoin (BTC) perpetual futures has dropped to its lowest levels in over six months, a trend some analysts consider extremely bullish. However, the BTC futures funding rate, which measures the demand between longs (buyers) and shorts (sellers), is greatly influenced by past performance, as historical data indicates.
Let’s dig in to whether or not Bitcoin’s flat funding rate is a sign of a buying opportunity.
Bitcoin’s funding rate fee is implemented by exchanges to manage the use of leverage since every trade involving perpetual contracts requires a buyer and a seller of equal size. When buyers are more aggressive, the funding rate becomes positive, indicating that they are paying for the use of leverage. Essentially, one side compensates the other, ensuring the exchange does not hold exposure risk.
Morgan Creek Capital CEO Mark Yusko believes the full impact of Bitcoin ETF adoption has yet to be realized, as boomers will continue to gain more exposure to digital assets.
Morgan Creek Capital CEO Mark Yusko anticipates massive inflows into the crypto market as baby boomers’ wealth, estimated at trillions of dollars, seeks entry into digital assets.
During an interview with The Wolf Of All Streets podcast, Yusko discussed how the introduction of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and increased interest from registered investment advisers have led to a significant shift in demand. Its full impact, however, is yet to be realized. According to Yusko:
Yusko predicted capital flows are likely to come from baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — through retirement accounts managed by advisers. According to the Investment Adviser Association, U.S. financial advisers managed $114.1 trillion in assets in 2022.
Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.
A very rare satoshi mined from the fourth Bitcoin halving by ViaBTC has just auctioned for $2.1 million. MetaMask developer Consensys has filed a lawsuit against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and despite the success of spot Bitcoin ETFs, the U.S. is unlikely to approve Ether ETFs next month, sources say.
An “epic sat” — an exceptionally rare satoshi mined from the fourth Bitcoin halving block — has sold for 33.3 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $2.13 million.
The sale of the satoshi — the smallest unit of Bitcoin — took place on cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx Global on April 25 — roughly five days after one of its partners, Bitcoin mining pool viaBTC, mined it in block 840,000 on April 20.
The company warned that the SEC reversing a position it had held since 2018 on Ether as a security could “spell disaster” for the network and halt innovation in the United States.
Software development company Consensys filed a lawsuit against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its five commissioners over claims they plan “to regulate ETH as a security.”
In an April 25 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Consensys alleged the SEC had orchestrated a campaign “to seize control over the future of cryptocurrency” with enforcement actions aimed at regulating Ether (ETH) as a security. The company cited the SEC’s record — also referring to Chair Gary Gensler’s statements — of declaring ETH was not a security as early as 2018, warning of the potential ramifications of the commission changing its position after firms had built businesses based on regulatory precedent.
“The SEC’s unlawful seizure of authority over ETH would spell disaster for the Ethereum network, and for Consensys,” said the filing. “Every holder of ETH, including Consensys, would fear violating the securities laws if he or she were to transfer ETH on the network. And the ability of anyone new to acquire ETH to use Ethereum’s repository of decentralized applications and services would be extinguished. This would bring use of the Ethereum blockchain in the United States to a halt, crippling one of the internet’s greatest innovations.”
The team defended itself against claims of excessive false positives, suggesting it was so effective that it caused a crypto drainer to give up in frustration.
Blockaid’s Web3 security platform has caused at least one crypto drainer to shut down in frustration, according to an April 25 X post by the service provider. Blockaid also defended itself against claims that it has too many “false positives,” stating that a service with zero false positives will always allow some malicious apps to drain users' funds.
Blockaid is a developer of security software that attempts to recognize malicious smart contracts on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, and others. It is integrated into multiple wallets and apps, including MetaMask, Coinbase wallet, Open Sea, Zerion, and others. When users attempt to transact with a contract that Blockaid identifies as malicious, these wallets and apps warn users that their funds may be drained if they interact with it.
Blockaid posted an image showing a purported announcement from a crypto drainer service that had been used in the past to steal crypto. The announcement claimed that “[W]e have shut down because of Blockaid and the low hit-success rate.” The crypto drainer team suggested that thieves should stop using networks that are popular with Blockaid users, as they're just not profitable anymore. “I suggest draining on the Bitcoin network or maybe using a SOL drainer with the blowfish bypass,” the drainer team stated. Blockaid’s software is currently not compatible with the Solana and Bitcoin networks.
“Unsustainable budget deficits” and “persistent inflation” have HashKey Capital analysts predicting a $100,000–$200,000 Bitcoin price by the end of 2024.
Bitcoin price has surged throughout 2024, fueled by the launch of several spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the asset’s fundamental role as a store of value.
The interest in Bitcoin (BTC) is expected to persist, particularly as the United States government’s continued high spending and interest rate policy discussions prevail, suggested Grayscale’s research director, Zach Pandl.
“We expect persistent inflation and unsustainable budget deficits to contribute to continued demand for store-of-value assets, like Bitcoin,” Pandl told Cointelegraph.
The financial services giant wants to make data about stablecoin usage clear and accessible, which requires some processing.
Visa has premiered an Online Analytics Dashboard for stablecoins. The website seeks to cut through the “noise” to provide easily accessible and digestible data on four stablecoins across nine blockchains.
In a blog post introducing the new service, Visa head of crypto Cuy Sheffield stated that stablecoin data, despite being publicly available in real time, requires interpretation before they can be compared to activity on traditional financial networks.
The noise in stablecoin data is the result of their varying use cases. Smart contracts, or “bot programs,” are used for arbitrage, liquidity provision, market making and other functions in decentralized finance (DeFi) that are not comparable to “settlement in the traditional sense.” Visa applies filters out bot activity:
Click on offer, you will be taken to the offer page. Read offer info on offer page. Follow instructions to participate in offer.
Instructions: Clear your web cash and or history, then to offer. Once on offer page, do not reload or refresh page. After completing offer (filling out offer form & submitting information, and or payment), stay on conformation page for 5-10 minutes. If any part of the process is interupted, restart from clearing web cash and history above.
From discounts to a free trial or even a free sample product. Offers are product specific. For additional product or offer info, read offer and contact company .
After completing a special offer, Recieve A Gift. Special offers, coming soon. Offers are subject to change at any time.
Terms and conditions vary depending on offer. Read carefully, check days allowed for trial, be aware of offer info and product info. 1Sense2Cents is not responsible for participation in offers. For assistance contact offer company. Ex: 20% off at specified Store (any info or assistance needed after offer participation, contact specified Store) In some cases assistance my be available. Click Contact, send a email.
Contact