A combination of factors converged into a perfect storm on Friday, triggering the cryptocurrency industry’s largest liquidation event in history and briefly sending Bitcoin (BTC) below $110,000. The $19 billion in liquidations doesn’t mean investors lost that sum of money, but rather that leveraged positions were forcibly closed. The unrealized loss can be better observed…
Read more
Bitcoin (BTC) surged into October, defying a US government shutdown that has left altcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in limbo. But while markets welcomed the arrival of “Uptober,” the headlines elsewhere were dominated by regulatory battles and policy experiments. Two defendants pleaded guilty in what UK police called the world’s largest crypto seizure, a case…
Read more
“South Park” extended its running gag on cryptocurrency in a recent episode, taking aim at prediction markets, trading apps, US regulators and politicians tied to the industry. Now in its 27th season, the animated series has built its reputation on unhinged satire of global events. Crypto has repeatedly taken some hits. Not everyone enjoys being…
Read more
Group of Seven (G7) regulators are moving on stablecoins, with the US enacting its new law, the European Union enforcing Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation and Japan already running a live regime. So far, the market has been dominated by dollar-pegged tokens such as Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC). Regulation is now catching…
Read more
Bitcoin Core’s next major upgrade has reignited old tensions in the community, pitting developers who want a neutral, fee-driven network against purists who see non-financial data as spam. Bitcoin Core v30, expected in October, will remove the 80-byte cap on OP_RETURN, the part of a transaction script that allows users to embed arbitrary data. Bitcoin…
Read more
The next wave of institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is emerging as established fintech firms begin building their own blockchains. Financial services app Robinhood recently announced that it is building its own layer-2 blockchain to support tokenized stocks and real-world assets, while Stripe followed with plans for Tempo, a payments-focused chain built with Paradigm. “That’s going…
Read more
The verification process on adult platforms can be more cumbersome than Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on cryptocurrency exchanges — though added difficulty doesn’t necessarily reflect stronger compliance. Signing up as a model on OnlyFans or Pornhub isn’t all that different from opening an account on a crypto trading platform. The process often begins with…
Read more
Bitcoin snapped a three-year streak of negative summer average returns, but it now enters its worst month, known as “red September.” September carries the dreaded nickname because it has delivered the lowest monthly returns for Bitcoin (BTC), averaging –3.77% across 12 years from 2013. It is also the month China imposed a pair of major…
Read more
The number of Bitcoin (BTC) treasury firms keeps on climbing, but announcing a BTC strategy is no longer a guaranteed way to pump a company’s share price. The model was pioneered by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), now the world’s largest publicly traded corporate holder with 632,457 BTC at the time of writing. Since its first purchase…
Read more
Crypto funds and market makers are buying tokens at steep discounts through private over-the-counter deals and hedging them with shorts, locking in double-digit returns while retail traders take the risk. Venture capitalists, funds and market makers can often secure allocations at roughly a 30% discount with three- to four-month vesting, then hedge by shorting the…
Read more