Day: June 11, 2020

Bitcoin Takes a Big Hit: Main Reasons Why Recovery Could Face Sellers

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Bitcoin is down more than 5% and it broke the key $9,300 support zone against the US Dollar. BTC traded as low as $9,089 and it is currently correcting higher towards hurdles. Bitcoin declined sharply after it was rejected one more time near the $10,000 level. There was a break below many key supports near $9,500 and $9,300. There is a short term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $9,340 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken). The pair could correct further, but upsides are…

Seed CX Shuts its Exchange to Focus on Settlements

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U.S.-based crypto exchange Seed CX is shutting down to focus on its settlement infrastructure.  According to a Seed CX company blog posted June 11 by CEO Edward Woodford, its settlement arm Zero Hash now accounts for 95% of the company’s revenue. “As we begin to look beyond just profitability to realizing our ambition of becoming the leading digital asset settlement infrastructure, we have to become more focused,” wrote Woodford. “Candidly, offering an exchange product directly to customers has sometimes been perceived as a conflict by some of our clients, but…

Tiny Tax Haven Accounts for $36B of Cross-Border BTC Transactions

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Seychelles-based exchanges led the world in cross-border Bitcoin (BTC) transactions in 2019. What Switzerland is to the world of watchmaking, Seychelles is to the world of crypto exchanges. The small island nation with a total population of less than 100,000, presents a perfect playground for the enterprises that are looking for a place that allows them to optimize their tax liabilities with regulators who operate with a light touch. U.S. comes in second The report by Crystal Blockchain examined flows of Bitcoin between exchanges around the world. Seychelles exchanges led…

India’s ‘Crypto Spring’ as Wave of New Exchanges Launch

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The repeal of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) crypto ban has driven a boom in exchanges launching in India, offering hope that the growth of a robust local industry will incentivize lawmakers to maintain India’s permissive regulatory apparatus. In March, India’s Supreme Court repealed the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on financial institutions providing banking service to businesses operating with virtual currencies — legitimizing India’s cryptocurrency firms. In recent weeks, Indian startup Tradehorn became the latest domestic exchange to launch,  local derivatives platform Delta Exchange announced strategic funding…

Gemini Appoints New Asia-Pacific MD, Sets Sights on Singapore Expansion

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The Gemini cryptocurrency exchange is expanding further into Asia with the appointment of former Leonteq Asia CEO Jeremy Ng as Managing Director of Asia Pacific region. The move sets the Winklevoss twins’ exchange up to apply for a license under Singapore’s 2019 Payment Services Act, which requires at least one director to be a Singapore citizen or permanent resident. Ng will oversee the overall strategy and build a team in the region, reporting directly to Gemini’s President Cameron Winklevoss. With more than 20 years in financial services, Ng has worked…

Bitcoin Price Will “Melt Faces” Next Time It Surges Past $10,000: Here’s Why

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Although Bitcoin has been incessantly swinging between $9,000 and $10,000 over the past few days, the cryptocurrency is technically still in a consolidation pattern. Ever time BTC attempts to deviate from the range, it is rejected — on both sides. Case in point, when the asset rallied to $10,400 last week, a $1,500 drop followed suit. An argument has been made that the consolidation is textbook distribution. One, in fact, likened the recent price action to a textbook schematic first identified by the late technician Richard Wyckoff. This is pertinent…

3 On-Chain Metrics Crypto Investors Use to Track Bitcoin Network Activity

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The public nature of blockchains continuously generates an endless stream of data, as every single transaction and address leaves a clear trace. This information, known as on-chain data, provides a way to precisely analyze cryptocurrency network activity.  Some on-chain indicators such as the number of active addresses, HODL wave, and hashrate have become well known in the industry, but the general public is really only scratching its surface. As the number of on-chain metrics available has grown to an overwhelming amount, figuring out which are the most useful to the…

Michigan State University Hit by Ransomware, Refuses to Pay Criminals

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In early June, media outlets reported that the NetWalker ransomware gang had attacked Michigan State University, or MSU. At the time, the gang threatened to leak students’ records and financial documents. The university’s officials now have said that they will not pay the ransom. According to Detroit Free Press, the unspecified bounty requested in crypto by the ransomware group will not be paid by MSU. Officials did not publish an official statement addressing the reasons behind the decision. The attack seems to have happened on the U.S. Memorial Day holiday.…

Data Appear to Contradict Bitfinex’s Dwindling Bitcoin Deposits Narrative

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Data appears to contradict Bitfinex’s claim that the reason for its users withdrawing 135,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from the exchange was an arbitrage opportunity that ensued following Black Thursday. 135,000 BTC later On Thursday, March 12, Bitfinex was holding 200,000 BTC. By May 25, this number dwindled to just 65,000 BTC. This is a 67% decrease over the span of two and a half months. Bitfinex Bitcoin Balance. Source: Glassnode Data contradicts Bitfinex’s explanation In a Cointelegraph interview, Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino stated the driving factor behind this trend was the…

SEC Launches Virtual Meetups for Fintech Industry Players

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FinHub, a fintech arm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will now host digital meetings for industry players amid COVID-19 lockdowns. “To facilitate ongoing communications, FinHub will host a series of thematically-based virtual P2P meet-ups over the next few months,” the commission said in a June 11 statement, adding: “During each series, FinHub staff will meet virtually with innovators, entrepreneurs, or firms that wish to discuss issues related to that series’ theme.”  FinHub began as a way of guiding innovation FinHub started up in late 2018 as a…