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Weekly Recap May 17th, 2021 – May 24th, 2021 Welcome to our 4th weekly recap for May. Overview  Crypto News [1] Microstrategy Buys $10M Worth of Bitcoin, MSTR Shares Down Over 60% Since February On Tuesday, the publicly-listed business intelligence company, Microstrategy, announced the purchase of 229 bitcoins adding to the firm’s current stash of crypto. The company’s CEO Michael Saylor told his Twitter followers that Microstrategy now holds 92,079 bitcoins. [2] Wells Fargo Gets Into Crypto With Upcoming ‘Professionally Managed’ Cryptocurrency Investment Wells Fargo will soon offer “a professionally managed solution” for cryptocurrency to clients. “We think the cryptocurrency space has just kind of hit an evolution and maturation of its development that allows it now to be a viable investable asset,” said the president of Wells Fargo Investment Institute. [3] Indian Government to Set up Panel of Experts to Take a Fresh Look at Regulating Cryptocurrencies: Report The Indian government is reportedly looking to form a new “panel of experts” to focus on ways to regulate the cryptocurrencyContinue reading »

Weekly Recap May 24th, 2021 – May 31th, 2021 Welcome to our 5th weekly recap for May. Overview      Crypto News [1] Traditional Hedge Funds Look To Deploy More Capital Into Crypto: PricewaterhouseCoopers Global accounting and business consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is revealing that legacy hedge funds are contemplating increasing their investments in crypto assets before the end of the year. [2] PayPal to Allow Its Customers to Withdraw Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies Payments giant PayPal is set to add support for cryptocurrency withdrawals to third-party wallets. [3] Ripple to Go Public After the SEC Lawsuit, Confirms CEO Ripple Labs intends to become a publicly-traded company after it settles the lawsuit against the SEC, confirmed the payment processor’s CEO. [4] Cardano to Let Users Create and Execute P2P Financial Agreements In a blog post that begins by relating flawed experiences with traditional financial services, IOHK announced they are developing Marlowe. In creating this decentralized finance (DeFi) project, they seek to democratize finance through facilitating peer-to-peer agreements on a blockchain.Continue reading »

Weekly Recap May 10th, 2021 – May 17th, 2021 Welcome to our 2nd weekly recap for May. Overview  Crypto News [1] Binance Under Investigation by DOJ and IRS Binance, the largest exchange by trading volume, is facing money laundering and tax evasion investigations from the U.S. Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service, according to Bloomberg.   [2] Elon crashes Bitcoin – The Bitcoin mining energy debate begins Elon Musk tweeted today that Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. He said that Tesla is concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining.   Binance Suspends ETH and ERC-20 Withdrawals for Customers Just now, major crypto trader Binance has tweeted that withdrawals of Ethereum and all tokens based on its ERC-20 standard will be suspended during temporary wallet maintenance.   [4] Bitcoin-Mining Power Plant Mentioned by Elon Musk to Go Carbon-Neutral New York’s Greenidge power plant—which has been repurposed for Bitcoin mining in 2017—is going to be entirely carbon-neutral starting from June, Reuters reports.   [5]Continue reading »

Weekly Recap May 3rd, 2021 – May 10th, 2021 Welcome to our 2nd weekly recap for May. Overview  Crypto News [1] Galaxy Digital to Buy BitGo for About $1.2B in Stock, Cash Galaxy Digital, the cryptocurrency-focused financial services firm run by Michael Novogratz, said it has agreed to buy BitGo, the U.S.-regulated crypto custody specialist, for $1.2 billion in stock and cash. [2] Grayscale Becomes First Crypto Sponsor of NFL Team with Giants’ Team-Up Grayscale has become the first cryptocurrency company to sponsor an NFL team, the New York Giants. The Giants organization is hoping their partnership with Grayscale will help guide them in navigating the cryptocurrency ecosystem. [3] Goldman Sachs Leads Investment in Crypto Firm Coin Metrics Coin Metrics, a cryptocurrency and blockchain data provider to institutional clients, raised $15 million through investors led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. [4] NYDIG Partners with FIS to Bring Bitcoin to 300M US Bank Accounts In one of the latest and largest institutional moves towards the cryptocurrency market, NYDIG has announced aContinue reading »

Weekly Recap April 26th, 2021 – May 3rd, 2021 Welcome to our 1st weekly recap for May. Overview  Crypto News [1] All 200 Cryptocurrency Exchanges Could Be Shut Down Under New Regulation in South Korea, Regulator Warns The chairman of South Korea’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), Eun Sung-soo, has warned that all of the cryptocurrency exchanges in the country could be shut down. South Korea currently has about 200 cryptocurrency exchanges, he said. [2] Mastercard Launching Crypto Rewards Credit Card With Real-Time Bitcoin Rewards Mastercard is launching a new cryptocurrency rewards credit card featuring real-time rewards in partnership with crypto exchange Gemini. Cardholders will earn up to 3% back in real-time in bitcoin or a number of supported cryptocurrencies. [3] Intel Partners With Microsoft to Combat Cryptojacking Attacks by Deploying a Threat Detection Tool Although recent studies have been showing a slowdown in cryptojacking activities, especially the ones related to mining privacy coins, Intel remains on the hunt to crackdown on such activities. The tech giantContinue reading »

Weekly Recap April 19th, 2021 – April 26th, 2021 Welcome to our 4th weekly recap for April. Overview  Crypto News [1] PayPal’s Venmo now allows users to buy and sell crypto PayPal’s social payment arm Venmo has officially launched the service to let its users buy, hold and sell crypto assets within its mobile app.   [2] WeWork Moves to Accept Crypto Payments WeWork, the global office-sharing startup backed by SoftBank will begin accepting payments in cryptocurrency. The company, which has locations in 118 cities, will also use it to pay some landlords and vendors, according to a company press release Tuesday.   [3] Court May Prohibit SEC to Contact Foreign Regulators Regarding Ripple: Lawyer James Filan One of the lawyers who represents Ripple fintech giant and two of its highest-profile executives in court, James K. Filan, has shared on Twitter that a new discovery conference is going to take place.   [4] Congress Inches Closer to Making Crypto Regulations Clearer The US House of Representatives has passed legislation that,Continue reading »

Weekly Recap April 12th, 2021 – April 18th, 2021 Welcome to our 3rd weekly recap for April. Overview  Crypto News [1] Lockheed Martin adopts blockchain for supply chain management in Switzerland United States aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin has signed an agreement with SyncFab, a Silicon Valley distributed manufacturing platform, to streamline supplier capabilities across Switzerland, offering yet another tangible use case for blockchain technology.   [2] Coinbase Shares Start Trading on Nasdaq Coinbase has finally made its debut on the Nasdaq exchange, kicking off its new journey as a publicly traded company that many bulls believe could be the next Amazon.   [3] Dogecoin Pumps 12 Percent After New Elon Musk Tweet After awing the world with a video macaque playing a video game with its brain earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk is once again tweeting about Dogecoin after almost a month-long break.   [4] Ethereum (ETH) Nodes Stuck After Berlin Hardfork Activation. Here’s What Happened At around 3 p.m. today, Ethereum (ETH) developers and analysts acrossContinue reading »

Weekly Recap April 5th, 2021 – April 12th, 2021 Welcome to our 2nd weekly recap for April. Overview  Crypto News [1] After Bitcoin and Ethereum, CoinShares Launched a Physically-Backed Litecoin ETP After releasing physically-backed exchange-traded products tracking the performance of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) earlier this year, CoinShares has expanded its portfolio with the addition of a Litecoin ETP.   [2] Ripple wins access to SEC discussions on defining crypto assets as securities Ripple Labs has been granted access to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s documents “expressing the agency’s interpretation or views” on the subject of crypto assets.   [3] Hedge Fund Behemoth Millennium Management Dips Its Toes into Bitcoin According to an April 7 report by financial news outlet TheStreet, New York-based Millennium Management has traded the shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust. [4] Grayscale Acquires Huge Amounts of Recently Added Alts: BAT, MANA, LPT, FIL, LINK According to analytics website Bybt, over the past 30 days, the largest buyer of Bitcoin and other crypto assets, Grayscale,Continue reading »

Weekly Recap March 29th, 2021 – April 5th, 2021 Welcome to our 1st weekly recap for April. Overview  Crypto News [1] George Soros Buying Up Bitcoin Infrastructure “It’s everything from exchanges, asset managers, custodians, to the mundane like tax reporting on your crypto gains and everything in between.” So says Dawn Fitzpatrick (pictured), the chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, in an interview with Bloomberg. [2] Grayscale Adds Over 5.5 Million XLM, As Well As MANA, FIL, LINK, BAT The largest Bitcoin buying fund, which also offers exposure to altcoins—including Ethereum and Stellar—has added 5,566,271 XLM and other altcoins, whose trusts have been launched recently. [3] IRS gets access to crypto exchange Circle’s user data, targets Kraken next Shortly after getting a court authorization to obtain records of cryptocurrency exchange Circle’s customers, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is now seeking to get access to similar data from trading platform Kraken. [4] Banking Behemoth Goldman Sachs Preparing for Giant Leap Into Crypto Space Goldman Sachs is reportedly preparing toContinue reading »