Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Japan is steadily becoming an area of interest for the cryptocurrency industry, and a politician in the capital city is looking to strengthen the trend. A member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly wants to transform the Japanese capital into a “trading center” for cryptos. Blockchain as a ‘Growth Strategy’ to Create Industry Hub Yuu Ito, the third term assembly member in question, commented about the possibility of bolstering the city’s financial sector by increasing its involvement with the digital asset business. The statement comes after his recent support of economic plans unveiled by Yuriko Koike, governor of Tokyo. Ito also pointed out challenges Tokyo faces in order to compete with other major financial hubs, like London, Macau, and Hong Kong. He believes high rates in bitcoin ( BTC ) tax might have deterred investors and companies from being active in Japan, and that significant action is necessary to advance the industry domestically. Nobuko Irie, a fellow Tokyo Metropoli...

Tom Brady, who is widely known as the greatest quarterback of all time, has hopped on the bitcoin bandwagon. The seven-time Super Bowl champion has added laser eyes to his Twitter profile. Tom Brady Rumored to Be Loading up on Bitcoin Football star Tom Brady has hopped on the bitcoin train. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, who plays in the National Football League (NFL), is widely considered to be the greatest quarterback of all time. He became the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) in NFL history after winning his sixth Super Bowl two years ago. Brady has since won another Super Bowl. Responding to a tweet by Blockworks’ Jason Yanowitz that says: “Rumor has it Tom Brady is loading up on bitcoin. Retweet if you think the GOAT should turn on laser eyes. Let’s make it happen.” A few hours later, Brady replied : “Hmmmm should I change it??” Without revealing whether he has bought bitcoin, the star quarterback proceeded to change his profile picture on Twitter to one with laser eyes...

Swiss investment bank UBS Group is reportedly exploring offering cryptocurrency services to its wealthy clients. UBS joins a growing list of major investment banks that are either already offering or planning to offer crypto investments to their clients, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. UBS Group AG is exploring “offering crypto investments to rich clients,” Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the publication, the company is in the early stages of planning its offerings. Several crypto investment options are being considered but any offering would be a small portion of the clients’ total wealth because of the volatility, one of the people told the news outlet. Some of the options being explored include investing through third-party investment vehicles. UBS said in a statement: “We are monitoring the developments in the field of digital assets closely. Importantly, we are most interested in the technology which ...

Mark Yusko, Morgan Creek Capital Management’s CEO and cofounder, is extremely bullish on bitcoin. Despite a period of consolidation, Yusko expects the leading crypto asset to tap $250,000 in five years. In a recent interview, he said that the network continues to swell in an “exponential way.” Morgan Creek’s CEO Sticks to His Six-Digit Bitcoin Prediction The founder of Morgan Creek is again reiterating his prediction that bitcoin ( BTC ) will surpass six digits in value within the next five years. In a May 6, 2020 interview , Yusko predicted that bitcoin could easily reach $100,000 in 2021 or 2022. Moreover, during the discussion, Yusko also stressed that bitcoin’s price could reach $400k to $500k as well. During this week’s interview with CNBC’s Trading Nation, Morgan Creek’s Mark Yusko explained that he believes investors “overlook and underestimate” the leading crypto asset. “It’s just about network adoption and increased usage,” Yusko said this week. “This is a network and ne...

The price of ethereum, the second-largest crypto asset in terms of market valuation, touched an all-time high (ATH) on Monday, capturing $4,246 per unit. Ethereum has been on a tear during the last year against the U.S. dollar, gaining a whopping 2,129% in 12 months. Ethereum Captures Fresh Price Highs, ‘Flippening’ Begins to Trend Ethereum (ETH) reached a new ATH this Monday, tapping $4,246 per ether. ETH is up over 6% during the last 24 hours and 21.9% over the course of the week. Against bitcoin ( BTC ), ETH is up 19% during the course of the last seven days. 30-day stats shows ETH is up 96% and 90-day data shows ether is up 136%. Ethereum’s price rise has been dragging bitcoin’s ( BTC ) leading dominance down a great deal, as BTC only commands 43% today. ETH dominance is 19.6% and it’s been rising higher as each day passes. Data shows that reported volume for ETH is around $54.7 billion, while “real volume” stats from Messari indicates volume could be around $12.2 billio...

Shiba Inu, an Ethereum based Dogecoin ripoff, has been listed in two important cryptocurrency exchanges today, Binance and FTX, after the price skyrocketed more than 1500% during last week. Binance has faced stiff criticism for listing Shiba Inu due to its origin, but their systems are now overwhelmed with inflows coming with this currency. Shiba Inu Gets FTX and Binance Listing Shiba Inu, an ethereum based meme coin looking to be the next Dogecoin, has been listed from two very important exchanges in the cryptocurrency sphere: FTX and Binance . Binance included the currency in its innovation zone, which presents some kinds of limitations for its trading, and FTX included it as a full-fledged cryptocurrency, including spot markets and perpetual futures to trade with it. The cryptocurrency has experienced a hike in prices during the last week, skyrocketing by almost 1500%. However, this metric is dwarfed by how much it has grown in the last month, rising by a mouth-watering 40,000...

PRESS RELEASE. DeChart’s DCH token sale is now live on UniCrypt , giving control back to traders and fantastic staking opportunities. London, United Kingdom – One of the most important aspects of trading is historical trading data. It is vital for informing all trading decisions, suggesting the future of an asset’s trade pattern, and assessing an asset’s value. Despite the top decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap amassing huge volumes in trades, solutions for consumers-accessible trading data either lack protocol support or are simply non-existent. Many third-party tools positioned as aggregate trading data solutions are disorganized and present scattered, immutable data sets. DEXs were not created to carry out complex financial analyses and as such, there is a clear potential gap in the DEX trading market. That is where DeChart comes in. DeChart: The Future of DEX Data Aggregation Providing the leading advanced data solution for users seeking trading ...

Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Digital, wants exchanges to start listing in the smallest unit of bitcoin otherwise known as “satoshis”. On May 8, Novogratz tweeted out to a number of crypto exchange executives and asked “which exchange will be first to quote in SATS?” Novogratz Asks Top Exchange Execs to List Satoshis Bitcoin bull and investor Mike Novogratz is interested in seeing crypto trading platforms list the smallest unit of bitcoin ( BTC ) called “satoshis” or “SATS.” One can think of satoshis as the “cents” from dollars; they represent the fractional term of a portion of bitcoin. A satoshi is approximately 0.00000001 BTC . With BTC above the $57k handle at the time of writing, a single satoshi is worth $0.0005711 USD. On Saturday, Novogratz tweeted : It is time to switch to Satoshis. Too many people telling me at $58,000 BTC too expensive. Which exchange will be first to quote in SATS? His tweet further tagged the crypto exchange CEOs from Binance, Coinbase...

The “ultrasound money” meme has been running in Ethereum based circles for some time, gaining momentum as the asset rises and rises in value during this bull market. While it is considered a joke by many, like a myriad of memes, it hides a very complex array of factors that contribute to Ethereum’s newfound status. However, it is not without its critics from the Bitcoin side. The ‘Ultrasound Money’ Meme Explained If you have mingled in inner Ethereum cryptocurrency circles, you probably have heard the words “ultrasound money,” used as a meme to explain what the Ethereum network is going to become when it turns to proof-of-stake (PoS). But memes, being as they are, are a complete simplification of the subject, and fail to describe the whole mechanism behind it. Roughly, the ultrasound money meme serves to mock bitcoiners who describe bitcoin ( BTC ) as a “sound” money asset, meaning this that is not liable to sudden depreciation in its value. Built by Justin Drake, a researcher from...

A newly published regional report shows that China’s hashrate has likely dropped to 55% while the U.S. has climbed to 11%. Another study predicts that it’s possible North America could overtake China in terms of hashrate by the end of 2021. Bitcoin Mining Farm Operator Says Mining Industry in North America Is Booming For years now China has been the most dominant region in terms of bitcoin miners worldwide and at one point 65% to 70% of the network hashrate stemmed from the country. In May 2021, the Bitcoin hashrate is significantly higher nearing 200 exahash per second (EH/s) as a great number of participants are mining the crypto asset. At the time of writing, the global hashrate is around 181 EH/s following the massive drop in hashpower two weeks ago. Now a few reports are showing that China’s SHA256 hashrate dominance is steadily dropping and the U.S. and North America, in general, have become greater competitors. 8btc’s regional columnist, Iyke Aru explains that one reason ...

Investors can now stake STC, the utility token powering the Student Coin ecosystem, and earn up to 13% APY. Showing the amazing potential of the community backing the project, over 1,000,000,000 tokens were staked in less than 12 hours after STC staking was launched. STC Now Offers Staking, Much More to Come Student Coin , a platform that allows users to easily design, create, and manage personal, corporate, NFT, and DeFi tokens, launched staking on May 6th and was immediately welcomed with great demand. In fact, over 1,000,000,000 tokens were staked in less than 12 hours after STC staking went live. Staking can be done directly via the STC Wallet , where holders can now choose between a 30 days, 90 days, and 180 days staking pools with additional STC-based token mining program. When you stake your STC tokens, you can earn up to 13% APY, and mine 10 additional STC-based tokens. The first two tokens to be airdropped for the mining stakers are Smart Marketing Token ($SMT), and Smart ...

One of Africa’s biggest wildlife conservancies, the Virunga National Park, which is situated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), says it now accepts donations via cryptocurrency. It says such donations will be used in helping to protect DRC’s famed “mountain gorillas and the ecosystems they inhabit.” Tax Efficient Way to Support Virunga In a statement recently published on its website, Virunga, which is home to one of Africa’s “oldest national park and most biologically diverse protected area,” says it will initially accept donations in the form of 12 cryptos. Some of the accepted cryptos include BTC , BCH and ETH . The statement also explains why well-wishers should consider donating via crypto. It reads: In many countries, donating cryptocurrency is classed as a non-taxable event, meaning you do not owe capital gains tax on the appreciated amount and can deduct it on your taxes. This can make bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrency donations one of the most tax-effic...

Investment management firm Ark Invest has highlighted three reasons why the price of ethereum has been hitting record highs. The firm cited increased institutional interest, strong on-chain signals, and imminent protocol upgrades as the key reasons. Why Ethereum Has Been Going Up ARK Investment Management, also known as Ark Invest , published a research note last week explaining three key reasons why ethereum is breaking out to new all-time highs. The first reason the firm’s analyst mentioned was “Increased institutional interest.” Ark Invest pointed out that a number of ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have launched in Canada, making it easier for institutional investors to gain exposure to the price of ETH . The note adds: Institutions and companies like European Investment Bank and Visa have validated the Ethereum blockchain by announcing issuance and settlement use cases, respectively. At the end of April, the European Investment Bank (EIB), a nonprofit organization and l...

Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, who headed the committee that drafted India’s cryptocurrency bill, says that the government should not ban cryptocurrencies but regulate them instead. He further urges the government to encourage crypto services. Indian Government Should Regulate Cryptocurrencies and Encourage Crypto Asset Services Subhash Chandra Garg said Thursday at a virtual event organized by industry body Assocham that the Indian government should regulate cryptocurrencies instead of prohibiting them, PTI reported. He elaborated: I don’t think we still have full clarity and understanding about how to regulate cryptocurrencies … Regulate, control cryptocurrencies but allow the crypto assets, encourage the crypto services. Garg, who resigned from his government position in July 2019, headed the interministerial committee (IMC) that drafted the cryptocurrency bill entitled “Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019.” ...

Latest reports from South Africa suggest that the country’s tax agency will now be targeting cryptocurrency investors as it attempts to increase the total value of revenues collected. Alongside high net worth individuals and offshore investors, digital currency holders now constitute an area that is “likely to yield much of the extra tax” for the revenue collector. Crypto Investors Unaware of Tax Liabilities However, according to a report , many South African cryptocurrency holders are “oblivious of the fact that trading in cryptocurrency renders them liable for tax.” The report, which relies on the expert opinion of Thomas Lobban, says the “South African Revenue Service (SARS) (currently) has cryptocurrency trading very much in its sights.” Further, Lobban who is the legal manager at Tax Consulting South Africa said: As with any other asset class, investors must understand their tax obligations in relation to their crypto investments, and plan accordingly. If they do not, then c...