Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Mike Novogratz declared institutional investors are waiting for the next narrative shift in a recent interview at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. The CEO of Galaxy Digital thinks the market is now in a consolidation phase after the price crash last month. Novogratz also commented on what the rise of defi could mean for banking operators in the near future. Mike Novogratz Thinks Bitcoin Investors Are Waiting for a New Narrative Galaxy Digital’s CEO Mike Novogratz thinks Bitcoin is still in a phase of consolidation after the dump in prices experienced last month. According to the entrepreneur, possible investors are waiting for the next shift in the Bitcoin narrative. This new push would entice them to start pumping money into digital assets again. Novogratz explained in an interview with Yahoo Finance that he thinks institutional investors are to blame for the recent tank in prices. Institutional investors were able to accumulate Bitcoin cheap at $9K prices, and with the sudd...

Six East African states are reportedly set to explore the possibility of using central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as an alternative to their shared payment system. The six countries, which are all members of the East Africa Community (EAC) trading bloc, are hoping this alternative will create a pathway that leads to the attainment of “a single currency for the region by 2024.” The Moribund EAPS The revelations of the EAC’s digital currency plan follow the bloc secretariat’s “consultancy call for a feasibility study” on the planned upgrade of the East African Payment System (EAPS). Since its launch in 2014, the EAPS has failed to function properly due to member states’ distrust of each other’s currency. Consequently, according to a report , the EAC says the selected “consultant will conduct an exploratory scoping of such developments.” The consultant is similarly expected to conduct an exploratory scoping for “emerging technologies and their adoption, including but not limited t...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he “pretty much” agrees with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin about a collaboration between Dogecoin and Ethereum. Buterin said: “if we can have a secure Doge-to-Ethereum bridge. That would be amazing.” Vitalik Buterin Talks About Dogecoin and Ethereum Bridge, Elon Musk Agrees Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin talked about a potential collaboration between Ethereum and Dogecoin in an interview with AI researcher Lex Fridman last week. Referring to the Tesla and Spacex CEO repeatedly tweeting about dogecoin, Fridman said, “There’s a power behind someone like Elon Musk pushing the development of a cryptocurrency.” He then asked Buterin, “is there a way to leverage that power and momentum to improve Ethereum?” Buterin said: If DOGE wants to somehow bridge to Ethereum, and then people can trade DOGE thousands of times a second inside of loopring, then that would be amazing. “I definitely don’t think Ethereum is opposed to dog coins,” the co-founder em...

The Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has revealed record growth in its institutional business. “This year, interest from pension funds and hedge funds has skyrocketed, supported by the roll-out of crypto-ETPs as well as an increased understanding of the crypto economy,” said Coinbase. Coinbase Sees Interest From Institutional Investors Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) reportedly revealed Tuesday that between Dec. 31 last year and the end of the first quarter this year, its institutional holdings grew 170% from $45 billion to $122 billion. The company has over 8,000 institutional clients currently, including hedge funds, asset managers, pension funds, and endowments. Many institutional clients use Coinbase Custody, a crypto custody service with an insurance policy for institutional clients. The service, launched in 2018, supports over 90% of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Drew Robinson, Head of Hedge Fund Sales at Coinbase, says...

On June 7, the United States Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the “recovery” of 63.70 bitcoin from the funds Colonial Pipeline sent to the hackers. The official story has a number of inconsistencies and federal investigators did not disclose how the FBI was able to confiscate the Darkside gang’s private key. Darkside Ransomware Gang Story Loaded With Discrepancies and a Vague Bitcoin Key Capture The cryptocurrency space has been discussing the recent law enforcement capture of 63.7 BTC or $2.3 million worth of bitcoin at the time of seizure. There have been issues with the way the story has unfolded and people are skeptical of the official story. Bitcoin.com News reported on Monday, how the Justice Department and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco revealed the seizure story. Monaco detailed that federal authorities had “turned the tables on Darkside.” But from the very moment this story broke by a number of mainstream media outlets, ther...

Amazon is looking for a blockchain expert, according to a job posting published on the company’s employment portal. The firm wants someone who is “passionate about blockchain and decentralized networks” and someone who can build innovative “business use cases” across decentralized finance (defi). Online Marketplace Amazon Hopes to Hire a Head of Product to Lead Blockchain Innovation The world’s largest online marketplace Amazon is seemingly watching blockchain innovations and current defi platforms make waves in the world of finance. Since the firm’s inception, Amazon has disrupted the online world via technological innovation and now it wants someone to help with blockchain technology. The company posted a job listing this week that shows Amazon is looking for a “Head of Product” with a comprehensive blockchain and cryptocurrency background. The business already has a product called the “Amazon Managed Blockchain (AMB)” and a team behind the project as well. “Come join us to head...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says it needs congressional authority in order to obtain the information needed to regulate cryptocurrency. “We get challenged frequently and to have a clear dictate from Congress on the authority for us to collect that information is critical,” IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said. IRS Says It Needs More Authority to Collect Crypto Data IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said Tuesday during a Senate Finance Committee hearing that the IRS needs more authority to do its job in regulating cryptocurrency. He said: I think we need congressional authority. We get challenged frequently and to have a clear dictate from Congress on the authority for us to collect that information is critical. The commissioner noted that the cryptocurrency market is growing and its value is now approximately $2 trillion, with more than 8,600 exchanges worldwide. The Biden administration has proposed requiring businesses to report information on cryptocurrency transac...

The chief investment officer of global investment firm Skybridge Capital says bitcoin still has more upside than gold. While expecting both gold and bitcoin to rally, he said his hedge fund is sticking to bitcoin. Asset Manager Skybridge Prefers Bitcoin to Gold Troy Gayeski, co-chief investment officer (CIO) and senior portfolio manager at Skybridge Capital, a $7.5 billion hedge fund, says gold is good but bitcoin is better, Bloomberg reported Sunday. He believes that both gold and bitcoin are likely to rally even as the Federal Reserve moves to taper asset purchases, elaborating: We’re going to stick to bitcoin and crypto because we just think there’s more upside. While acknowledging that bitcoin has more volatility than gold, the CIO noted: “you’re going to capture a little bit more juice than you will in gold from that same phenomenon.” The price of bitcoin soared to the $65,000 level in April before plunging. It currently stands at $32,512 based on data from Bitcoin.com Mar...

British asset management firm Ruffer reportedly said its bitcoin investment has generated about $1.1 billion in profit. The firm says bitcoin has been “a wonderful store of value” and it is still optimistic about the cryptocurrency in the long term. Ruffer Profits $1.1 Billion From Bitcoin Investment London-based asset management firm Ruffer revealed that it made $1.1 billion in profit from its bitcoin investment in five months, The Sunday Times reported on June 6. The firm has about £22.4 billion ($32 billion) under management as of April 30. Hamish Baillie, an investment director at Ruffer, said the asset management firm initially invested about $600 million in bitcoin in November last year when the price of BTC was below $20,000. The director detailed: When the price doubled, we took some profits for our clients in December and early January. We actively managed the position and by the time we sold the last tranche in April, the total profit was slightly more than $1.1 billi...

Deutsche Bank published a report Monday noting that the United States is facing “the very real specter of consumer-driven inflation.” The bank’s chief economist David Folkerts-Landau and others notably highlight the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing policy and recent tolerance toward higher inflation. Deutsche Report: ‘Transitory Inflation Could Feed Into ’70s Style Stagflation’ The price of commodities in the U.S. has surged according to a number of recently published studies over the last two months. Currently, commodity-price increases are moving in lockstep as products like oil tapped a two-year high , the price of lumber jumped 377% in a year’s time, electronics are 10% more expensive across the board, copper has risen to record highs , soybeans and corn prices have skyrocketed , and retail beef and pork is eliciting “ sticker shock .” On June 7, Germany’s lending giant Deutsche Bank published a report with a dire warning to the U.S. concerning inflation. The study features...

Tim Wu, top advisor to the Biden administration on technology and competition policy, holds more than $1 million in cryptocurrency, shows a recently filed financial disclosure. The antitrust expert, who is known as a prominent big tech critic, has in the past questioned the value of bitcoin. Top Biden Advisor Tim Wu Is a Bitcoin Millionaire U.S. President Joe Biden’s tech advisor, Tim Wu, is a millionaire in bitcoin, Politico wrote in article this week, quoting his personal financial disclosure. The declaration has been provided to the publication by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia University, which requested the document from the White House. Timothy Wu, Columbia University. According to the disclosure Wu owns between $1 million and $5 million in bitcoin ( BTC ) as well as between $100,001 and $250,000 in filecoin (FIL), the cryptocurrency of a platform that offers decentralized crypto storage services. The official information also reveals that Wu’s bitco...

Upland.me is a blockchain-based game in which users can buy, sell, and trade virtual NFT properties mapped to the real world. By becoming a digital landowner, users can build properties, earn UPX coins, and even cash out their gains to USD. Currently open in cities including NYC, San Francisco, Oakland, and more, the project utilizes blockchain to guarantee true ownership of properties to its users in its metaverse. Users from anywhere in the world can purchase properties in these cities, and expansion into international cities is planned for the future. Unique from many new blockchain-based games in the market today, Upland is seeking to create a market-based digital economy that blurs the lines between the real world and the digital world. To celebrate the beginning of this ambitious goal, Upland is currently in the midst of its Genesis Week to celebrate the minting of its first metaverse property on June 6th, 2019. Since then, the metaverse has expanded rapidly, and each year ...

Solana, a proof-of-stake, smart contracts-enabled currency, is aiming to raise $450 million in a funding round that was extended last March. The Solana ecosystem, which is backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of derivatives exchange FTX, would use these funds to take on Ethereum supremacy in the Defi ecosystem. Solana to Raise $450 Million in Funding Round Solana, the FTX-backed, proof-of-stake coin is aiming to raise $450 million in a funding round that was set to close, but instead expanded in March, according to a report from Decrypt. The outlet, citing anonymous sources, states the currency had targeted significantly less money in a smaller funding round, but found big capital interested in backing the project. While there is still no confirmation on the amount of money raised by Solana, these funds would be used to entice developers to construct and bring their already existing projects to the network. The project is part of a group of cryptocurrencies called “ethereu...

After months of hype around the launch, the first Kusama parachain auction went off without a hitch. The now active parachain has already begun successfully processing transactions, paving the way for future slot auctions. Kusama’s First Functional Parachain Goes Live The anticipation surrounding Polkadot parachains over the last few months has at last been realized following the first successful parachain auction on the Kusama canary network. This development marks the first time that a 100% decentralized, heterogeneously-sharded blockchain has been launched. The parachain, awarded to “Shell,” has since been upgraded to “ Statemine ,” a common-good parachain with several different utilities and functionalities. Other parachains will leverage Statemine’s utility thanks to the XCM protocol, which also allows KSM tokens to move between Kusama and the parachain seamlessly. With this proof of concept in place and operational, “Parachain Slot Auctions” can commence, but they will req...

A few Kenyan banks have started sending out warning alerts to clients engaged in cryptocurrency trading to be wary of the associated risks. These warnings have reportedly been sent to clients who have “used their credit and debit cards to buy cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges.” Crypto Trading Risks According to a local report , one of the banks, NCBA Bank Kenya is now advising clients “not to buy, hold, or trade in virtual currencies.” In a warning sent to clients who have previously transacted on crypto exchanges, NCBA Bank said: In accordance with the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK)’s circular No. 14 of 2015, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin are not legal tender in Kenya. No protection, therefore, exists for you as our customer in the event that the platform holding or trading in cryptocurrency fails or goes out of business. Throughout the emailed alert, the NCBA Bank repeats the common lines that are used by central banks when attempting to discredit digital currencies. For ...

On Monday, the San Francisco-based retirement plan provider for small to medium-sized businesses, Forusall, announced the launch of an alternative 401(k) plan that offers in-plan cryptocurrency access. According to the alt 401(k) investment option, Forusall is working with Coinbase Institutional as its retirement plan partner. Forusall and Coinbase’s Institutional Arm Offer Crypto-Infused Alt 401(k) Plan Forusall, the “one-click” retirement provider founded in 2012, has revealed that digital currency investors can now leverage the company’s alt 401(k) investment option in order to obtain tax-advantages from crypto asset investments. The company Forusall claims to manage plans for over 600,000 employees from companies like Target, Coca Cola and Citigroup. By November 2019, Forusall was advising employees with over $1 billion in assets. The company’s focus on crypto assets applies to the alt 401(k) product, which can also leverage environmentally focused funds, mutual funds, and re...