Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Santiago Nieto Castillo, leader of the UIF, the Mexican financial regulator, has issued an alert that 12 cryptocurrency exchanges are operating illegally in the country. The regulator is now producing the necessary data for Mexican authorities to act against these exchanges. The institution receives information from 23 registered cryptocurrency exchanges reporting users’ transactions. Mexican Regulator on the Hunt for Unregulated Exchanges The Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), the Mexican financial regulator, issued an alert about 12 cryptocurrency exchanges that are operating illegally in the country. The names of these companies were not mentioned, and this means these exchanges are still not registered with the SAT, the country’s tax authority. Santiago Nieto Castillo, leader of the UIF, stated they are collecting data to execute actions against these companies. The Mexican fintech law establishes that virtual asset service providers must report the activities of customers tha...

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis is pushing for regulation that would ensure bitcoin remains a good store of value. If the cryptocurrency “is to become what El Salvador has done, legal tender, then we need to make sure that we are using it in ways that comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws,” she said. The pro-bitcoin senator also noted that big government spenders are “doing far more to accelerate the adoption of digital assets” than she is. Senator Lummis on Bitcoin Adoption and Cryptocurrency Regulation U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis has shared her view about cryptocurrency regulation and adoption. Following the Senate Banking Committee ’s hearing about cryptocurrencies, she tweeted Wednesday: Big gov’t spenders are (accidentally) doing far more to accelerate the adoption of digital assets than I am. The debasement of our currency is causing a flight to digital assets like bitcoin that are a store of value. However, she added that “spending America deeper int...

On June 18, 2020, PayString was launched with a coalition of over 40 companies. After the PayString Developer Conference on June 25, 2020, Ripple kicked off a six-week long $25K+ virtual hackathon on Devpost in order to continue momentum and drive further engagement of the PayString developer community. 360 developers from all over the world … Continued The post Announcing the Winners of the PayString Hackathon appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/S4hfCm

State Street Corp., one of the world’s leading providers of financial services to institutional investors, has announced the expansion of its crypto services in partnership with Lukka, an enterprise crypto asset data and software provider. State Street Launching New Crypto Services State Street Corp. announced new cryptocurrency services Thursday. The financial services firm “will provide digital and cryptocurrency asset fund administration capabilities for the firm’s private funds clients” in partnership with Lukka, the announcement details, adding: State Street will support its private fund clients with collection, standardization, enrichment, reconciliation, processing and reporting related to crypto and other digital assets. The Boston-headquartered financial services and bank holding company offers investment servicing, investment management, investment research, and trading services. State Street operates globally in more than 100 geographic markets. The company had $42.6 ...

A new non-fungible token (NFT) project crafted by the American actress and producer, Mila Kunis, has made millions selling NFTs tied to an animated series called “Stoner Cats.” The project is a show that will only allow token holders the ability to watch the upcoming series produced by Orchard Farm Productions, a studio owned by Kunis. Animated Series Created by Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher Sparks New NFT Hype The cryptocurrency community and mainstream news publications have been discussing a new NFT project bolstered by Mila Kunis and her husband Ashton Kutcher called “ Stoner Cats .” The duo has teamed up with popular celebrities such as Chris Rock, Jane Fonda, and the “Family Guy’s” Seth MacFarlane. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin will be joining the animated series as well playing the character called “Lord Catsington.” Essentially the show is about an older woman called “Ms. Stoner” who lives with a number of mischievous cats. Ms. Stoner has Alzheimer’s Disease and deci...

Following the announcement from Greenidge Generation Holdings that detailed the company would be promoting a carbon-neutral stance, and the firm’s recent partnership with Foundry, Greenidge revealed on Thursday it is investing profits into a renewable energy investment program. The company is in the midst of expediting the closure of a coal ash landfill in order to construct a new solar farm. Greenidge Invests in Renewable Energy Investment Program In 2014, the Lockwood Hills landfill in Dresden, New York was purchased by Lockwood Hills LLC, which is a subsidiary of Greenidge. The site has been “safely maintained” over the last seven years, Greenidge claims, and it ended the use of coal-fired power at the adjacent power facility during that time. The announcement on Thursday says the company plans to safely cap and close down the landfill and Greenidge hopes to install “a solar project across the 143-acre site that will produce up to 5MW of power.” The bitcoin mining company says t...

In early 2019, Xpring announced its investment in XRPL Labs, led by Wietse Wind, as part of a broader effort to support companies and projects building on the XRP Ledger. Today, we are announcing an additional investment in XRPL Labs to support the continued growth and development of its Xumm Wallet & Platform, which Xpring … Continued The post Doubling Down on XRPL Labs appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/S4gwCl

Robinhood, the fee-free cryptocurrency, stock, and options exchange, raised almost $2 billion in its initial public offering, reaching a valuation of $32 billion. While the company is more valuable than Nasdaq itself, the IPO failed to give the company an expected valuation of $35 billion. Robinhood trading will open today, with its shares trading under the HOOD ticker. Robinhood Misses $35 Billion Valuation Goal Robinhood, the fee-free investing app, has successfully completed its IPO, raising almost $2 billion. However, the company failed to meet the goal of reaching a $35 billion valuation, as its shares sold at $38, in the low end of the proposed $38-$42 range. The company allowed users of the exchange to acquire a third of the shares available before its launch on the market, something unusual in these processes. While Robinhood failed to reach its desired target, its valuation was much higher than what it was at its last funding round, when the company reached $12 billion. ...

The U.S. Marshals Service, a primary law enforcement agency of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has hired a new custodian for its seized cryptocurrencies. The agency has seized and auctioned off over 185K bitcoins so far. The United States Marshals Service (USMS) has selected Anchorage Digital to provide custody for cryptocurrencies seized in criminal cases, the crypto custody firm announced Wednesday. The USMS is one of the primary law enforcement agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). It was also the first federal law enforcement agency in the country. Anchorage explained: This award means that Anchorage will be responsible for providing a full suite of cryptocurrency services. The services include “custody, liquidation, and such activities as accounting, customer management, audit compliance, managing blockchain forks, wallet creation, transformation of token assets into coin assets, etc., as well as future actions associated with the virtual currency forfeitur...

Ripple publishes the quarterly XRP Markets Report for Q2 2021. The post Q2 2021 XRP Markets Report appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/S4gQMq

Members of the U.S. Federal Reserve discussed the possibility of economic measures and actions at the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday. The Fed said that right now the central bank is not considering cutting back large asset purchases just yet, and the central bank also plans to keep interest rates at near-zero. Speaking about the dollar’s dwindling purchasing power, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said that “inflation could turn out to be higher and more persistent than we originally expected.” The Federal Reserve Will Continue Monetary Easing Practices and Keep Interest Rates Low Americans are getting more concerned about inflation as the days pass and the recent outcome of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting was not very reassuring to economists and financial analysts. Prior to the meeting on Wednesday, market observers thought the central bank might start announcing the tapering back of quantitative easing by curbing the multi-billion-dollar bond and mort...

On July 28, Zac Prince, the CEO of crypto finance firm Blockfi, explained that the company has been “engaged in a productive discourse” with U.S. regulators. Prince further said the New Jersey Bureau of Securities had extended the state’s previous order to September 2. Meanwhile, the company also has issues with Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation (DFR), as the state’s DFR commissioner filed an order against the firm’s Blockfi Interest Accounts (BIAs). Garden State Regulators Give Blockfi an Extension, Vermont Issues Regulatory Complaints Four states have taken issue with Blockfi’s BIAs and regulators have issued notices to the company in recent times. Blockfi’s co-founder Zac Prince revealed the company’s issues with New Jersey regulators on July 19. New Jersey’s public notice and complaints about Blockfi’s crypto BIAs cited the “sale of unregistered securities.” Then on July 22, regulators from Texas and Alabama also sent notice to the company concerning the BIAs. Blo...

Bit Mining is going to expand its operations in Central Asia with the purchase of 2,500 crypto mining machines slated for deployment in Kazakhstan. The new devices are expected to increase the Chinese company’s total hashrate capacity by an estimated 165 petahashes per second. Bit Mining Buys New Cryptocurrency Miners for Data Centers in Kazakhstan Shenzhen-based Bit Mining Ltd. announced Wednesday it has secured a purchase agreement for the acquisition of 2,500 new bitcoin mining machines. The price tag of the deal is approximately $6.6 million, the crypto mining firm detailed in a press release. Following the delivery, which is scheduled for next week, the company intends to ship the coin minting rigs to Kazakhstan. Once deployed, the mining devices are expected to increase Bit Mining’s “theoretical maximum total hash rate capacity by approximately 165 petahashes per second (PH/s).” Bit Mining said it’s constantly monitoring the market for cryptocurrency mining hardware and will...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted how many bitcoins Tesla owns after revealing that the fair market value of its bitcoin holdings was $1.47 billion as of June 30. Tesla Holding About 42K Bitcoins Tesla’s technoking , Elon Musk, has commented on how many bitcoins his electric car company owns in response to a rough calculation provided on Twitter by Tesla shareholder Dave Lee. In his calculation, Lee used $1.47 billion as the fair market value of Tesla’s entire bitcoin holdings as shown in the company’s Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Tesla wrote: As of June 30, 2021, the carrying value of our digital assets held was $1.31 billion, which reflects cumulative impairments of $50 million. The fair market value of such digital assets held as of June 30, 2021 was $1.47 billion. Lee also used the price of bitcoin at close on June 30, which was about $35,040. On that day, the high of the BTC price was $35,189.75 and the low was 34,155.90 based on da...

A Zimbabwean music production company, Mutscon Music, recently announced that its clients can now pay for services using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. According to the company, this decision has partly been necessitated by ongoing pandemic-related movement restrictions. Music Studio Accepts Crypto Mutscon Music has also chosen to accept cryptocurrencies because this form of payment enables Zimbabweans, including those in the diaspora, to directly pay for services rendered to artists. In addition, this option to pay with BTC or ETH makes Mutscon’s services more affordable, a company executive has said. To understand Mutscon Music ’s decision and what this means, Bitcoin.com News reached out to Tonderai Muteta, the company’s director of music. Below are Muteta’s responses to questions from Bitcoin.com News. Bitcoin.com News (BCN): What gave you the idea of accepting crypto payments? Tonderai Muteta (TM): The flexibility of transfer and the need to open more opport...

The bitcoin rewards platform Lolli has announced the company has closed a $10 million Series A funding round on Wednesday. Lolli says the new financing will help the firm expand, hire and develop new partnerships. Lolli Raises $10 Million The New York-based Lolli has raised $10 million from investors, according to the company’s announcement on July 28. The company said that the Series A was led by Acrew Capital, Banana Capital, Up North Management, and Animal Capital. The venture capital company Animal was founded by social media moguls Noah Beck, Josh Richards, and Griffin Johnson. Lolli further detailed that investors like Baron Davis, Kenny Beecham, Logan Paul, and Chantel Jeffries participated as well. The CTO and co-founder of Lolli, Matt Senter, said that Acrew Capital’s investment shows the company understands that bitcoin-based businesses are blossoming. “Acrew’s sizable bet on Lolli says two things: bitcoin business is booming, and as the original bitcoin rewards platfo...