Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Residents of Ukraine will be able to legally keep, exchange, and spend cryptocurrencies once the new virtual assets law is adopted. The legislation will comprehensively regulate the crypto space, possibly lower taxes for Ukrainians and create conditions for new services, a government official revealed. New Regulations to Create Market for Crypto Services for Ukrainians Ukrainians owning cryptocurrency will benefit from the law “On Virtual Assets” as it will introduce investor protection and allow them to legally exchange and declare their crypto holdings. The legislation will make virtual assets “a completely legal and common phenomenon for the government and the society,” Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov, said in an interview with the financial news portal Minfin . Oleksandr Bornyakov The official expects to also see a whole new market for services allowing coins to be stored, exchanged, and used in payments. Although the draft states tha...

The president of Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto arm of Fidelity Investments, says that crypto is “its own unique asset class.” He revealed, “We and others are very engaged with regulators … to bring this asset class into the mainstream.” Fidelity Sees Long-Term Interest in Crypto Assets Among Institutional Investors Fidelity Digital Assets President Tom Jessop shared his view on the future of cryptocurrency in an interview with Yahoo Finance Thursday. He also discussed his firm’s efforts to engage with regulators to bring the asset class mainstream. Fidelity is one of the largest traditional money managers. It has about 37 million individual investors, 83.4 million customer accounts, and $10.4 trillion in managed assets as of the end of March. The company established Fidelity Digital Assets in 2018 to provide cryptocurrency products and services, including bitcoin, to institutional investors. “What’s apparent are two things,” Jessop explained: This is seen as its own unique...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken its first enforcement action involving decentralized finance (defi). The commission has charged a defi platform and its executives for unregistered securities sales of more than $30 million and misleading investors. SEC’s 1st Enforcement Action Involving Decentralized Finance The SEC announced Friday that it has taken the first enforcement action involving decentralized finance (defi). The case involves “securities using defi technology.” The regulator charged two Florida men — Gregory Keough and Derek Acree — and their Cayman Islands company, Blockchain Credit Partners, for “unregistered sales of more than $30 million of securities.” The three were also charged “for misleading investors concerning the operations and profitability of their business Defi Money Market.” They used smart contracts and defi technology to sell two types of digital tokens: mtokens and DMM governance tokens (DMG). The former promised to pay 6.25%...

According to data on August 7, there’s 253,510 bitcoin-pegged or wrapped tokens worth more than $11 billion in value on the Ethereum blockchain. Out of the seven different bitcoin-pegged projects, the Wrapped Bitcoin protocol has 194,023 bitcoin-pegged ERC20 tokens in circulation. Over 250K Tokenized Bitcoin In Circulation Split Between 7 Ethereum Projects, Binance Smart Chain’s Bitcoin-Peg Reaches 73K Issued Ethereum (ETH) jumped over the $3K zone in value on Saturday, as the protocol successfully upgraded on August 5. ETH ’s market valuation has gained a significant amount of dominance in terms of the $1.78 trillion crypto-economy capturing 20% of that value on Saturday. The crypto asset has also gained more than 700% against the U.S. dollar during the last 12 months. Much of this has been attributed to decentralized finance (defi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and a myriad of decentralized exchange (dex) platforms over the last year. The number of tokenized bitcoin on Ethere...

The well known luxury auction house Christie’s has announced the company’s first non-fungible token (NFT) art sale in Asia on September 17. According to the announcement, the NFTs will feature Cryptopunks by Larva Labs, Meebits, and Bored Apes. Christie’s Reveals First NFT Auction in Asia Founded in 1766 by James Christie, the British auction house Christie’s has been auctioning luxury goods, artwork, clothing, and jewelry for well over 100 years. Christie’s got into the cryptocurrency and blockchain scene last year and sold its first NFT for $131,250. The first NFT the auction house sold was Robert Alice’s “Block 21 (42.36433° N, -71.26189° E) (from Portraits of a Mind).” During the second week of May, Christie’s held a Cryptopunks auction where the auction house sold nine punks for over $16 million . Christie’s was also instrumental during the Beeple NFT sale which sold for a whopping $69 million and is the most expensive NFT to date. In July, the artist “Fewocious” raked in ov...

The Ethereum game Axie Infinity continues to see demand as the developer Sky Mavis revealed on Friday there are now more than 1 million daily active players. Additionally, the game token utilized within the Axie Infinity gaming universe tapped an all-time high at $52 per unit 10 days ago. Despite being down 18% from the price high, axie infinity (AXS) tokens have gained over 60% in the last two weeks. Axie Infinity Celebrates 1 Million Daily Active Players While blockchain gaming and non-fungible token (NFT) assets continue to see significant interest, the developers of the Ethereum-based game Axie Infinity revealed the project’s overall growth. “It’s official,” the Axie Infinity Twitter account said on Friday. “More than 1M daily active players. Let’s keep pushing, together.” For further clarification, the Twitter account for the project also added that “some players download the game client without owning Axies. There are still less than 1M Axie owners.” Interestingly, a few ...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says there is no crisis that compels hasty cryptocurrency regulation. He agrees with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong that the U.S. government should not pick winners or losers in cryptocurrency innovation. Elon Musk and Coinbase CEO Agree on Crypto Regulation Tesla CEO Elon Musk has chimed in on the heated discussion of the U.S. government picking winners and losers in the crypto space. This followed the endorsement by the White House of a crypto tax amendment to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that the crypto industry and several lawmakers have opposed. The Tesla CEO responded to a thread on Twitter started by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong about the crypto tax amendment “that would decide which foundational technologies are ok and which are not in crypto,” Armstrong wrote. “This is disastrous.” Musk tweeted, “Agreed, this is not the time to pick technology winners or losers in cryptocurrency technology.” He added, “There is no crisis that compels hasty regula...

U.S. Senator Pat Toomey has called on Congress to stop the Treasury Department from maximizing its ability to regulate and tax crypto by picking winners and losers. “Congress should not allow that to happen,” he said. US Senator Urges Lawmakers Not to Crush Crypto Innovation Following the endorsement of a crypto tax amendment by the White House, concerns have been raised that the U.S. government is picking winners and losers in the crypto space. Two crypto tax amendments to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill have been introduced but the White House has chosen to endorse the one that favors proof-of-work over all other consensus mechanisms, including proof-of-stake. Senator Pat Toomey is one of the sponsors of the amendment that is not endorsed by the Biden administration but has gained support within the crypto community. He tweeted Friday: While I appreciate that my colleagues and the White House have acknowledged their original crypto tax had flaws, the Warner-Portman amen...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has reportedly raised objections to lawmakers about the cryptocurrency tax amendment to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that is supported by the crypto community. The White House subsequently announced its support for a competing amendment. Yellen Exerting Influence on Lawmakers Regarding Crypto Taxation The new crypto tax proposal in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill has become a topic of intense controversy over the past week. Two amendments have been put forward so far: one sponsored by Senators Mark Warner, Rob Portman, and Kyrsten Sinema. The other, which has gained the support of the crypto community, is sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Cynthia Lummis, and Pat Toomey. According to Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke with lawmakers Thursday to raise objections to the amendment sponsored by Senators Toomey, Wyden, and Lummis. He tweeted Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter: Treasury...

Truefi, an uncollateralized loan platform, has raised $12.5 million from three important investors. The token sale was led by Blocktower, a New York-based cryptocurrency investment firm. Other important investors were Alameda Research — owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX — and A16z. Truefi is one of the few uncollateralized defi-based lending protocols in the industry. Truefi Raises $12.5 Million Truefi has raised $12.5 million dollars to expand its operations and its offer of lending products. The investment was made through the purchase of its native token truefi (TRU), which will be liberated in stages. The token sale was led by New York-based Blocktower, a cryptocurrency blockchain VC firm, with the participation of Alameda and A16z, some of the biggest investment firms in the crypto space. The protocol is the product of experimentation with a system that emulates traditional finance conditions on defi. While most defi loans must have collateral to even be issued in th...

Genesis Digital, a leading cryptocurrency trading, lending, and custody desk, released its Q2 reports, where it confirms what it calls the “emerging role” that Ethereum and defi have in the industry. The report also confirms that institutional interest in crypto is still rising despite the crash in prices the market experienced in Q2 2021. Genesis Confirms Ethereum and Defi Market Rise Genesis, a big cryptocurrency lending and trading desk, has confirmed that emergent currencies like Ethereum and defi tokens have taken a relevant part of the market, according to its Q2 2021 Market Observations Report . Genesis saw these currencies take a big part of the interest from bitcoin, which has been traditionally the go-to cryptocurrency for institutional investors. Regarding this, Matt Ballensweig, Head of Institutional Lending at Genesis stated: Bitcoin’s dominance in terms of market cap declined from over 70% at the end of 2020 to under 45% at the end of Q2, as Ether and most of the mai...