Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

With Johann Steynberg now in custody in Brazil, a lawyer has suggested that South Africa may have to resort to an existing legal assistance agreement with Brazil if it wishes to have the CEO extradited. However, the success of any such extradition will depend on the next steps taken by authorities in Brazil. Steynberg Extradition Options Following the capture of Johann Steynberg, the CEO of Mirror Trading International (MTI) by Brazilian law enforcement, lawyer Darren Hanekom has confirmed that South Africa does have in place a legal assistance agreement with Brazil. According to the lawyer, the unsigned agreement could possibly be used to help facilitate Steynberg’s extradition to South Africa, home to many investors in MTI. Yet in his comments during an interview with Moneyweb, Hanekom also revealed that the United States has a similar agreement with Brazil which allows the latter to keep Steynberg in custody for up to 90 days. According to the lawyer, during this period two cou...

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has asked its Ontario users to withdraw their funds since they will no longer have access to any services offered by Bitfinex in March. Bitfinex Stops Providing Services to Ontario Customers Crypto exchange Bitfinex announced Friday that it is making changes to the services it provides to Ontario customers. Effective immediately, the firm said that “Ontario customers who do not have balances on the platform will have their accounts closed.” In addition, those who do not have open positions in the platform’s peer-to-peer financing markets will no longer have access to those markets. “Ontario customers who do not have open margin positions or ‘borrowing’ positions in our peer-to-peer financing markets will no longer have access to open margin positions or engage in ‘borrowing,'” the firm further detailed, adding: Starting on March 1, 2022, Ontario customers will no longer have access to any services. “Additionally, Ontario customers should wi...

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin set up a pair of polls on Twitter asking his followers if 80% of all transactions and savings in the year 2035 are in one currency and it is not ether, which currency they would prefer it to be. He asked them to choose from a number of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, cardano, solana, tron, and Binance coin. Vitalik Buterin’s Cryptocurrency Twitter Polls Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin set up a pair of polls on Twitter Thursday for the Ethereum community. “You wake up in 2035 and 80% of all transactions and savings in the world are in one currency that is not ETH . Which would you prefer it to be?” He wrote. In his first tweet, Buterin asked his followers to choose from BTC , USD, SOL, and ADA . The second tweet lets them choose from TRON, BNB , CNY, and NEO . After 24 hours, the first poll ended with 600,697 votes and the second with 358,743 votes. Cardano ( ADA ) tops the results of the first poll, followed by bitcoin ( BTC ) and solana ...

Bank of America’s analyst says that Solana could take market share away from Ethereum. Noting that Solana is optimized for micropayments, gaming, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the analyst expects “Solana could become the Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.” Bank of America on Crypto, Ethereum, and Solana Bank of America (BOFA) analyst Alkesh Shah published a research note on cryptocurrency this week arguing that Solana could take market share away from Ethereum. The Bank of America analyst described that Solana “produces a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases by prioritizing scalability, low transaction fees and ease of use,” citing Solana Foundation member Lily Liu. Its ease of use and low cost make the crypto optimized for micropayments, gaming, and non-fungible token (NFTs). With more than 50 billion transactions settled since its March 2020 launch, and $10 billion in total value locked, Shah said: Solana could become the Visa of the digital asset ecosystem. Solan...

The top meme tokens by market capitalization have increased in value by 4.4% in the last 24 hours according to statistics. Dogecoin had a good week jumping more than 20% during the last seven days. However, 14 meme tokens surpassed dogecoin’s weekly jump as a few tokens have seen triple-digit spikes over the last week. Tesla Acceptance Pushes Dogecoin Up 20% This Week, Shiba Inu Gains Over 7% After the electric car company, Tesla announced the firm would be accepting dogecoin (DOGE) payments, the meme crypto spiked in value almost immediately. At the time of writing, metrics show that DOGE has gained 20.3% over the last week. Data shows DOGE has seen a 24-hour price range of around $0.182 to $0.192 per unit on January 15. DOGE has an overall market valuation of around $24.8 billion and that represents 1.13% of the $2.20 trillion crypto economy. The second-largest meme crypto token shiba inu (SHIB) has not had a great week, compared to DOGE . Despite this, seven-day metrics show...

Russians who use cryptocurrency should not be anonymous, the man who chairs Russia’s federal investigating authority has recently stated. The official leading efforts to fight corruption in the government called for additional regulations, including the introduction of mandatory identification for those who transact with digital coins. Anti-Corruption Official Pushes for Rules to Mitigate Risks of Using Cryptocurrency for Illicit Purposes Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, believes that people who use cryptocurrencies should not remain anonymous. The high-ranking official shared his opinion in an interview with the government-issued Rossiyskaya Gazeta. “I have already noted that in connection with the adoption of the federal law ‘On Digital Financial Assets’ in July 2020, additional risks of using digital currency for criminal purposes may arise, in particular for financing terrorism and extremism,” Bastrykin, a former Deputy Prosecu...