Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Officials at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say that the correlation between the performance of the Asian equity markets and crypto assets such as bitcoin and ethereum has increased significantly. IMF Staff on Crypto and Correlation to Asian Equities The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a blog post on Monday on cryptocurrency regulation and how crypto is now “more in step with Asia’s equities.” Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf, deputy director of IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, Nada Choueiri, the mission chief for India, and Tara Iyer, an economist in the global financial stability analysis division of the IMF’s Monetary and Financial Markets Department, authored the post. “While the returns and volatility correlations between bitcoin and Asian equity markets were low before the pandemic, these have increased significantly since 2020,” they wrote. “Crypto trading, however, soared as millions stayed home and received government aid, while low interest rates and easy finan...

A survey by NYSE-listed Stifel Financial shows that most executives are bracing for a recession in the U.S. In addition, “53% of respondents believe that inflation will be an issue for the next two quarters to a year.” Most Executives Surveyed Say Recession Cannot Be Avoided Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE: SF) announced the results of a survey it conducted on the state of the U.S. economy last week. The St. Louis-headquartered financial services company surveyed 70 corporate executives, business owners, and private equity investors between July 18 and Aug. 5. According to the company: Nearly all respondents believe the U.S. economy is either already in a recession (18%) or will face one within the next 18 months (79%). Noting that 3% think the U.S. economy will avoid a recession entirely, the firm added that “Inflation and the tight U.S. labor market represent the two biggest perceived threats to business today.” Moreover, “53% of respondents believe that inflation will be an is...

The investment management giant Invesco has launched a metaverse fund that will invest in a myriad of startups focused on metaverse technology, a Citywire report detailed on Monday. “We will seek to capitalise on these opportunities through a highly selective, valuation-conscious approach,” Tony Roberts, Invesco’s fund manager, explained. Invesco Reveals Metaverse Fund — Investment Manager Plans to Invest in Small, Medium, Large-Cap Startups On Monday, Citywire’s Chris Sloley published a report explaining that the fund manager Invesco (NYSE: IVZ ) launched a metaverse fund. According to the report , the Invesco metaverse fund will invest in small, medium, and large-cap companies worldwide that are dedicated to metaverse technologies like virtual worlds, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), augmented reality, play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, and artificial intelligence (AI). Sloley’s report notes that the fund will be managed by Invesco’s fund manager Tony Roberts and the deputy fund manager Jame...

Ethereum extended recent declines to start the week, as the token briefly fell below a key support point in today’s session. Monday’s sell-off saw the majority of the cryptocurrency top 100 in the red, with the global market cap down 1.61% as of writing. Bitcoin also slipped, once again falling below $21,000. Bitcoin Bitcoin ( BTC ) started the week in the red, as prices of the token dropped following a mini-rally over the weekend. Less than 24 hours after hitting a high of $21,668.85, BTC /USD slipped to an intraday low of $20,939.18 earlier in the day. This drop led to bitcoin moving closer to its recent support point of $20,800, which it last hit on Saturday, however bulls have so far resisted a similar occurrence today. Looking at the chart, earlier bearish momentum has somewhat eased, and as of writing, the token is trading at $21,251.86. Overall, BTC has fallen lower for seven of the last nine sessions, and this has resulted in a downward cross between the 10-day (red) mo...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to overhaul the company’s flagship metaverse app Horizon Worlds after it received heavy criticism due to its graphic simplicity. The backlash was received as a consequence of one of the selfies of Zuckerberg’s avatar in Horizon Worlds presented to illustrate the launch of the platform in Spain and France. Horizon Worlds to Get Graphics Overhaul Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, a social media and VR company, announced that a series of changes are coming to Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse-focused app, to make it more immersive and visually impressive for users. Zuckerberg delivered the news via an Instagram post, where he also showed the new graphical style that the platform will use in the future. He explained : Major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics coming soon … The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more — even on headsets — and Horizon is improving very quickly. The announced overhaul comes in answer to backlash that originated f...

A set of hackers managed to impersonate Binance chief communications officer (CCO) Patrick Hillmann in a series of video calls with several representatives of cryptocurrency projects. The attackers used what Hillman described as an AI Hologram, a deepfake of his image for this objective, and managed to fool some representatives of these projects, making them think Hillmann was helping them get listed on the exchange. Binance CCO Patrick Hillmann Impersonated by Third Parties Hackers and scammers are refining their methods by including more technological tools in their schemes. Binance chief communications officer (CCO), Patrick Hillmann, reported last week about a new and sophisticated way in which attackers have used his image to perform a listing scam operation. Hillmann stated that hackers managed to program an AI (artificial intelligence) hologram of him, a kind of deepfake that was used to scam representatives of several cryptocurrency projects in Zoom calls. The hologram was...

An IT specialist working for a medical institution in Russia’s Altai Republic has been detained for illegally mining cryptocurrency at the premises of a Covid-19 hospital. The man minted digital currencies using stolen electricity for almost a year before law enforcement busted his crypto farm. Altai Resident Apprehended for Running Underground Crypto Mining Operation An employee of the republican hospital in Gorno-Altaisk, the capital town of the Altai Republic in southern Siberia, has been arrested for setting up a crypto farm at a medical facility. He had been running the mining equipment since early last year, the Russian crypto news outlets Bits.media and RBC Crypto reported. In February 2021, the man, who worked as a chief information security specialist, installed the coin minting hardware and connected it to the servers of the hospital which was previously used to treat patients with Covid-19, the republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs detailed in a press release. Accordi...