Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

A new analysis shows that the countries most impacted by the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX are South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Moreover, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Taiwan, India, Egypt, and Brazil also made the top 10 list of countries most affected by the FTX meltdown. Countries Most Impacted by FTX Failure South Korea, Singapore, and Japan top the countries most impacted by the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, according to an analysis by Coingecko, published Thursday. The study examines FTX.com’s monthly unique visitors and traffic by country based on Similarweb data from January to October. The crypto exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. According to the analysis, South Korea is most impacted by the fallout of FTX as 297,229 unique users from the country visited FTX.com monthly on average. This represented 6.1% of the website’s traffic. The next most-impacted country is Singapore where 241,675 unique users visited the FTX website monthly...

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, says crypto exchange FTX isn’t “one fraudulent company in a serious industry.” Stating that the “Entire notion of crypto is nonsense,” the Fed president claimed it is “just a tool of speculation and greater fools.” Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Crypto and FTX Collapse Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari shared his view on the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Friday. “This isn’t [a] case of one fraudulent company in a serious industry,” he tweeted, elaborating: Entire notion of crypto is nonsense. Not useful for payments. No inflation hedge. No scarcity. No taxing authority. Just a tool of speculation and greater fools. Kashkari has never been a fan of bitcoin or crypto. He previously called them “a giant garbage dumpster.” In August last year, he said bitcoin and crypto were “95% fraud, hype, noise, and confusion,” stating : “I’ve not seen any use case other tha...

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says many people in the Ethereum community see the FTX collapse “as a validation of things they believed in all along: centralized anything is by default suspect.” However, he warned that automatically downgrading every single thing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried believed in “is an error.” Vitalik Buterin on FTX Meltdown Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the failure of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in an interview with Bloomberg, published Sunday. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Buterin told the news outlet: What happened at FTX was of course a huge tragedy. That said, many in the Ethereum community also see the situation as a validation of things they believed in all along: centralized anything is by default suspect. The Ethereum co-founder emphasized that blockchain-based and decentralized finance (defi) protocols work “flawlessly.” He stressed the importance of...

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is exploring sales, recapitalizations, and other strategic transactions with respect to its solvent subsidiaries. The firm’s new CEO has instructed the FTX team “to prioritize the preservation of franchise value as best we can in these difficult circumstances.” New FTX CEO Outlines Priorities Cryptocurrency exchange FTX and approximately 101 affiliated companies announced Saturday that they are “launching a strategic review of their global assets to begin to maximize recoverable value for stakeholders.” The review is part of their Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The new FTX CEO, John J. Ray, III, who replaced Sam Bankman-Fried after the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, explained: Based on our review over the past week, we are pleased to learn that many regulated or licensed subsidiaries of FTX, within and outside of the United States, have solvent balance sheets, responsible management, and valuable franchises. He explained th...

Itau Unibanco, one of the biggest Brazilian banks, has announced it will offer cryptocurrency custody services in 2023. Itau Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency unit of the company, will be responsible for this offering, which will be first available to customers of the bank, and then to third parties as a service. Brazilian Bank Itau Unibanco to Debut Crypto Custody Offering Itau Unibanco, one of the largest private banks in Brazil and Latam, has decided to step into the crypto-related services business. The company announced on Nov. 17, 2022, that it plans to launch cryptocurrency custody services in 2023. Itau Digital Assets, the division of the company that deals with all things crypto, will be in charge of the tech behind this solution. For Itau Unibanco, custody services are an important part of the security framework that third-party companies can offer users. On this, Itau Unibanco’s product manager Eric Alftafim told O Globo: Custody is a fundamental element in this cont...

The Brazilian cryptocurrency bill, sidelined several times due to the general election ballot that happened on October 30, might be discussed and voted on during the following week. According to reports, the project identified as 4.401/2021 will be on the agenda for being discussed by the Chamber of Deputies, marked as urgent, and listed to be discussed on Nov. 22. Brazilian Cryptocurrency Bill Back on Agenda The Brazilian cryptocurrency bill, a project that seeks to regulate the actions of cryptocurrency exchanges and custody agents, as well as establish clear cryptocurrency mining rules, will be on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies next week. The bill, which had been sidelined before the general ballot that happened on Oct. 20, is slated to be discussed on Nov. 22. The bill might be discussed and voted on if the chamber decides that it is of importance, as the document is the fourth item in the list to be discussed in that session. Still, deputies can change the agenda of the...

On Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, Bitcoin’s difficulty rise erased the recent 0.20% decline recorded two weeks ago, as the difficulty metric rose by 0.51% at block height 764,064. The increase on Sunday has pushed the difficulty rating to another all-time high, from 36.76 trillion to the current 36.95 trillion. Bitcoin Difficulty Reaches All-Time High Nearing 37 Trillion, Leading Crypto Asset’s Fiat Value Sinks Lower Today it is 0.51% more difficult to find a Bitcoin ( BTC ) block reward than it was for the last two weeks or 2,016 processed blocks. The 0.51% increase has propelled the difficulty to a lifetime high at 36.95 trillion, outpacing the previous high recorded on Oct. 23, 2022. The difficulty increased during this retarget because block intervals were less than the ten-minute average, at nine minutes and 58 seconds. The average hashrate for the last 2,016 blocks was around ​​264.3 exahash per second (EH/s). On Sunday, around 7:15 p.m. (ET), the global hashrate is around 261.29 E...