Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The premium on crypto assets listed on South African exchanges briefly surged to 3.5% after Kraken’s abruptly started blocking deposits from users based in the African country. Some South African crypto experts have linked Kraken’s decision to the Financial Action Task Force’s recent addition of the African country to its greylist. Impact of the FATF’s Greylisting According to a report, the U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken’s recent decision to stop accepting deposits from South African nationals briefly saw the premium on crypto assets like bitcoin surge to 3.5%. Before Kraken’s announcement, the premium or arbitrage, which is the gap between prices of crypto assets on global exchanges and South African exchanges, had reportedly ranged between 0.7% and 1.5%. As explained in a report published by Moneyweb, Kraken made the sudden decision to block South African deposits after its banking partner placed the African country on its anti-laundering blacklist. Some South African comment...

Switzerland-based crypto-friendly SEBA Bank announced it has received an approval-in-principle to operate in Hong Kong. The regulatory nod brings the Swiss bank’s local entity closer to becoming a licensed provider of various services for crypto assets in the Chinese region. SEBA Bank Takes a Step Towards Full Crypto License in Hong Kong SEBA Hong Kong, a subsidiary of the Zug-headquartered crypto bank SEBA Bank, has been issued an in-principle approval by the Securities and Futures Commission ( SFC ) of the Chinese Special Administrative region, the bank said on Wednesday. The approval has been granted for the entity’s application for a license to conduct regulated activities in Hong Kong which will allow it to deal in securities, including crypto-related products such as over-the-counter derivatives and structured products. Backed by the Swiss banking giant Julius Baer, SEBA Bank provides wealth management, investment, and trading solutions for the digital age. A Hong Kong licen...

An Africa-focused remittances platform, Lemfi, recently said it has raised $33 million in a Series A round led by Left Lane Capital. Lemfi said it will use the capital raise to “expand its product offering to the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.” Making Remittances Less Complicated Lemfi, an Africa-focused remittances platform, recently raised a $33 million in a Series A round which was led by Left Lane Capital. In a press statement , Lemfi, which has a presence in Canada and the U.K., said it will use the capital raise to “expand its product offering to the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.” In comments accompanying the capital raise announcement, Ridwan Olalere, a co-founder and CEO of Lemfi, seemingly characterized the successful round as an endorsement of the company’s objective of making financial services more accessible to immigrants. Olalere, who claims to have seen first-hand the challenges faced by migrants, also spoke of how Lemfi’s produ...

In early August 2023, Bloomberg ETF specialists Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart estimated a 65% probability for the approval of a spot bitcoin ETF. However, as August draws to its conclusion, and in light of a U.S. court siding with Grayscale over a legal tussle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the pair have revised their prediction, now pegging the likelihood at 75%. SEC Decision Looms for Seven Spot Bitcoin ETFs Barring any delays, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is poised to either greenlight or turn down seven distinct proposals for a spot bitcoin ETF. These applications hail from notable names like Blackrock, Wisdomtree, Valkyrie, Fidelity, Vaneck, Bitwise, and Invesco. Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Balchunas, conveyed that he and Seyffart have adjusted the odds from their earlier forecast . “James Seyffart [and] I are upping our odds to 75% of spot bitcoin ETFs launching this yr (95% by end of ’24),” Balchunas posted to the soc...

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Utah-based Nodal Power, which specializes in turning landfill gas into energy for powering bitcoin ( BTC ) mining hubs, recently announced a successful $13 million seed round backed by strategic investors. Bryan Black, Nodal’s CEO, stressed the technology’s “potential to make a significant impact on local energy markets.” Nodal Power Raises $13M to Convert Landfill Gas to Bitcoin Mining Energy; Eyes Local Market Impact Nodal Power , a company that converts landfill gas into energy for Bitcoin mining centers, has secured $13 million in seed funding. This technology reduces methane gas emissions from landfills and uses that energy for mining. Nodal combusts the methane, typically flared or vented, with a generator. The resulting electricity is then provided to local utilities and BTC mining operations. Nodal says a significant portion of the funding has been invested in building and operating two power plants in the United States. The first, in the Southeast, uses landfill gas to pr...

Jamie Coutts, an analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence, has predicted that stablecoin adoption will grow significantly once the issue of hostile regulations in the U.S. is put aside, noting “adoption under the hood is exploding.” Coutts believes that stablecoin usage may overtake bitcoin usage as more companies like Paypal integrate such assets in their payment structures. Analyst Says Stablecoin Adoption Set to Grow While the stablecoin market has been hammered recently due to the lack of clear regulations in the U.S., the adoption of these tools is set to boom enormously in the future. At least, this is the opinion of Jaime Coutts, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, who believes that even in the face of “U.S. boomer” regulations, these payment methods are likely to be adopted by companies like Paypal and credit giants like Visa and Mastercard. In his analysis, Coutts acknowledges that the growth of the stablecoin market was significant during 2022, with total payments of stablecoi...

In a lawsuit filed by a Nigerian human rights activist, the country’s central bank is accused of failing to stop the dollarization of the economy. According to the activist, the central bank’s unwillingness to stop economic agents from demanding U.S. dollars for domestic transactions has “resulted in the constant devaluation, depreciation and unending plunge of the naira.” Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange Woes A Nigerian lawyer and human activist, Femi Falana, is suing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for allegedly dollarizing the economy. In his suit filed with a Lagos High Court, Falana also alleged that the CBN’s failure to perform its statutory obligations had “resulted in the constant devaluation, depreciation and unending plunge of the naira.” As has been reported by Bitcoin.com News in the past few months, the Nigerian currency has been losing ground against major currencies. Many Nigerian economic commentators attribute the naira’s constant depreciation to the ongoing U.S. doll...