Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Asset manager Franklin Templeton has joined the race to issue America’s first exchange-traded fund (ETF) that invests directly in bitcoin. The company applied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), following in the footsteps of other major investment firms like Fidelity and Blackrock. Franklin Templeton Files for Spot Bitcoin ETF With U.S. SEC California-based financial services firm Franklin Templeton, which manages over $1.4 trillion in assets, has become the latest investments powerhouse to try to obtain approval for a spot bitcoin ETF from the U.S. securities regulator. The company filed its application with the SEC on Tuesday. If it gets the green light from the Commission, Franklin plans to use leading U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase as custodian for the fund’s bitcoin holdings and Bank of New York Mellon for cash, Bloomberg detailed in a report. Interest in bitcoin ETFs from leading asset managers as well as the SEC’s decision to accept for review a number o...

Blockchain data analytics firm Chainalysis has finalized its latest Global Crypto Adoption Index. India, Nigeria, and Vietnam hold the top three positions, followed by the U.S., Ukraine, Philippines, and Indonesia. “The Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) region dominates the top of the index, with six of the top ten countries located in the region,” Chainalysis noted. Chainalysis Previews Latest Crypto Adoption Index Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis published an excerpt from its upcoming 2023 Geography of Cryptocurrency report on Tuesday, which featured the firm’s fourth annual Global Crypto Adoption Index. The complete report is scheduled for release next month. “We combine on-chain data and real-world data to measure which countries are leading the world in grassroots crypto adoption,” Chainalysis explained, noting that there were 154 countries with sufficient data for evaluation. “We’ve designed the Global Crypto Adoption Index to identify countries where the mo...

Economist Peter Schiff has warned of “a rush” to get out of the U.S. dollar. “There’s going to be a massive crisis,” he predicted, adding that “it’s going to send the economy into a tailspin and people are going to feel the economic pain.” Peter Schiff’s US Dollar Warning Economist and gold bug Peter Schiff reiterated his warning about the impending collapse of the U.S. dollar in an interview with David Rodriguez last week. Replying to a question about whether everyone is escaping the U.S. dollar, Schiff said: “They will be. Right now, it’s just kind of like a trickle.” However, he stressed: It’s gonna be a deluge before too long where it’s a rush to get out of the dollar. Schiff explained that a mass exodus of the U.S. dollar will happen “because we have these deficits — $2 trillion-plus annual budget deficits — not only as far as the eye can see, but the eye can see them getting much bigger than $2 trillion, $3 trillion, $4 trillion.” He exclaimed: “It’s completely unsustaina...

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler testified before the Senate Banking Committee, stating that crypto is “a field which is rife with fraud, abuse, and misconduct.” He also stated that the securities regulator is still reviewing applications for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Gary Gensler’s Testimony Before Senate Committee The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, talked about cryptocurrency during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Tuesday. Reiterating his view that most crypto tokens are securities , Gensler told lawmakers: “Without prejudging any one token, the vast majority of crypto tokens likely meet the investment contract test. Given that most crypto tokens are subject to the securities laws, it follows that most crypto intermediaries have to comply with securities laws as well.” The SEC chief stressed: In terms of crypto … I’ve been around fi...

Oracles are entities that enable various functions in blockchain structures by providing access to legacy or offchain information systems, acting as data ports for decentralized finance applications. These oracles act as information providers for tasks that require either the posting of data or require data to complete specific tasks. What Are Oracles? In ancient times, oracles were priests who were thought to offer advice or prophecy to people in need, seeking answers from the gods. The blockchain meaning of the word is not far off, as oracles are entities (smart contracts) that use various means to obtain information from different sources to enable the completion of tasks on top of a blockchain structure. Oracles empower decentralized finance, bringing information from the real world to onchain processes. Without them, each blockchain would only be a silo of information, allowing programs to exclusively access data self-contained on the selected chain. The implementation of ora...

While Ripple has its critics, there exists a passionate ‘army’ of XRP advocates who firmly believe it represents the future of decentralized finance and cross-border settlement. In this Learning and Insights guide, our objective is to walk you through a brief history of Ripple and its native cryptocurrency XRP , examining its roots, purpose, benefits, criticisms, and key players. Unveiling the Ripple Effect: A Journey Through Ripple’s Origins and Impact The origins of XRP can be traced back to 2004 when developer Ryan Fugger created a payments platform called Ripplepay to facilitate financial transactions. In 2012, Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto, and David Schwartz built upon Fugger’s ideas to create Opencoin, which would later be renamed Ripple Labs . Ripple.com, once in the possession of a telecommunications company named Ripple Communications , underwent a pivotal shift in late 2012 when Ripple Labs assumed ownership . The goal was to develop a real-time gross settlement system, ...