Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has issued a warning about unregulated cryptocurrency trading platforms, particularly Binance. The regulator said that the crypto exchange is offering the trading of “stock tokens.” The SFC issued a statement Friday warning the public about unregulated crypto trading platforms. The regulator addressed Binance in particular, stating that the global crypto exchange may be offering trading services in “stock tokens” to Hong Kong investors. The SFC detailed: The SFC wishes to make it clear that no entity in the Binance group is licensed or registered to conduct ‘regulated activity’ in Hong Kong. “Stock tokens are virtual assets that are represented to be backed by different depository portfolios of underlying overseas listed stocks,” the SFC detailed. The regulator noted that “In Hong Kong, stock tokens are likely to be ‘securities.’” For those that are considered securities, “marketing and/or distributing such tokens – whether in

Street performers, or buskers, are leaning more toward digital platforms these days compared to the old method of accepting loose change. A report recently published by economists at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia has found that in certain areas, buskers get more donations via digital payment methods like Paypal and bitcoin from people passing by, than by traditional means. Buskers Leaning Toward the Digital World Economists at RMIT University in Melbourne and data collected from The Busking Project indicate that digital methods of payment are becoming the norm for street performers. According to statistics from the study, the research combed through the payments stemming from 3,500 buskers from 121 countries. Street performers getting payments via digital avenues have been leveraging different methods for quite some time. A myriad of stories and forum posts show bitcoiners have been busking for bitcoin throughout the last ten years. In April 2018, ABC interviewed a

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will no longer support the trading of stock tokens. The decision comes against the backdrop of an ongoing regulatory crackdown, with Hong Kong becoming the latest to declare that the platform is not licensed to provide such services in its jurisdiction. Stock Tokens No Longer Available for Purchase on Binance.com Binance, the world’s leading digital asset exchange by daily volume, is ceasing support for stock tokens. The coin trading platform explained that the move is part of its continuous evaluation of products, but it also comes amid an increasing pressure on the exchange from regulators around the world. On Friday, the crypto company said: Today, we are announcing that we will be winding down support for stock tokens on Binance.com to shift our commercial focus to other product offerings. The exchange pointed out that the suspension is “effective immediately,” with stock tokens already unavailable for purchase on Binance.com.

The infamous meme-based crypto asset dogecoin has had an incredible 12 months, rising more than 5,578% against the U.S. dollar. Dogecoin also ignited significant demand for a number of canine-themed cryptocurrencies this year as billions of dollars have funneled into these meme-coin economies. However, in recent times the original dogecoin has faltered, and over the last three months has shed 46.24% of its value. Despite Being Down 76% Since the Meme Token’s All-Time High, 12-Month Stats Show Dogecoin Is Still up Over 5,000% For many years, dogecoin (DOGE) spent its life trading below a U.S. penny — from 2014 all the way until January 2021. But much to the co-creator of dogecoin’s dismay , DOGE has surged in value during the last year against the U.S. dollar, gaining a whopping 5,578%. Against bitcoin ( BTC ), DOGE has jumped 1,551% over the last 12 months. Still, after all those gains dogecoin has slid immensely in value following the rest of the crypto market’s downturn. On Sat

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will convene a meeting with the Biden administration’s working group on financial markets to discuss stablecoin regulation. “In light of the rapid growth in digital assets, it is important for the agencies to collaborate on the regulation of this sector and the development of any recommendations for new authorities,” said Yellen. US Government Discussing Stablecoin Regulation U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Friday her plans to discuss the regulation of stablecoins. She will convene a meeting on July 19 of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) to discuss the matter. The meeting will also be attended by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Yellen explained, “Bringing together regulators will enable us to assess the potential benefits of stablecoins while mitigating risks they could pose to users, markets, or the financial system.” The treasury se

Youtube superstar and rapper KSI, also known as JJ, has shared that he made millions of pounds investing in bitcoin and “lost it all” when the market “crashed.” Nonetheless, he still believes that bitcoin is the future and “eventually you’re going to get a $100,000 bitcoin, a $500,000 bitcoin, and a $1 million bitcoin. It’s going to happen.” KSI Shares His Experience Investing in Bitcoin Famed rapper and popular Youtuber KSI shared his experience investing in bitcoin on the Private Parts podcast, published Thursday. KSI, whose real name is Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji, is also known as JJ. In 2019, he was ranked second by The Sunday Times in its list of the top 100 U.K. influencers. He is also part of the British Youtube group known as the Sidemen. The British influencer recently became a vocal fan of cryptocurrency. He was asked about a rumor of him putting “a lot” of money into bitcoin. KSI then revealed that he invested £2 million ($2.75 million) in BTC around November o

German bank Comdirect, with about three million customers, is now offering 11 cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs). “Comdirect has succeeded in significantly bridging crypto investments to retirement plans, something that our clients have longed for a while,” the bank said. German Bank Offering Crypto ETPs to Clients German direct bank Comdirect AG is now offering 11 cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) from 21shares AG. The bank provides online brokerage, banking, and advisory services in Germany. Announcing that its exclusive partnership with Comdirect was effective Tuesday, 21shares detailed: In this innovative partnership, 21shares was retained as the sole provider of physically-backed crypto ETPs to the online broker’s savings plan program (Spar plan). The 11 ETPs are currently listed in Germany and are now available on the Comdirect platform at zero commissions, the announcement adds. The ETPs offer investments in bitcoin, ethereum, XRP , bitcoin cash,

Adding to the exchange platform’s existing cryptocurrency derivatives products, Bybit will now offer spot cryptocurrency trading in four pairs, with additional pairs set to be rolled out in the near future. Bybit Adds Spot Trading The recent weakness in crypto prices and transaction volumes hasn’t stopped the industry’s exchanges from competing for order flow. Despite the lull, platforms are continuing to roll out new features and products as innovation abounds. The latest to introduce new offerings is Bybit , which has opened up trading in spot pairs. The derivatives exchange, which regularly ranks in the top ten crypto derivatives exchanges by volume, has now added support for four spot trading pairs, including BTC / USDT , ETH / USDT , EOS / USDT , and XRP / USDT . Other popular pairs will also be gradually added to the platform. This complements Bybit’s existing offerings, especially derivatives trading, by offering a method for traders to hedge positions in the spot market wi

Reports from South Africa suggest that tax authorities have plugged a loophole on the online tax filing system that enabled crypto arbitrage traders to make several purchases on overseas cryptocurrency platforms using just one approval. As a consequence of these tweaks, crypto arbitrage traders are now forced to make a new application each they need to place an order. In addition, this change also effectively rules out daily arbitrage trades. Loophole Plugged As the publication Moneyweb’s report explains, some South African crypto traders have been known to “profit from differences in the prices of crypto assets on local and overseas exchanges.” The price differences have ranged between zero and three percent in recent months. However, according to the report, South African crypto traders can exploit such differences using their nearly $700,000 (10 million rands) annual foreign investment allowance (FIA). They can also profit from these price differences using their special discre

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has requested federal agencies stop signing appreciation letters for Binance. The exchange used these letters as proof they are actively helping these agencies in criminal probes. However, this behavior seems to have bothered agents of these state organizations, who argue the exchange is bound to cooperate with these investigations by law. DOJ, Says ‘No Thanks’ to Binance Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange, seems to have fallen from grace with U.S. government agencies. The exchange normally requested appreciation notes regarding its cooperation with criminal probes. Now, according to two people with knowledge in the matter, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the top law enforcement agencies to stop signing these thank-you notes. Binance used these notes from the FBI and the IRS as public confirmation that it is a law-abiding company. But Binance is compelled by law to help these institutions in their probes. From the stance of th

On July 14, IOHK, the Cardano network developers, announced the project’s latest testnet called Alonzo white has been deployed. IOHK detailed that it has onboarded new participants and the move will help the project move “closer to smart contracts.” Two days later, a Cardano-based project called Spores raised $2.3 million to build a non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (defi) marketplace. Cardano Launches Alonzo White This week the Cardano ( ADA ) network launched the project’s successful hard fork of the Alonzo Blue testnet to the Alonzo White node. The upgrade aims to increase participation but also will help bolster functional Cardano-based smart contracts. “Hard fork successful,” IOHK tweeted on Wednesday. “Delighted to report around 19.44 UTC today we successfully forked the Alonzo testnet to the new Alonzo White node. The new network is happily making blocks already. Over the past week, we have spun up a new network and onboarded our new intake ready to help us

PRESS RELEASE. Internet City, Dubai — As an innovative global trading platform for various crypto assets, founded in 2015. LBank officially launched the Global Ambassadors Recruitment at the end of June in 2021. LBank provides its users with safe crypto trading, specialized financial derivatives and professional asset management services. It has become one of the most popular and trusted crypto trading platforms with over 5.6 million users in more than 50 countries around the world. User-oriented with 24/7 support LBank has always been user-oriented with protecting their benefits being the fundamental goal since its inception. It has professional 24/7 online customer service and 50 local telegram communities covering North America, the Middle East, and Europe with providing the real-time, multilingual solutions and updates on the latest news of the platform and the industry. Digging out promising projects to benefit users has been the consistent goal of LBank. Perfect coordination

While decentralized finance took a hit in Q2, stats still show there is an important movement in these protocols. Data taken from Messari’s Q2’21 defi review show that decentralized exchanges are busy settling important numbers. Decentralized Finance Bruised but Still Up The decentralized finance paradigm stormed the market this year, and while it certainly took a hit, it is still healthy. According to numbers extracted from Messari’s Q2’21 defi review report, there is still significant activity going on in the decentralized market. Decentralized exchanges, one of the core engines of the ecosystem, are still moving important amounts of funds. These settled $405 billion during the last quarter, an increase of 83% over the $221 billion settled on Q1. However, exchange volumes fell during May to $95 billion from the $203.5 billion in May. The general deceleration of the cryptocurrency market affected the sector significantly. In any case, June was a noteworthy month in the story of d

Following the largest mining difficulty drop in Bitcoin’s history, this weekend will once again see another slide, but less than 6% of the difficulty will be shaved. Statistics show Bitcoin’s hashrate has been able to climb higher since the difficulty drop two weeks ago, and climbed above 100 exahash per second (EH/s) this week. This weekend’s upcoming bitcoin mining difficulty drop will be the only time in history the difficulty slipped four times in a row. 2021’s Consecutive Difficulty Drops Come Awfully Close to 2011’s Records After China cracked down on bitcoin miners at the end of June, a large quantity of hashpower had temporarily halted. Statistics indicate that the hashrate was around 66 EH/s on June 28 and since then it has increased to above the 100 EH/s zone. There’s currently 18 known mining pools dedicating hashrate to the BTC chain, and 4.71 % of the global hashrate (24-hour stats) or 4.79 EH/s belongs to unknown miners. This weekend, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty wi

Payments giants Visa and Mastercard say they are monitoring Binance’s regulatory compliance developments as more regulators come after the global crypto exchange for operating in their countries without authorization. Visa, Mastercard Monitoring Binance’s Regulatory Troubles Visa and Mastercard have not severed ties with cryptocurrency exchange Binance despite rising regulatory scrutiny. The two payments giants have not blocked Binance and cardholders can still use Visa and Mastercard to deposit funds into their accounts at the exchange. Visa told the Financial Times Friday that it was “aware of the recent FCA statement regarding Binance,” noting that it was in “dialogue with Binance to monitor developments,” the publication conveyed. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning on Binance stating that the exchange is not authorized to engage in regulated activities in the U.K. Mastercard similarly told the publication: We continue to monitor this situation, including

The working group involved with the research and development of the digital yuan for the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has published a paper describing the digital currency’s progress. The PBOC initiated a task force dedicated to the creation of a digital yuan in 2014, and the recently published document is the project’s first white paper released in seven years. China’s Digital Yuan Is No Different Than Physical RMB After the creation of Bitcoin and a few years after the cryptocurrency economy started getting recognized, the PBOC was one of the first central banks to introduce the idea of creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC). China’s central bank has recently allowed the digital currency working group to publish a white paper that details the CBDC’s current progress. The white paper titled “Progress of Research & Development of E-CNY in China” notes that over the course of history, “the form of currency has evolved.” The PBOC’s digital currency working group stre

PRESS RELEASE. Position Exchange’s Team is pleased to announce the launch of its new Decentralized Trading & Exchange Community driven platform. What is Position Exchange? Position Exchange is the new Decentralized Trading & Exchange platform, powered by a virtual Automated Market Maker (vAMM) and operating on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), aiming to bridge the gap between people and the cryptocurrency markets and enhance trading experiences. The platform is designed to deliver all the advantages of Decentralized Finance whilst bringing the traditional Centralized Finance experience and tools onboard. Position Exchange offers easy and accessible on-chain Derivatives trading with high leverage, low slippage and low costs on Crypto assets and much more to come. “Our Vision is to build the most decentralized and community driven platform in the DeFi industry, where every single user plays an important part of the decisional process by having an effective role in defining and sha