Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Current indicators suggest the European Central Bank (ECB) should raise the interest rate in May, the monetary authority’s chief economist said. Future increases will depend on the economic data but this is still not the right time to stop, according to Philip Lane who believes the bank has to bring inflation back to the 2% target “in a timely manner.” Leaving Interest Rate at Current Level Would Be ‘Inappropriate’ Despite Falling Inflation, Lane Says Inflation in the euro area has dropped significantly between October, when it peaked at 10.6%, and March’s 6.9%. Nevertheless, the most important goal for its central bank is to make sure that it gets closer to 2%, Chief Economist of the ECB Philip Lane told Le Monde in a recent interview published by the bank on Tuesday. While easing in some sectors, such as energy, inflationary pressures persist in others, like food, the top official noted, warning there’s a risk of “sticky” inflation. This is why it’s important that the ECB raises

PRESS RELEASE. Web3 game company Iskra unveils the release of its own launchpad for games, the Iskra Launchpad , with World of Win set to be the first project to conduct its initial game offering (IGO) on the platform. The release of the Iskra Launchpad comes right after Iskra dominated the number one spot on DappRadar’s blockchain games dapp rankings for all periods – 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days – with 669.27k UAW as of writing and cited as one of the best-performing games dapp for March 2023. The Iskra Launchpad is a platform that allows game companies working with Iskra to promote their tokens to the Iskra community via IGO before its official listing on an exchange. Through the Iskra Launchpad, the Iskra community will have the opportunity to discover visionary games at an early stage and purchase tokens at its offering price. While tokens purchased on the Iskra Launchpad during an IGO are locked and subject to a vesting and distribution schedule, every IGO token has a

Fiat currencies of BRICS member states will have no alternative in the future, according to former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. Nations in the bloc need to think about their digital forms and a digital currency issued by the group as a whole, the Russian politician said. Ruble, Yuan, Other BRICS Currencies to Take Over After Euro Collapse, Dmitry Medvedev Predicts Russia’s former head of state, Dmitry Medvedev, does not rule out the collapse of the common European currency and a return to national fiats on the Old Continent. “It is absolutely certain that financial shocks in Europe will not keep you waiting,” he was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency. The euro, already not too resistant to external influences, has started losing its role as a universal means of payment, Medvedev pointed out. Therefore, it is likely that Europe will return back to “the system of financial patchwork with national currencies. Well, then goodbye euro, hello mark, lira, and French f

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has expressed support for the creation of a BRICS currency. His statement of support comes as the BRICS bloc is gaining global influence, with 19 countries seeking to join the group. Brazilian President Lula Supports BRICS Currency Creation Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reiterated Wednesday that he supported creating a currency for trading between BRICS countries, Reuters reported. The BRICS nations comprise Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In a speech during a trip to Spain, he said without providing further details: I am in favor of creating, within the BRICS, a trading currency between our countries, just like the Europeans created the euro. Lula’s support for the creation of a BRICS currency followed his statement urging developing countries to stop using the U.S. dollar and adopt local currencies instead. The Brazilian president said on April 13 during his visit to the New Development Bank in Sh

A top Russian official has urged all countries to make efforts to ensure that the “threat of global confrontation, of a hot, full-scale World War III” does not materialize. “World tensions are white-hot indeed,” he warned. Russian Official: Full-Scale World War III Should Not Materialize The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, urged all countries to make efforts to avoid the outbreak of a new, full-scale global conflict Tuesday while addressing participants in the Znanie (Knowledge) educational marathon. “I cannot say what the last straw, what the trigger may be. But it may happen at some point,” he was quoted by Russian news outlet Tass as saying. The official emphasized: We all need to work to ensure that this threat of global confrontation, of a hot, full-scale World War III should not materialize. Commenting on the current conflict between Russia and Western countries, he stressed that Russia has no desire to see a war break out. However, he said

Former White House economist Joseph Sullivan has warned that a BRICS currency would erode the U.S. dollar’s dominance. If member nations use only a common BRICS currency for international trade, “they would remove an impediment that now thwarts their efforts to escape dollar hegemony,” he described. Former White House Economic Advisor on BRICS Currency and U.S. Dollar’s Reserve Currency Status A former White House economic advisor, Joseph Sullivan, discussed de-dollarization and the potential impacts of a BRICS currency on the USD in an opinion piece published by Foreign Policy Monday. The BRICS nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Sullivan was a special advisor and staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. He is currently a senior advisor at the Lindsey Group, an economic advisory firm. Referring to the hypothetical BRICS currency as “the bric,” he warned: If the BRICS used only the bric for internati

Amidst the buzz surrounding bitcoin’s latest price surge, a significant number of transactions are currently clogging up the mempool. As of writing, 134,986 unconfirmed transactions await confirmation, and block times are lingering above the usual ten-minute mark. Bitcoin Transactions Backlogged as Mempool Reaches Higher Levels On the morning of Wednesday, Bitcoin.com News brought to light the decrease in Bitcoin’s global hashrate over the past 24 hours, currently hovering just above the 300 exahash per second (EH/s) range. Meanwhile, block intervals have slowed down and surpassed the average ten-minute mark, with the most recent block taking a total of ten minutes and 50 seconds to be validated. Even though bitcoin’s price initially soared past the $30K mark earlier today, by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on April 26, 2023, the value had regressed back to a low of $27,242. Since then, the price managed to jump back above the $28K zone . At present, the mempool remains packed with

Javier Milei, a presidential candidate for the next election in Argentina, has presented a dollarization plan to fix the economy of the country if elected. The proposal, which has supporters and detractors, would aim to solve the historic devaluation of the Argentine peso and the 100%+ interannual inflation that Argentina registered in March. Dollarization Surges as Option to ‘Fix’ Argentine Economy Argentine economists and the population are debating dollarization as a possible solution to the devaluation and inflation problems the country is currently facing. The proposal, presented by Javier Milei, one of the strongest contenders in the next October presidential election according to several polls, includes the abandonment of the Argentine peso as a fiat currency, and the conversion of all deposits and reserves of the central and private banks to U.S. dollars. According to Milei, this would be one of the more feasible solutions to the myriad problems the national economy is fac

PRESS RELEASE. Golden Gate (GGX) is a novel interchain infrastructure protocol that eliminates Layer 0 communication friction by delivering protocol-agnostic communications and more secure liquidity transfer. Golden Gate mediates interchain communication via the Incentivized Message Delivery Protocol (IMDP), which uses a network of couriers running light clients to deliver messages for efficient cross-chain communication. Golden Gate supports the IBC, XCMP, and LayerZero communication protocols, amongst others, making it universally composable across Web3 infrastructure. With this architecture, Golden Gate delivers a next-generation programmable layer 0, enabling developers to leverage this technology stack to benefit their dApps and, ultimately, their end users. In practice, this means that developers will be able to deploy their dApps such that they are natively interoperable and protocol agnostic from day 1, abstracting away the need to worry about cross chain interoperability.

Economist Peter Schiff has warned that the U.S. will default on its debt obligations. He further stressed: “All the bad stuff that they’re saying is going to happen if we don’t raise the debt ceiling is guaranteed to happen because we do raise the debt ceiling.” Peter Schiff on U.S. Debt Default Economist and gold bug Peter Schiff warned Monday on the Peter Schiff Show podcast that the United States will default on its debt obligations and that raising the debt ceiling will have devastating consequences. Commenting on politicians claiming that the U.S. debt ceiling must be raised “because we pay our bills,” the economist argued: “We never pay our bills … We have $31.7 trillion in debt. That’s $31.7 trillion of bills that we have not paid. We didn’t pay them. We borrowed the money. And we want to keep on borrowing the money. Nobody wants to pay any of these bills.” Schiff cautioned: It’s only a question of time. It’s not a question of if. It’s just a question of when. We will defa

Economist Peter St Onge has warned that U.S. dollar weaponization will lead to “soaring inflation, a catastrophic fallen American standard of living, and a U.S. that falls off the world stage.” Commenting on the economist’s warnings, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk weighed in on de-dollarization. De-Dollarization Happening Faster Than People Realize, Says Economist Economist Peter St Onge warned about the dire consequences of weaponizing the U.S. dollar in a video he posted on Twitter Monday. St Onge is a Research Fellow and the Mark A. Kolokotrones Fellow in Economic Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Before joining the Heritage Foundation, he was a Fellow at the Mises Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Montreal Economic Institute, and an Assistant Professor of International Trade and of Marketing at Taiwan’s Feng Chia University. Citing a former Morgan Stanley analyst, Stephen Jen , stating that the U.S. dollar has already suffered a “stunning collapse” and is losing its reserve

According to the now-defunct crypto lender Voyager, Binance US sent a letter to the company “terminating the asset purchase agreement.” While the announcement was “disappointing” for Voyager, the firm maintained that its customers would still be receiving their cash and crypto through a “direct distribution” via the Voyager platform. Voyager’s Asset Purchase Agreement With Binance US Scrapped Towards the end of 2022, Binance disclosed that its US subsidiary had entered into a billion-dollar agreement with Voyager Digital Ltd. to acquire its assets. Despite objections from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the purchase was allowed to proceed after receiving court approval . However, on April 25, 2023, Voyager revealed that the deal was no longer moving forward. “Today we received a letter from Binance US terminating the asset purchase agreement. While this development is disappointing, our Chapter 11 plan allows for direct distribution of cash and crypto to customer

Bitcoin remained close to a four-week low on Tuesday, as prices fell to a support point around $27,000. The decline came ahead of this afternoon’s U.S. consumer confidence report, which is expected to fall from 104.2, to a reading of 104 in April. Ethereum was also lower, and approached a breakout below the $1,800 level. Bitcoin Bitcoin ( BTC ) continued to trade near a one-month low, as markets prepared for the upcoming consumer confidence report in the United States. Following a high of $27,701.26 during yesterday’s session, BTC /USD fell to a low of $27,070.85 on Tuesday. This is the weakest point that bitcoin has fallen to since March 28, which is when it last traded below $27,000. Looking at the chart, it appears that this drop took place as the relative strength index (RSI) moved back towards a floor at 41.00 At the time of writing, price strength is tracking at 43.14, following a failed breakout of a ceiling at 45.00. Should bears push the index below 41.00, there is a g

A Judge of a High Court in Uganda recently dismissed an application which sought to quash a Bank of Uganda directive that barred licensed entities and individuals from facilitating crypto transactions. In his ruling, Justice Musa Ssekaana insisted that the central bank’s crypto prohibition does not amount to an infringement on property rights. Cryptocurrency an ‘Undefined’ Payment System in Uganda The High Court in Uganda recently dismissed an application that sought to upend a central bank directive that bars cryptocurrency transactions. In his ruling, the court’s Justice Musa Ssekaana, insisted that the Bank of Uganda (BOU)’s April 2022 directive does not infringe on individual property rights. Instead, the directive is an attempt by the central bank not to legalize the “undefined system as a payment instrument in Uganda.” As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News in May 2022, the BOU warned parties disregarding its directive that it will not hesitate to invoke “its powers under

Changshu, a city in China with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, will pay public workers’ wages with the Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan. The move marks an acceleration of the adoption plans that Beijing has for the digital currency, which has been included in some limited programs before. Public Employees in Changshu to Receive Payments in Digital Yuan The city of Changshu, with a population of more than 1.5 million, will be the first city to use the digital yuan to pay wages of public employees, according to reports from local media. The measure will affect public servants of government offices, as well as schoolteachers, medical staff, employees of state companies, and all who directly receive their wages from the city. The move is part of the plan of Jiangsu province, in which Changshu is located, to increase the usage of this kind of digital currency, which has not received the expected attention of the citizens, who still prefer to pay using a

Standard Chartered says crypto winter has ended and the price of bitcoin could reach $100K per coin by the end of next year. The global bank’s analyst has identified several factors contributing to the surge in the price of the cryptocurrency, including the recent turmoil in the banking sector. Standard Chartered Bank on Bitcoin Hitting $100K Global bank Standard Chartered said Monday that “crypto winter” is over and the price of bitcoin could reach $100,000 by the end of 2024. Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, explained in a note that bitcoin stands to benefit from various factors. They include the recent turmoil in the banking sector, a stabilization of risky assets as the U.S. Federal Reserve ends its cycle of interest rate hikes, and the enhanced profitability of cryptocurrency mining. The analyst wrote: While sources of uncertainty remain, we think the pathway to the USD 100,000 level is becoming clearer. A growing number of individuals

Victoria, Seychelles, April 24, 2023 – Bitget , the largest crypto copy trading platform, announced that its native platform token BGB will be listed on Bitfinex, driving liquidity and accessibility while increasing its value and utility. The supported trading pair is BGB/USDT, and the trading service will be opened at Bitfinex. BGB is a utility token that plays a vital role in Bitget’s ecosystem, with a circulating supply of 1,400,000,000 BGB coins and a total supply of 2,000,000,000. It provides users with access to exclusive privileges and various rights on the Bitget exchange, including fee discounts, opportunities to join Launchpad and Launchpool to access high-quality tokens, vote for project listings, and so on. Gracy Chen, Managing Director of Bitget says , “ We are thrilled to see BGB listed on Bitfinex’s platform , reflecting the recognition and achievement of Bitget in the crypto space. With the ongoing initiatives to increase the usage and value of BGB, we expect tha

Ron Paul, the former U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. congressman, has stated that recent geopolitical events have caused nations to start ditching the U.S. dollar. Paul stated that the debasement of the currency, the manipulation of prices, and sanctions against other nations have made other countries afraid of holding dollars. Ron Paul Believes De-Dollarization Is Happening at a Rapid Pace Ron Paul, former U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. congressional representative, has talked about how he believes de-dollarization is starting to accelerate recently, even if he does not know when the U.S. dollar will lose its reserve currency status. In the latest episode of “The Ron Paul Liberty Report,” his online videocast, Ron Paul clarified a global reduction in the percentage of reserves held in U.S. dollars is caused by several circumstances, including “America’s endless wars, sanctions, wokism, nihilism, and unconstitutional abuses.” About the consequences of th

Bitcoin started the week on the brink of a downwards crossover of two key moving average trend lines, which could signal an upcoming price drop. The 10-day and 25-day moving average look set to cross, potentially leading to a breakout of the $27,000 level. Ethereum is trading above a floor at $1,830 as of writing. Bitcoin Bitcoin ( BTC ) is on the brink of registering a downward crossover of its 10-day (red) and 25-day (blue) moving averages. A recent downtrend, which today pushed BTC /USD to an intraday low of $27,192.03, has also led to an overall shift in market momentum. This latest low in bitcoin comes less than a day after the world’s largest cryptocurrency traded at a high of $27,979.98. Bitcoin chart by TradingView Overall, BTC is trading over 7% lower than at the same point last week, when the price was above $30,000. In addition to the potential crossover of moving averages, the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) continues to hover close to a floor at 42.00.

Russia will increase its reliance on national currencies to settle payments for its energy resources, moving away from the US dollar, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Novak noted there is a great interest in acquiring Russian energy resources, leading Russia to accept more currencies for these settlements. Russia Aims to Settle Energy Trades Away From the U.S. Dollar Russia is gradually moving to the use of national currencies, such as the Chinese yuan and the Russian ruble, to settle energy trades, moving away from the U.S. dollar. Alexander Novak, Russian deputy prime minister, stated that this trend of adopting national currencies accelerated due to the sanctions enacted by Western nations as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In a TV interview given to a Russian network, Novak stated : The trend has changed very much to less use of dollars or euros. Given the current problems in settlements with these currencies, in our settlements we are

PRESS RELEASE. Austin, TX – MyEListing.com , a free commercial real estate listings and data platform, has partnered with Millennial Title, and Championship Title to create a marketplace where anyone in the world can buy and sell US residential & commercial real estate with crypto via an integration with Coinbase Commerce, and close within one business day. The initiative is called the ASAP (Accelerated Sale And Purchase) program . MyEListing.com hosts the marketplace, Coinbase Commerce converts the buyers’ crypto into cash for the seller, and Millennial Title as well as Championship Title handle the title work. “This initiative will drive innovation in the crypto and real estate industries,” says Caleb Richter, CEO of MyEListing.com. “Real estate commerce needs to be changed. It’s hard enough as it is to buy property in your local neighborhood, let alone in another state or country. With the ASAP program, anyone, regardless of the language they speak or where they are in the

The Syrian foreign minister says the U.S. imposes sanctions on Syria and Russia to steal their assets and keep them under its hegemony. The U.S. is “the biggest beneficiary of wars and fueling global conflicts, with the aim of maintaining the dominance of the dollar in the global economy and trade,” said a Russian official. US Sanctions Aimed at Stealing Assets and Keeping Targeted Nations Under Its Hegemony, Says Syrian Official The Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Faisal Mekdad, met with Alexander Yakovenko, the Rector of the Diplomatic Academy at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday. During their meeting in Damascus, Mekdad slammed the U.S. and its Western allies for imposing unilateral sanctions on his country and several other nations, according to the Syrian government-controlled news agency, SANA. He explained that the West is attempting to maintain its dominance over the world by creating rules that align with its own objectives and ambitions, regard