Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

A South African High Court recently served Mirror Trading International (MTI)’s Johann and Nerina Steynberg with a provisional sequestration order. The court’s decision follows a successful court application by the five joint provisional liquidators of the now-defunct online bitcoin scam. Sequestration Not Final According to a report , the order was reportedly served on the Steynbergs’ residential address at Eagle Crest in Polokwane. However, the report adds that the Steynbergs still “have until the return date of July 20, 2021, to give reasons why final sequestration should not be granted on that date.” Meanwhile, a copy of this court order was also delivered to the South African Revenue Services. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, MTI collapsed after Johann Steynberg, who reportedly fled to Brazil in late December 2020, blocked fellow co-founders from accessing the firm’s bank accounts. However, before fleeing, the CEO had ceded control of the company’s funds to his wif

The European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is keeping the central bank’s monetary easing policies unchanged according to her statements from a press conference last Thursday. Moreover, the central bank’s Twitter account recently shared a video of Lagarde defending negative interest rates, as the bank’s President stresses that they “support companies and people in the eurozone.” ECB President Christine Lagarde Wants to Preserve Favorable Financing Since well before Covid-19, a great number of central banks started to initiate monetary easing practices and pushing interest rates down to zero or below. On Thursday, Lagarde spoke during a press conference after the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to keep policies the same after keeping rates below zero and issuing lots of fiat. Lagarde says that the financing conditions must be maintained to fend off the economic effects of the global pandemic. “Preserving favorable financing conditions over the pandemic period remains

The Central Bank of Iran has authorized banks and currency exchangers to use cryptocurrencies mined by licensed crypto miners in the country to pay for imports. Meanwhile, a bill is being drafted to provide regulatory clarity regarding crypto-related activities. Using Cryptocurrencies to Pay for Imports The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced that banks and licensed currency exchangers can use cryptocurrency mined by licensed crypto miners in Iran to pay for imports, the Financial Tribune reported on Saturday. The publication described: The central bank says that lenders and licensed currency exchange offices have been notified about the regulatory framework for crypto payment. In October last year, the Iranian government amended its cryptocurrency regulation to enable the country’s central bank to fund imports with bitcoin legally mined in the country. Licensed crypto miners are required to sell their coins directly to the central bank. The measure was proposed by the CB

The chairman of South Korea’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), Eun Sung-soo, has warned that all of the cryptocurrency exchanges in the country could be shut down. South Korea currently has about 200 cryptocurrency exchanges, he said. All Crypto Exchanges Could Be Shut Down in South Korea At the general meeting of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee last week, The Korea Times quoted Chairman Eun as saying: All of the nation’s 200 cryptocurrency exchanges could be shut down after September once a special financial law takes effect. Chairman Eun explained that cryptocurrency exchanges are required to be registered with the FSC under the revised Special Funds Act (Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information). “We are now accepting applications for them to officially register their business by the timeline, but no exchange operators have applied to date,” he revealed. Since no companies have been registered,

The covid-19 crisis is worsening every day in India, as the country keeps hitting record daily numbers of cases and its death toll. The crypto community is starting to show solidarity with the country, as big players such as Ethereum co-founder and a well-known investor announced crypto donations to provide support. Buterin Also Contributed With Makerdao Funds Indian tech founder Sandeep Nailwal – founder of the Ethereum scaling platform Polygon – set up a fund to help with the crisis, and Vitalik Buterin and Balaji Srinivasan publicly announced their donations. On April 24 via Twitter, Nailwal revealed the campaign he launched to deal with the devastated country by the pandemic, calling off especially for help to the crypto community: Can’t take this sitting down anymore, I am going to run a Covid relief campaign in lieu of what’s going on in India. Need help from the Global crypto community. I will take full responsibility for transparency, funds usage, and regulatory complian

During the first week of April, South Korea’s ‘kimchi premium’ on domestic cryptocurrency exchanges had jumped over 18%, but then leveled off, equalizing with global exchange rates over the last two weeks. On Monday, as bitcoin prices spiked 8% higher surpassing the $54k zone, in South Korea, the premium on bitcoin climbed 4.56% higher than the most trading platforms worldwide during the last 24 hours. ‘Kimchi Premium’ on Domestic South Korean Exchanges Starts to Rise Again Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency markets have improved on Monday as the entire crypto-economy has risen by 3% since yesterday. BTC prices tapped a high of $54k during the early morning trading sessions and BTC currently rests just below the $54k zone at the time of writing. In addition to the bitcoin price jump, the well known ‘kimchi premium’ in South Korea has returned. Currently, domestic exchanges like Korbit and Bithumb are trading for $3k more than most foreign exchanges. BTC /KRW chart for Bithumb

Monica Long believes in the power of communities. As head of RippleX, she leads a team that inspires and enables a global community of developers to build a more open and competitive financial ecosystem. And as the Executive Sponsor of the Women at Ripple Employee Resource Group (ERG), Monica is creating an inclusive space for … Continued The post Why Monica Long Looks to the Power of Communities to Create a More Inclusive World appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/RyV9gv

Major U.S. financial group Charles Schwab has conducted a survey and found that young British investors are twice as likely to buy cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, as they are to buy stocks. The company says it is watching the crypto space closely but needs “additional clarity from regulators” before considering providing any crypto services directly to customers. Charles Schwab’s Crypto Survey U.S. financial group Charles Schwab, which has about 31.9 million active brokerage accounts, revealed the results of its investment survey last week, Reuters reported. The survey, conducted between February and March, received 1,000 responses. Respondents were U.K. investors aged over 18 who hold at least one type of investment out of a list of assets, including equities, bonds, certificates of deposit (CDs), exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and contracts for difference (CFDs). Charles Schwab found that 51% of millennial and Gen Z investors aged between 18 and 37 traded or owned cryptocurren

An NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs, Sean Culkin, will convert all of his salary to bitcoin. A proponent of the cryptocurrency, Culkin said, “I believe we are in the beginning stage of bitcoin’s shift away from being extremely speculative, to a legitimate asset class viewed as a store of value.” NFL Player Wants to Be 100% Paid in Bitcoin Sean Culkin, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, said he would take his 2021 salary in bitcoin. He is reportedly the first NFL player to convert all his salary to the cryptocurrency. Culkin tweeted Monday: I fully believe bitcoin is the future of finance and I wanted to prove that I have real skin in the game — not just trying to make a quick buck. I will be converting my entire 2021 NFL salary to bitcoin. The Kansas City Chiefs will pay Culkin’s salary in dollars, which will automatically be converted to bitcoin on a weekly basis through Strike by Zap, The Street reported, noting that his base salary is $920,000. Culkin has been a bi

The blockchain stablecoin issuer Tether Operations Limited has recently surpassed a $50 billion market valuation after seeing exponential growth during the last few years. Furthermore, the stablecoin tether has launched on the trading platform Coinbase Pro this week marking the San Francisco-based exchange’s first time supporting the dollar-pegged token. Tether Market Cap Increases by 170% in 6 Months The blockchain company has reached a milestone this week as the firm’s dollar-pegged token USDT has surpassed a $50 billion market capitalization. Back in November 2020, Bitcoin.com News reported on how USDT towered over the stablecoin competition, as the market cap grew by 2 million percent in four years. At that time, records had shown tether’s ( USDT ) market valuation was around $18.5 billion. At $50 billion today, the USDT market valuation increased by 170.27% since November. Tether Operations Limited says that the skyrocketing market cap stems from a myriad of use cases incl

PRESS RELEASE. AscendEX, formerly BitMax, an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the listing of the Showcase Token (SHO) under the pair USDT/SHO on Apr 28 at 1:00 p.m. UTC. Showcase is an NFT mobile application designed to empower micro-influencers and fans. It provides a platform for content creators to create and sell limited edition tradeable non-fungible tokens backed by their brand. These NFTs allow for decentralized ownership, transfer, provenance, and proof of authenticity for digital assets. Showcase as a platform focuses on mobile-first design, fiat integration, lower-priced NFTs, beyond rare art NFTs, user experience, and social media integration. On the Showcase platform, creators can design and edit custom artwork in the app, which is then attached to a unique NFT or “Badge.” Limited edition badges are listed for sale, and fans may purchase them, and Showcase will pay revenue to the creators. B

The cryptocurrency mining rig and ASIC chipmaker Bitmain revealed a new digital currency mining device that’s dedicated to mining ethereum. While the Ethereum network is slowly transitioning from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system, Bitmain’s new Antminer E9 aims to be one of the fastest ether miners on the open market. Antminer E9 Mining Rig to Command 3 GH/s of Hashpower Two days ago on April 24, the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Bitmain published a teaser video about a new ether mining rig. The device is not for sale yet and E9 prices have not been announced. However, speculative estimates assume the machine could be around $20k per unit or upwards of $30k per machine. The company revealed the new Antminer E9 specs on Twitter with the accompanying teaser video published to Youtube. “[The] Antminer E9 ethereum miner. Equivalent to 32 – 3080 graphics cards, Equipped with a hashrate of 3 GH/s, power efficiency of 0.85 J/M, and power

Filebase, a blockchain-based object storage company built on top of the Sia network has revealed the business has closed an initial seed round gathering $2 million from investors. Interest in decentralized storage networks has blossomed in recent months and Filebase expects the growth of global data to surpass 175 Zettabytes by 2025. The project is currently working with three distributed storage projects and plans to expand to Arweave and Filecoin by the end of 2021. Filebase Raises $2 Million In the future, blockchain advocates believe that distributed ledger networks will help bolster decentralized storage rather than leveraging centralized clouds and API services used today. In 2021, there are a number of blockchain projects dedicated to data-storage solutions and a company called Filebase utilizes a number of the most-used decentralized storage systems. Essentially, Filebase is a multi-tenant, S3-compatible API service that is built with the Sia network. However, Filebase de

The critically acclaimed rap phenomenon Marshall Mathers, professionally known as Eminem has revealed he is jumping into the non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles game. Eminem is auctioning three types of NFTs via Nifty Gateway and each design was created by the hip-hop legend. Slim Shady Enters the NFT Fray Week after week, the NFT universe continues to grow larger and a great number of celebrities are joining in on the NFT bandwagon. The space has continued to swell with a myriad of different NFT projects, concepts, and marketplaces. Bitcoin.com has reported on a number of popular projects and luminaries minting non-fungible token collectibles like actress Lindsay Lohan , Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski’s NFTs, Tom Brady’s Autograph project , Topps Garbage Pail Kids and Baseball cards, Annoying Orange NFTs, and NFT collectibles by Kenyan filmmaker Rich Allela. Now the multi-platinum recording artist and ofte

Today, April 26th, 2021, the virtual gallery of OVR.ai was inaugurated to showcase artists working with non-fungible tokens (NFT) and beyond. Considering the hype around the NFT phenomenon this year and also given that the Coronavirus pandemic prevents most artists from exhibiting works in museums and participating in exhibitions, as well as also people from being able to visit art galleries, the company OVR decided to introduce a museum in its blockchain-based virtual world, allowing the top artists in the field to exhibit their NFTs. Starting today, it is possible to download the OVR app (available on both Android and iOS) and visit this section of the virtual world dedicated to art. The NFT Artists of OVR Among the artists exhibiting their Non Fungible Tokens today for the opening of OVR’s gallery is Italian artist Giovanni Motta , born in 1971, who has just opened his solo exhibition in Shanghai, selling out before the opening. Motta will have a dedicated gallery on OVR, as

Bill Miller, the founder and chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners, does not think bitcoin is a bubble. Instead, he said it is at the beginning of mainstream adoption. Remaining bullish on the cryptocurrency, the famed value investor explained that bitcoin’s price will rise as the demand for the crypto is growing faster than its supply. Bill Miller Bullish on Bitcoin Longtime value investor Bill Miller is the founder of Miller Value Partners and currently serves as the chairman and chief investment officer. He is also the co-portfolio manager for Opportunity Equity and Income Strategy funds. Prior to Miller Value Partners, he co-founded Legg Mason Capital Management. He was asked in an interview with CNBC last week whether there is a lot more upside to the price of bitcoin. Miller replied: “There are many many different ways to look at bitcoin. The simplest way is just the supply and demand.” Emphasizing rising institutional interest in the cryptocurrency as it enters

Veteran investor Jim Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros, is still worried about governments outlawing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. “If cryptocurrencies become successful, most governments will outlaw them, because they don’t want to lose their monopoly,” he said. Jim Rogers Still Worried About Government Banning Bitcoin Renowned investor and George Soros’ former business partner who co-founded of the Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management, Jim Rogers, still believes that the government can ban bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Noting that he “never bought or sold any cryptocurrencies,” Rogers told Kitco News’ Michelle Makori last week: If cryptocurrencies become successful, most governments will outlaw them, because they don’t want to lose their monopoly. “Every government in the world is working on computer money now, including the U.S. The Chinese are there already. I cannot imagine that governments are going to say ‘ok, th

Two Turkish cryptocurrency exchanges are being investigated by the authorities in Turkey after they abruptly halted trading. The authorities have blocked access to the bank accounts of the second exchange and detained four people so far. Sixty-two people have been detained in connection with the first exchange whose CEO has fled the country. Second Turkish Crypto Exchange Being Investigated Following the alleged exit scam pulled by cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, another crypto trading platform is being investigated by Turkish authorities, the state-run Anadolu news agency said Friday. Vebitcoin, a Turkey-based crypto trading platform, became the second crypto exchange to face troubles within about a week after the country’s central bank banned crypto use for payments. Vebitcoin posted a notice on its website on Friday stating: “Due to the recent developments in the crypto money industry, there was a much higher density in our operations than expected. We would like to state with