Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

As a number of Federal Reserve presidents have been criticized for their 2020 stock moves, Fed chairman Jerome Powell has been cast into the limelight for owning $1.5 million municipal bonds like the ones the U.S. central bank purchased in 2020 during the pandemic. All Eyes Are On Jerome Powell’s Municipal Bond Portfolio Three days ago, the topic of senior Federal Reserve members making multi-million-dollar stock deals in 2020 caused senator Elizabeth Warren to write a letter criticizing the bank member’s ethics, and chairman Jerome Powell said he would initiate an ethics inquiry. However, not too long after the media grilled U.S. central bankers for their behavior, reports disclosed that the Federal Reserve’s chairman owned a few types of municipal bonds, similar to the ones the Fed bailed out during the coronavirus crisis. It’s also not the first time Jerome Powell’s portfolio has come under inquisition from the public. Wallstreetonparade.com journalists Pam Martens and Russ Ma...

ERTHA metaverse is Heroes of Might and Magic game-type inspired economic and social life built on a binance smart chain to explore and investigate the world by choosing specializations and increasing the strength of your NFT and country. Ertha’s globe consists of 350,000 HEX land plots, represented as NFTs. By owning a HEX land plot, you will get a cash-back for every transaction as a landowner. The game is designed to replicate a real-life environment, simulating the actions that people have to perform in order to earn a living.   ERTHA is created to inspire economic and social growth, to investigate the new world, level up and engage in the NFT market. ERTHA’s Alfa took 17,000+ Code commits and 30,000 hours of writing program code to develop. Map of ERTHA is divided by NFT hexagons – players are free to choose where to live, study or work & earn tokens. ERTHA land HEX is an extremely valuable NFT – dozens of companies & players paying taxes. Territorial disput...

The deadline for cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet operators to comply with the new regulatory requirements to stay open in South Korea is this week. So far, only one crypto exchange has been licensed to continue operations. About 60 crypto exchanges are expected to either shut down or reduce services. 60 Crypto Exchanges Expected to Shut Down or Reduce Services Under the “Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information (Special Act),” crypto exchanges must be Information Security Management System (ISMS)-certified and register with the South Korean Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) by Sept. 24. Crypto exchanges that fail to do either must cease operations on that date. According to local media, 34 exchanges have not received ISMS certification, so they are expected to shut down entirely on Sept. 24. A total of 29 crypto exchanges have been ISMS-certified but only one has successfully registered with the FIU, a unit of the Financial Services Commission...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has clarified the government’s stance on cryptocurrencies, stating that the country is at war with crypto. He emphasized that Turkey will continue with its own currency. A War and a Struggle Against Cryptocurrency Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan answered some questions from young people in the “Meeting with Youth” program held with university students from 81 provinces. The event took place in Mersin, a port city in southern Turkey and an important hub of the country’s economy. A young man in the audience asked President Erdoğan: “My question is about cryptocurrency. Recently, the central bank established a digital Turkish lira platform . With this decision, is Turkey planning to open up to cryptocurrencies? … We are curious about your ideas on this matter.” Noting that it is not their intention to open up to cryptocurrencies, Erdoğan clarified: On the contrary, we have a separate war, a separate struggle against them. He clarified...

A South Korean province has seized cryptocurrencies worth over $5 million from 1,661 investors who were more than $12 million in arrears on their fines in total. The seizure followed an investigation of nearly 30,000 companies and individuals as well as their cryptocurrency holdings at four exchanges. Korean Province Confiscates Cryptocurrencies for Unpaid Fines The South Korean province of Gyeonggi, the most populous province in the country, announced last week that it had seized 6.1 billion won ($5.14 million) in cryptocurrencies from 1,661 people who were 14.4 billion won in arrears on their fines in total. The authorities explained that from May to August last year, they conducted an investigation of 29,656 companies and individuals who were delinquent on their payments of 1 million won or more under the category of “nontaxable income.” This includes examining their cryptocurrency holdings at four exchanges. Nontaxable income in South Korea refers to income imposed and collect...

On September 18, a Redditor posted to the r/bitcoin forum and explained how he discovered a way to “attack [the] lightning Network’s custodial services.” The Reddit account dubbed “Reckless Satoshi” wanted to figure out if a “discrepancy between real routing fees and service’s transaction fee can be exploited for a profit.” The researcher disclosed that he wanted to see how large the damage could be and said “it is bad.” 6 Lightning Network Custodial Services Attacked, Researcher Discloses Findings to Offenders Prior to Public Disclosure A Redditor called Reckless Satoshi published a disclosure post on r/bitcoin this past Saturday and disclosed how he had found a vulnerability with routing fees and some of the Lightning Network’s custodial services. The research attack was done in good faith and after it was complete he disclosed the bugs to the offending services before publishing his findings. Reckless Satoshi used the Lightning Network (LN) attack on six different services incl...

The Bitcoin.com Team is excited to announce the integration of ERC-20 tokens into the Bitcoin.com Wallet . That means anyone can now buy, sell, receive, store, trade, and send ERC-20 tokens with the convenience and security of the industry’s most user-friendly non-custodial wallet . ERC-20 Tokens? ERC-20 is the standard protocol for creating tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. There are over 450,000 sets of ERC-20 tokens as of 2021 and they collectively represent hundreds of billions of dollars in value. All ERC-20 tokens “live” on Ethereum, meaning they benefit from the security of the second-largest blockchain by marketcap and are composable with smart contracts . Curated ERC-20 Support Any and all Ethereum-compatible tokens sent to your Bitcoin.com Wallet’s Ethereum addresses are safe and secure. However, since there are hundreds of thousands of ERC-20 tokens out there, it’s not practical to display them all in the Wallet. That’s why we’re starting off by ‘tracking’ a...

Global investors have their eyes peeled on the Evergrande Group or the Evergrande Real Estate Group, China’s second-largest property developer by sales. Evergrande Group shares nosedived on Monday dropping to 11-year lows and many analysts and economists are concerned about a possible credit contagion. Credit problems with China’s real estate industry have affected global markets a great deal as European and U.S. stocks have slid during Asia’s overnight. Evergrande Group’s Counterparty Risk and Liquidity Shocks Could Spark a Credit Contagion on a Global Level Many people woke to the news of China’s Evergrande Group losing a significant amount of its market capitalization as the company’s shares dive-bombed to an 11-year low. While Evergrande losses can’t take down the economy alone, but it could cause a domino effect like the collapse of Lehman Brothers did during the 2007-2010 financial crisis. The domino effect is called a “credit contagion” and signs of this occurring are alrea...

A crypto investor has filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple Inc. after she downloaded a malicious application from the company’s App Store that led to the theft of her cryptocurrencies. Apple Sued Over Theft of Cryptocurrency Due to Malicious App Hadona Diep, a resident of the U.S. state of Maryland and a full-time cyber-security IT professional, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple Inc. She alleges that the company authorized and maintained “a malicious application” in its App Store despite knowledge of the criminal activity. In addition, the company failed to notify her and the class members that their financial information had been compromised. The lawsuit explains that “Because Plaintiff knew, or at least thought she knew, that Apple thoroughly vets applications before it allowed them on the App Store, Plaintiff downloaded the application known as Toast Plus from the Apple App Store on or about March of 2020 onto her iPhone.” The plaintiff believed that “Toast P...

El Salvador, the country that made bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar, has purchased more bitcoin. The Salvadoran government now holds 700 coins, according to President Nayib Bukele. El Salvador Buys the Dip El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, announced early Monday morning that his government has purchased 150 more bitcoins. The country’s bitcoin law went into effect on Sept. 7 making the cryptocurrency legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. He tweeted: “We just bought the dip. 150 new coins! El Salvador now holds 700 coins.” “They can never beat you if you buy the dips … Presidential advice,” he further wrote. The price of bitcoin was hovering around $45K when he made the announcement. It has since dropped to $43,326 at the time of writing based on data from Bitcoin.com Markets . El Salvador started buying bitcoin on Sept. 6 ahead of the bitcoin law taking effect. On Sept. 7, Bukele announced that his country had bought a total of 550 bitcoins. According t...

Crypto markets have dropped a great deal in value over the last 24 hours as crypto assets across the board have lost anywhere between 7-15% in value during this time period. The overall market valuation of all 10,000+ crypto-assets in existence has slid just below the $2 trillion handle, losing over 9% in value during the last 24 hours. Crypto Economy Slips by 9% During the Last 24 Hours Bitcoin ( BTC ) prices were above the $48K zone on Sunday, September 19, but the following day, BTC prices are much lower as the crypto asset dropped to a low of $42,660 per unit on Monday. BTC has shed 8.9% in value and the digital asset’s market valuation is around $815 billion today. At the time of writing, a single BTC is swapping for just above $43K per coin. The second-leading crypto asset, ethereum ( ETH ) has dropped 10.3% in value during the last day and each ether is exchanging hands for just above $3K per unit. ETH has an overall market valuation of around $355.4 billion on Monday. ...

In recent months NFT or as it coded, non-fungible tokens became a hot topic that everyone is talking about. NFT is a valuable model of digital ownership from which you could make money. If you have paper money or money in your bank accounts, you can buy, rent, sell, invest and be an active player of the world’s stock exchange game. Same thing could be said about NFT’s, which could be bought with the help of cryptocurrencies, in most instances within blockchain Ethereum. With so many word’s eyes being on the new and promising technology NFT’s value rises significantly on the word’s stock exchange market too as you could see investors making moves and prices going up and down. With NFT’s being digital assets and representing real-world objects from art, to game items, you could expect that everything you buy with them, will forever stay in the digital world. However, the upcoming new project – fantasy game “ Spellfire ” is willing and ready to be the wind of change in that matter. “...

On September 17, the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in terms of volume, Opensea, announced the launch of the platform’s mobile application. Opensea marketplace users can now access a wide variety of NFT collections on their smartphones by downloading the application from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store. Opensea Launches Mobile App for iOS and Android Phones According to marketplace statistics from dappradar.com , Opensea is the largest NFT market in terms of global trade volume. All-time statistics indicate that Opensea has seen 625,620 traders and $6.53 billion in volume. Axie Infinity and the Cryptopunks NFT collection fall behind Opensea’s volume as Axie Infinity has seen $2.11 billion and Cryptopunks has gathered $1.31 billion. In recent times, Opensea has added Polygon (MATIC) support and toward the end of July, the leading marketplace announced a $100 million capital raise . Opensea has continued to see record sales but on September 15, the company a...

Following threats from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the management of Abokifx, a website that tracks the Nigerian currency’s black market exchange rates, has announced the suspension of their daily updates. This suspension will remain in effect until Abokifx gets “better clarity of the situation,” management said on September 17, 2021. Tracking of Parallel Market Rates ‘Undermining’ Nigerian Economy Abokifx’s decision came shortly after the end of the CBN’s monetary policy committee meeting on the same day. In his remarks to journalists following the meeting, governor Godwin Emefiele accused the publisher of the tracking site, Oniwinde Adedotun, of carrying out an “illegal activity that undermines the economy.” In addition, Emefiele suggested that the CBN was now tracking down Adedotun whom it accuses of “publishing arbitrary rates without contacting Bureaux de Change.” However, in its own statement , Abokifx rejects the allegations the site is orchestrating the naira’s fal...

Bitcoin.com, in line with its vision to support ‘economic freedom,’ is refocusing its efforts on non-custodial, or ‘self hosted,’ crypto products, including exchange. Therefore, the Bitcoin.com Wallet , which is fully non-custodial and provides users with direct access to public blockchains like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum will be the company’s flagship product going forward. What’s the non-custodial model? When you take possession of your assets, it means there’s no need to request approval from a middleman to send or receive your money, and no need to rely on third parties to hold your assets on your behalf. You also have full control over the fees you pay to miners and validators when sending crypto or interacting with smart contracts – and you are able to interact with smart contracts! That means (in the very near future via Bitcoin.com) you’ll have access to, for example, decentralized finance applications that enable you to earn passive income. What is ...

Cryptocurrency usage and trading are experiencing a boom in India, and most of this growth is coming from small cities. According to reports from local exchanges, the growth has been exponential. The profile of these new participants has also been interesting, as they are highly educated, not only focused just on bitcoin, and are open to diversifying their portfolios with more exotic offerings. Crypto Grows in India’s Small Cities Cryptocurrency usage and trading are being embraced by Indian citizens as a way of investing and gaining additional money after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to reports from regional media outlets. But what’s more interesting is that this growth is even bigger in small cities, where interest in cryptocurrency is reportedly peaking. A local exchange, Wazirx, reported amazing levels of new customers coming from these small cities, that are classified as tier-2 and tier-3 cities. The exchange reported users signups from these cities have grown by 2,648%....

A strategist at JPMorgan stated that ether’s fair value is way lower than its current price. According to a set of measurements based on network activity, he calculated ether’s value at $1,500, 55% lower than its market price. One of the reasons argued for this assessment, is that Ethereum is not so unique anymore, and it is facing tough competition from other chains like Solana and Avalanche. JPMorgan Strategist Thinks Ether Is Overvalued Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, Managing Director of JPMorgan, stated that he thinks ether ( ETH ), the native asset of the Ethereum network, is grossly overvalued. Panigirtzoglou took several measures of network activity and tried to translate them into a number that represented the fair value of the asset. He and his team estimated ether’s fair value at $1,500, which is currently 55% less than today’s market price. The JPMorgan strategist thinks the price has rallied as a result of the confidence the market has in the future developments of the proje...

Tatarstan’s highest court has rejected appeals against arrest warrants issued for three co-founders of the notorious Finiko crypto pyramid. The top representatives of the Ponzi scheme, accused of large-scale fraud in Russia, are still hiding abroad, media reports reveal. Three Finiko Ponzi Scheme Members Still Wanted The Supreme Court of Tatarstan, a republic of the Russian Federation, has confirmed the arrest warrants issued in absentia for Zygmunt Zygmuntovich and Marat and Edward Sabirov. The three wanted men are close associates of Finiko’s founder Kirill Doronin. Doronin, an Instagram influencer whose name has been linked to other fraudulent schemes, was arrested in July. Then in September, authorities detained the pyramid’s vice president, Ilgiz Shakirov, as well as two women , Lilia Nurieva and Dina Gabdullina, who have allegedly lured thousands of investors with promises for high returns. Zygmuntovich and the Sabirov brothers, however, managed to leave the country and avo...

During the last few months, cross-chain bridge technology has grown a great deal and users can now swap assets between a myriad of networks. Today, between eight different bridges there’s $7.6 billion total-value locked across these platforms. Cross-Chain Bridges There’s a decent quantity of cross-chain blockchain bridges these days and it has allowed users to do a variety of different decentralized finance (defi) techniques. Interestingly, a great deal of bridges connect to the Ethereum ( ETH ) network, as they have Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility. Since these connections have been made, a great deal of value has been flowing between a myriad of chains and the Ethereum blockchain. The following post mentions a number of bridges cryptocurrency participants can use to achieve cross-chain swaps. Tezos Wrap Protocol Bridge The Tezos (XTZ) blockchain is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network that leverages validating nodes often referred to as bakers. XTZ users have...

Amid the ongoing lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple’s legal team reportedly said that they have no plans to settle with the securities watchdog. They are confident that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler will be convinced that pursuing the case is picking winners and losers in the crypto business to the detriment of innovation. No Plans to Settle With SEC, Says Ripple’s Legal Team Ripple’s legal team told Fox Business that it has no plans to settle the lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Charles Gasparino reported. He tweeted Friday: Ripple’s legal team tell Fox Business they have no plans to settle with SEC over lawsuit on XRP , confident they can show Gary Gensler in pursuing the case is picking winners and losers in the crypto business to the detriment of innovation. The SEC sued Ripple Labs, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen in December last year over the sale of XRP . In January, Garlinghouse was...