Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The chief executive officer of the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, says he is “more on the Jamie Dimon camp” when asked whether he thinks bitcoin is worthless. However, the executive says he is fascinated by people’s interest in crypto and sees “a huge role for a digitized currency.” Blackrock’s CEO Sides With JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon on the Value of Bitcoin Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager with $9.5 trillion in assets under management, Blackrock, answered some questions about cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin, in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. He was asked whether he was “still in the Jamie Dimon’s category of ‘bitcoin is worthless'” or whether he saw value in the cryptocurrency. Dimon, the CEO of global investment bank JPMorgan, said earlier this week: “I personally think that bitcoin is worthless.” He also questioned the limited supply of the cryptocurrency. The Blackrock executive replied: I am probably more on the Jamie Dimon camp....

Dreamr Labs flagship product, the Dreamr app, continues to gain momentum in new user signups one month after the DMR token launch. Roadmap is being accelerated to meet consumer demand for dreamr technologies. Dreamr (Ticker: DMR ) is the community-driven platform created for users to pursue their personal and entrepreneurial dreams. The platform helps people to build a supportive tribe around their declared dream, features an encrypted messenger, and has decentralized financial tools in its roadmap to help users overcome the inevitable monetary obstacles that get in their way . Users can earn DMR tokens by using the dreamr app to declare their dream and connect with others on the platform pursuing their own ambitions and goals. The DMR token has utility in the form of platform governance, which gives token holders a real say in making changes to the dreamr development roadmap. Dreamr has also disclosed plans in its white paper to turn user’s dream content and stories into NF...

The chief executive officer of global investment bank Morgan Stanley says that cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, is not a fad. Noting that they are not going to go away, he said: “We’re watchful of it, we’re respectful, and we’ll wait and see how the regulators handle it.” Morgan Stanley’s CEO Says Bitcoin and Crypto Aren’t Going Away Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman talked about bitcoin and cryptocurrency during the bank’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts Thursday morning. Emphasizing that crypto is not going to go away, he said: I’ve said it publicly before, I’ll say it again. I don’t think crypto’s a fad. I don’t know what the value of bitcoin should or shouldn’t be, but these things aren’t going away. He added: “The blockchain technology supporting it is obviously very real and powerful.” Morgan Stanley was among the first major banks to embrace bitcoin. In March, the bank revealed that it had begun offering bitcoin funds to clients. In April, the bank added bit...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has tweeted about investing in funds that hold bitcoin futures contracts. This has sparked optimism within the crypto community that the regulator may soon approve bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), especially those investing in bitcoin futures. Optimism Grows That SEC Will Approve a Bitcoin Futures ETF Soon The official Twitter account for the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy tweeted Thursday: “Before investing in a fund that holds bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits.” The tweet references an investor bulletin jointly published in June by the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) Office of Customer Education and Outreach. The bulletin urges “investors considering a fund with exposure to the bitcoin futures market to weigh carefully the potential risks and benefits of the investment.” Comments ...

The billionaire CEO of Starwood Capital, an investment firm with over $95 billion under management, has revealed that he owns bitcoin and ether. “The U.S. government, and every government in the Western Hemisphere, is printing money now to the end of time, and this is a finite amount of something and it can be traded globally,” he explained. Billionaire Barry Sternlicht Owns Bitcoin and Ether Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, an investment firm with over $95 billion in assets under management (AUM), talked about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. According to Forbes’ list of billionaires, Sternlicht’s net worth as of Oct. 14 is $4.4 billion. The Starwood Capital boss revealed that he owns bitcoin and ether, noting that cryptocurrency makes sense as a way to diversify investment portfolios. Commenting on what JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said about bitcoin being worthless , he said, “Gold is kind of worthless too.” Discussing bit...

In mid-July 2017, the largest darknet marketplace (DNM) Alphabay went dark and patrons didn’t know if the administrators were busted by law enforcement or if it was an exit scam. Not too long after the site went dark, law enforcement disclosed that an organized police task force, from various jurisdictions, infiltrated Alphabay alongside the DNM Hansa. Thailand police also arrested Alexandre Cazes, the alleged administrator for the Alphabay marketplace. Now over four years later, Alphabay (AB) has allegedly returned as the original AB admin “Desnake” has ostensibly ‘proven control’ over the AB administrators’ PGP key. The So-Called Return of the Alphabay, New Platform Unstable, Veracity of Desnake’s PGP Key Questionable During the last few weeks, darknet marketplace (DNM) users, researchers, and observers have been discussing the so-called return of the Alphabay (AB) marketplace. The DNM was the largest darknet market in 2017, and before the publication Deepdotweb was seized, it had...

There’s a reason Ajshia Najafian is one of the first faces new employees see when they start at Ripple. Warmth and a willingness to help are essential in her role, but Ajshia takes it a step further by showing up every day as her most authentic self and creating a space for others to do … Continued The post LatinX at Ripple Co-Lead Ajshia Najafian on Authenticity in Identity appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/S9ZyJL

PRESS RELEASE. Playing games has taken another dimension entirely through a new play-to-earn model that makes earning generating crypto revenue easier than ever. Revolve Games is revolutionizing the way DeFi staking is integrated with blockchain gaming by debuting a Metaverse where players can earn rewards according to performance. Current games fall short in unlocking the true value of play-to-earn NFT games. But a token-staking play-to-earn model is what the NFT scene needs so players can fully dive in the immersive gameplay of the metaverse and capitalize on their skills and experience. Revolve Games Metaverse is the first AAA quality inter-planetary sandbox metaverse. Players can explore the galaxy with their NFT tethered spacecraft, buy land on planets, shape the landscape and build their own games. Teleportation portal NFTs allow them to instantly travel between your favourite set destinations in the metaverse. Recent partnerships with other popular NFT games like Netvrk mea...

Richard Buckminster Fuller was a well known American architect, systems theorist, author, and inventor. Similar to the visions expressed by the industrialist Henry Ford, the Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, and Austrian economist Milton Friedman, Buckminster Fuller also predicted a concept that resembled Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin invention 54 years ago in 1967. Buckminster Fuller: ‘Build a New Model That Makes the Existing Model Obsolete’ In a recent editorial, Bitcoin.com News discussed how the famed industrialist Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, envisaged an idea that’s similar to Bitcoin roughly 100 years ago. It was further said that before cypherpunks like Timothy May and Eric Hughes wrote about digital cash, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman also predicted a technology that would operate similarly to Satoshi’s Bitcoin project. Buckminster Fuller was another intelligent individual who predicted the invention of cryptocurrencies and new wealth. Fuller was n...

Superrare Labs has revealed the first-ever non-fungible token (NFT) drop crafted by the renowned photographer Bill Bernstein and the legendary Studio 54. The NFT drop features the nightlife photographs taken by Bernstein from the iconic Studio 54 and Paradise Garage. Additionally, Superrare has also unveiled NFT collectibles that showcase 8-bit animations of Studio 54 and music from Jitwam, Teymori, and Studio 54 Music. Studio 54 Lights Up the Nightlife With NFT Photos From the Iconic Disco Club and Paradise Garage 44 years ago, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened a nightclub called Studio 54, launched during the peak of America’s disco trend. In a matter of no time, the club became world-famous and stars like Woody Allen, Betty Ford, Calvin Klein, Timothy Leary, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli, David Bowie, Cher, Rick James, and Mick Jagger regularly attended. The club itself has closed and in 2020, the company expanded into a record label called Studio 54 Music and has a radio sta...

A Zimbabwean business lobby group, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), has warned that the country’s currency could collapse if authorities fail to “implement policy measures that are needed to support it.” Central Bank Approach Unsettling the Market In a letter seen by Bitcoin.com News, the lobby group’s president Kurai Matsheza explained that the heavy-handed approach towards the foreign exchange challenge would be unsettling to markets. To ensure that this challenge is fully tackled, the CZI boss insists that measures, which were agreed upon by parties that attended a consultative meeting, must be given time to take effect. Following the Zimdollar’s collapse in 2008, Zimbabwe switched to a multi-currency system in which the U.S. dollar dominated. However, in 2019 the Zimbabwean dollar or ZWL, which was then at par with the USD, was reintroduced. Yet nearly two years later, the ZWL/USD exchange rate is now 88:1 on the official market and over 170:1 on the parallel ma...

Fox Entertainment and Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) has announced the launch of maskverse.com, a non-fungible token marketplace and community dedicated to the entertainment series and hit singing competition “The Masked Singer.” According to Fox and BCL, the NFT marketplace and a game will be powered by the Eluvio blockchain. Fox, Blockchain Creative Labs, Eluvio Introduce The Masked Singer NFT Marketplace In mid-May, Fox Broadcasting Company, the American commercial broadcast television network, announced it was launching a non-fungible token (NFT) business called Blockchain Creative Labs. In June, Fox detailed that it had teamed up with Bento Box Entertainment (BBE) and initiated a $100 million fund aimed at empowering NFT content creators. Now the broadcasting and entertainment company is unveiling an NFT ecosystem dedicated to the popular singing competition show “The Masked Singer.” Fox and BCL launched maskverse.com, which allows fans of “The Masked Singer” (TMS) to “buil...

Today, Ripple is excited to announce it is joining the Digital Pound Foundation, a non-profit focused on the development and implementation of a digital Pound in the United Kingdom. Ripple, as a Foundation member, will be represented on the board by Susan Friedman, Head of Policy. Ripple’s participation in the Foundation continues our ongoing work … Continued The post Ripple Joins the Digital Pound Foundation: Designing a Path for a CBDC-Forward Future appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/S9XWjb

YIELD App, a FinTech company and digital asset wealth management platform, has published its Q3 report, showing the firm continuing on a strong growth trajectory over the third quarter of 2021, which saw it double its managed assets and strike a high profile partnership with Premier League football club, West Ham United. The quarter saw YIELD App’s managed assets increase by 107% from $163.6 million at the end of June 2021 to $339.4 million by the end of September, marking a bold first nine months for YIELD App following its beta launch in December 2020 and public launch in February of this year. YIELD App said the increase had been driven in large part by the launch of its Bitcoin Fund in July, which reached its cap of 500 BTC in just a few days of its first fundraising round. The re-opening of the fund in August also saw one of the firm’s biggest days for new user sign-ups, with close to 1,500 new users joining on August 20th. Asset growth was further boosted by a growing numbe...

A deficit in crypto talent is pushing salaries up in Indian companies engaged with the domestic and global blockchain industry, local media reported quoting data from recent studies. Demand for professionals in the field has been growing rapidly in the past year. Crypto Experience Can Bring up to $100,000 in Annual Salary Indian IT companies providing services to global clients, fintech startups, and consulting firms have been competing for specialists with experience in crypto technologies, resulting in what the Economic Times describes as a war of wages. A report by the business daily indicates that demand for this type of talent has increased significantly over the last months. The number of active job openings this month, the newspaper wrote on Wednesday, stands at over 12,000 which represents a 50% increase since last year. The quoted numbers come from the latest report by staffing services company Xpheno . The relatively young age of cryptocurrency technology, just over a ...

St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard told the press on Tuesday that he thinks the U.S. central bank needs to wind down the buying of $80 billion worth of monthly bond purchases. Bullard says he would support tapering starting as early as November, in order to “react to possible upside risks to inflation next year.” St. Louis Fed President Has Been ‘Advocating Trying to Get Finished With the Taper Process’ On Tuesday, Bitcoin.com News reported on the rising concerns over inflation as the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) report explained U.S. households believe inflation will be higher a year from now. It’s been more than 20 months since the U.S. central bank started its massive quantitative easing (QE) programs to combat the disastrous economic consequences of government-ordered lockdowns and supply chain shutdowns. *BULLARD: CONCERNED THAT INFLATION RISKS ARE TO THE UPSIDE Oh rly? — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 4, 2021 The govern...

The owners of a cryptocurrency firm that raised approximately $24 million from more than 13,000 investors have pleaded guilty to tax evasion. “These crypto-savvy defendants exploited an emerging technology, lying to their investors, pocketing the proceeds, and concealing the income from the IRS,” said acting U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham. Crypto Firm’s Founders Face up to 5 Years in Jail The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that the owners of a cryptocurrency company have pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Bitqyck founders Bruce Bise and Samuel Mendez were charged with tax evasion in August. Bise pleaded guilty on Sept. 9 and Mendez pleaded guilty Tuesday morning. Citing plea papers, the DOJ detailed: Mr. Bise and Mr. Mendez admitted that Bitqyck raised approximately $24 million from more than 13,000 investors. Instead of fulfilling their promises to these investors, the defendants used Bitqyck funds on personal expenses, including casino trips, cars, luxury home furni...

Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe says that a collapse in the cryptocurrency market is certainly “plausible,” stating that regulators worldwide need to pursue crypto rules “as a matter of urgency.” While cryptocurrencies do not currently pose a threat to the country’s financial stability, the deputy governor says there are some “very good reasons” to think that this might not be the case for very much longer. Crypto Collapse Plausible, Crypto Rules Are ‘a Matter of Urgency’ Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe talked about cryptocurrency and its regulation on Wednesday at the SIBOS conference. He emphasized that regulators worldwide need to work quickly and establish rules to regulate cryptocurrencies, given the rapid growth of the industry and how long it takes to put new rules in place. He said: Regulators internationally and in many jurisdictions have begun the work. It needs to be pursued as a matter of urgency. As an example of how long it takes to estab...

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez says that cryptocurrency is a “major priority” for him as he attempts to build his city into the crypto capital of the world. “I want us to differentiate ourselves as a crypto capital of the United States or of the world,” he said. ‘Major Priority’ — Miami Aims to Become Crypto Capital of the World Miami Mayor Francis Suarez talked about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in an interview with Bloomberg, published Tuesday. The mayor has been lobbying lawmakers to allow government employees to be paid in bitcoin in addition to allowing taxes to be paid in the cryptocurrency and for the city to invest a portion of funds in BTC . He was asked how much of a priority crypto initiatives were for him. Mayor Suarez replied: It’s a major priority for me because I want us to differentiate ourselves as a crypto capital of the United States or of the world. “We have actually done three things,” he shared. “One is that we are going to request a proposal in October to allow...

A FINMA-licensed Swiss bank, Seba, has launched a program enabling clients to earn yield on their crypto holdings. In addition, the bank will “provide support for centralized lending and borrowing services, enabling investors to generate yield by lending bitcoin and ethereum directly with Seba Bank.” Seba Earn Lets Clients Generate Rewards From Crypto Investments Seba Bank, a digital asset banking platform licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), announced the launch of Seba Earn Wednesday. The Switzerland-based bank described the new offering as “an institutional-grade solution enabling clients to earn yield on their crypto holdings.” Noting that “The launch of Seba Earn caters to growing demand from institutions to manage a range of digital asset yield use cases from staking to decentralized finance (defi), and centralized lending and borrowing,” the bank elaborated: Seba Earn’s comprehensive staking management platform will enable institutions and ...

PRESS RELEASE. Vulcan Forged has launched a new and revolutionary decentralized exchange for gaming tokens following the success of its gaming metaverse, VulcanVerse. Cardiff, United Kingdom – Blockchain gaming platform, Vulcan Forged , is announcing the launch of the first-ever decentralized exchange (DEX) purpose-built for gaming tokens, VulcanDEX . The DEX will allow users of the gaming platform to trade any gaming token without the need to register. Players will then be able to use their newly acquired tokens in their respective game. Users will also be able to stake gaming tokens to facilitate exchanges in VulcanDEX, with users earning rewards in proportion to their share of specific liquidity pools. The DEX currently has 4 active pools for this purpose, with several more, including $YGG, $SAND $AXS and $VNLA coming soon. Moreover, in-game assets can be farmed in VulcanDEX in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), creating an active economy that involve several popular bloc...

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021, the market capitalization of all the stablecoins in existence is around $134 billion, which is 5.60% of the entire $2.4 trillion crypto economy. While centralized stablecoin projects dominate the pack of dollar-pegged tokens, a great number of decentralized stablecoins have been moving in on these centralized competitors. Algorithmic or defi-styled stablecoin market caps have accrued billions of dollars this past year. While Tether and USD Coin Eclipse the Market, Algorithmic Defi Stablecoins Still Shine Tether ( USDT ) is one of the oldest and the largest stablecoins by market cap today, while the second-largest stablecoin valuation belongs to usd coin (USDC). Data from Coingecko’s stablecoin-by-market-cap metrics indicates that on October 13, there’s $134 billion in stablecoin assets. A great majority of those funds belong to tether and usd coin as USDT has a market cap of around $70.9 billion and USDC commands $33.3 billion. Despite controversial...

After China has reigned for a number of consecutive years as the dominant bitcoin mining epicenter of the world, the United States has “taken the leading position in bitcoin mining,” according to new data from Cambridge University. Data Shows US, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation Rule the Bitcoin Mining Roost In mid-July, researchers from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) project published new data from the website’s “Bitcoin Mining Map,” which had not been updated since April 2020. In that specific report, CBECI researchers noted that China’s hashrate dominance was much lower than in previous estimates. On October 13, CBECI researchers published updated data on all the countries participating in bitcoin mining and where most of the mining activity is taking place these days. “The latest update to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) has confirmed the impact of the Bitcoin mining crackdown in China,” the report detailed. “[It shows] tha...

During the second week of October, bitcoin market values have maintained prices between $54K to $57K. Meanwhile, myriad alternative crypto assets have not yet seen the gains the leading crypto asset has enjoyed during the last two weeks. For instance, cardano used to be the third-largest crypto market in terms of valuation, but after losing 4.8% cardano has slid down to the fifth position this past week. Cardano Drops from 3rd-Largest Crypto Market Cap to 5th-Largest The digital currency cardano (ADA) has seen some decent gains during the last 12 months as ADA has increased by 1,840.5% year-to-date. Even Kiss frontman Gene Simmons told the world on October 10, why he invested $300K in cardano ( ADA ) and how it’s paid off for him so far. However, during the last month, ADA is down 18% and 4.8% over the last seven days. ADA ’s market cap is not small and just under the stablecoin tether’s ( USDT ) overall valuation as cardano’s market cap is around $68.1 billion on Wednesday. A...