Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Tether, the operator of one of the leading stablecoins in the crypto market has announced it will commence trials of a system that will allow the company to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) travel rule. The system, that is provided by Notabene, a company that offers ID and travel rule compliance solutions, will allow Tether to automatically communicate travel rule data between Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). Tether Eyes Compliance Solution Tether, the company behind the issuance of the biggest stablecoin by market cap in the cryptocurrency market, USDT , will test trial a solution that will allow it to comply with the travel rule proposed by the Financial Action Task Force. The solution that will be tested, provided by Notabene, a software company that offers compliance solutions, will allow this information to be relayed between VASPs. Tether’s actions are directed to thwart bad actors using USDT to move funds coming from illicit or going to illegal so...

PRESS RELEASE. Blockchain that provides an environment of security, transparency and traceability is an innovative technology that applies in various kinds of life activities. For Africa, it is an opportunity for evolving and making changes. The SimbCity – SimbCoin Swap project, a solution for real estate and finance, is making an impact on the African market with the power of blockchain technology. The project could be viewed as two parts that complement each other, for the real estate part, there is SimbCity project that focuses on booming African tourism industry. In Africa, currently more than 63 million visitors are being received every year, and this number is expected to grow even larger by the year of 2027, which will be astounding 110 million. SimbCity project concentrates on real estate located on popular touristic area of Africa like Kribi, to ensure that it chooses the best locations with minimal expenses and supply reliability for each division. As for the finance part,...

While the blockchain network Solana’s native token has skyrocketed in value this week jumping 31.4%, the Solana-based perpetual swap platform Drift Protocol announced it raised $3.8 million from strategic investors. At the same time, Drift announced the launch of its alpha mainnet after several months of “grind, hard work, debugging, building security guardrails.” Solana Perpetual Swap Exchange Drift Reveals Mainnet Launch, Raises $3.8 Million While centralized exchanges like Binance, FTX, Bybit, and Bitmex offer crypto-based perpetual swaps , decentralized finance (defi) competitors are aiming to take the large amounts of trading volume these trading platforms command. There are a number of decentralized apps (dapps) attempting to move forward in this direction like dYdX, Mango Markets, and MCDEX. On October 25, a Solana-based perpetual swap platform called the Drift Protocol launched its mainnet. “We successfully launched our mainnet at the Solana’s Chicago Hacker House, workin...

Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, has informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a quarterly filing that it may restart the practice of transacting in cryptocurrencies for its products and services. Tesla suspended accepting bitcoin in May, citing environmental concerns. Tesla May Resume Accepting Bitcoin, SEC Filing Shows Tesla Inc. filed a quarterly report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday. The company explained that during the nine months ended Sept. 20, it “purchased an aggregate of $1.50 billion in bitcoin.” In its Q3 earnings report, Tesla’s balance sheet shows bitcoin worth $1.26 billion, after reporting bitcoin-related impairments in the past two quarters. The SEC filing further states that during the three months ended March 31, Tesla “ accepted bitcoin as a payment for sales of certain of our products in specified regions, subject to applicable laws.” However, the company noted that it “suspended this practice in M...

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the SEC v. Ripple case “seems to be going better than expected.” He added that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “is realizing that attacking crypto is politically unpopular.” Coinbase’s CEO on the Ripple Lawsuit, SEC Attacking Crypto The CEO of the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, commented on the enforcement action against Ripple Labs by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday. Referencing a Forbes article titled “The crypto uprising the SEC didn’t see coming,” he tweeted: The Ripple case seems to be going better than expected. Meanwhile, the SEC is realizing that attacking crypto is politically unpopular (because it harms consumers). “The irony is that the people they are supposedly protecting are the ones attacking them,” the Coinbase boss added. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has made a similar statement regarding the SEC. Noting that the regulator is refusing to provide a clear fra...

German authorities are auctioning bitcoin seized from the darknet in cybercrime cases. The auction website reportedly experienced high traffic to bitcoin listings, with 4,000 new registered users over the past few days. German Government Auctioning Seized Bitcoin The Justice Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state by population, announced Monday an auction of bitcoin seized from criminal cases. Justiz Auktion, the auction website for the ministry, experienced high traffic to the bitcoin listings Monday after the prosecutors began listing the cryptocurrency on the site, Bloomberg reported, adding that the auction platform had 4,000 new registered users in the last few days. The bitcoins were seized in cybercrime and drug trafficking cases, mostly from the darknet, the publication conveyed. Prosecutors in Germany cannot sell seized cryptocurrencies on the market; they are required to auction them like any other seized stolen goods. The Ministry of Justice was qu...

PRESS RELEASE. The revolutionary blockchain-based global point integration platform ASSEMBLE Protocol has announced the listing of its utility token ASM on Coinbase, which has been followed swiftly after the ASM-USD and ASM- USDT pairs were enabled on Coinbase Pro. It is highly expected that this development is going to further boost the global adoption of ASM token and also expose it to the larger potential user base across different countries with its latest listing developments. ASM Listed on Coinbase.com As the leading mainstream cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase has become a standard on-ramp for new crypto investors. Coinbase is the NASDAQ listed cryptocurrency exchange, that offers a wide variety of products including cryptocurrency investing, an advanced trading platform, custodial accounts for institutions, a wallet for retail investors, and its own U.S. dollar stable-coin. Coinbase has recently released an announcement that it now supports the ASM-USD...

At the end of July, the product comparison website Finder.com published its research findings from a panel of experts that predicted the crypto asset ethereum would reach $4.5K this year. On October 25, Finder updated its “Ethereum Price Predictions Report” that polled 50 financial technology specialists and ethereum is now expected to reach “$5,114 by the end of this year.” Finder’s Panel Suggests Ethereum Will Be Over $5K by Year’s End Finder, an investing companion application and product comparison website, has published numerous surveys and panel forecasts concerning the growing cryptocurrency economy. The comparison website’s researchers delve into a variety of different crypto assets like bitcoin ( BTC ), litecoin ( LTC ), and ethereum ( ETH ). Last July, Finder’s researchers polled experts in the financial technology (fintech) sector and the group predicted that ether would reach $4.5K by the year’s end and $18,000 by the year 2025. On Monday, Finder.com’s Tim Falk and Ric...

Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady announced on ESPN that he was giving a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan a bitcoin for returning the star quarterback’s 600th touchdown pass ball. However, experts have said that if the fan kept the ball it possibly could have sold for $500K. Tom Brady Announces Intention to Give Fan a Bitcoin in Exchange for His 600th Touchdown Pass Ball On Monday, legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady explained on ESPN that he was giving a Bucs fan, Byron Kennedy, a single bitcoin for returning his 600th touchdown pass. Brady discussed the idea on his Monday Night Football appearance. According to reports, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan was standing near the end zone after Brady and wide receiver Mike Evans completed the touchdown pass. Evans, however, didn’t realize how important the ball was and tossed it to Byron Kennedy after the touchdown. Experts are saying that if Kennedy kept Brady’s 600th touchdown pass football he could have gotten a lot of money for the kee...

In this fall 2021 edition of The Ripple Drop, we explore machine learning’s potential on RippleNet, the exciting developer community that’s building on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and how Central Bank Digital Currencies work and why they can promote financial inclusion. Machine Learning Bolsters Liquidity Speed and Availability on RippleNet Ripple’s SVP of Engineering, Devraj … Continued The post The Ripple Drop: Machine Learning on RippleNet, Developers Building on the XRPL & CBDCs on the XRP Ledger appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/SBL92d

The market history of non-fungible token (NFT) sales has been steadily expanding during the last three months, according to statistics from nonfungible.com’s historical market data. NFT sales over the past three months have increased by 464% since June 27 and the Binance Smart Chain NFT market called Mochi Marketplace is nearing close to a billion dollars in sales. NFT Sales Climb Steadily Over Last 3 Months Nonfungible.com’s all-time market statistics across the last three months indicate that NFT sales have risen 464.53% since the end of June. Today’s top five NFT markets according to metrics from dappradar.com include Opensea, Axie Infinity, Cryptopunks, Mochi Marketplace, and NBA Top Shot. The leading NFT marketplace Opensea is very close to surpassing $10 billion in all-time sales as metrics show Opensea has seen $9.7 billion settled to date. The popular Sky Mavis-crafted, blockchain-based game Axie Infinity is the second-largest NFT market in terms of sales with $2.74 bill...

Five years ago, there was a large quantity of digital currencies and blockchains, but there were very few trading platforms that dealt with decentralized exchange. Since the boom of decentralized finance (defi), there’s now a myriad of decentralized exchange (dex) platforms that allow people to swap funds in a private, non-custodial manner. These days the biggest dex applications are catering to a variety of blockchain networks via cross-chain technology. Curve’s TVL Nears $20 Billion, Curve DAO Token Jumps 82%, Pancakeswap and Sushiswap Follow With TVLs Over $10 Billion Defi has exploded in popularity during the last 12 months and there are numerous applications and platforms tending to the needs of traders and liquidity providers. Currently, there’s $245.1 billion in total value locked in defi platforms today across blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, and more. Data from defillama.com indicates that the lending system Aave has the largest d...

PRESS RELEASE. BlockBank , the platform disrupting mobile banking by blending it with decentralized finance (DeFi) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, is officially launching its all-encompassing financial application in Q4 of 2021. On a mission to grow worldwide accessibility to DeFi and build users’ financial empowerment, BlockBank’s new mobile and online app will combine the best of the traditional finance and DeFi worlds in a secure, private, and user-friendly space. Two major developments on the BlockBank app are the Robo Advisor, a cutting-edge AI-powered resource for individuals as they enter the crypto market, and a revamped tiered staking rewards system that enables users to earn up to 20% APY. BlockBank aims to ensure that everyone has the tools and resources to confidently enter the exciting crypto market without feeling held back by barriers like a lack of institutional knowledge or limited time for research. And now, with the launch of its application, Block...

The uncertainty that prevails in Nigeria’s foreign exchange market is partly to blame for the plunge in cross-border remittances into the country, an official with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. Covid-19 Another Contributing Factor According to a report by local news outlet Punch, the official, Abebe Selassie, said this in response to a question posed to him during a virtual press briefing. However, in his two-part response to the question, Selassie starts by acknowledging the impact the global Covid-19 pandemic has had on cross-border remittances in general. He then asserts that the uncertainty over Nigeria’s exchange rate similarly contributed to the 28% drop in remittances into Nigeria. “A second factor, I think, is the uncertainty in the foreign exchange market that has prevailed in Nigeria over the last year. I don’t think that it has been very conducive to remittances flowing as much as they were before or, indeed, being captured by the official financial s...

The Bank Of Spain has finally opened the mandatory registry for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) in the country. The bank also dispelled doubts that financial institutions had regarding whether they had to apply for the registry given they already comply with AML legislation. All institutions and persons must apply for the registry if they want to provide crypto-related services in Spain. Registry Opened for VASPs The Bank of Spain has finally opened the registry for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) in the country and clarified its scope and the kind of companies and individuals that should register. According to the statements posted on the Virtual Office of the Bank of Spain, all platforms offering services in Spain must register, even those not located in the country. The Bank of Spain also stipulated that companies can only register via internet, while individuals can go to the offices of the General Registry of the Bank of Spain to deliver the requested document...

The budget law for the next year, which was recently approved by the Colombian representative’s chamber, includes a controversial article that allows the state to confiscate a bank customer’s funds to be used for budgetary purposes. Under certain circumstances defined by the law, these could funds may be retrieved if the account holders’ prove their ownership. Colombian Government Craving Unused Funds The new budget law that was approved last week via an express vote by Colombian legislators, has introduced a controversial change, allowing the government to take a client’s funds that have been inactive in bank accounts for more than a year. Article 81 of the mentioned budge law details the procedure followed to do this. It states: The balances of the checking or savings accounts that have been inactive for a period of more than one year and do not exceed the value equivalent to 322 UVR ($24.40), will be transferred by the holding financial entities… in order to finance appropriat...

With $78 billion in remittances in 2020 from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) combined, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is home to two of the top three remittance corridors in the world. The region is also undergoing a fast-moving shift to digital and boasts one of the world’s most progressive … Continued The post Ripple Continues to Build Momentum in MENA With First On-Demand Liquidity Deployment in Middle East appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/SBJTFC

PRESS RELEASE. A crypto platform Crypto Gaming United (CGU), which has joined the crypto exchange TimeX on the 18th of october, made $2.5 million in a record-breaking six seconds since public token trading began. One of the co-founders of the project is a crypto-currency, DeFi and blockchain app entrepreneur Sergei Sergienko born in Russia. CGU operates on the principles of uber-economy. Gamers don’t need to spend money on the initial purchase of NFT-characters. The platform rents them out to players in exchange for a share of their daily income. Meanwhile the games themselves reward players with income proportionate to their in-game skill and performance. The open market sale of GCU tokens became the third and final investment round. For context, previously the seed and pre-IDO rounds had ended at $5 million and $10 million respectively. The tokens released during these rounds have a blocking period with a 3 year rights transfer schedule. This means that CGU’s tokens are now on...

Sandile Shezi, the South African bitcoin trader accused of defrauding investors, recently made his first court appearance before a Johannesburg magistrate. Shezi out on Bail The bitcoin trader’s court appearance came just days after he honored his pledge to surrender himself to the police. However, according to a report by the Sowetan, Shezi — who is now out on bail — is set to return to court on November 24. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, Shezi is facing fraud allegations that stem from his failure to honor promises he made to Allan Ledwaba, an investor in the latter’s Global Forex Institute. Although Shezi has repeatedly denied the allegations, Ledwaba and an unnamed investor still went on to file complaints against the bitcoin trader. The filing of these complaints then culminated in the issuing of the warrant for the bitcoin trader’s arrest. The report in the meantime quotes Ledwaba commenting on Shezi’s arrest and his subsequent court appearance. He said: To...

Elon Musk has revealed the real reason he supports the meme cryptocurrency dogecoin. He shared that a lot of people he talks to at his companies, Tesla and Spacex, own dogecoin, noting that “it felt like the people’s crypto.” Lots of People Elon Musk Talks to at Spacex and Tesla Own Dogecoin Tesla and Spacex CEO Elon Musk revealed Sunday the real reason he began supporting dogecoin. He noted that many people he talks to at both companies own the meme cryptocurrency. Responding to a tweet by dogecoin holder Glauber Contessoto , who said the appeal for DOGE is real, referencing a survey that found about a third of U.S. crypto holders own the meme cryptocurrency, Musk wrote: Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at Spacex own Doge. They aren’t financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That’s why I decided to support Doge — it felt like the people’s crypto. The Doge community welcomes Musk’s comment and support. “Most of us don’t c...

Payments giant Mastercard has partnered with a cryptocurrency exchange to allow its partners and merchants in the U.S. to offer crypto solutions, including the buying, selling, and holding of cryptocurrencies. “We want to offer all of our partners the ability to more easily add crypto services to whatever it is they’re doing.” Mastercard’s Network Integrates Crypto Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and cryptocurrency exchange platform Bakkt (NYSE: BKKT) announced “a multifaceted partnership” Monday at the Money20/20 event. The partnership aims “to make it easier for merchants, banks, and fintechs in the U.S. to embrace and offer a broad set of cryptocurrency solutions and services,” the announcement details. “Bakkt extends Mastercard’s ecosystem of cryptocurrency partners enabling crypto-as-a-service, which provides quick access to cryptocurrency capabilities.” The two companies explained: Mastercard partners will be able to offer cryptocurrency solutions. These include the ability for cons...

Player wins a mighty big jackpot in the flashy new sequel Aloha King Elvis! on our crypto casino! A massive 1000x on the exciting Hawaiian-themed slot game The charismatic Elvis Frog has been taking a trip to Hawaii lately in BGaming’s popular new slot game on Bitcoin.com’s very own crypto casino. The titular character King Elvis has now bestowed riches upon one lucky player who landed a massive win on Aloha King Elvis! This big win comes at the onset of Halloween that should allow the player to enjoy his newly acquired riches quite festively. The Hawaiian-themed slot game features two jackpots, namely a Mini and a Major, both applying a 200x and a 1000x multiplier to the player bet amount respectively. A Major jackpot was applied to the lucky player’s bet that propelled his casino wallet’s balance into an exponential frenzy adding an amount equalling roughly 1.9 BTC as per current evaluations. King Elvis bestows generous riches onto the player with a 1000x multiplier ! ‘A...

PRESS RELEASE. MetaWars, an innovative, multiplayer strategy blockchain-based game, has successfully raised $2.3 million USD from its supporting investors. MetaWars has collaborated with various investors and partners to incorporate blockchain into the emerging gaming industry and revolutionize NFTs. The game has recently announced their exclusive NFT auction starting from October 21st. The auction will be ongoing until the date of their confirmed TGE, the 27th of October. The NFT auction offers participants a range of NFTs that provide advantageous benefits for players in-game from a minimum price of 0.2 BNB . To know more about MetaWars’ exclusive NFT auction event, visit here . MetaWars, as mentioned, will be hosting their TGE on the 27th of October in collaboration with three launchpads, Polylauncher, Red Kite and GameFi. Their utility token, $WARS, has a total supply of 1,500,000,000 and is required for an in-game token $GAM for staking, upgrades, trading and more on their N...

After the price of bitcoin tapped an all-time high above the $67K handle, it then dropped below the $60K zone to $59,510 per unit. Since then, the leading crypto asset has regained some of the losses and bitcoin is still up 2.4% during the last seven days. However, a great number of crypto assets have outperformed bitcoin’s weekly rise, capturing double-digit gains as high as 65.1%. Thorchain, Nexo, Near, Okb, Shiba Inu, Safemoon Values Spike Digital currency markets are on the move again as the $2.733 trillion market valuation of all 10,000+ crypto assets is up 4.6% on Monday. BTC has jumped a bit higher during the latter half of Sunday’s trading sessions into Monday and BTC has gained 2.4% this past week. But there’s over 55 different digital assets that have outperformed BTC ’s weekly gains. The top seven-day gainer this week is thorchain (RUNE) which has jumped a whopping 65.1% this past week. The crypto asset thorchain has a $3.3 billion market capitalization and $208 millio...

On Sunday, Elon Musk discussed his relationship with the Dogecoin Foundation and he mentioned a few improvements he’d like to see implemented via Dogecoin Core’s codebase. Meanwhile, Github metrics show developers have been working on Dogecoin Core during the last few months and it seems Dogecoin software engineers are prepping the network to address fees, transaction time, and mining. Dogecoin Proponents Including Elon Musk Patiently Wait for a fee Change Fix, Dogecoin Core Repo Has Been Active At the end of June, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk tweeted about the fee change proposal added to the Dogecoin Core Github repository. At the time, Musk said it was “important to support” it. The following week, people noticed that Dogecoin software developers Ross Nicoll and Patrick Lodder were maintaining the project and looking to add Musk’s suggestions. Lodder’s Dogecoin Core fee change proposal explained that the fix would be “gradually deployed to the network over multiple software releases....

During the last few weeks, a project called Worldcoin has been the subject of numerous headlines and speculation. Worldcoin launched on October 21 and aims to be a universal basic income (UBI) crypto asset that gives free tokens to accounts that are verified with a biometric eye scan. The project has privacy advocates reeling and whistleblower Edward Snowden slammed the project’s creators and said “don’t catalogue eyeballs.” Worldcoin Turns Heads in the Crypto World as It Wants to Scan Your Eyeballs in Exchange for Free Crypto There’s a new cryptocurrency project that is turning heads because of the way it disperses funds to network participants. The project Worldcoin was introduced to the world by Alex Blania and Sam Altman and the team hopes to get one billion people using the crypto asset by the end of 2022. Worldcoin launched on October 21, and the founders have raised $25 million from strategic investors like Blockchange, Coinbase Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz, and Linkedin co-...