Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Bancolombia, Colombia’s largest bank, will be offering cryptocurrency trading to customers in a pilot program within a regulatory framework established by the country’s financial regulator, the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (SFC). Customers of the Colombian bank will be able to trade bitcoin, ether, litecoin, and bitcoin cash. Bancolombia to Offer Cryptocurrency Trading to Customers in Regulatory Sandbox Bancolombia, the largest bank in Colombia by total assets, is set to offer cryptocurrency trading to customers in partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, a New York trust company and custodian regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Cynthia Del Pozo Garcia, the exchange’s principal of strategy & corporate development, announced Monday that starting Dec. 14: Gemini and Bancolombia will launch a partnership to provide an initial cohort of customers of the Colombian bank a seamless on- and off-ramp to trade bitcoin ( BTC ), ether ( ET...

PRESS RELEASE. LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA: The GoCrypto project always strives to bring crypto payments into the mainstream. The upgraded solution dubbed GoCrypto 2.0 enables true decentralized payments where the merchant can accept virtually any currency and receive the settlement in its desired crypto currency without virtually any central entity in between. The solution would at its core utilize blockchains that support smart contracts in order to enable automatic processing of the payments and its several steps, such as acceptance of payment, routing and swapping of the funds, fee collection, settlement to a crypto currency address or execution of smart contracts, etc. It will also be possible to connect third party bridges that will enable interaction with blockchains that don’t support smart contracts and possibly even legacy payments such as cards and digital wallets. How it works: Below is the description of the payment flow. The Merchant POS system generates a QR code with inst...

Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), is reportedly planning to propose legislation to restrict stablecoin issuance to banks and wire transfer companies. Crypto service providers involved in stablecoin transactions, including wallets, will also be brought under the financial regulator’s oversight. Japan to Tighten Stablecoin Regulation Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) is planning to tighten the regulation of stablecoins by imposing strict rules on their issuers, Nikkei reported Monday, stating: The Financial Services Agency seeks to propose legislation in 2022 to restrict issuance of stablecoins to banks and wire transfer companies. The FSA will also tighten regulations related to the prevention of money laundering, the publication added, noting that crypto service providers involved in stablecoin transactions, including wallets, will also be brought under the financial regulator’s oversight. In addition, stablecoin issuers will be require...

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has unveiled its plan to become a “fully licensed and fully compliant” exchange in order to serve users in the U.K. The crypto exchange is reportedly “making a number of very substantial changes” in the way it operates in order to comply with the country’s regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Binance Plans to Launch a Fully Licensed Crypto Exchange in the UK Binance is working to become a fully licensed and fully compliant cryptocurrency exchange in order to launch in the U.K. where it recently ran into trouble with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), said in an interview with The Telegraph that Binance will reapply for a license with the FCA. He believes that his exchange’s relationship with the British regulator has improved. He told the news outlet: We’re fully re-engaged there … We’re making a number of very substantial changes in organizational structures, product offerings, our interna...

Bitcoin.com is set to put players in the mood to celebrate Christmas with one of the biggest giveaways of the year! 💰$10,000 in Cash Prizes Up For Grabs🎁 Christmas festivities start early this year at our very own crypto casino, Bitcoin.com Games , as we’ve launched a brand new raffle that culminates into a draw announced on Christmas day. Lucky players at the end of the draw will take home cash prizes worth $10,000 that are likely to set them up nicely for the year-end celebrations. Anyone can win! That’s the allure that is attracting plenty of players to this one-of-a-kind promotion. Upping the ante of the holiday spirit is the fact that you can play any game available on the casino to claim your tickets to the raffle. Any player can be the happy receiver of the luck of the draw with 10 positions being rewarded at the end of the raffle. Even if you have just 1 ticket, it is possible for you to land the top prize of $3,000 all by yourself simply by having lady luck on your sid...

PRESS RELEASE. Crypto Perx will be listed, starting today, November 22nd on FMFW.io cryptocurrency exchange. It is a new utility token (ERC20) based on the Ethereum Blockchain. CRPX was developed by the Crypto Banking Alliance (CBA), also known as Auriga Alliance AG, and the first project having it on board was ABRA Perx by ABRA – a world-class platform for managing cryptocurrency. The CBA will provide 3 billion Crypto Perx coins, and 1 of them will be part of Abra’s new project. From now on, FMFW.io is introducing this digital currency to traders. Promotion and education of the safe and ethical implementation of cryptocurrency technology for the smooth functioning of the decentralized financial system is the primary goal of the Crypto Banking Alliance. Due to the belief that digitized banks are the future, they aim to promote cryptocurrencies and the possibility of security provided by the blockchain system as an essential banking point. FMFW.io Statement “The availability and u...

During the last seven days, virtual lands sold in the metaverse have outpaced a great number of non-fungible token (NFT) sales. Moreover, metaverse native crypto tokens like axie infinity, sandbox and decentraland and play-to-earn digital assets in general have jumped significantly in value this year. Metaverse Properties Outpace NFT Collections — Play-to-Earn Tokens Rise Following the meme-crypto hype, the decentralized finance (defi) trend, and the non-fungible token (NFT) craze, the metaverse has become a big deal. Essentially, a metaverse is a different version of the internet that supports virtual environments, items, collectibles, weapons, and sometimes play-to-earn features. Virtual worlds like Second Life, Minecraft, and Roblox can be considered iterations of the metaverse but in recent times, blockchain technology has entered the realm. For instance, out of the $2.3 trillion crypto economy, $25 billion of it belongs to play-to-earn (P2E) digital assets. Axie infinity (AXS)...

The Kleiman v. Wright trial has come to a conclusion and Craig Wright and his defense team has won on all claims except one count of conversion. According to a court reporter, Craig Wright, the man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, said he was “incredibly relieved.” Craig Wright’s Defense Wins on All Claims Except Conversion — Wright Says ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere, I’m Here for the Long Term’ After the jury was deadlocked in the Kleiman v. Wright case for days last week, the jurors came to a decision on Monday, December 6, 2021. Craig Wright and his defense team from Rivero Mestre LLP have managed to beat all the charges except one count of conversion. We have a verdict. Or a hung jury. We've got something at least. Back in the courtroom, waiting for everyone to get here and figure out what's going on. — Carolina Bolado (@CarolinaBolado) December 6, 2021 The jurors ruled that while Wright was cleared of most charges, he must pay $100 million to W&K Info Defense a...

As bitcoin and a number of crypto assets have dropped in value during the last two weeks, its seems that everyone’s hope for six-digit bitcoin prices has become unattainable. However, year-to-date, bitcoin has risen more than 150% in value and despite the rise, skeptics and critics continue to assume bitcoin is dead. In fact, the infamous bitcoin obituary list indicates that 2021 is tied with 2019 for having the third-largest number of obituaries in a year. Bitcoin Obituaries: 2021 Is Now Tied With 2019 On November 10, bitcoin ( BTC ) tapped an all-time price high at $69K per unit and has since slid below the $50K zone. It seems that higher prices give skeptics the opportunity to declare bitcoin is dead after the leading crypto asset sheds a decent amount of value during market downturns. In 2017, when BTC came awfully close to reaching $20K per unit, the bitcoin obituaries list , hosted on 99bitcoins.com shows that there were 124 bitcoin deaths that year. The second-largest year ...

El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro believes that mining bitcoin with a volcano, or geothermal energy, will “end in environmental disaster.” Navarro believes geothermal energy costs more than oil, and thinks El Salvador’s millennial president Nayib Bukele’s decision is questionable. Salvadoran ecologist Ricardo Navarro Questions His Country’s Volcano-Powered Bitcoin City Venture During the second week of June, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele told the public that the Latin American country planned to mine bitcoin ( BTC ) with energy stemming from volcanoes located in the country. At the end of September, Bukele shared a video of the initial construction of the Salvadoran volcano-powered bitcoin mining facility. Now the president and his government have been criticized by El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro. The Salvadoran ecologist explained to Telegraph contributor Simeon Tegel that developing a ‘Bitcoin City’ next to a volcano doesn’t make sense. “T...

PRESS RELEASE. Bitcoin of America has been named a silver winner in the Company of the Year – Midwest category in Best in Biz Awards, the only independent business awards program judged each year by prominent editors and reporters from top-tier publications in North America. Bitcoin of America is a popular virtual currency exchange, registered as a money services business with the United States Department of Treasury (FinCEN)(RegNum). Apart from ensuring a fast and hassle-free transaction, their customer support makes them the best in the industry. Bitcoin of America has demonstrated rapid growth. In June of this year, Bitcoin of America’s Chief Financial Officer reported record company growth. In January, the company had a total of 630 Bitcoin ATMs. To date, they have seen a 138.095% increase in their number of locations. They even hit a major achievement of 1500 plus BTMs. Bitcoin of America has also seen enormous growth in their number of employees. In just one year their team g...

Bitmart, a cryptocurrency exchange, suffered an attack yesterday that exploited some security vulnerabilities in order to gain access to the funds of the exchange. The attack targeted the hot wallets of the platform, specifically the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain-based wallets. The hackers managed to take almost $200 million in tokens from the platform. Bitmart Hot Wallets Exploited Bitmart has lost more than $200 million in a hack that involved its hot wallets yesterday. The issue was first identified by Peckshield, a blockchain security and auditing company, that raised the alarm about a possible hot wallet vulnerability on social media. The involved wallets were those that held ETH and BSC-based tokens. Bitmart representatives estimated the losses at $150 million initially, but PeckShield did an investigation of the funds taken, saying losses were around $200 million. The hack took significant amounts of SHIB, SAFEMOON, SAND, and MANA, among others. The event affected the ...

A bug in the token lending contract of the Solana Program Library (SPL) was recently found and fixed by Neodyme, a security auditing firm. The bug, that was discovered a couple of months back, could have affected several decentralized finance protocols holding more than $2 billion in total value locked (TVL). Their team identified the possible protocols using this contract (or derivatives of it) and disclosed the bug immediately. Solana SPL Rounding Bug Puts Funds at Risk A bug in one of the token lending contracts that is part of Solana’s Program Library (SPL), a group of on-chain programs targeting the Sealevel parallel runtime on Solana, put the funds of several protocols at risk. Neodyme, a security agency, had disclosed this vulnerability months ago and alerted about it, but the bug, due to its apparently innocuous effect, had not been resolved. The bug caused a rounding error that delivers more tokens than the ones being deposited by the users to the contract. However, the b...

There are reports that the Indian government may impose restrictions on self-custodial cryptocurrency wallets and only allow Indian crypto exchanges. The CEO of a major cryptocurrency exchange in India has shared his thoughts on the possible restrictions. The Indian government has listed a cryptocurrency bill to be taken up in the current session of parliament. Possible Restrictions in Indian Crypto Regulation A cryptocurrency bill is waiting to be heard in the current session of parliament in India. The country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has confirmed that the bill needed to be reworked from its original version that seeks to ban cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin in ether. However, she still has not revealed what’s actually in the bill, leading to much speculation. The CEO of local cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx discussed some of the speculations in a series of tweets Friday. “There have been unconfirmed reports” that “‘Self custodial wallets’ may not be allowed ...

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Phemex is celebrating its 2nd anniversary this November. It’s been an eventful couple of years for the derivatives platform, and with its Choose Your Reality event, this anniversary is going to be a memorable one. Phemex’s dedication to its users has created a thriving community, and to celebrate their impressive growth the exchange is inviting participants to wish them a happy birthday by talking about their own dreams and aspirations. They’re also giving away grand prizes to those participants who come up with the most creative wishes. Thus, a few special winners will see their dreams come to life. The firm’s dedication to its users is deep-routed. Phemex’s CEO and founder, Jack Tao, was a Wall Street veteran from Morgan Stanley. After over a decade of observing the inner workings of the traditional financial system, he realized just how underserved retail investors were compared to the more wealthy players. Jack and his team of ex-Morgan...

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has revealed that his country holds 44,106 oz. of gold in its reserves that has lost some value over the past year. He told gold bug Peter Schiff that if El Salvador had sold its gold and bought bitcoin last year, it would now be worth $125 million more. Bitcoin vs. Gold: El Salvador Could’ve Made Millions More Switching Reserves From Gold to Bitcoin El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has revealed some details of his country’s gold reserves in a conversation on Twitter with gold bug Peter Schiff. Schiff commented on El Salvador buying the dip Saturday morning after Bukele announced that his country bought 100 more BTC as the price of bitcoin fell from above $52K Friday night to below $44K. “There’s a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?” Schiff asked Bukele. The Salvadoran president replied, “None.” He emphasized, “We’re already in the green from our last purchase, in less than 24 hours.” Bukele conti...

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has called for more investor protection in crypto markets. “This asset class is rife with fraud, scams, and abuse in certain applications,” he said. “In many cases, investors aren’t able to get rigorous, balanced, and complete information on tokens or trading and lending platforms.” Gary Gensler Wants More Investor Protection in Crypto Markets SEC Chairman Gary Gensler raised concerns about the cryptocurrency markets at an Investor Advisory Committee meeting last week. The Investor Advisory Committee, established by Section 911 of the Dodd-Frank Act, advises the SEC on regulatory priorities, including “initiatives to protect investor interests and to promote investor confidence and the integrity of the securities marketplace.” During his speech, Gensler shared some concerns regarding the crypto markets. He began by acknowledging that “Satoshi Nakamoto’s ‘Bitcoin Whitepaper’ and the crypto markets tha...

Since mid-November the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) has slid from $257 billion to $250.55 billion and during the last 24 hours it lost a touch more than 5%. Over the last seven days, defi tokens like uniswap, pancakeswap, curve dao token, 1inch and sushi have lost anywhere between 15% to 23.9% in value. Defi TVL Drops — Curve, Makerdao and Convex Finance Dominate At the time of writing, the TVL in defi protocols across a myriad of blockchains is $250.55 billion, according to metrics from defillama.com. The aggregate defi value locked has lost 5.08% during the last day, and the protocol Curve dominates most of the TVLs listed with 8.07% dominance. The automated market maker (AMM) Curve commands $20.23 billion TVL which is up 1.13% this past week. Makerdao is the second-largest defi protocol TVL with $18.56 billion at the time of writing. The third-largest defi protocol TVL belongs to Convex Finance with $15.14 billion today. Ethereum Defi TVL Dominanc...

Editor’s Note: The following story was written by Neomi, an author from China with experience covering art, music, culture, tech, and travel. Bitcoin.com News sent her into the field of blockchain-based metaverse experiences to capture the feeling of a pioneer entering this new reality. Decentraland, Day One: I Need a Hat Upon entering Decentraland for the first time I wanted to lay low, so I created my avatar: a bald guy with a black suit and a pair of black sunglasses. Within just ten minutes of beginning my exploration, however, I came across ten other players that looked exactly like me. We probably had another thing in common, too — none of us could afford to buy a proper hat. I had heard people were investing millions into NFTs in the metaverse but had just been too afraid to check the prices. Suffice to say, I found out that things are expensive — even hats. In order to look slightly different from the other bald guys in the metaverse, I needed to grind for some assets. I en...

A report says over 80% of African users on the Mineplex marketplace have shown an interest in the platform’s commodity staking program since launch. Zero Fee Alternative According to a recent study, over 80% of African users have taken part in the commodity staking program since its launch as a new product on the Mineplex marketplace. This figure by far dwarfs that of Asian users (23%), Europe (14%) and the U.S. (9%) users who find commodity staking interesting. As noted in a study report that was shared exclusively with Bitcoin.com News, Mineplex Banking said this commodity staking option serves as a zero-fee alternative to traditional loans and gives users the ability to buy products they cannot afford straight away. Explaining African users’ clear preference for staked crypto, the report suggested that this could be based on changing tastes and preferences. “The high level of interest by African users in the new financial instrument can be based on the need to change the syste...

Tau, in development, is the world’s first fully user-controlled blockchain, capable of understanding and implementing users’ consensus in real-time. It allows you to understand and be understood by billions of people, on a platform so advanced that it changes and updates itself based on how you as its users collaboratively decide what its next version should be like. Ohad Asor and Prof. Enrico Franconi recently joined the Bitcoin.com News Podcast to explain the advanced technology behind Tau : By writing in languages that the Tau platform and its users can understand, it unlocks truly revolutionary features such as the ability to make your knowledge machine accessible, creating the world’s first knowledge economy to trade specific pieces of knowledge for cash (using the Agoras cryptocurrency (Ticker AGRS)) as well as the ability to host efficient discussions and collaboration of ideas of up to billions of people. As users are able to make themselves understood to Tau, the network...

The global cryptocurrency market valuation has rebounded a great deal since the initial downturn after 12:00 a.m. EST on December 4, and on Sunday, the crypto economy is down 1.4% during the last 24 hours. Meanwhile the meme token market capitalization today is $47.2 billion down 12.6% during the last day. Dogecoin has suffered pretty badly losing 19.2% during the last seven days, while its rival shiba inu has shed 9.7% last week. Meme Token Economy Takes the Brunt of the Crypto Market Carnage — Dogecoin Drops 19% in a Week’s Time At the time of writing, the crypto meme token market economy is valued at $47.2 billion and has taken a deep hit from yesterday’s market carnage. Dogecoin (DOGE) is the largest meme token market cap with $21.5 billion as each DOGE is trading for $0.164 or 0.00000342 BTC per unit. DOGE is down 37.7% over the course of the last month, but dogecoin is still up 4,863% year-to-date. On Sunday, December 5, there’s $1.4 billion in global DOGE trades with Binan...