Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

PRESS RELEASE. INTERNET CITY, DUBAI, Jun. 27, 2022 – LBank Exchange, a global digital asset trading platform, has listed My Liquidity Partner (MLP) on June 23, 2022. For all users of LBank Exchange, the MLP/ USDT trading pair is now officially available for trading. Utilizing liquidity partners’ crypto within the liquidity pools, My Liquidity Partner (MLP) enables them to receive a weekly passive income from a major DEX with over $1 Trillion U,S. Dollar in trade volume. Its native token MLP has been listed on LBank Exchange at 22:00 (UTC+8) on June 23, 2022, to further expand its global reach and help it achieve its vision. Introducing My Liquidity Partner My Liquidity Partner (MLP) is a way of making its liquidity partners’ crypto create an extra source of weekly passive income for them without spending hours in front of the charts. It utilizes their crypto within the liquidity pools, runs on Uniswap, with its advanced algorithms and experts it’s able to give its Liquidity Par...

The recently reintroduced seasonal ban on cryptocurrency mining has provoked backlash from the local crypto community. This week, the country’s power distribution company ordered miners to suspend activities citing electricity shortages during the hot summer months. Restrictions on Crypto Mining Are Ousting Iran From Global Coin Minting Industry, Critics Say After last year crypto miners were forced to deal with interruptions in power supply on more than one occasion, the Iran Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Company (Tavanir) has told them to halt operations again, until the end of this summer. The utility is citing expected electricity shortages in the next three months of hot weather, when demand will spike due to rising consumption for cooling. The company’s spokesman, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, has been quoted as stating that the measure should help reduce the heavy load on the national grid during the peak season. According to a report by the Iranian business ne...

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, formerly Facebook, has shared how the metaverse will be a key part of his business and bring hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. “Our playbook over time has been build services, try to serve as many people as possible,” said Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg on the Metaverse Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, talked about the metaverse in an interview on Wednesday with Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money. The Facebook co-founder explained that he expects the metaverse to be massive and become a major part of his company’s business over the next decade. Commenting on Meta’s metaverse efforts, Zuckerberg said: Our playbook over time has been build services, try to serve as many people as possible — you know, get our services to a billion, two billion, three billion people, and then we basically scale the monetization after that. “We hope to, basically, get to around a billion people in the metaverse doing hundreds o...

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has reportedly proposed “one rule book” for the regulation of crypto assets. “If this industry is going to take any path forward, it will build some better trust in these markets,” said Gensler. SEC Chairman Calls for One Rule Book for Crypto SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has proposed “one rule book” for the regulation of crypto, the Financial Times reported Friday. He is looking to strike agreements with other financial regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to avoid gaps in the oversight of the crypto sector. He told the publication: I’m talking about one rule book on the exchange. The SEC chief elaborated that the rule should protect investors against fraud, front-running, and manipulation, in addition to providing transparency over order books. The rule book will apply to “all trading regardless of the pair — [be it] a security token versus security token, security t...

As political leaders in crisis-hit Lebanon bicker over positions in the yet-to-be-formed government, the country’s runaway inflation rate surged to 211% in May 2022, new data has shown. Economist Steve Hanke insists that a currency board is a solution to Lebanon’s currency woes. Black Market in Fuel Driving Inflation The inflation rate in crisis-torn Lebanon surged to 211% in May, making it the 23rd consecutive time the consumer price index (CPI) has surged, a report has said. The revelation of the latest inflation figure comes as the country’s politicians reportedly struggle to form a new government more than a month after parliamentary elections. According to a National News report , the politicians’ failure to create a new government is delaying the implementation of key reforms that allow Lebanon to receive a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The report also quotes a note from Byblos Bank that attempts to reveal factors likely to be worsening the in...

Coinbase has announced that the company plans to introduce a number of changes for customers in the Netherlands in order to comply with the 1977 Sanctions Act, a law that recently applied know-your-customer (KYC) guidelines to non-custodial wallets. If the person living in the Netherlands wants to send crypto to a third-party wallet via Coinbase, they must identify the wallet owner’s name, the purpose of transfer, and the full residential address of the recipient. On June 27, Coinbase Says KYC Info Will Be Required in the Netherlands for Outgoing Crypto Transfers Dutch Coinbase customers may have a harder time sending funds to people with a third-party or non-custodial wallet if they don’t provide KYC information. Starting on June 27, 2022, Coinbase will require users from the Netherlands to provide KYC data if they plan to send crypto to a wallet off the Coinbase platform. Coinbase says the new rules are being applied because the company must comply with local regulations. The 19...

Crypto exchange Binance has launched a new platform for VIP and institutional investors. The VIP program allows Binance users to “get rewarded with more discounts and VIP privileges” as their trading volume climbs up VIP tiers. ‘Binance Institutional’ Launched Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced Thursday the launch of “ Binance Institutional ,” a new platform for VIP and institutional cryptocurrency investors. It is one of Binance’s efforts “to upgrade its institutional offerings and services,” the exchange said. Binance Institutional’s services are tailored for all types of institutions, its website describes. They include asset managers, brokers, hedge funds, family offices, proprietary trading firms, liquidity providers, high net worth individuals, and mining companies. The new platform offers a number of services, including direct access to OTC liquidity, asset management, custody, and brokerage. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) commented: Brokerage services are...

British Parliament Member Matt Hancock has called for “liberal” cryptocurrency regulation, noting that no country can stop the crypto revolution. “I hate the patronizing idea of regulators telling people what they can and can’t do with their money,” the lawmaker stressed. British MP Wants ‘Liberal’ Crypto Regulation Matt Hancock, a Conservative member of parliament and former British health secretary, reiterated the importance of having a “liberal” regulatory framework for cryptocurrency this week. The lawmaker explained in an interview with UKTN, published Friday, that the crypto market sell-off has not shaken his confidence in the sector. He told the news outlet: No country can stop this revolution. We can only choose whether it happens on our shores or happens to us from elsewhere. In his keynote speech Wednesday at Crypto A.M.’s fourth-anniversary conference, Hancock called for an “attractive” tax system and “liberal” regulatory regime to help the U.K. become “the jurisdict...

The Central Bank of Russia continues to step up efforts to test and issue the digital ruble, with a roadmap for the full implementation of the new form of the national fiat now expected by the end of 2023. Trials with real transactions and users are scheduled to begin next April, earlier than originally planned. Bank of Russia to Present Digital Ruble Roadmap Next Year The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) will develop a roadmap for the introduction of the digital ruble by the end of 2023, First Deputy Chairman Olga Skorobogatova said in an interview with the Tass news agency, revealing an earlier deadline than previously set. The high-ranking official also noted that the regulator intends to start testing operations with the Russian central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) with real clients as early as April 2023, indicating these plans have been adjusted, too. Skorobogatova emphasized that next year will be very important for the project and elaborated: Testing of real...

Russian law enforcement is looking into the alleged theft of mining hardware valued at around $1.9 million. The powerful computing equipment disappeared from a crypto mining hotel in Irkutsk, the owners of which have been accused of large scale fraud. 100 Russians Lose Mining Machines Worth 100 Million Rubles Police in the Russian Irkutsk Oblast have launched an investigation of the operators of a mining hosting facility suspected of defrauding clients and stealing their expensive coin minting hardware, Tass news agency reported, quoting the region’s Main Directorate of the Interior Ministry. In anticipation of quick earnings, the miners handed over their devices to those who were running the mining hotel, law enforcement officials explained. At some point, the latter stopped all payments to their customers and failed to return the expensive machines. “A criminal case was initiated based on these facts under part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (la...

Authorities in Albania are finalizing regulations that will allow the taxation of income and profits from cryptocurrency investments. The government intends to begin imposing the levy in 2023, after adopting the necessary legislation which has been proposed for public consultations. Albania Set to Impose Crypto Tax as Early as Next Year The Albanian state should begin collecting taxes on income from crypto assets as of 2023 in accordance with a new income tax bill, the local English-language portal Exit News reported on Friday. The government also hopes to pass a number of other laws and bylaws this year in order to comprehensively regulate the matter. The special tax legislation is currently open for public consultations . It introduces the concept of taxing crypto holdings and income derived from virtual assets. The latter have been defined as “a digital representation of a value that can be deposited, traded or transferred in digital form, and that can be used for payment or inv...

Brave Group Inc., a Japanese virtual IP firm, recently said it had raised $10 million in new capital and that the company expects to use part of these funds to boost its “solution services for clients in the metaverse marketing business.” Taking part in Brave Group’s latest funding round were two local companies, foreign investment funds, as well as individual investors. Metaverse Market Growth A Japan-based virtual IP business, Brave Group Inc., recently said it had raised $10 million in new funding, thus bringing the total raised so far to $18 million. The company is set to use the new capital to strengthen its existing business operations and to “expand its solution services for clients in the metaverse marketing business.” In a recent statement , Brave Group revealed that Japanese companies like Dawn Capital and Osaka Gas Co. Ltd. had participated in the round that also featured “foreign investment funds and individual investors.” In remarks following the announcement of the ca...

DeFi is a sub-sector in the crypto industry that has witnessed significant innovation since its inception. However, the narrative has struggled to stay consistent, affecting the domain overall. The current bear market has wiped out more than half of DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL), hampering innovations. Furthermore, several projects have simply forked (copied) existing protocols and brought zero ideas to the market. Amidst all of this, one project is making strides with the best innovations DeFiers have seen in a long time. Saddle Finance is the protocol that enables efficient DeFi trading for stablecoins and pegged-value crypto assets like wETH and wBTC. It redefines DeFi trading by offering cheap, efficient, swift, and low-slippage swaps for traders and high-yield pools for Liquidity Providers. The protocol has facilitated over $2B in transaction volume to date. Enabling an Efficient and Secure DeFi Trading Experience Saddle Finance is an AMM-based decentralized exchange (DEX) ...

A Chinese state-run newspaper has published an article warning about bitcoin’s price falling to zero amid the crypto market sell-off. Meanwhile, financial regulators in Shenzhen have issued a new warning about cryptocurrency. State-Run Newspaper Warns About Bitcoin Becoming Worthless China’s state-run newspaper Economic Daily published an article warning about bitcoin Wednesday, according to SCMP. The nationwide newspaper is directly under the control of the Central Committee of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The article warned that investors should beware of the risk of bitcoin prices “heading to zero” amid the recent crypto market sell-off. “Bitcoin is nothing more than a string of digital codes, and its returns mainly come from buying low and selling high,” the newspaper details, adding: In the future, once investors’ confidence collapses or when sovereign countries declare bitcoin illegal, it will return to its original value, which is utterly worthless. The newspaper...

Bybit, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, has announced it will be expanding its operations to Argentina. The exchange wants to offer Argentinian citizens another platform on which to transact, given the popularity that the cryptocurrency industry is enjoying in the country. The exchange will also have a dedicated team to support Argentinian operations. Bybit Lands in Argentina The growth of the cryptocurrency industry in Argentina has not gone unnoticed by international companies. Bybit, a Singapore-based, top-ten crypto exchange by volume traded, has announced that it will expand its trading operations to support Argentinian customers directly. To better achieve this goal, the company will dedicate a team to attend to applicable requirements and support its upcoming Argentinian customers, allowing them to transact, purchase, and sell cryptocurrencies on Bybit’s platform. Also, the platform will be available in Spanish, the native language of the country. Regarding this d...

Uphold, a New York-based cryptocurrency exchange, has announced it is closing its operations in Venezuelan markets. The company, which has already had problems with users in the country in the past — shutting down accounts and requiring KYC controls that some users deemed excessive — declares that the exit from Venezuela has to do with the “complexity of complying with U.S. sanctions.” Uphold Abandons Venezuelan Markets Uphold, a New York-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange and stock trading platform, has announced that it will no longer serve customers registered in Venezuela. The company, which serves more than 184 countries according to its own data, argues that the current situation between Venezuela and the U.S is the cause of this decision. In an email sent to Venezuelan customers of the exchange, Uphold declared : We´re very sorry to tell you that Uphold has decided to withdraw from Venezuela owing to the increasing complexity of complying with U.S. sanctions. Venezuela ...

PRESS RELEASE. NoVa Battles has taken another step forward by completing another major milestone, being listed on Bitrue. The centralized exchange, Bitrue, has announced that NVA passed the BTR Vote on the 21 st of June, 2022. The launched listing pair is NVA/USDT. Deposits for this coin (ERC20 Network Supported) have already been enabled. NVA Token holders can now trade on Bitrue here: https://www.bitrue.com/trade/nva_usdt Withdrawals for this coin will be enabled approximately 24 hours after trading begins. The NoVa Battles team is excited to bring you another chance to get in on the action. We are going to be announcing most listings soon. Successful Nova Battles ICO Nova battles; a play, invest, and earn crypto game has successfully achieved its target a day ahead of schedule. 850 million NVA Token were sold to its worldwide community through the MaskEx platform. This has paved the way for this game to be here for a long time, growing in popularity and complexity. The compan...

The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, says crypto assets and decentralized finance (defi) have the potential to pose “real risks” to financial stability. She has some regulatory suggestions to supplement Europe’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) bill. Lagarde on Crypto Regulation ECB President Christine Lagarde talked about cryptocurrency regulation at the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs hearing Monday. She said: We believe, as we are embarking on this work concerning crypto assets and the risk that they pose, that crypto assets and decentralized finance (defi) have the potential to pose real risks to financial stability. “This would be particularly the case if the rapid growth of crypto-asset markets and services continue … and the interconnectedness with both the traditional financial sector and the broader economy is intensified,” the ECB chief added. However, she noted: “For the moment, the links betw...

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the central bank is “not really seeing significant macroeconomic implications” from crypto’s volatility. The Fed chair stressed that there is a need for a better crypto regulatory framework. Fed Chair Powell Says Crypto Needs Better Regulation Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on “the semiannual monetary policy report to congress” Wednesday. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) asked him whether the Fed has been tracking crypto activities given the recent market volatility, and what implications crypto has on the broader economic outlook and monetary policy. “We are tracking those events very carefully, of course,” Powell replied, elaborating: [We are] not really seeing significant macroeconomic implications, so far. “The principal implication is really what we’ve been saying, and others have been saying for some time, which is that in this very innovative new...

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has taken action against two cryptocurrency trading platforms. Kucoin is permanently banned from participating in Ontario’s capital markets. Bybit has promised to take steps to comply with regulations and register with the OSC. OSC Sanctions 2 Crypto Trading Platforms The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced Wednesday the outcome of enforcement actions against two foreign cryptocurrency trading platforms operating in its jurisdiction. The first is Bybit, a crypto trading platform operated by Bybit Fintech Ltd., incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The other is Kucoin, operated by Mek Global Ltd., incorporated in the Republic of Seychelles, and Phoenixfin Pte. Ltd., incorporated in Singapore. “Bybit and Kucoin both operate unregistered crypto asset trading platforms and allowed Ontario investors to trade securities without a prospectus or any exemption from the prospectus requirements,” the Canadian regulator explained. Regar...

PRESS RELEASE. “Play & Earn” is no longer a strange term for most GameFi believers. Recently, Remitano Network, Remitano’s blockchain network, has launched a novel airdrop in the format of “Play to Earn”, allowing users to own the network’s RENEC token in the form of “group mining”. Starting from the free daily RENEC solo mining at Remitano.com, users can now mine together in groups to receive a larger amount of RENEC token airdrop as a reward. Each mining pool is called a mining room, and after 24 hours, the team members will split a larger amount of RENEC than the solo mining effort. This is a fairly new form of airdrop in the market, making the traditional airdrop less boring. Participation is quite simple. You just need to sign up for a free Remitano account and start mining solo or in groups. Try RENEC mining for free here ! Refer to the official RENEC Whitepaper . The RENEC mining program is limited to a maximum of the end of Q3 of 2022, so the sooner you join the bet...

During a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Terraform Labs (TFL) founder Do Kwon said he was “devastated” by the LUNA and UST implosion that took place in mid-May. He told the WSJ that he was probably a billionaire when LUNA tapped an all-time high before the collapse, but lost a great portion of his net worth following the aftermath. Do Kwon Speaks About the Terra LUNA Collapse Do Kwon has recently discussed the LUNA and UST fallout during an interview with the WSJ contributors Alexander Osipovich and Jiyoung Sohn. The interview was published on June 22, and its the first interview Kwon has done since the Terra collapse. Kwon told the reporters that he lost most of his wealth after the crash but that doesn’t bother him that much. “This doesn’t bother me,” Kwon told the reporters. “I live a fairly frugal life,” the Terra co-founder said. Kwon, however, said he was sorry about the losses investors took from the fallout. “I’ve been devastated by recent events and ho...

The Central Bank of Russia and participating commercial banks want to test various types of payments with the digital ruble, the Russian press reported. The plan is to experiment with smart contracts and transactions related to real estate and crypto asset purchases. Bank of Russia to Launch Smart Contracts on Digital Ruble Platform Russia’s central bank intends to start implementing smart contracts with the digital ruble next April, the daily Izvestia unveiled this week, quoting the regulator. Until then, the new incarnation of the national fiat will be put to the test in various scenarios, including automated payments and other transactions between individual users and businesses, like real estate acquisitions. Bank of Russia finalized the prototype platform of its central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) in December, 2021. In January of this year, a dozen Russian banks joined the pilot project. At its first stage, participants are issuing digital rubles, setting up wallets for ban...

A The Input-Output Global (IOG) team has said it will postpone sending the Vasil hard fork update proposal because it still needs to solve seven outstanding bugs that are currently ranked as non-severe. While acknowledging that the news will likely be disappointing for some, the IOG team insisted it was “taking an abundance of caution to ensure that we do this deployment correctly.” More Time Needed The core Input-Output Global (IOG) team working to facilitate a Cardano Testnet upgrade announced recently that it had “agreed” to delay sending the Vasil hard fork update proposal as previously stated. The team hinted that some seven outstanding bugs, none of which have been ranked as severe, necessitated the delay. According to a June 20 blog post , the decision to postpone the hard fork followed the core team’s end-of-the-week evaluation call. While noting that the team had managed to get through 95% of the Plutus V2 test scripts, the post said the core team still needed to run a few...

PRESS RELEASE. Cryptocurrency exchange LBank has continued to hire more crypto and blockchain talents as well as interns for its global offices. Against the backdrop of extreme volatility in the crypto market and investors dumping risky assets, as well as certain crypto firms laying off employees and freezing withdrawals, LBank makes a move in the right lines. At the moment, the exchange is hiring from all parts of the world including Indonesia, Philippines, Morocco, Turkey, Nigeria, India, etc., to add to its team members located in over 14 countries. The crypto exchange, which has been in the space since 2015 has a slew of advantages that has earned it the spot as one of the top 20 exchanges with deep liquidity. To add to that, in the era of hacks and security breaches among crypto platforms, LBank has managed to remain ‘unhacked’ and secured. In other words, the user-friendly platform provides users with secure, professional and convenient products and services, including s...