Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Bitpreco, a Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange, has decided to extend its functionality to offer banking services through a new platform called Bitybank. The company, which will also open payment and digital account services, plans to attract users to crypto through cashback programs that counter the fears of users purchasing cryptocurrencies in today’s uncertain market. Bitpreco to Launch Banking Services Through Bitybank While several traditional banking institutions are now offering or considering offering cryptocurrency-related services in Brazil, crypto-centric applications are also seeking to include traditional financial instruments in their services portfolio. Bitpreco, a Brazilian exchange, is now expanding its services to offer banking functions. The company is one of the largest in Brazil, accounting for 13% of all bitcoin transactions in the last three months. Ney Pimenta, one of the partners at Bitpreco, explained that these new services, which will include payments, ...

Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability, Sir Jon Cunliffe, says the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has highlighted the urgent need for tighter crypto regulation. “We should not wait until it is large and connected to develop the regulatory frameworks necessary to prevent a crypto shock that could have a much greater destabilizing impact,” said the deputy governor. Bank of England’s Cunliffe on FTX Collapse and the Need for Crypto Regulation Sir Jon Cunliffe, Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability, shared his view on the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the need for tighter crypto regulation at a Warwick Business School event Monday. Citing “last year’s crypto winter and last week’s FTX implosion,” Cunliffe detailed: While the crypto world … is not at present large enough or interconnected enough with mainstream finance to threaten the stability of the financial system, its links with mainstream finance have been developing ...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted JPMorgan Chase Bank’s trademark registration for “J.P. Morgan Wallet” for use in a wide range of financial services, including virtual currency transfers and exchanges, as well as crypto payment services. JPMorgan Chase’s Wallet Trademark JPMorgan Chase Bank has successfully registered a wallet trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mike Kondoudis, a USPTO-licensed trademark attorney, tweeted Monday that “J.P. Morgan Wallet” is now a registered trademark. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. is listed as the trademark owner. The USPTO granted the bank’s trademark registration on Nov. 15; the application date was July 24, 2020. The services listed for the J.P. Morgan Wallet trademark include “electronic transfer of virtual currencies,” “financial exchange of virtual currencies,” and “cryptocurrency payment processing,” the USPTO website shows. JPMorgan Explains What J.P. Morgan Wallet Is and How...

Several U.S. senators have called on Fidelity Investments to reconsider allowing bitcoin in 401(k) retirement plans. “The recent implosion of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, has made it abundantly clear the digital asset industry has serious problems,” the lawmakers told Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. US Senators Want Fidelity to Stop Offering Bitcoin in Retirement Plans Three U.S. senators sent a letter to Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson Monday regarding the financial services firm’s bitcoin offerings in 401(k) retirement plans. The letter was signed by senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), and Tina Smith (D-MN). Reiterating their concerns about Fidelity allowing bitcoin exposure in retirement plans, the lawmakers stressed: “Once again, we strongly urge Fidelity Investments to reconsider its decision to allow 401(k) plan sponsors to expose plan participants to bitcoin.” They detailed: “Since our previous letter , the digital asset industry has only ...

PRESS RELEASE Financie Inc. pleased to announce that the “SUPER SAPIENSS NFT” sales conducted by “SUPER SAPIENSS”, an entertainment DAO project active on FiNANCiE. About SUPER SAPIENSS “SUPER SAPIENSS” is an unprecedented entertainment project that brings together three directors (Yukihiko Tsutsumi, Katsuyuki Motohiro, and Yuichi Sato) who have led the Japanese entertainment and film industry, and producer Takeshi Moriya as board members to create the original story and visualize it. The project is taking on the challenge of an entertainment DAO utilizing FiNANCiE’s “token issuance” and token-based “co-creation community” in order to usher in a new era of entertainment in Japan. The company has conducted two rounds of token-issuing type funding, and has collected a cumulative total of over 50 million yen in support and approximately 3,000 members in the community. The supporters who hold the tokens do not simply observe the production process of the contents, but are closely inv...

According to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, as of Sept. 30, 2022, the company holds 2 million bitcoin worth $39.9 billion. The news Armstrong shared comes at a time when the general public is looking directly at exchange balances following FTX’s turbulent collapse. Coinbase Co-Founder Shares Company’s Q3 Shareholder Letter — Says as of Sept. 30, Firm Holds 2 Million Bitcoin Two days ago, Bitcoin.com News reported on Binance’s exchange reserves and at the time the trading platform had close to 600,000 bitcoin, according to cryptoquant.com metrics. As of Nov. 20, 2022, cryptoquant.com stats indicate that Binance holds roughly 584K bitcoin. On the same day, data shows that Coinbase Pro, otherwise known as Coinbase Exchange, holds roughly 532K bitcoin. Furthermore, our newsdesk also reported on Grayscale discussing its balance sheet, as the fund manager noted that “all digital assets that underlie Grayscale’s digital asset products are stored under the custody of Coinbase Custody Tr...

Greenpeace, the international, environment-conscious non-governmental organization (NGO), has criticized the lack of action that Bitcoin-related groups have adopted in the battle against climate change. Rolf Skar, of Greenpeace USA, stated that Bitcoin was “falling behind” on this issue, explaining that most Bitcoin-linked groups fail to even acknowledge the ostensible problem. Greenpeace Blasts Bitcoin’s Lack of Action Greenpeace, the well known environmentalist organization, is criticizing the stance that many Bitcoin-linked companies and organizations have taken regarding the so-called “climate change” phenomena. According to its latest press statement, most of the key players in the Bitcoin environment refuse to acknowledge the problem at all. Rolf Skar, Special Projects Manager at Greenpeace USA, stated : Bitcoin is falling even further behind as others in the crypto industry work to tackle the climate crisis. While other crypto technologies are making changes to become more...

The Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway has issued a statement warning that a cryptocurrency exchange website is using its name. The company stressed that the crypto firm has no affiliation with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. or its chairman and CEO, Warren E. Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway Warns About a Crypto Website Berkshire Hathaway Inc. warned Friday that a crypto exchange website is using its name. “Earlier this afternoon it came to our attention that there is an entity using the name Berkshire Hathaway,” the company stated, elaborating: The entity … has no affiliation with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. or its chairman and CEO, Warren E. Buffett. The landing page of the crypto site in question indicates that the company is a bitcoin exchange. “Berkshire Hathaway is a Texas-based company created to give our investors the opportunity to achieve a completely passive income from investment in cryptocurrency mining,” the website’s front page details. The website advertises: You will get ...

A new analysis shows that the countries most impacted by the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX are South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Moreover, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Taiwan, India, Egypt, and Brazil also made the top 10 list of countries most affected by the FTX meltdown. Countries Most Impacted by FTX Failure South Korea, Singapore, and Japan top the countries most impacted by the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, according to an analysis by Coingecko, published Thursday. The study examines FTX.com’s monthly unique visitors and traffic by country based on Similarweb data from January to October. The crypto exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. According to the analysis, South Korea is most impacted by the fallout of FTX as 297,229 unique users from the country visited FTX.com monthly on average. This represented 6.1% of the website’s traffic. The next most-impacted country is Singapore where 241,675 unique users visited the FTX website monthly...

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, says crypto exchange FTX isn’t “one fraudulent company in a serious industry.” Stating that the “Entire notion of crypto is nonsense,” the Fed president claimed it is “just a tool of speculation and greater fools.” Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Crypto and FTX Collapse Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari shared his view on the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Friday. “This isn’t [a] case of one fraudulent company in a serious industry,” he tweeted, elaborating: Entire notion of crypto is nonsense. Not useful for payments. No inflation hedge. No scarcity. No taxing authority. Just a tool of speculation and greater fools. Kashkari has never been a fan of bitcoin or crypto. He previously called them “a giant garbage dumpster.” In August last year, he said bitcoin and crypto were “95% fraud, hype, noise, and confusion,” stating : “I’ve not seen any use case other tha...

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says many people in the Ethereum community see the FTX collapse “as a validation of things they believed in all along: centralized anything is by default suspect.” However, he warned that automatically downgrading every single thing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried believed in “is an error.” Vitalik Buterin on FTX Meltdown Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the failure of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in an interview with Bloomberg, published Sunday. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Buterin told the news outlet: What happened at FTX was of course a huge tragedy. That said, many in the Ethereum community also see the situation as a validation of things they believed in all along: centralized anything is by default suspect. The Ethereum co-founder emphasized that blockchain-based and decentralized finance (defi) protocols work “flawlessly.” He stressed the importance of...

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is exploring sales, recapitalizations, and other strategic transactions with respect to its solvent subsidiaries. The firm’s new CEO has instructed the FTX team “to prioritize the preservation of franchise value as best we can in these difficult circumstances.” New FTX CEO Outlines Priorities Cryptocurrency exchange FTX and approximately 101 affiliated companies announced Saturday that they are “launching a strategic review of their global assets to begin to maximize recoverable value for stakeholders.” The review is part of their Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The new FTX CEO, John J. Ray, III, who replaced Sam Bankman-Fried after the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, explained: Based on our review over the past week, we are pleased to learn that many regulated or licensed subsidiaries of FTX, within and outside of the United States, have solvent balance sheets, responsible management, and valuable franchises. He explained th...

Itau Unibanco, one of the biggest Brazilian banks, has announced it will offer cryptocurrency custody services in 2023. Itau Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency unit of the company, will be responsible for this offering, which will be first available to customers of the bank, and then to third parties as a service. Brazilian Bank Itau Unibanco to Debut Crypto Custody Offering Itau Unibanco, one of the largest private banks in Brazil and Latam, has decided to step into the crypto-related services business. The company announced on Nov. 17, 2022, that it plans to launch cryptocurrency custody services in 2023. Itau Digital Assets, the division of the company that deals with all things crypto, will be in charge of the tech behind this solution. For Itau Unibanco, custody services are an important part of the security framework that third-party companies can offer users. On this, Itau Unibanco’s product manager Eric Alftafim told O Globo: Custody is a fundamental element in this cont...

The Brazilian cryptocurrency bill, sidelined several times due to the general election ballot that happened on October 30, might be discussed and voted on during the following week. According to reports, the project identified as 4.401/2021 will be on the agenda for being discussed by the Chamber of Deputies, marked as urgent, and listed to be discussed on Nov. 22. Brazilian Cryptocurrency Bill Back on Agenda The Brazilian cryptocurrency bill, a project that seeks to regulate the actions of cryptocurrency exchanges and custody agents, as well as establish clear cryptocurrency mining rules, will be on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies next week. The bill, which had been sidelined before the general ballot that happened on Oct. 20, is slated to be discussed on Nov. 22. The bill might be discussed and voted on if the chamber decides that it is of importance, as the document is the fourth item in the list to be discussed in that session. Still, deputies can change the agenda of the...

On Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, Bitcoin’s difficulty rise erased the recent 0.20% decline recorded two weeks ago, as the difficulty metric rose by 0.51% at block height 764,064. The increase on Sunday has pushed the difficulty rating to another all-time high, from 36.76 trillion to the current 36.95 trillion. Bitcoin Difficulty Reaches All-Time High Nearing 37 Trillion, Leading Crypto Asset’s Fiat Value Sinks Lower Today it is 0.51% more difficult to find a Bitcoin ( BTC ) block reward than it was for the last two weeks or 2,016 processed blocks. The 0.51% increase has propelled the difficulty to a lifetime high at 36.95 trillion, outpacing the previous high recorded on Oct. 23, 2022. The difficulty increased during this retarget because block intervals were less than the ten-minute average, at nine minutes and 58 seconds. The average hashrate for the last 2,016 blocks was around ​​264.3 exahash per second (EH/s). On Sunday, around 7:15 p.m. (ET), the global hashrate is around 261.29 E...

A special council under Ukraine’s securities regulator will be tasked to develop rules for crypto taxation in the country. The new body will be also responsible for coordinating the regulation of various crypto activities and adjustments to the applicable legislation. Advisory Board to Take On Matters Related to Cryptocurrency Taxation in Ukraine The National Securities and Stock Market Commission of Ukraine (NSSMC) has set up an advisory council that will be entrusted with the further development of the regulations for the digital asset market in the Eastern European nation. The new board’s first task will be to prepare amendments to the country’s Tax Code reflecting the specifics of taxing cryptocurrency transactions, the authorities in Kyiv said in an announcement published before the weekend. The changes are necessary in order to enforce Ukraine’s law “On Virtual Assets,” which was adopted in September 2021 and signed after revisions by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Mar...

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) says India is currently not a viable business environment for his cryptocurrency exchange, citing a strict tax regime. The executive explained: “Binance goes to countries where regulations are pro-crypto and pro-business.” Binance’s CEO on Indian Crypto Environment The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), does not currently see India as a viable country to expand his crypto exchange operations. He detailed at a Techcrunch Crypto conference Thursday: To be honest, I don’t think India is a very crypto-friendly environment. Zhao is particularly discouraged by the crypto tax regime that the government of India implemented earlier this year. In addition to taxing crypto income at 30%, crypto transactions are subject to a 1% tax deduction at the source (TDS). Citing India’s aggressive tax environment, the Binance CEO said: “If you are going to tax 1% on each transaction, there is not going to be that many transactions.” He stre...

Amazon founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos has given some advice to consumers and small businesses about what they should do given that the U.S. economy is either already in a recession or is headed into one “very soon.” The billionaire said: “The economy does not look great right now. Things are slowing down. You’re seeing layoffs in many, many sectors of the economy.” Jeff Bezos on U.S. Economy and How People Should Prepare for a Recession Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of retail giant Amazon, shared his view about the U.S. economy heading into a recession and what consumers and small businesses should do in an interview with CNN last week. Responding to a question about whether the U.S. is in a recession and what his advice would be for small businesses, the billionaire, who currently serves as Amazon’s executive chair, cautioned: The economy does not look great right now. Things are slowing down. You’re seeing layoffs in many, many sectors of the economy. Whil...

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the new owner of Twitter, have addressed suggestions that the social media platform should have less anonymity. Clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is among the users who want less anonymity on the platform while Dorsey believes it would be a big mistake to impose a policy allowing less anonymity. Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey Discuss Twitter’s Anonymity The topic of how much anonymity Twitter should allow its users to have has been heavily discussed on the social media platform. Clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is among the Twitter users who want less anonymity on the platform. On Friday, he tweeted to Elon Musk, who recently bought Twitter for $44 billion: Don’t allow the anonymous troll-demons to post with the real verified people. Peterson added: “Put them in their own hell, along with others like them: LOL LULZ BRO BRUH hyper-users are narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic and sadistic.” In...

Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chair Sheila Bair likens the fall of crypto exchange FTX and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to the infamous Ponzi Scheme of Bernie Madoff. “It felt very Bernie Madoff-like in that way,” she said. Former FDIC Chair Compares FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme Sheila Bair, a top U.S. regulator during the 2008 financial crisis, explained in an interview with CNN Monday that there are eerie similarities between the rise and fall of FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and that of Bernie Madoff. Bair chaired the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2006 to 2011. She now sits on the board of directors at blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos. She explained that both Bankman-Fried and Madoff proved adept at seducing sophisticated investors and regulators into ignoring red flags hiding in plain sight. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week and Bankman-Fried stepped down as the CEO. “Charming re...