Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

On Dec. 5, 2022, at block height 766,080, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjustment dropped 7.32% lower, making it the largest difficulty reduction in 2022. The current difficulty is approximately 34.24 trillion and it will remain at this point for the next two weeks or 2,016 blocks. Bitcoin Miners Catch a Break as the Network’s Difficulty Drops 7.32% Lower Bitcoin’s difficulty retarget has dropped, which makes it a bit easier for bitcoin miners to find a block than it was during the two weeks prior. The difficulty change occurred around 8:50:29 p.m. (ET), at block height 766,080 and it was the largest reduction this year. The difficulty reduction was larger than the prior record that was recorded at block height 745,920. At that time on July 21, 2022, the network’s difficulty dropped by 5.01% and the difficulty was around 27.69 trillion. Prior to the 7.32% reduction down to 34.24 trillion, the network’s difficulty rating was at a lifetime high of 36.95 trillion. Satoshi created the ...

An Indian central bank official claims that if there is anything cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether can do, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should be able to create a product that will do the same job without the associated risks. “This is essentially what we are doing in the CBDC experiments,” he stressed. RBI Official on Cryptocurrency vs Digital Rupee Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar talked about cryptocurrency and central bank digital currency (CBDC) Friday at an event organized by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA). “We saw an environment where private currencies were evolving. We realized that this poses a threat to investors, systems, and the economy. We also realized that private currencies have shown that digitalizing currency can possibly benefit,” the RBI official said. “The way to deal with it was to provide a digital currency.” Referring to non-government-issued cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, as “private” cryptocurrencie...

Standard Chartered Bank says the price of bitcoin could drop to $5,000 next year. The bank’s analyst explained that cryptocurrencies could fall further and more crypto firms could “succumb to liquidity squeezes and investor withdrawals.” Standard Chartered Bank’s $5K Bitcoin Scenario Standard Chartered Bank published a note titled “The financial-market surprises of 2023” Sunday. The note outlines a number of possible scenarios that “we feel are under-priced by the markets,” wrote Eric Robertsen, Standard Chartered’s global head of research. One of the scenarios is bitcoin’s price dropping to $5,000 next year, which would be about a 70% drop from BTC ’s current price of around $17,000. Robertsen detailed: Yields plunge along with technology shares, and while the bitcoin sell-off decelerates, the damage has been done. More and more crypto firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and a collapse in investor confidence in digita...

Laliga, the premier Spanish soccer league, has announced the implementation of a new system that will use blockchain for tracking soccer balls that were used to score a goal. The system, which will be provided by Gol-Ball, a third-party company, will certify these balls to allow users to purchase them through official markets or raffles. Spanish Laliga to Use Blockchain System for Soccer Ball Certification Laliga, the leading soccer league in Spain, has announced it will be one of the first organizations to certify balls used to score goals using blockchain tech. The institution has already partnered with Gol-Ball, a third-party company, to implement the system. The system, which is slated to be used after the Qatar world cup, will be used to track each ball used in each match and to separate and identify which ones were used to score each one of the goals — something that was not done before as each football was rotated and mixed with the others. Samuel Eto’o, Laliga’s ambassador...

According to the latest reports from the Brazilian tax authority (RFB), institutions have again broken crypto purchasing records in Brazil. The organization registered that almost 42,000 companies purchased some kind of cryptocurrency during October, a new record that overturns the 40,161 that declared having purchased crypto during September. Brazilian Companies Purchase Crypto in Waves More and more companies are introducing crypto as part of their treasuries in Brazil. According to the last data issued by the Brazilian tax authority (RBF), which is empowered by law to receive crypto purchasing statements from taxpayers, almost 42,000 companies bought some kind of cryptocurrency during October. These 41,817 companies that purchased crypto broke the previous record number registered in September when 40,161 institutions also broke the previous record. However, the number of individuals that bought crypto during the same period fell to 1.265.818 from the almost 1.5 million citizen...

A Russian company has announced the country’s first authorized transaction with digital financial assets (DFAs) involving a foreign currency, China’s yuan. The deal, reportedly the largest made to date under the current Russian DFA law, covers the issuance of tokens secured by commercial debt. Digital Financial Assets for 58 Million Yuan Issued by Russian Platform A licensed firm has finalized Russia’s first deal with digital financial assets denominated in foreign fiat. The transaction involved the issuing of DFAs worth 58 million Chinese yuan (approx. 516 million rubles or $8.26 million) secured by commercial debt. It took place on a platform developed by Lighthouse, which was approved by the Bank of Russia in March as one of the “information systems operators” allowed to manage digital financial assets. Russia’s largest bank, Sber , and the tokenization service Atomyze were also registered as such. While Russian authorities have been working to adopt a more comprehensive legal...

There’s a silver lining to the crash in the NFT market — millions of dollars of potential tax-savings. To help NFT investors claim their tax-savings before the end of the year, CoinLedger recently launched an NFT tax-loss harvesting tool . Let’s break down how the tool works and how it can help people save money on their tax bill. What is Tax Loss Harvesting? Tax loss harvesting is a tax reduction strategy used by savvy investors to reduce their total tax liabilities for the year. By selling assets that have gone down in value since originally acquiring them, investors can harvest capital losses and generate tax write offs. Imagine the following scenario: Jane Doe sells a portion of her bitcoin holdings in February 2022 and realizes $50,000 of capital gains in doing so. That $50,000 is now income that Jane has to pay taxes on. If Jane is a high earner, she may have to pay up to 37%, or $18,500 to Uncle Sam in taxes. Ouch! Let’s say during the same year Jane also spent $30,000...

“Vox Populi, Vox Dei, man.” So says self-proclaimed Chief Twit Elon Musk from a private jet flying high above the world during a Twitter Spaces appearance on Sunday, Dec. 4 (JST). It does sound nice to say, but the voice of the mob should never be the voice of “God.” The reasons are myriad. Suffice it to say that in the same way failed crypto-exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried supposedly set off Musk’s BS detector, so should Musk be setting off our own alarm bells. His actions simply don’t match his nice-sounding words, and anyone who refuses to understand free speech is also going to miss the boat on crypto and economic freedom. God Save the ‘Technoking,’ the People Are Disposable Tesla CEO and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk recently ended a massively-tuned-into Dec. 4 Twitter Space hosted by Mario Nawfal, by noting that we live in a time which, different from times past, doesn’t involve “some king or whatever [that would] just by default suppress” free speech. Thi...

The CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, says that most crypto companies will not be around following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. However, the executive is still optimistic about blockchain technology. Blackrock’s CEO on FTX’s Collapse and Future of Crypto Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the world’s largest asset management firm, talked about cryptocurrency and the collapsed exchange FTX during an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit last week. Blackrock had $7.96 trillion in assets under management (AUM) as of the third quarter. The asset management firm invested $24 million in Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)’s FTX through a billionaire fund it manages, the CEO explained. Regarding the FTX meltdown, Fink said: “We’re going to have to wait to see how this all plays out … I mean, right now we can make all the judgment calls and it looks like there were misbehaviors of major consequences.” The Blackrock chief executive believes that mos...

The host of Mad Money, Jim Cramer, says former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is a pathological liar and a conman. “That guy is a clueless idiot. Intent means nothing. Saying sorry means nothing,” Cramer stressed. Jim Cramer on Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Collapse The host of CNBC’s Mad Money show, Jim Cramer, shared his thoughts about the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and its co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in a couple of interviews on CNBC Thursday. Cramer is a former hedge fund manager who co-founded Thestreet.com, a financial news and literacy website. Commenting on Bankman-Fried’s claim during an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that he “didn’t try to commit fraud on anyone,” Cramer said: That guy is a clueless idiot. Intent means nothing. Saying sorry means nothing. If you commingle, if you had no record keeping, those are against the law. “You were sloppy, you didn’t keep records —illegal — alright, so if you’re admitting to illegality,...

Leading global cryptocurrency exchange, Bitget, announces today that it is launching its Proof of Reserves Page, which will demonstrate to users that we are a full-reserve exchange, as supported by its Proof of Reserves (“PoR”), using the cryptographic-audited Merkle tree method, and that users’ assets stored on the platform are safeguarded. The Proof of Reserves page provides users with a wealth of information on the topic, including several core elements such as “Merkle Validator”, the monthly snapshots presenting the balance of the reserve pools, user education on Proof of Reserves and the importance of being fully reserved, as well as how the Merkle tree supports and proves the authenticity and consistency of the data presented by Bitget. Snapshots of reserve wallets on the platform and the user’s assets serve as reassuring evidence and demonstrate that their assets are held at least at a 1:1 ratio. To further enhance transparency and ensure the accuracy of the information on t...

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has warned about the possibility of a perennial winter for blockchain projects, including crypto. In a recent article published in the New York Times (NYT), the economist criticizes blockchain as a tech and its uses citing several signs that he believes precede this upcoming winter. Paul Krugman Compares Crypto Winter to Fimbulwinter Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize award winner, is warning about an upcoming eternal cryptocurrency winter for blockchain-based projects, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency networks. In an NYT opinion piece published on Dec. 1, the economist discusses the real utility of this tech, and how there are already signs that predict a future downfall. Krugman criticizes the real utility of this technology when there are other centralized alternatives that currently function quite well. On this, Krugman explained his skepticism, stating: What’s the point?” Why go to the trouble and expense of maintaining a ledg...

Nigeria users of the crypto exchange AAX, which suspended withdrawals on Nov. 12, reportedly stormed its offices in Lagos and began assaulting employees. Reports that disgruntled AAX users have harassed the crypto exchange’s workers came just days after the Nigerian crypto and blockchain advocacy group asked to refrain from doing so. Meanwhile, the former vice president of AAX claimed in a tweet that the “brand is no more and trust is broken.” Disgruntled Nigerian AAX Users Told to Spare Local Employees According to a local report, a group of disgruntled Nigerian users of Atom Asset Exchange (AAX) recently stormed the crypto exchange’s offices in Lagos and assaulted employees. The angry mob reportedly demanded the lifting of a freeze on withdrawals, which came into effect on Nov. 12. While the Dec. 2 report by Legit does not state when the incident occurred, it nonetheless corroborates an earlier plea made by the advocacy group the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association...

Russia’s market for specialized crypto mining equipment has been seeing high demand over the past couple of months, with buyers attracted by the low price tags. Russian experts also predict an increase in the supply of used coin minting hardware as large foreign companies leave the industry. Russian Demand for Powerful ASIC Miners Skyrockets in Q4, Report Reveals Demand for powerful computing devices designed to mint bitcoin has surged in Russia during the fourth quarter of the year, spurred by their low prices amid declining crypto markets, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. The country’s cheap electricity rates and expectations for a higher supply of second-hand miners have played a role as well. The positive trend in the market for ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) miners, used to extract bitcoin, has been observed despite a recent decrease in demand for graphics processing units ( GPUs ), or video cards employed to validate transactions for other cryp...

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has been heavily criticized for saying that she appreciates former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) being candid in his discussions about the collapse of his crypto exchange, FTX. “SBF has not, in fact, been candid in his discussions. He committed fraud, full stop,” one critic stressed. Maxine Waters Slammed for Appreciating Sam Bankman-Fried Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, was slammed on social media after she tweeted her appreciation to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) Friday. Waters is leading a congressional hearing on the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, which will begin on Dec. 13. The lawmaker wrote: “We appreciate that you’ve been candid in your discussions about what happened at FTX. Your willingness to talk to the public will help the company’s customers, investors, and others. To that end, we would welcome your participation in our hearing on the 13th.” Many people quickly poi...

Tesla CEO and Twitter chief Elon Musk says that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) probably donated over $1 billion to support the Democratic Party, which would be a much larger sum than the number publicly disclosed. Many people slammed Musk for making accusations without providing proof. “This statement is so unbelievably irresponsible,” one commented. Elon Musk Believes SBF Donated Over $1B to Democratic Party Tesla CEO and Twitter chief Elon Musk believes that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), co-founder and former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, donated much more than the publicly disclosed amount to support the Democratic Party in elections. Bankman-Fried was the second largest donor to the Democratic Party, after billionaire George Soros, in the 2021-2022 election cycle. According to Opensecrets, he donated $39,884,256 to Democrats before FTX imploded and had to file for bankruptcy . An estimated one million customers and investors lost billions of dollars in t...