Current updates consist of year-end and early days of 2021. Find out crypto industry performance and its role in the new year. And a lot more about digital wealth and its security.
::Bitcoin::
- Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal says Bitcoin’s new bull cycle could be far bigger than most are expecting. Pal says this bull run will be far different than the last due to an influx of institutional investors moving into the space.
- Bitcoin price breaks above $24,500 for the first time on Christmas eve. Bitcoin refused to conform to bearish prognoses, shrugging off lows that resulted from legal action against Ripple.
- BitGo assets under custody grow to $16 billion amid institutional investments.
- Bitstamp halts XRP Trading for U.S. Customers. In response to the SEC’s recent filing against Ripple, Bitstamp has halted trading on XRP to all U.S. customers. Other countries are not affected.
- Max Keiser predicts Ray Dalio will soon invest in BTC, followed by Elon Musk. Keiser asserts that even though Dalio has vocalized his concerns about the king of crypto, even he will convert a sizable chunk of his portfolio into BTC.
- Bitcoin Price eyes $28,000 as BTC Dominance Marks 14-Month High. The crypto market cap spikes above $700 billion, while BTC’s dominance rises to over 70% as alts cannot catch up with bitcoin’s surge.
- Mexico’s second richest man says Bitcoin is his best investment ever. Pliego breaks down his Bitcoin investment thesis.
- Binance launches bilateral Bitcoin European options. The launch follows a successful testnet trial carried out back in November. The new options contract will be priced and settled in Tether.
- Bitcoin touches $500 Billion Market Cap, beats Visa, Walmart and Samsung.
- India ponders Bitcoin tax law to target $5B market. India’s government could levy taxes on Bitcoin trading despite the lack of legal clarity for the country’s crypto space.
- SkyBridge Capital, the investment firm run by Anthony Scaramucci, has reportedly already invested $182 million in bitcoin and said in an investor brochure the flagship cryptocurrency is “digital gold.”
- Bitcoin price inches closer to $30,000 after proving Warren Buffett wrong. The total market cap of Bitcoin reached $540 billion, more than Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as BTC gets closer to $30K.
- Polkadot overtakes Bitcoin Cash in the first year of activity. The so-called “Ethereum killer” finally surpassed the market capitalization of Bitcoin Cash.
- Bitcoin crossed $31,000 for the first time ever Saturday morning, a little more than an hour after blowing past $30,000 like it was a non-event, all in all starting 2021 in notable fashion following a remarkable year by the leading cryptocurrency.
- India wants to impose a GST Tax on BTC. Following a lengthy period of preventing bitcoin companies from doing business with banks, India now says it’s considering imposing a large Goods and Services Tax on all BTC.
- Microstrategy’s BTC holdings more than double in value to $2.4 Billion four months later. The continuing bitcoin price rally has seen the value of Microstrategy’s total holdings of the digital asset go up by 100%.
- Bitcoin welcomes new money by dropping $5,000 in hours. The asset fell nearly 15% after trading at $33,000 this morning and caused over $1 billion worth of liquidations in the past 12 hours.
- Nigel Green, CEO of U.K.-based financial advisory firm deVere Group, has said he sold 50% of his bitcoin holdings over Christmas as the cryptocurrency’s price surged to record levels.
- Kim Dotcom’s next-generation content-monetization service K. IM announces Bitcoin Cash integration.
::Blockchain::
- Riot Blockchain, Nasdaq-listed bitcoin mining firm announced its purchase of 15,000 additional mining ASIC machines from Bitmain, pushing the total number of machines ordered by the mining company to over 31,000 in 2020.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is set to bring a lawsuit against Ripple over the XRP cryptocurrency which it considers a security.
- Germany’s cabinet has approved legislation that authorizes the use of blockchain technology in transacting securities.
- Hashed, the South Korea-based blockchain firm, has raised $120 million for a fund that will be focused on the new era of distributed networks.
- Binance-backed Cere Network has raised another $1.5 million to become a decentralized version of Salesforce.
- Ripple lawsuit could invoke billions in losses to Innocent Third Parties, says former SEC Commissioner. The SEC recently filed a lawsuit against Ripple and two executives.
- Cover Protocol Hacker makes off with Millions, Binance halts token trading. Yet another DeFi hacker has successfully made off with $4 million after exploiting a bug in Cover Protocol’s smart contract.
- Ripple to meet with SEC in first pretrial conference on February 22, 2021. Both parties will meet over video call, according to a court order from the US District Court of the Southern District of New York.
- Polkadot surges 60% weekly as Binance announced a $10M support fund. The fund supports projects employing the Polkadot network.
- Coinbase faces class action lawsuit for selling XRP tokens. A Coinbase client is suing the company for selling XRP tokens on their exchange.
- Yearn Finance founder Andre Cronje has released a new decentralized finance protocol called yCredit.
- Polkadot surged more than 90 percent in one week after a $10M endorsement in the project by Binance. Binance also replaced ETH with DOT on the website.
::Crypto::
- CoinDCX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $13.9 million from investors to complete the exchange’s third round of funding for the year 2020.
- Huobi secures Nevada Trust Company License. The cryptocurrency exchange is planning to make a comeback in the US after gaining a license for the Huobi Trust.
- Bitwise’s crypto index fund has liquidated its XRP position. The move took place in light of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has alleged that XRP is a security.
- Binance Korea to close operations next month. The crypto exchange serving Korean clients announced today that it has decided to close its operations due to low usage.
- The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against Stefan Qin, Founder of cryptocurrency arbitrage fund, Virgil Capital, for defrauding investors.
- PayPal drops rumored deal with the crypto firm BitGo. In October, it was reported that PayPal was poised to acquire BitGo, one of the country’s oldest cryptocurrency firms.
- Livecoin exchange goes offline after Bitcoin price reportedly exceeds $320K. Russian crypto exchange Livecoin claims that it has suffered a “carefully planned attack,” but some in the community suspect an exit scam.
- BlackRock plans to meet growing cryptocurrency demand. The world’s largest asset manager is hiring a cryptocurrency specialist with experience in the valuation of crypto assets.
- Spanish City Lebrija introduces cryptocurrency Elio. The city in the Spanish province of Sevilla launched its cryptocurrency to facilitate local transactions during COVID-19.
- Singapore-based Vauld, a crypto lending and borrowing platform, has raised $2 million in a fresh funding round, intending to become a full-fledged crypto bank.
- Cryptocurrency Broker Voyager Digital faces cyberattack. The broker decided to take the system offline following the attack.
- World’s first physical cryptocurrency bank opens in India. Cashaa partnered with United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society to open a physical cryptocurrency banking branch in Jaipur.
- Dash has launched a public alpha for DashPay, a social cryptocurrency wallet, to deliver a seamless user experience with human-readable usernames, contact lists, and profile pictures.
- The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network wants Americans to report if they have more than $10,000 in cryptocurrencies with foreign financial or virtual asset service providers.
- Binance will cover $10 Million of COVER losses. Leading crypto exchange has its users covered. Cover Protocol was attacked on Dec. 28 for $4 million.
- Carolina Panthers star Russel Okung receives half of his $13 million salary in Bitcoin. Okung said he was paid in bitcoin after asking to be paid in the cryptocurrency for almost two years.
- Exploit discovered on Andre Cronje’s latest project yCredit. An exploit has been discovered on yCredit, only a day after the protocol was launched.
- Crypto exchange Bittrex to delist privacy coins Monero, Zcash, and Dash.
::Ethereum::
- ETH price soars above $700 for the first time since 2018. Rising interest and adoption of crypto assets plays a role in the rise.
- Ether prices soared on Sunday, trading above $800 for the first time since March 2018. The second-highest cryptocurrency by market cap, the total value of ether is currently $92.5 billion.
- Ethereum rose by more than $400 on January 4th to record a new yearly high of above $1000 as its market cap breached the $100 billion mark in nearly three years as well.
::Digital Currency::
- SEBA bank has completed a Series B funding round, raising about $22 million from new and existing investors. With the capital, the company intends to accelerate its growth by boosting its offering locally and internationally.
- Japan is gearing up to issue digital currency in both the public and private sectors following swift moves by China and other countries to do the same.
- Digital Currency Group is planning to launch a new wealth management subsidiary.
- Moneygram distances itself from Ripple after the SEC lawsuit. The company issued a statement addressing the recent turmoil between Ripple and the U.S. SEC due to a lawsuit filed by the SEC against the Ripple.
- The Israel Tax Authority, Israel’s revenue collector has reportedly sent notifications to dozens of Israelis who own digital currencies, asking them to disclose their crypto assets and be taxed accordingly.
- The Central Bank of Russia said that the development of digital currencies may challenge the SWIFT international banking payment system and could eventually make it redundant.
- Turkey will begin piloting a previously undisclosed digital currency in the second half of 2021, the country’s chief central banker Naci Ağbal revealed.
- Digital asset manager Grayscale Investments has passed another milestone, reaching $19 billion in assets under management on December 28th, up from the $16.4 billion announced last week.
- Serbia legalizes cryptocurrency trading. Exchanges have to obtain licenses from the country’s digital currency supervisors.
- GMO Internet Group Tokyo-based tech conglomerate has just been authorized by the New York State Department of Financial Services to issue stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen.
- White House Market, the prominent darknet marketplace has dropped bitcoin payments and now accepts monero only.
- Turkish central bank is set to begin trials of a new digital currency in 2021 after the central bank announced it had been working on a digital lira.
- Selected Shenzhen residents to get lottery ‘red envelopes’ with digital yuan. Winners of the city’s lottery will have 10 days to spend their gifted digital currency, at any of 10,000 supported merchants.
