May 11, 2019 @ 5:46 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Lawyers at the Silver Miller law firm have filed a class action suit against founders and pervaders of OneCoin, an alleged global cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that bilked investors out of an estimated $4 billion dollars. Ruja Ignatova, Konstantin Ignatov, Sebastian Greenwood and Mark Scott are… Read More

May 11, 2019 @ 4:20 pm By Cali Haan  |  

US Senators Mike Crapo and Sherrod Brown have sent an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to provide information on the company’s much-anticipated and highly-secretive “Libra” cryptocurrency project. So far, little is known publicly about the project, although reporting at Bloomberg indicates… Read More

May 11, 2019 @ 11:07 am By Cali Haan  |  

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, has issued a blog post stating the business is working hard to tighten security after hackers stole 7070 Bitcoins (worth ~$44 million USD) from an exchange hot wallet earlier this week. Zhao… Read More

May 10, 2019 @ 4:43 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat who represents a Southern California District in the San Fernando Valley, has called on fellow congressional reps to ban cryptocurrencies. He asks that they do so on the basis that cryptocurrencies’ “sole” application is for the undermining of the rule… Read More

May 10, 2019 @ 8:20 am By Cali Haan  |  

Chinese OTC Bitcoin trader Dong Zhao has once again taken to Chinese mega social platform WeChat to talk up an IEO (initial exchange offering) being issued by Bitfinex, the troubled cryptocurrency exchange in which Zhao reportedly holds equity, Coindesk reports. Bitfinex is owned by iFinex,… Read More

May 9, 2019 @ 5:00 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Cryptocurrency pundits on Twitter are claiming that Bitcoin markets are being manipulated and propped up by whales. In response to a comment from another pundit surprised that the price of Bitcoins didn’t drop substantially upon news of the $41 million USD hack this week on… Read More

May 9, 2019 @ 4:22 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Changpeng Zhao, CEO and founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, stirred controversy this week when he suggested that colluding Bitcoin miners could “roll-back” Bitcoin’s data records and recover $41 million USD in bitcoins hacked from Binance this week. Zhao made the comments in… Read More

May 8, 2019 @ 11:47 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The price of Ethereum (ETH), beleaguered for over a year, jumped from ~$160 USD to ~$180 USD in the hours following a May 6th Coindesk report that the CFTC may be “comfortable” with allowing trading of ETH futures. Image from Coinmarketcap. The price had settled… Read More

May 8, 2019 @ 10:44 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Officers of the Spanish Civil Guard in Spain assisted by Europol have arrested eight people and charged eight more for allegedly, “…providing large-scale crypto money laundering services to other criminal organizations.” Europol says the bust of this “cryptocurrency laundering as a service business” comes follows operation… Read More

May 8, 2019 @ 12:18 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Hackers breached a single hot wallet at Binance this week and made off with $40.7 million USD in Bitcoins. This is according to the “Binance Security Breach Update” posted May 7th on the Binance website: “We have discovered a large scale security breach today, May 7,… Read More

May 7, 2019 @ 7:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

iFinex, parent company of the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange and creator of Tether, the world’s most popular “stablecoin” cryptocurrency, has asked a court in New York to “vacate” (render void) ex parte orders issued by the Attorney General of New York compelling iFinex to produce comprehensive… Read More

May 6, 2019 @ 6:32 pm By Cali Haan  |  

“Cryptocurrency market insights and community platform” Viewbase is analyzing wallet balances held by cryptocurrency exchanges to evaluate the accuracy of trading-volume figures reported by them. Viewbase claims to have found, “a huge disparity between the Ether balances and the reported trading volumes by exchanges.” “Reported versus… Read More

May 6, 2019 @ 1:18 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Columbia University Economics Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a long time financial transparency advocate who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 says cryptocurrencies function poorly as currencies, push economic activity underground and, for these reasons, should be “shut down.” Stiglitz made the comments in an interview at CNBC…. Read More

May 6, 2019 @ 9:40 am By Cali Haan  |  

The US government has asked a judge in Arizona to detain Reginald Fowler, 60, who was arrested April 30th and charged with bank fraud, operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy for allegedly providing “shadow banking” services to cryptocurrency exchanges. Regarding the case, the… Read More

May 6, 2019 @ 7:33 am By Cali Haan  |  

ICE’s Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey Sprecher, told analysts in a conference call this week that the crypto bear market of 2018 allowed ICE’s crypto venture, Bakkt, to cheaply acquire Digital Asset Custody Co, Reuters reports. The acquisition of Digital Asset Custody Co could improve Bakkt’s… Read More

May 6, 2019 @ 7:04 am By Cali Haan  |  

Coinbase CTO Balaji S. Srinivasan, who took his position at America’s top crypto exchange in April of last year after his company Earn.com was acquired by Coinbase, has announced on Twitter that he is leaving the company: Earn.com is an app that allows users to earn… Read More

May 5, 2019 @ 8:49 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Controversial cryptocurrency company iFinex, operator of several crypto exchanges and the issuer of billion-dollar “stablecoin,” Tether, has issued a “marketing document” outlining its plans to create a new IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) token, LEO, that the company may use to cover operating expenses and hypothetically… Read More

May 5, 2019 @ 6:25 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Legendary investor and Berkeshire Hathawaay founder Warren Buffet, who famously called Bitcoin “rat poison-squared” in  2018, has once again portrayed the world’s biggest cryptocurrency as substanceless, CNBC reports. “It’s a gambling device…” Buffet told a group of reporters convening ahead of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting held… Read More

May 5, 2019 @ 6:20 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Police in Germany and the US moved in this week to arrest three men in Germany they believe operated “Wall Street Market,” the world’s second largest Dark Net market for drugs and other illicit products, The Telegraph reports. Two more men associated with the case,… Read More

May 4, 2019 @ 2:49 pm By Cali Haan  |  

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank, has “developed and evaluated four prototypes based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) over the past three years,” but results are underwhelming so far, The Banker reports. This conclusion was provided by Petra Hielkema, director of payments and… Read More