If you want to live forever, you need a money fit for purpose. Bitcoin, for many, is the ticket. It’s the first, largest and most decentralized cryptocurrency. It’s widely adopted – from retail investors to pension funds to nation-states. It has a durable brand. There’s a case to be made that it’s the most recent “Lindy” invention, the idea that ancient phenomena are less perishable by virtue of being around the longest. But who would want to live forever? As a historical fact, it turns out, many early adopters of cryptocurrency, that’s who! How fitting! Transhumanists, a broad category of people who want to improve the human condition – extending life or extinguishing death, spreading happiness and eradicating suffering through technology – looked at bitcoin as a powerful tool in their arsenal. This article, part of CoinDesk’s Future of Money […]

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said stablecoins could lead to greater efficiencies and contribute to easier payments, but required proper regulation. “There are significant risks associated with them, including risks to payment systems and risks related to the concentration of economic power,” she said. Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before a Senate banking committee on Tuesday. In response to a question from Senator Patrick Toomey about guidance from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regarding the regulation of crypto providers that never take custody or control or customer’s assets, Yellen said that she agreed with updated FinCEN guidance and believed the FATF does, too. Yellen noted that in its updated guidance, the FATF clarified that its intent was not to regulate as virtual asset providers (VASPs) people or providers that “provide only ancillary services or products to […]

Bitcoin (BTC) buyers failed to sustain yesterday’s price bounce, although support around $53,000-$55,000 could stabilize the current pullback. The cryptocurrency is down about 2% over the past 24 hours and is roughly flat over the past week. The downward sloping 100-period moving average on the four-hour chart indicates a short-term downtrend. This means buyers have consistently taken some profit on rallies over the past month. Recently, the $60,000 resistance level has been a key hurdle for buyers despite oversold readings on the charts. So far, support levels remain intact, which could establish a tight trading range between $55,000-$60,000 into the Asian trading day. BTC was trading around $57,800 at press time.

Borderless Capital is launching a $500 million ALGO Fund II to help develop projects built on the Algorand blockchain, the company announced on Tuesday. The fund will invest in “digital assets powering the next generation of decentralized applications on top of the Algorand blockchain network,” including projects “to disrupt the creators economy with NFTs and initiatives that can increase capital in the ALGO DeFi ecosystem through liquidity mining, lending, borrowing and yield farming,” the company said in a press release. “It amazes us to see how the ecosystem has expanded since then, but we believe this is just the beginning and there is a lot of room to keep growing,” Borderless Founding Managing Partner David Garcia said in a statement. The Miami-based firm is among the leading investors in the Algorand ecosystem. In June 2019, it launched a $200 million […]

David Marcus is leaving Facebook (now Meta) with the company’s libra (now diem) stablecoin yet to be fully launched. He said Tuesday on Twitter he was stepping down as Meta’s crypto lead and leaving the company, suggesting he’d return to his “entrepreneurial” roots. Marcus leaves the diem stablecoin project, first announced in June 2019, as it continues to face stiff regulatory headwinds. While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it. (2/7) — David Marcus (@davidmarcus) November 30, 2021 Marcus, a former president of PayPal, first joined Facebook as the vice president of the company’s Messenger division. […]

The English Premier League is said to be considering a partnership with a cryptocurrency platform that provides non-fungible tokens (NFTs), according to The Times. Minutes of the most recent meeting between the Premier League and fan representatives reveal that the league is considering getting involved in NFTs, with sources saying that the League’s approach will be “slow and cautious,” and different from the fan engagement model provided by a platform such as Socios, The Times reported Monday. Several Premier League teams have launched tokens on the Socios platform, which fans can purchase to receive prizes, access special experiences or vote on minor club decisions. The Premier League may instead be looking to follow in the footsteps of Spain’s La Liga, which partnered with French digital soccer collectibles platform Sorare in September to offer NFTs of all players in the league […]

Bitcoin turned lower along with U.S. stocks after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday it may be time to retire the term “transitory” as a way of describing inflation. Over the past year Powell and other officials at the U.S. central bank have repeatedly used that term to suggest the forces driving recent consumer-price increases might abate as the economy accelerates from coronavirus-related lockdowns. So the shift in messaging by Powell, during testimony before a U.S. Senate panel, might signal that authorities now see the inflationary pressures as longer-lasting – potentially indicating the bank might be less willing to continue the loose monetary policies that have buoyed markets for risky assets, including cryptocurrencies. “It is time to retire the word ‘transitory’ regarding inflation,” Powell said during the hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. Bitcoin’s price slid to about $57,000 […]

Bitcoin investment firm NYDIG raised $50 million for its seventh fund to invest in cryptocurrencies, the firm said in a regulatory filing. NYDIG opened the fund on Nov. 16 and a single investor contributed the full amount. The firm plans to leave the fund open indefinitely. NYDIG launched its first digital asset funds late last year when the NYDIG Digital Assets Fund I raised $50 million and the NYDIG Digital Assets Fund II raised $100 million from institutional investors. Fund I invested entirely in bitcoin, but it’s not clear if that’s the case for the latest fund. The NYDIG funds tend to attract investors with deep pockets. The first digital asset fund included two backers and the second had one investor. NYDIG, a subsidiary of Stone Ride Holdings, has longstanding ties with traditional financial institutions. Earlier this year, NYDIG partnered […]

Crypto exchange Coinbase has acquired cryptographic security company Unbound Security to expand its multi-party computational (MPC) capabilities. Coinbase considers Unbound Security to be a pioneer in MPC, a subset of cryptography that allows multiple parties to evaluate a computation without any of them revealing their own private data. With the acquisition, Coinbase will also establish a presence in Unbound’s native Israel, according to a blog post Tuesday. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Coinbase did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment. “Secure multi-party computation is an application of advanced mathematics to enable crypto assets to be stored, transferred and deployed more securely, easily and flexibly than ever before,” Coinbase wrote in its blog post. Read more: Coinbase Acquires Crypto Wallet Firm BRD for Undisclosed Amount

Cook Finance, a decentralized asset-management platform, is launching on Avalanche, bringing a suite of decentralized finance (DeFi) indexes to users in the fast-growing blockchain’s ecosystem. The new service comes as Avalanche and other upstart blockchains look to win market share from Ethereum, where users have complained of high fees. “We see this launch as providing an easy way for new users who want to get into DeFi indexes but were held back by high gas fees on Ethereum,” said Adrian Peng, CEO of Cook Finance. Similar to index products in traditional finance, Cook’s index products are composed of a list of tokens and track the performance of the underlying assets, making it easier for investors to buy a diversified allocation of cryptocurrencies in a single transaction. Cook Finance launched its mainnet on the Ethereum blockchain in June, and it’s also […]

Digital asset manager Grayscale Investments has unveiled its sixteenth investment vehicle which will be passively invested in solana. Grayscale is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, the parent company of CoinDesk. The Grayscale Solana Trust is now available to eligible individual and institutional accredited investors, the firm announced Tuesday. It follows similar products that offer exposure to prominent digital assets such as bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, litecoin, and stellar lumens. Solana has enjoyed explosive growth in 2021, increasing from around $1.50 at the start of the year to $214 at the time of writing. Read more: Grayscale Files With SEC to Convert Its Bitcoin Trust Into an ETF

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Solana-based institutional derivatives hub Hxro Network raised $34 million from some of finance’s behind-the-scenes kingmakers. Susquehanna International Group, a major (if hush-hush) traditional equities trading shop, co-led the round through its ventures wing, SIG DT, alongside Jump Crypto – Robinhood’s go-to firm for processing crypto trades – and Blockchain Capital, a crypto ventures firm. Also featuring Alameda, Coinbase Ventures, Solana, the Chicago Trading Company and others, the round highlights how deep-pocketed investors are betting and building on the Solana ecosystem as a home for financial markets – not just crypto trades. Hxro Network’s derivatives toolbox will feature protocols for futures, perpetual swaps, options and parimutuels, co-founder Dan Gunsberg told CoinDesk. Projects can plug into those protocols and spin up a limitless number of derivatives trading outposts. Read more: Crypto Derivatives Firm Hxro Raises $15M From Macro Hedge Fund Commonwealth That […]

Crypto.com’s CRO token more than tripled in November, becoming the month’s top-performing cryptocurrency, after announcing new marketing initiatives involving hiring Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon to star in an advertising campaign and purchasing a naming-rights deal with the stadium where the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team plays. The cryptocurrency exchange and credit-card issuer founded in 2016 now has a market cap of more than $17 billion, making it the top performer in November amongst digital assets with a market cap above $10 billion, according to Messari. At press time, the CRO price was around $0.70, up 226% on the month. That compares with an 83% gain for the month’s second-biggest gainer, Avalanche’s AVAX token. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, slid 4.5% in November. “Crypto.com’s recent marketing initiatives have certainly played a role in CRO’s gains,” said Clara Medalie, research lead at Kaiko, […]

2TM, the holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange by market valuation, raised an additional $50.3 million in a second closing of its Series B funding round. In June, Mercado Bitcoin raised $200 million in a first closing led by the SoftBank Latin America Fund at a $2.1 billion valuation. New investors included 10T, a crypto-focused private equity firm, and Tribe Capital, a venture capital firm with investments in crypto exchanges FTX and Kraken, the company said in a statement. “Our international expansion and the increasing offer of new products based on the technology that gave life to bitcoin are just beginning. Tribe and 10T will bring their expertise in the blockchain segment, which is even more relevant than the amount invested,” 2TM CEO Roberto Dagnoni said in a statement. 2TM plans to expand operations in Latin America, […]

Huobi Tech is introducing crypto lending for institutional investors in Hong Kong, according to a company press release shared with CoinDesk. The loans will range from $10,000 to $100 million in USDT and other currencies, and will carry an 8.8% fixed-term annual percentage rate, a company representative told CoinDesk via email. The Hong Kong-listed company is affiliated with crypto exchange Huobi Global through a common co-founder, Leon Li, but is a separate legal entity. The loans will be provided through Huobi Brokerage, Huobi Tech’s digital asset brokerage platform. Customers can use crypto as collateral, and the loan terms will range from three months to two years, the company said. Exchanges licensed by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission can provide services only to professional investors, meaning those with over HK$8 million ($1 million) in their portfolio.

Griid Infrastructure, which owns and operates bitcoin mining facilities, is to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a merger with Adit EdTech Acquisition Corp. The combined enterprise value of the two companies is $3.3 billion, according to an announcement Tuesday. Cincinnati-based Griid has three facilities in the U.S. and aims to have mining capacity of 734 megawatts operational by 2023. The newly formed entity will operate under the name “GRIID Infrastructure Inc.” and list on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “GRDI.” Read more: Blockchain ‘Blank Check’ SPAC Announces $100M IPO to Fund Acquisitions