Category: Crypto

The crypto space is once again filled with speculation, and this time, it’s about whether Binance — the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — will finally list Pi Network (PI) on March 14. Pi Network has already been listed on multiple centralised exchanges (CEXs), but Binance has yet to make a move. In February, an overwhelming 86% of Binance users voted in favour of listing PI, yet the exchange has remained silent.
Many believe March 14 is the perfect date for the listing, as it marks Pi Network’s sixth anniversary. A Binance listing could be the catalyst needed to push PI’s price back above $3, especially after its recent 20% drop to $1.40 due to a broader market correction.

Pi Network: A Revolution or a Scam?

Despite its strong community, Pi Network has its share of critics. Some believe it represents the future of decentralised mining, while others question its long-delayed roadmap. Launched in 2019, the project’s Open Network only went live this year, leaving early adopters frustrated.

Will Binance Finally List PI?

As of now, Binance has not made any official announcement. However, the crypto world thrives on speculation, and if the rumors are true, March 14 could be a historic day for Pi Network. If not, the wait continues.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/markets/will-binance-finally-list-pi-network-crypto-fans-await-march-14-decision-article-118881769

Bitcoin is often touted as an alternative to the US dollar, the world’s reserve currency, as only a limited number of coins will ever be produced. Proponents argue that bitcoin’s fixed supply makes it an inflation-proof value store outside the global financial system. Bitcoin is often compared to gold for a similar reason.

While central banks worldwide keep large reserves of the dollar and gold, until now, only one country — El Salvador — has created a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies, although several governments do hold them, mostly seized from criminal activities or to circumvent international sanctions.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a strategic reserve of bitcoin, having previously said he wants the United States to be a leader in digital money.

Crypto advocates have responded euphorically to the plans, while skeptics argue it will expose US taxpayers to the huge price volatility of digital currencies.

As Trump welcomes the top crypto movers and shakers to the White House for a summit on Friday, DW explores what the president has in mind.

What do we know about Trump’s plan?

Under Trump’s order, the federal government will retain the nearly 200,000 bitcoin seized in criminal and civil proceedings, according to Trump’s “crypto czar” David Sacks.

“The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold,'” Sacks wrote on X, referring to the location in Kentucky where most of the US gold reserves are kept.

The executive order calls for a “full accounting” of the government’s bitcoin holdings, which Sacks said have never been fully audited.

Sacks added that over the last decade, Washington had sold off about 195,000 bitcoin for $366 million, which he said would be worth about $17 billion if still held.

Sacks said the order allows for the Treasury and Commerce Departments “to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin.”

On Sunday, Trump named the five cryptocurrencies to be held in the reserves, namely bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano.

“A U.S. Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “I will make sure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World.”

Trump, who was once anti-crypto, is now a growing fan of alternative currencies and first mooted the idea of a strategic stockpile at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in July.

US agencies hold 198.109 bitcoins, worth around $18.1 billion (€16.7 billion) as of Thursday, according to a tally by Arkham Intelligence.

Most of the holdings are the seized proceeds of crime, including drug trafficking, money laundering, and hacking. The government also holds millions of dollars of seized ethereum, tether and other smaller digital coins.

What is a strategic reserve?

A strategic reserve is a stockpile of vital resources kept by governments or large organizations to provide a safety net during hard times.

Examples include the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which helps ensure a regular supply of oil during crises, food reserves, including stockpiles of grain, to protect against hunger, and the stockpiling of vaccines by the US and European Union during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries also maintain monetary reserves, like foreign currencies or gold, to stabilize their economies and facilitate trade. The US government, for example, holds around 8,133 metric tons of gold, most of it at the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Increasingly, reserves of critical minerals needed for technology, the energy transition and defense are also being established.

Will a crypto stockpile work?

Proponents say a crypto strategic reserve could help financial stability by diversifying US national reserves beyond traditional assets like gold and foreign currencies.

Such a stockpile would also help legitimize cryptocurrencies, encouraging more financial institutions to hold them. The likes of bitcoin are still viewed by many institutional investors with suspicion due to their price volatility and decentralization.

But some analysts think the value of the stockpile could vanish in a market crash.

Others worried that if the government were to buy Bitcoin near its all-time high price of $109,000, it would be a costly endeavor, at a time when Trump is seeking billions of dollars in public sector cuts.

But Sacks insisted the use of the seized crypto assets “means it will not cost taxpayers a dime.”

Other critics accused Trump of favoritism toward a highly speculative investment, without providing clear strategic benefits for the nation.

Many of Trump’s backers are big crypto investors. Trump, himself, has a meme coin named after him.

Some observers pointed to the contradiction between creating a government stockpile of an asset that is deemed anti-establishment. Bitcoin was originally designed as a way to bypass government and central bank control.

Others were worried that if more governments began stockpiling the likes of bitcoin, they could potentially start to manipulate the crypto market, just as they do with gold and currencies.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/bitcoin-as-a-us-strategic-reserve-does-it-make-sense/a-71837690

Bitcoin backpedaled on Monday after an early rise following U.S. President Donald Trump’s weekend proposal for a national strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies.
Optimism on digital currency after Trump’s Sunday post on Truth Social turned to caution as market participants awaited more details about this crypto initiative.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, rose 2.4% from Friday’s levels, to $86,292 , but was down 8% from Sunday.

Trump said his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies, including bitcoin , ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano. The names had not previously been announced.
Bitcoin and ether will be at the heart of this reserve, he said in a post on Sunday that sent bitcoin up by a fifth from the November lows. The token has been sliding since mid-January due to disappointment Trump had not followed through on pledges to loosen regulation.
Ether was down 4.3% from Friday’s level, at $2,127.10, but sank nearly 16% from Sunday.

XRP tumbled more than 15% from Sunday’s levels to $2.48, but surged 25% from Friday. Solana also weakened, down 16% from Sunday to $148.89, but was up 1.6% from Friday.
Cardano sank 19% from Sunday to $0.8940, and fell 3% from Friday.
Anthony Pompliano, founder and chief executive officer at Professional Capital Management, and one of the biggest crypto investors, said in a letter to his clients on Monday that he was not in favor of a strategic crypto reserve.

“Even though Solana is our second largest crypto position, and various public equities I hold are heavily correlated to altcoins, I still think this decision on a wide-ranging crypto strategic reserve is an unforced error that will be regretted in the future,” Pompliano said in a letter to investors.
He warned that the emerging policy appeared to be “a random smattering of speculative tools that will enrich the insiders and creators of these coins at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.”

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who run the Gemini crypto exchange, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, also expressed concern about the reserve. They noted that only bitcoin meets the bar for a store of value as a reserve asset, but were not sure about the other cryptocurrencies.
Still, Trump’s promise of a strategic reserve has generated excitement for the crypto industry, which has languished in recent weeks.
Bitcoin fell more than 17% in February, its biggest monthly percentage fall since June 2022. It lost more than a third of its price since topping $105,000 in early January.
Its rally since Trump’s November election was spurred by optimism that he would champion a strategic bitcoin fund and end former President Joe Biden’s crackdown.
“Ironically, a currency that was designed to be isolated from government interference and decentralized, is now reliant on the U.S. government for its fortunes,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, reiterating that the $100,000 level was an “obvious target” for bitcoin.
Beyond a flurry of appointments of crypto-friendly officials when Trump took office, there has been little concrete news so far around that policy for investors.
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore wrote that the Trump announcement has raised concerns.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/bitcoin-up-by-fifth-after-trump-lists-reserve-tokens-2025-03-03/

U.S. President Donald Trump on social media announced the names of five digital assets he expects to include in a new U.S. strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies on Sunday, spiking the market value of each.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including bitcoin , ether , XRP , solana and cardano . The names had not previously been announced.

More than an hour later, Trump added: “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, was up more than 11% at $94,164 Sunday afternoon. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up about 13% at $2,516.
The total cryptocurrency market has risen about 10%, or more than $300 billion, in the hours since Trump’s announcement, according to CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency data and analysis company.

XRP is cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs’ token. Ripple backed a so-called super PAC to influence congressional elections in November in favor of the crypto industry, Reuters reported.
“This move signals a shift toward active participation in the crypto economy by the U.S. government,” said Federico Brokate, head of U.S. business at 21Shares, a digital assets investment management firm. “It has the potential to accelerate institutional adoption, provide greater regulatory clarity, and strengthen the U.S.’s leadership in digital asset innovation.”
James Butterfill, head of research at asset manager CoinShares, said he was surprised to see digital assets other than bitcoin included in the reserve.
“Unlike bitcoin…these assets are more akin to tech investments,” Butterfill said. “The announcement suggests a more patriotic stance toward the broader crypto technology space, with little regard for the fundamental qualities of these assets.”

Trump won support from the crypto industry in his 2024 election bid, and he has quickly moved to back their policy priorities. He is hosting the first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, and his family has also launched its own coins.
Under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, regulators cracked down on the industry in a bid to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering.
Under Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn investigations into several crypto companies and dropped a lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN.O), the largest crypto exchange in the U.S.

But in recent weeks cryptocurrency prices are down sharply, with some of the biggest digital currencies erasing nearly all of the gains made after Trump’s election win triggered a wave of excitement across the industry.
Analysts say the market needs a reason to move higher, such as signs that the U.S. Federal Reserve plans to cut interest rates or a clear pro-crypto regulatory framework from the Trump administration.
Reuters has reported that Geoff Kendrick, an analyst at Standard Chartered, is targeting bitcoin to hit $500,000, against a record high of $109,071, before Trump leaves office.
Regulatory filings in the U.S. showed that while hedge funds remain the dominant crypto buyers, banks and sovereign wealth funds are buying too.
Quarterly filings showed that asset managers boosted allocations to U.S. ETFs tied to the price of spot bitcoin in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Analysts and legal experts are divided on whether an act of Congress will be necessary to set up the reserve. Some have argued the reserve could be created via the U.S. Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund, which can be used to purchase or sell foreign currencies.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-cryptocurrency-strategic-reserve-includes-xrp-sol-ada-2025-03-02/

James Howells is considering buying a council dump in South Wales after his former partner accidentally threw away a hard drive containing his Bitcoin wallet. Howells has already lost a high court case to allow him to search the tip for the hard drive, which he believes contains bitcoin worth £600 million, or US$757,284,000.

But would it even be possible to find it? Let’s do the maths.

Howells, a Welsh IT engineer, was an early adopter of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in December 2008. By February 2009, he had started mining the coins on his laptop – a process which involves using your computer to carry out complex mathematical processes in exchange for the coins.

At the time, he was one of just five people mining the currency, and he eventually accrued a fortune of around 8,000 bitcoins. Initially, these were basically worthless – the first real-world transaction involving the currency was in 2010, when a man in Florida bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins.

However, in the 15 years since, the value of the currency has grown dramatically, with a single bitcoin passing the US$100,000 mark in December 2024 – a value which would mean those two pizzas are now worth US$1 billion (£790 million).

Doing the calculations
No wonder Howells wants to find his hard drive. But what are the chances of finding a tiny 10cm hard drive in a site containing 1.4 billion kg of waste? Is it literally like finding a needle in a haystack?

At first, this seems like a simple calculation. If we randomly select a single location within the landfill, the probability that the hard drive will be there is simply the size of the object divided by the total size of the landfill.

A Google Maps estimate of the area of the Docksway landfill site suggests it is roughly 500,000 square meters (or 5 billion square centimeters), which is approximately the size of 70 soccer fields.

However, we also have to account for the depth of the landfill, with years of rubbish piled on top of each other. Even a conservative estimate of 20 meters would give a total volume of 10 million cubic meters (or 10 trillion cubic centimeters). This is roughly 3,600 times the volume of the swimming pool used at last summer’s Paris Olympic Games.

Howells says the Bitcoin are on a 2.5-inch hard drive, which has a volume of around 70 cubic centimeters (7cm x 10cm x 1cm). Therefore, the odds of finding the bitcoin at a single randomly selected location are 70/10,000,000,000,000 = 0.000000000007 – approximately a one in 143 billion chance.

This is over 3,000 times less likely than winning the jackpot on the UK’s National Lottery. However, with £600 million on the line, it seems unlikely anyone would just turn up and search one single location.

So, the real question here is about time and money. If we know that the hard drive is located somewhere within the landfill site, how long would it take to find it, and how much would it cost?

If we focus on time to begin with, this is really just an extension of our first calculation. Suppose it takes 1 second to search each 1,000 cubic centimeter section of the landfill (an incomplete estimate since my experience of hunting landfill for hard drives is limited), then it would take us 10 billion seconds (or 316 years) of continuous searching to cover the entire site. But of course, this could be significantly reduced by having an entire team searching at the same time.

Is it financially worth it?
Clearly, Howells does not have 316 years available to complete his search, but what if he was given the resources for one full year of non-stop searching? The odds of finding the hard drive this year would be 1 in 316, and while the chances remain slim, this might start to sound tempting given the potential reward.

That is where the aspect of cost comes in. How much would you be willing to pay in order to have a 1 in 316 chance of winning £600m? The answer lies in the statistical concept of “expected value”, which is the expected long-term outcome of a scenario if you were able to repeat it over and over again.

For example, suppose you were rolling a die, and you were told that you would be given £2 if you rolled a six but would have to pay £1 if you rolled any other value. You can work out the expected value of this game to see if it is worth playing. The odds of rolling a 6 are 1/6, and the odds of rolling any other value are 5/6. We can therefore compute the expected value as:

E [winnings] = 1/6 * £2 + 5/6 * (-£1) = 2/6 – 5/6 = -3/6 = -£1/2

In other words, you would expect to lose half of £1, on average, every time you played this game.

In the case of our bitcoins, we can think about the expected value as being the amount of money you would expect to make on average if you searched the landfill for a whole year. We would expect that, on average, we would find the hard drive (and the £600 million) 1 time out of 316, and would fail to find it 315 times out of 316 and get absolutely nothing. Therefore, we can compute the expected value as:

E [£ found] = 1/316 * £600m + 315/316 * 0 = £1,898,734

Source: https://studyfinds.org/lost-hard-drive-bitcoin-fortune-landfill-wales/

Despite watching Bitcoin’s scorching run past $100,000 and the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to be a “crypto president” in the U.S., some of the world’s largest investors said this week they still plan to stay on the sidelines.
“I am not an advocate, nor a critic … it is not what it was supposed to be, which was an alternative to banking,” said Anne Walsh, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, which is headquartered in New York and Chicago.

“To me, what crypto really correlates to is Nasdaq – it’s a risk-on appetite indicator to me,” she told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

Walsh said her investment firm, which manages assets of more than $335 billion, has so far not invested in crypto.
Meanwhile, Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of Norway’s $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said he did not see crypto becoming a part of Norges Bank Investment Management’s portfolio.

Bitcoin hit a record high of $109,071 on Monday when Trump was sworn in as president.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency more than doubled in price last year after the U.S. market regulator’s approval for exchange traded funds (ETF) tied to its spot price, and optimism over easing regulatory hurdles with Trump’s return to the White House.
“As an investor, what makes it challenging is figuring out what the true fundamental value of crypto is,” said Saira Malik, CIO and head of equities and fixed income at Chicago-based asset manager Nuveen.

Malik said that Nuveen, which has $1.3 trillion of assets under management, does not have any direct exposure to crypto. It does, however, invest in companies that could be exposed to the digital asset.
“There’s a lot of technology, a lot of intellectual power and talent that you need to bring into an organization to really excel in (crypto),” said Melissa Stolfi, chief operating officer at Los Angeles-based asset manager TCW Group.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/cryptos-charms-leave-some-investors-davos-cold-2025-01-23/

Trump’s meme coin

Donald Trump’s newly-created cryptocurrency, also known as $TRUMP, has risen in market value since its launch.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new crypto token soared to more than $10 billion in market value on Monday, while enthusiasm over his crypto-friendly administration helped briefly lift bitcoin to a new record.
Launched Friday night, Trump’s so-called “memecoin” surged from less than $10 on Saturday morning to as high as $74.59 before giving up some of its gains on Monday. The token, branded $TRUMP and criticized by ethics experts, was last trading at $33.88, according to cryptocurrency price tracker CoinGecko.

World Liberty Financial, a separate Trump-linked crypto project, also announced on Monday that it had completed an initial token sale, raising $300 million, and would look to issue additional tokens.
The expansion of Trump’s crypto interests comes as his administration is widely expected to usher in a “golden age” for cryptocurrencies, in stark contrast to the regulatory scrutiny the industry experienced under former President Joe Biden.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, hit a new record of $109,071 on inauguration day when Trump was sworn-in as the 47th U.S. President, but later pared those gains and was last trading at $101,867.40.
“The cryptocurrency market gained additional popularity in recent hours due to the launch of the TRUMP and MELANIA cryptocurrencies just before the inauguration,” said Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia Ltd, in a statement.

The Trump and Melania cryptocurrencies, the latter which was launched on Sunday, were created on the Solana blockchain.
The price of Solana’s coin also rose over the weekend, hitting an all-time high of $294.33 on Sunday.
“I think in the short term there’s a chance this could be a sell-the-news event,” said Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Astronaut Capital, adding that crypto investors had been anticipating some executive actions to be rolled out during Trump’s first day in office.
“Bitcoin has already retreated … We are expecting further volatility here and likely a selloff.”
Trump’s crypto token launched on Friday, trading under $10, but quickly rose, peaking at $72.62 on Sunday. It traded lower on Monday, falling from $52.15 to trade in the $30 range late in the day.
Eighty percent of Trump coin’s tokens are owned by CIC Digital, an affiliate of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website.
It says the coins are “an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP'” and are not an investment or security.
The launch of World Liberty Financial just two months before November’s U.S. election caused concern over ethics and conflicts of interest. The launch of Trump’s “memecoin” on Friday night also raised red flags, even among those in the cryptocurrency industry. Several key figures in Trump’s administration and his circles have ties to the crypto industry.
“While it’s tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of the official Trump token opens up a Pandora’s box of ethical and regulatory questions,” said Justin D’Anethan, an independent crypto analyst based in Hong Kong.
The Trump Organization said this month the president would hand daily management of his multi-billion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he entered the White House. Trump’s net worth is estimated by Forbes at $6.7 billion, although that does not include his crypto ventures.

SPECULATIVE ASSETS

Excitement over expected executive orders, and other policy actions, that could kickstart a sea change in U.S. cryptocurrency policy have helped turbocharge crypto prices in recent months — although Trump did not announce any new policies on Monday as many in the industry had hoped for.
“The market has some great expectations about a bitcoin strategic reserve and a loosening of regulations around digital assets, but it’s more likely these developments will be drip-fed over a series of months rather than days,” said Dibb.
The huge rise in the new coin prices prompted concern among some analysts.
“Meme cryptocurrencies, like these, are prone to large fluctuations and we generally consider them as speculative assets,” Drozdz at Conotoxia said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/trumps-new-crypto-token-jumps-ahead-his-inauguration-2025-01-20/

A U.S. bank regulator told banks to pause dabbling directly in crypto in 2022 and 2023, but did not order them to stop providing banking services to crypto companies contrary to industry complaints of widespread “debanking,” according to documents released on Friday.
A judge ordered the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to provide versions of supervisory “pause letters”, it sent to unidentified banks after History Associates Incorporated, a research firm hired by crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN.O), sued the agency to release them.

The FDIC first released the letters in December but was ordered by the judge to resubmit them with more “nuanced redactions.” The new batch of 25 letters includes two additional letters sent to unidentified banks that were not included in the original FDIC submission.
The litigation is part of a campaign by Coinbase to expose what it and other crypto companies say has been a concerted effort on the part of U.S. bank supervisors to choke off crypto companies from the traditional financial system.

Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewel, said in a post, on X Friday that the less redacted letters show a “coordinated effort to stop a wide variety of crypto activity” and called for further investigation by Congress.
In a bid to combat those claims, the FDIC also on Friday published a 2022 internal memo, detailing how supervisors should assess queries from lenders looking to directly deal in crypto assets, versus offering banking services to crypto companies.

Together, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the confidential bank supervisory process. They suggest that while FDIC examiners have been cautious towards the crypto sector, which has been beset by scams, bankruptcies and volatility, they did not order banks to entirely cut off the crypto sector.
The documents are being released weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration is expected to outline a broad crypto policy overhaul. Trump is expected to issue an executive order directing bank regulators to go easier on the sector, potentially as early as his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Several of the FDIC letters show staff directed banks to either pause entering crypto initiatives or refrain from further expanding client crypto services. In others, the FDIC required banks to answer detailed questions before proceeding further with crypto ventures.
The internal memo, meanwhile, distinguishes between a bank engaging directly in crypto activities, like holding crypto assets in custody, and offering traditional banking services for crypto clients, like lending and providing deposit accounts. The first category requires stricter scrutiny, it says.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-regulator-was-cautious-crypto-did-not-tell-banks-choke-off-sector-documents-2025-01-03/

El Salvador said on Thursday it would keep buying bitcoin, possibly at an accelerated pace, a day after the government reached a financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund that had said it should limit its exposure to the cryptocurrency.
Stacy Herbert, El Salvador’s national bitcoin office director, wrote on X that bitcoin would remain legal tender in the Central American country, and that the government would keep adding to its strategic reserves.

On Wednesday, El Salvador struck a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF, as part of which the government of President Nayib Bukele agreed that it would scale back its bitcoin policies. The deal specified that tax payments will only be made in the other official tender, the U.S. dollar.
IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on Thursday that planned legal reforms in El Salvador would make acceptance of bitcoin by the private sector voluntary.

The government’s announcement that it would make more bitcoin purchases “might be just a way to counter any negative blowback” from a perceived diminished status of the cryptocurrency in El Salvador, said Eugene Epstein, head of trading and structured products for North America at Moneycorp in New Jersey.
“Given the size and likely the terms of the IMF deal, it was probably worth for (Bukele) to do that.”

El Salvador owns 5,968 coins, valued at $594 million. Bitcoin has rallied in recent days after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reiterated plans for a strategic reserve for the cryptocurrency, similar to a strategic oil reserve.
In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country to make the cryptocurrency a legal tender, alongside the dollar. That caused friction with the IMF, which warned of financial and legal risks that it recently said “have not materialized.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/el-salvadors-bitcoin-wallet-be-sold-or-discontinued-after-deal-with-imf-official-2024-12-19/

El Salvador has struck a $1.4bn (£1.1bn) loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after agreeing to scale back its controversial bitcoin policies.

The global lender said risks related to the adoption of the world’s largest cryptocurrency had eased now that businesses will be allowed to decide whether or not to accept bitcoin.

In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.

This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000.

“The potential risks of the Bitcoin project will be diminished significantly in line with Fund policies,” the IMF announcement said.

“Legal reforms will make acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector voluntary. For the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin-related economic activities and transactions in and purchases of Bitcoin will be confined.”

The deal, which is aimed to help support El Salvador’s economy, still needs to approved by the IMF’s executive board.

The IMF had opposed the Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele’s crypto-friendly policies, warning they could become an obstacle to it offering financial assistance.

Still, Bukele celebrated on social media as bitcoin rallied after Donald Trump’s US election victory in November.

Earlier this month, as the price of bitcoin topped $100,000 for the first time, Bukele said in a social media post that his country’s holdings in the cryptocurrency had more than doubled in value.

He also blamed his political opponents for causing many Salvadorans to miss out on bitcoin’s rise.

The cryptocurrency has rallied since Donald Trump’s election victory on the 5 November.

Source :  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20e3l3xllwo

The carnival-casino era of cryptocurrencies has come back with a vengeance.

By Rob Wile

Yes, it’s called Fartcoin. Yes, it is totally useless.

And yes, it has nevertheless grown in value over the past week to a market capitalization of more than $800 million — about equal to those of Office Depot, Guess jeanswear, and the parent company of Steak N’ Shake.

In the day after this article published, Fartcoin’s value seesawed. Starting at about $620 million (7 a.m. Sunday), it rose to a peak of $889 million before settling back $836 million at 9:35 p.m. ET Monday.

The carnival-casino era of cryptocurrencies has come back with a vengeance, riding a broader wave of investment in bitcoin that was itself spurred by the election of Donald Trump. It’s minting millionaires while potentially harming others — yet everyone, even the losers, seem to be in on the joke.

The wave of “memecoiners” is a mix of longtime bitcoin holders and people simply desperate to change their fortunes in an era of sky-priced homes and equities, according to Toe Bautista, research analyst for GSR, a decentralized finance group. While many memecoin traders, flush from gains thanks to bitcoin’s 130% increase this year — 50% of which has come since Trump’s election last month — are simply “moving down the risk curve” into areas of pure speculation, Bautista said. Others see the potential of making 10 times their money overnight.

“A lot of it is people thinking, ‘I can get some sort of edge by having a better chance at a lottery ticket,” Bautista said.

Memecoin buyers and sellers alike are, for the most part, aware that their trading activity amounts to the riskiest kind of gambling, Bautista said. It’s all about exiting one’s position to avoid getting left with “holding the bag” and failing to trade up and strike while the price is hot.

“Because they’re worthless, you’re betting on the ‘greater fool,’” he said, referring to the idea that someone else will pay a higher price for a given memecoin. “You’re thinking, ‘I’m early to this, someone will buy the bags.’ But there’s no underlying driver of its value.”

For the most part, the greatest risk in trading memecoins, which tend to be based on the lifespan of viral internet memes, is the meme itself fading away from the cultural zeitgeist. And indeed, the gains from a given news cycle for a very select few can be substantial. Blockchain data shows at least one holder of a coin created in the wake of the Peanut the Squirrel incident last month, which involved the death of a rodent possibly being kept without permission by a New York man, is sitting on nearly half a billion dollars.

Today, that coin, PNUT, is down about half from its peak value of $2.47 as that news story has faded from view.

Yet there are also operational risks to memecoins, as illustrated by the rise and rapid fall of “Hawk” coin, released earlier this month by Haliey Welch, a Tennessee woman who has parlayed a viral lewd street interview into a successful podcast.

Over the course of 24 hours, Hawk’s market cap peaked at $500 million before collapsing to $28 million, prompting complaints about dramatic losses in funds. Those complaints have not been independently verified by NBC News.

Facing accusations of insider trading, Welch released a statement saying neither she nor anyone on her team had sold the coins, blaming instead “sniper” algorithmic bots designed to sell as prices begin to surge.

Bautista said that indeed, algorithmic trading, which has long been part of mainstream trading on Wall Street, is now routinely deployed in the memecoin space. He estimates that of the top-20 traded coins in crypto, half are memecoins whose trades are almost entirely driven by bots designed to spot and respond to price movements.

Is it legal? Some believe memecoins are permitted because the Securities and Exchange Commission has never formally categorized bitcoin as a security. Yet the agency has taken actions against exchanges that have permitted trading of other tokens. And, crucially, many memecoins, including Fartcoin, do not appear able to be legally purchased from U.S. soil on most of the crypto exchanges offering them.

Ground zero for launching memecoins is a website called Pump.fun, which allows users to “launch a coin that is instantly tradeable in one click for free.” Launched in January 2024, the site has generated over $288.4 million in revenue since its inception, according to analytics data cited by CoinTelegraph, a crypto industry publication.

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority said the website was not authorized in the country and warned anyone who interacted with a product or service associated with the site had no investor protections.

Despite this, the site’s terms and conditions state that its provisions are governed by “the laws of England.”

A spokesperson for the website was not immediately available for comment.

It may be the digital Wild West, but some tools have been developed to help nonsavvy memecoin participants avoid outright scams. A site called Rugcheck.xyz bills itself as capable of scanning memecoin ownership data to determine whether an actor or small group of actors are capable of putting their thumb on the scale of the market. Pump.fun itself says it prevents “rugs,” or sudden price dumps, by making sure that any tokens it launches have no presales or small-batch allocations that would benefit insiders.

It is not clear how much longer the current crypto “bull” cycle will last, but at least one analyst believes it is still in relatively early innings given likely developments next year — namely, potentially further reductions in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and the implementation of more crypto-friendly policies by the Trump administration.

“There are lots of events in 2025 that can help drive bitcoin and crypto prices up further,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of crypto group Bitget, in an interview with NBC News.

In fact, Trump world has already shown signs of accelerating its embrace of cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that World Liberty Financial, a crypto project “inspired by Trump,” has been buying millions of dollars worth of tokens beyond bitcoin, a sign that the decentralized finance lending platform could launch soon. Trump has been named as an eventual “financial beneficiary” of World Liberty.

A spokesperson for World Liberty did not respond to a request for comment.

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/memecoins-what-are-they-why-are-they-popular-cryptocurrency-rcna184223

Nigeria’s anti-graft agency said it had arrested 792 suspects in a raid on a building believed to be a hub for fraudsters who lured victims with offers of romance, then pressed them to hand over cash for phoney cryptocurrency investments.
The suspects, including 148 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals, were detained on Dec. 10 at the seven-storey Big Leaf Building in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said.

The luxury building housed a call centre mostly targeting victims from the Americas and Europe, he added.
Staff there would make contact with people through social media and messaging platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, them seduce them online or offer them apparently lucrative investment opportunities, Uwujaren told reporters.
Once victims were hooked, they were pressured to transfer money for fake cryptocurrency schemes and other non-existent projects.

“Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and several others from European countries,” Uwujaren said.
“Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims,” he said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/almost-800-arrested-over-nigerian-crypto-romance-scam-2024-12-16/

Bitcoin’s record rally topped $107,000 on Monday after President-elect Donald Trumpreiterated that he plans to create a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve similar to its strategic oil reserve, stoking the enthusiasm of crypto bulls.
Investor sentiment also got a lift from the inclusion of MicroStrategy (MSTR.O), opens new tab into the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index that will likely lead to more inflows for the software firm turned bitcoin buyer.

Bitcoin , the world’s biggest and best known cryptocurrency, extended gains to a session high of $107,148 and was most recently at $106,877, up 5.43% from late Friday. The No. 2 digital currency ether was up 1.85% at $3,975.70.
“We’re in blue sky territory here,” said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG. “The next figure the market will be looking for is $110,000. The pullback that a lot of people were waiting for just didn’t happen, because now we’ve got this news.”

Bitcoin and crypto have been catapulted into the spotlight as investors wager the incoming Trump administration will usher in a friendlier regulatory environment, boosting sentiment around the alternative currency. Bitcoin is up about 150% in 2024.
“We’re gonna do something great with crypto because we don’t want China or anybody else – not just China but others are embracing it – and we want to be the head,” Trump told CNBC late last week.

Bitcoin came within a whisker of closing above $100,000 for the first time on Thursday as the election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president spurred expectations that his administration will create a friendly regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading between $98,000 and $99,000 in late afternoon trading in the U.S. on Thursday, after briefly touching $99,073. Bitcoin has more than doubled in value this year and is up about 40% in the two weeks since Trump was voted in as the next U.S. president and a slew of pro-crypto lawmakers were elected to Congress.

Trump embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Crypto investors see an end to increased scrutiny under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, whom Trump has said he will replace.
Trump also unveiled a new crypto business, World Liberty Financial, in September. Although details about the business have been scarce, investors have taken his personal interest in the sector as a bullish signal.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a major Trump ally, is also a proponent of cryptocurrencies.
Over 16 years after its creation, bitcoin appears on the cusp of mainstream acceptance.
“Everyone who’s bought bitcoin at any point in history is currently in profit,” Alicia Kao, managing director of crypto exchange KuCoin, said.
“But those who bought it early, when there were significant obstacles to doing so and there was the might of the world’s financial and governmental forces intent on crushing it, are the real winners. Not because they’re rich, but because they’re right.”

Bitcoin reached a record high of over $94,000, fueled by reports of Donald Trump’s media company considering a purchase of crypto firm Bakkt. The cryptocurrency market value surpassed $3 trillion, driven by optimism surrounding Trump’s administration and new trading opportunities.

Bitcoin has hit a record all-time high above $94,000 for the first time amid reports that US President-elect Donald Trump’s social media company was in talks to buy crypto trading firm Bakkt, Reuters reported on November 20.

The reports fuelled hopes that Trump’s second time in the White House will bring a crypto-friendly administration, it added.