Bitcoin News

The Effect of Spectre and Meltdown on Cryptocurrencies

Adam Gardiner2018-01-15T16:19:36+00:00

Just over a week ago we saw the first public notice of Spectre and Meltdown, two vulnerabilities that expose just about every computer, smartphone, and tablet to malicious hacking. Billions of devices are at risk of hacking, and patches, while necessary, will slow down devices since the flaws occur at the very basic levels of devices’ CPUs. So what lessons does this have for cryptocurrency investment? Spectre and Meltdown Described Meltdown is a security vulnerability that is almost solely limited to [...]

January 15, 2018 By Adam Gardiner

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Momentum for Cryptocurrency Regulation Increasing?

Ryan Tucker2018-01-15T11:06:56+00:00

The North American Securities Administrators Association warned Main Street investors to be wary of cryptocurrencies. “Investors should go beyond the headlines and hype to understand the risks associated with investments in cryptocurrencies, as well as cryptocurrency futures contracts and other financial products where these virtual currencies are linked in some way to the underlying investment,” said Joseph P. Borg, NASAA president. According to a NASAA survey, 94 percent of state and provincial securities regulators believe there is a “high [...]

January 12, 2018 By Ryan Tucker

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Exponential Growth at Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Adam Gardiner2018-01-12T16:34:52+00:00

Interest in cryptocurrencies has grown so strong in recent weeks that cryptocurrency exchanges are struggling to keep up with consumer demand. Exchanges such as Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Binance announced that they were seeing 100,000+ users per day trying to sign up for their services, with Binance seeing 250,000 users sign up in a single day. Many exchanges, including Binance, had to stop signing up new users due to the unprecedented demand and only just reopened today. Exchanges have had to [...]

January 11, 2018 By Adam Gardiner

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Venezuelan President Maduro to Issue First 100 Million “Petros”

Trevor Gerszt2018-01-17T15:53:25+00:00

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro plans to follow through with his new national digital currency, the petro, by issuing 100 million units of the new currency. His plan is to set the value of the petro at one barrel of Venezuelan crude oil. Currently, the price of a barrel of Venezuelan oil is just under $60, which would mean a currency issuance of just under $6 billion. Details on the currency are still sparse, leading many experts to wonder whether Maduro’s [...]

January 10, 2018 By Trevor Gerszt

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ECB’s Nowotny: Bitcoin Should Be Regulated and Taxed

Adam Gardiner2018-01-09T14:43:28+00:00

Austrian central bank head Ewald Nowotny recently called for taxation and regulation of Bitcoin transactions. Nowotny, a member of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) governing council, stated that everyone who engages in financial transactions should be identified and pay a value-added tax (VAT). That obviously puts him at odds with Bitcoin’s quasi-anonymous nature. Nowotny’s statement also came in the context of combating money laundering and tax evasion. The ECB has decided to phase out production of 500-euro banknotes as a [...]

January 9, 2018 By Adam Gardiner

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New Bitcoin Competitor Shows Continued Strength of Cryptocurrency Market

Ryan Tucker2018-01-10T11:27:14+00:00

A new cryptocurrency has come to market: the Divi coin billed as a “future proof” digital cryptocurrency. “Divi coin, designed to be a ‘superior Bitcoin,’ mitigates risk through a ‘future proof’ design,” a spokeswoman said. The coin is designed to combat three of the problems that its creators allege are problems with existing cryptocurrencies. 1. Anonymity: “Divi coin’s technology is designed to combat the use of cryptocurrency for illegal transactions,” she explained. 2. Securities laws: Divi is designed to pass what’s [...]

January 8, 2018 By Ryan Tucker

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Companies Launch First Ever Cryptocurrency Index

Ryan Tucker2018-01-05T16:16:11+00:00

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are moving further into the financial mainstream, with news breaking after the start of the new year that Belpointe, a wealth management company in Greenwich, CT, and Chance River, a consultancy based in Stamford, CT, have launched the Belpointe Crypto Index. The companies say this new cryptocurrency benchmark will index a diverse basket of cryptocurrencies. “The index will include and weight cryptocurrencies based on their market capitalization, trading volume, quality of blockchain” as well as additional, [...]

January 5, 2018 By Ryan Tucker

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Will Uncle Sam Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Cryptocurrencies?

Ryan Tucker2018-01-17T15:54:01+00:00

Owners of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies might get ensnared by the latest efforts on Capitol Hill to address money laundering. In late November, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on S. 1241, the Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017, introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Diane Feinstein (D-CA). The problem is that S. 1241 would revise the definition of “financial institution” in US law to include digital currencies and digital exchanges. Specifically, S. [...]

January 4, 2018 By Ryan Tucker

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Are Bitcoin Billionaires Cashing Out?

Adam Gardiner2018-01-03T16:33:25+00:00

One of the perennial knocks against Bitcoin has been its price volatility. Compared to other financial assets, Bitcoin is incredibly volatile, with intraday price swings often exceeding the percentages that would stop trading on major financial exchanges. There are a few reasons for that, one of them being that Bitcoin markets are still relatively new, immature, and thinly traded. That means that things that might affect other markets only weakly will have outsized effects on the Bitcoin market. The [...]

January 3, 2018 By Adam Gardiner

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Goldman Sachs to Start Bitcoin Trading

Adam Gardiner2018-01-03T08:27:02+00:00

In another sign of the ongoing mainstreaming of Bitcoin, those in the know report that Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs is planning to set up a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading desk. Current plans are to have the operation up and running by June of this year, if not earlier. Goldman is already one of the banks involved in clearing the recently-begun Bitcoin futures contracts offered by CBOE and CME. Goldman’s stance on Bitcoin runs counter to the public statements [...]

January 2, 2018 By Adam Gardiner

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