Free Republic

Bitcoin’s “halving” is expected to happen soon. But its potential impact depends on your relationship to the coin; it’s likely to affect miners and investors differently. “To the people who own bitcoin because they think it’s a good store of value, this halving is not that big of a deal. But to the miners, it’s a huge deal,” Omid Malekan, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and author of “Re-Architecting Trust: The Curse of History and the Crypto Cure for Money, Markets, and Platforms,” tells CNBC Make It. Miners receive bitcoins, known as block rewards, for verifying and validating...

Sam Bankman-Fried will learn his sentence Thursday, four months after he was found guilty of orchestrating the multibillion-dollar fraud that prompted the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. A federal jury in New York City convicted Bankman-Fried, 32, in November on each of the two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy he faced. He has been jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center facility in Brooklyn ever since, with his bail having been revoked over witness-tampering allegations. Federal prosecutors are seeking as much as 50 years of the statutory 110-year sentence implied by the conviction. Bankman-Fried apparently lacks a...

Global bank messaging network SWIFT is planning a new platform in the next one to two years to connect the wave of central bank digital currencies now in development to the existing finance system.. The move, which would be one of the most significant yet for the nascent CBDC ecosystem given SWIFT's key role in global banking, is likely to be fine-tuned to when the first major ones are launched. 90% of the world's central banks are now exploring digital versions of their currencies. Most don't want to be left behind by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but are grappling with...

If you've ever jokingly wondered if your search or viewing history is going to "put you on some kind of list," your concern may be more than warranted. In now unsealed court documents reviewed by Forbes, Google was ordered to hand over the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of Youtube accounts and IP addresses that watched select YouTube videos, part of a larger criminal investigation by federal investigators. The videos were sent by undercover police to a suspected cryptocurrency launderer under the username "elonmuskwhm." In conversations with the bitcoin trader, investigators sent links to public YouTube tutorials on...

The Financial Times, perhaps THE arch-critic of cryptocurrencies over the past decade, has conceded that Bitcoin might just have a purpose. It’s just the latest data point that there is a great shift happening in how people view crypto, from ex-President Donald Trump to Larry Fink. They may not fully grasp what’s going on (who does?), but they sense it’s important. “The bitcoin bulls have been proved mostly right about its prospects as a long-term investment,” Rockefeller International Chair Ruchir Sharma wrote in an opinion piece titled “Once dismissed as fanatics, the bitcoin bulls must be feeling vindicated.” Noting that...

The emergence of new technologies means demand is soaring for power across the country; in Georgia, "demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently," Evan Halper said for The Washington Post. Northern Virginia "needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all [its] new data centers," Halper said, while Texas faces a similar problem. This demand is resulting in a "scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid." At the same time, companies...

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have been a smash hit, helping feed into a frenzy that has sent the cryptocurrency’s price to a record high. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have been a smash hit, helping feed into a frenzy that has sent the cryptocurrency's price to a record high. Investors have piled into the funds at a historic clip since their Jan. 11 launch, with total assets in the 10 U.S. spot bitcoin funds on the market swelling to nearly $50 billion. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust eclipsed $10 billion in assets Thursday, the fastest a new ETF has ever reached that milestone. Fidelity's...

Fairfax County, VA – Detectives and investigators from our Financial Crimes Division warn community members of Bitcoin and crypto-related scams being reported within the county. In over a dozen reported cases since the beginning of the year, our investigators have observed a trend in scams involving cryptocurrency. Criminals are exploiting individuals into depositing money into crypto ATMs and defrauding them of their money. 1/11/2024: Victim was scammed into depositing $10,500 into bitcoin ATM.1/12/2024: Victim was scammed into depositing $31,100 into bitcoin ATM.2/13/2024: Victim was scammed into depositing $10,000 into bitcoin ATM.2/14/2024: Victim was scammed into depositing $6,500 into bitcoin ATM.2/15/2024:...

Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high for the first time in more than two years, as this year's rally - fueled by excitement over bitcoin ETFs and the upcoming halving event - accelerated...The price of the cryptocurrency topped $69,210 on Tuesday morning before retreating, according to Coin Metrics.

Blue Note From crypto-focused site Blockworks: With bitcoin nearing its all-time high, eye watering nonfungible token sales appear to be cropping back up. A CryptoPunk just sold for 4,500 ether, worth over $16 million at current prices. That’s the second largest sale ever for the blue-chip NFT collection, trailing only a $23.7 million CryptoPunk purchase made in Feb. 2022. CryptoPunk 3100, the one that sold Monday morning, sold for $2,127 in 2017 before changing hands again for $7.58 million in 2021. There are 10,000 unique CryptoPunks. Each punk has randomly generated attributes, like differing glasses or hairstyles. Punk 3100 is...

The price of bitcoin rose to start the week, edging even closer to its all-time high after the rally took a breather over the weekend. [All time high - $69,000 - Nov 2021] [High today - almost $67,000]

Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo’s wealth management arm have reportedly begun offering some clients access to spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Other investment platforms that offer some clients access to spot bitcoin ETFs include Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Robinhood Markets, and UBS. Major Banks Embrace Bitcoin ETFs Bank of America’s investment arm, Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo’s wealth management unit have begun offering some clients access to SEC-approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Clients must have brokerage accounts and specifically request the bitcoin ETFs. A representative for Wells Fargo...

Bitcoin blew past $60,000 for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday as the popularity of spot ETFs drove a renewed trading frenzy for volatile cryptocurrencies — and crashed popular crypto exchange Coinbase. The price of bitcoin soared to nearly $64,000 in the early afternoon, nearing it’s all-time high of $$68,789 in November 2021, before falling to around $61,000 by 6 p.m. That marked an 18% increase in the leading digital currency compared to one week ago and 40% bump compared to a month ago. In the midst of Wednesday’s rally, Coinbase, one of the largest digital...

Bitcoin breaks $60.000.00

LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Bitcoin hit a two-year high on Tuesday on signs of large players buying the cryptocurrency, while smaller rival ether topped $3,200 for the first time since 2022. Bitcoin has rallied more than 10% in two sessions, helped by a Monday disclosure from crypto investor and software firm MicroStrategy that it had recently purchased about 3,000 bitcoins for an outlay of $155 million. The original and largest cryptocurrency by market value has also been buoyed recently by the approval of bitcoin-owning exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States. On Monday, trading volumes in several of the funds spiked and...

SINGAPORE, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency bitcoin hit a two-year high above $57,000 in Asia trade on Tuesday on signs of heavy institutional buying, while smaller rival ether topped $3,200 for the first time in two years. Bitcoin has rallied more than 10% in two sessions, helped by a Monday disclosure from crypto investor and software firm MicroStrategy (MSTR.O), opens new tab that it had recently purchased about 3,000 bitcoins for an outlay of $155 million. The original and largest cryptocurrency by market value has also been buoyed recently by the approval of bitcoin-owning exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United...

2024 has unfolded as a flourishing year for bitcoin’s valuation, as its market capitalization breezed past the $1 trillion milestone, positioning the cryptocurrency as the world’s tenth-largest asset by overall market valuation. This uptick in price has significantly boosted the net worth of Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, elevating the value of the inventor’s holdings by almost $9 billion within the last two months. Bitcoin Creator’s Wealth Reaches $51B, Stash of Bitcoin Climbs Nearly $9B Higher in 2024 It is believed that upon the inception of the Bitcoin network, its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, also mined the digital currency, amassing between...

On February 14, 2024, a significant development unfolded in the financial regulatory landscape as four leading financial associations—the Bank Policy Institute (BPI), the American Bankers Association (ABA), the Financial Services Forum (the Forum), and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA)—jointly addressed a letter to Gary Gensler, Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This letter represents a unified request from these influential bodies for the SEC to consider targeted modifications to Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 (SAB 121), a directive that has significantly impacted U.S. banking organizations’ ability to engage with digital assets since its issuance...

Bitcoin marched higher to end the week, with its price breaching the $48,000 level for the first time since spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds began trading. [$47,800 as I post]

A legal dispute in a tiny Texas town unexpectedly reveals how Chinese nationals can move money to the U.S. without drawing the attention of authorities in either country. Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million. Mr. Yu, a 23-year-old student at New York University, has also become — quite...