Crypto Financial News

The world’s second-largest payment-processing company, Mastercard, has announced that it is expanding its Engage program to help scale crypto and blockchain technology. 

As US regulators sued three major crypto exchanges this year, billions of dollars of trading volumes have migrated to Asia. That shift could be poised to accelerate as market makers and exchanges move resources to a region where several jurisdictions have introduced regulatory frameworks and are vying for digital-asset traders. Investors and marketplaces are flocking to Singapore, Japan and South Korea — and more recently to Hong Kong, which this month introduced a new regulatory regime for crypto. Bitcoin trading activity in predominantly Asian hours have risen this year even as they slumped in US and European hours, data compiled by CryptoQuant show. The token accounts for almost half of crypto’s total market value. The resilience in Asian crypto volumes is underpinned by institutional investors who perceive the regulatory environment there as less risky, according to several market participants interviewed by Bloomberg. “With so much regulatory uncertainty in the US, Asia has become an increasingly important hub for digital-asset activity,” said Jonny Caldwell, who focuses on alternative investments including cryptocurrencies as co-head of asset management at Trovio Group. “We are observing a major shift to Asian-based exchanges and venues in the last few months.”

Blockchain analytics firm Santiment's recent blog post suggests that the cryptocurrency markets may be on the verge of a substantial upswing.

Despite positive developments in the broader crypto market, Terra Luna has been unable to halt its continuous decline, as technical indicators suggest a bleak outlook for the cryptocurrency's future. The once respected crypto is currently trading at $0.0000916 with a 1.43% decline over the past 24 hours, and indicators suggest the near future may not be great for the LUNC price either.

Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Tuesday that decentralised cryptocurrencies are a «flawed system» and instead supported the development of a centralised alternative. The BIS, regarded as the central bank of central banks, backed «tokenisation» or the conversion of money and other assets into digital tokens that can be traded on programmable platforms, saying it offers the promise of a «major leap» in the financial system. Central banks and regulators have mostly been sceptical if not downright hostile to cryptocurrencies, which were developed using digital blockchains, a technology that allowed for decentralised management of trading assets. Proponents of the technology lauded its decentralised structure and often anonymous transactions that took control out of the hands of government institutions like central banks.

Hackers that exploited Atomic Wallet for over $100 million earlier this month are using the cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain to hide their loot. 

The crypto market, known for its volatility, has recently experienced a significant downturn, leaving investors and enthusiasts concerned about the future of digital assets. 

cryptocurrency trading platform Coinswitch, which is funded by the likes of Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz, is planning to foray into Indian stock trading. This will see it go toe-to-toe with new-age investment players like Zerodha, Groww, Upstox, and Paytm Money. The company had earlier announced its plans to offer conventional investment products like mutual funds, US stocks, etc., widening its scope beyond cryptocurrencies, which have taken a battering over the last few years. Even though the price of bitcoin has recovered in the last six months, it is still half the highs it hit in November 2021. “The company is planning to apply for a stockbroker’s licence with SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India). There are also conversations going on with non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and banks for offering fixed deposits,” a person aware of the matter said. For Coinswitch, the focus turned to Indian stocks after its plans to enable retail investment in US stocks were put on the backburner following the hike in tax collected at source (TCS) on foreign remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS).

Solana (SOL) appears to be on the rise, experiencing a steady increase in price that signals a notable recovery. Will the wider crypto market slowdown in recent hours put a damper on its momentum?

Edul Patel, CEO and Co-founder of Mudrex, a global crypto investing platform. The concept of index investing has long been a favored strategy in traditional markets, such as stocks and mutual funds. However, as the world of cryptocurrencies continues to evolve, a new wave of investors is gravitating towards a similar approach within the crypto realm. Crypto index investing, although relatively nascent, has quickly gained traction among both retail and institutional investors. This investment strategy involves building a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies based on predetermined criteria, such as market capitalization or trading volume.What are the benefits of crypto index investing? Diversification: By investing in a crypto index fund, investors can gain exposure to a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies, which can help to reduce risk and volatility when compared to investing in one single crypto. This diversification strategy helps cushion against market downturns and minimizes the risk associated with investing in a single cryptocurrency. Additionally, by spreading investments across various cryptocurrencies, investors can potentially tap into the overall growth of the crypto market.

Bitcoin is currently up about 3% in the past 24 hours, thanks in part to investment management corporation BlackRock's commitment to creating a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Earlier this month, Wall Street's regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, pressed a raft of charges against Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and US-based Coinbase. Both companies, along with the now defunct FTX, were key brands in the crypto industry, helping grow what began as a secretive playground for tech geeks into a new way to invest embraced by Wall Street. The SEC has been slowly tightening the screws on crypto since 2020.

The U.S. Federal Reserve's recent decision to maintain its key lending rate has surprised many, as it breaks the trend of rate hikes observed in the past year and a half.

The United States inflation rate has slowed down, with May recording a 4% rate--the lowest yearly figure since March 2021.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has approved Bitstamp and Interactive Brokers' application to join the financial regulator's registry of crypto asset service providers.

sector without plans to come back anytime soon. Nearly $172 million exited from global exchange-traded products tracking everything from Bitcoin to Cardano in the first six months of 2023 amid an industry wide rally, following outflows of just $37 million in 2022. That compares to record cash inflows of nearly $10 billion in 2021 and $6.7 billion in 2020, Bloomberg data show. It's another signal of investors having fallen out of love with the once-high-flying sector, where prices are — despite a more-than 50% resurgence this year for Bitcoin — still way below their 2021 peaks. A large chunk of the investor base — one that was excited during the pandemic years — has turned out to be fleeting: many, scorched by last year's slew of scams and company collapses, are still nursing those wounds. "Crypto doesn't have the same mass appeal that it did during 2020 and 2021," said Roxanna Islam, associate director of research and head of sector and industry research at VettaFi. «Investors who were previously burned by lower prices and market volatility may have already left the market late last year, and with Bitcoin prices hovering under $30,000 for the past few months, there hasn't been enough excitement to attract new investors.»

Traditionally, the concept of work has been synonymous with brick-and-mortar office spaces and stringent nine-to-five schedules. However, the past few years have borne witness to a notable shift in this paradigm. Technology has paved an alternate route, veering off the beaten path of conventional employment towards the flexibility of freelancing.

SEC) had last week sued Coinbase and Binance, two of the world's largest crypto exchanges for allegedly breaching its rules.Nithin Kamath, the co-founder and CEO of India's leading broker Zerodha, said the SEC action is warranted to protect the interest of retail investors. Kamath said the public markets are prone to some scams even with a number of regulations and batted for regulatory oversight in the crypto markets too. «Even with all the regulations, some promoters scam retail investors in the public markets. If random crypto tokens can raise money from the public, there has to be regulatory oversight. Otherwise, retail investors will be taken advantage of. Current SEC action was maybe warranted,» he said.

The regulation of the financial markets in the United States could undergo a significant shift in the coming days as Republican congressmen propose a radical alteration of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) governance structure through the "SEC Stabilization Act."

Former Enforcement Division chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), John Reed Stark, came up with a warning in his Tweet on June 8, 2023. The warning came directly with the label "Get out of crypto platforms now."

crypto industry, and said many companies in the space had made a «calculated economic decision» to flout its rules. Speaking at a Piper Sandler conference in New York, Gary Gensler also reiterated his view that the «vast majority» of crypto tokens meet the test for being a security and should be registered with the SEC. That means most crypto exchanges have to comply with the securities laws too, he added. «When crypto asset market participants go on Twitter or TV and say they lacked 'fair notice' that their conduct could be illegal, don't believe it,» he said. «They may have made a calculated economic decision to take the risk of enforcement as the cost of doing business.» The crypto industry has attacked Gensler in recent days after the SEC sued two of the world's largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, for allegedly breaking securities laws by failing to register their operations with the agency.