Crypto Financial News

Crypto investors pulled around $3 billion overall from the stablecoin USDC in three days, the company behind the token said in a blog post on Thursday, as investors rushed to redeem their holdings in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. USDC broke its dollar peg on Saturday after Circle revealed that $3.3 billion of the coin's reserves were at SVB. The stablecoin fell to as low as $0.88, according to CoinGecko data, but returned to $1 on Monday. Circle announced it would allow automatic USDC redemption through a new banking relationship, with Cross River Bank. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a constant exchange rate with traditional currencies. USDC is the second-biggest stablecoin with a market cap of $37.6 billion.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rallied on Monday after U.S. authorities announced plans to limit the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and as cryptocurrency firm Circle assured investors its peg was secure. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve announced a range of measures to stabilise the banking system and said depositors at SVB would have access to their deposits on Monday. The moves came as authorities took possession of New York-based Signature Bank, the second bank failure in a matter of days. Stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), which had lost its 1:1 dollar peg and hit an all-time low on Saturday on concerns over the exposures of Circle, the firm behind USDC, to Silicon Valley Bank, recovered. It was at $0.9917, closer to par and up from last week's lows around $0.88.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rallied on Monday after U.S. authorities announced plans to limit the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and as cryptocurrency firm Circle assured investors its peg was secure. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve announced a range of measures to stabilise the banking system and said depositors at SVB would have access to their deposits on Monday. The moves came as authorities took possession of New York-based Signature Bank, the second bank failure in a matter of days.Stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), which had lost its 1:1 dollar peg and hit an all-time low on Saturday on concerns over the exposures of Circle, the firm behind USDC, to Silicon Valley Bank, recovered. It was at $0.9917, closer to par and up from last week's lows around $0.88.

stablecoin got caught up in the collapse of a California bank late last week, it reprised the now-famous maxim of Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and John Moore. “Evil,” the economists had claimed in a 2001 lecture, later made available as a paper of the same title, “is the root of all money.” Turning a popular aphorism on its head was a ploy by the professors to enliven a technical discussion. “Evil is a strong word,” they wrote. “You may find the moral category too severe for something as mild as breaking a promise. In which case, you may want to change the title to ‘Distrust Is the Root of All Money.’ But that wouldn’t have quite the same ring.” Events last week showed that Kiyotaki-Moore may have been right, not just in their analysis but also in their hyperbole: People accept and hold money not because it circulates freely and is widely used to store value, but because it helps the society overcome the scourge of broken promises. For something to aspire to money-ness, it must be free of even the slightest doubt in that regard. That was clearly not the case with Circle Internet Financial Ltd.’s USD Coin, or USDC, the No. 2 dollar clone behind Tether. News that around 8% of the crypto firm’s reserves were on deposit at Silicon Valley Bank, which was closed down by regulators Friday, sent the price of the stablecoin sharply below $1, falling to less than 85 cents before recovering. In the language of money-market funds — the older, more conventional cousins of blockchain-based stablecoins — USDC broke the buck. Circle may still keep its promise of redeeming all its coins 1:1 for dollar. But a small doubt that it may not be able to do so arose. Even if briefly, USDC has lost its claim of being money.

Bitcoin is having its worst week since November as an equity selloff, fear over higher interest rates and an escalating US regulatory crackdown on crypto combine to hurt investor sentiment. The largest token fell as much 2.1% on Friday, breaking below $20,000 for the first time since January, after falling more than 8% on Thursday. Ether added to losses and smaller coins like Solana and Cardano struggled for traction. A rout in US bank stocks on Thursday stoked concerns that rising borrowing costs are creating a treacherous economic and investing outlook. In New York, the state regulator sued KuCoin, a popular crypto exchange, and in the process claimed in court that second-largest token Ether is a security. The US Securities & Exchange Commission also contends that many cryptocoins are securities, a designation that would potentially make them harder to trade. “The selloff in cryptocurrencies appears to be largely equity-market led,” said John Toro, head of trading at digital-asset exchange Independent Reserve. He added that the wind-down of crypto-friendly bank Silvergate Capital Corp. and President Joe Biden’s proposal for a series of tax increases on investors and top-earning Americans contributed to the downdraft.

The last 24-48 hours were yet another shocker for the crypto industry with the stock crash of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Though not a direct impact on Indian exchanges’ business, but popular crypto tokens trading on these platforms including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Binance Coin, Doge Coin, Shiba Inu among others crashed between 5-9 percent on March 10.

Silvergate Capital Corp disclosed plans to wind down operations and voluntarily liquidate, as the aftermath of FTX's implosion last year reverberates through the industry. Analysts said a complete closure of the crypto lender could take one or two years depending on how quickly outstanding loans are repaid and assets are disposed of. Silvergate's latest move adds to a list of high-profile collapses among crypto market players since last year. The company's shares plunged 37% to $3.11, a day after hitting a record low and have lost 64% since March 1 when the company flagged a going concern risk.

Silvergate Capital Corp.Shares have plunged roughly 98% from a November 2021 peak, earning bearish bettors about $780 million in mark-to-market profits in the process, including more than $190 million last week alone as questions about Silvergate’s viability surfaced, data from S3 Partners show.Wagers against the stock surged in recent months as crypto contagion spread across the market and setbacks for the bank accumulated. About 85% of Silvergate’s float is sold short, one of the highest rates among US stocks, S3 data show. Traders looking to increase short exposure are now hampered by a severe lack of stock available to borrow and rising financing costs, said Ihor Dusaniwsky, the head of predictive analytics at S3.

Smart Contract Leaders Index, which tracks major tokens is up 36% in 2023.

Bitcoin dropped to the lowest level in about two weeks, part of a wider retreat in crypto markets as investors digested the unravelling of a key industry payments network. The largest token sank as much as 6% before paring some of the slide to trade 4.4% lower at $22,380 as of 8:30 a.m. Friday in London. Smaller coins such as Ether, Avalanche and the meme token Dogecoin also suffered declines. The digital-asset industry is absorbing the fallout of the troubles at crypto-friendly US bank Silvergate Capital Corp., which has said that it's reviewing whether it can remain viable. The bank offers a widely used payments network that facilitates the real-time transfer of funds between crypto firms. But many digital-asset exchanges, stablecoin issuers and trading desks are no longer accepting or initiating payments through Silvergate. «Silvergate is one of the main US dollar banking providers for the crypto industry,» said John Toro, head of trading at digital-asset exchange Independent Reserve. «Any liquidity concerns will have a direct impact on market conditions and may affect the access and availability of some client funds.»

Blockchain, Crypto, or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) before 2008, but today we live in a world where these path breaking technologies are playing a crucial role in shaping the future. Also known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), blockchain is a record of transactions that cannot be altered, deleted, or destroyed. In other words, the digital information on a blockchain can be recorded and distributed but never edited. We all know that blockchain was launched as a distributed ledger for Bitcoin transactions, but it turned out to be more than just that. Since 2014, blockchain has given birth to many new inventions beyond Bitcoin. Since then, Blockchain use cases have exploded with the launch of new cryptos, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), smart contracts, and DeFi applications. The innovation factor with blockchain is its guarantee of fidelity and security of data records; it builds faith without the backing of a third party. These features make it perfect for finance. Let’s explore more about how blockchain is re-inventing finance. Blockchain vs banking

Bitcoin's subsiding two-month rally contains a warning for investors if history is any guide. The February jump in the largest digital token has withered to about 2% and pales compared to January's 39% surge, data compiled by Bloomberg show. There have been five similar instances since the pandemic low in 2020 when Bitcoin climbed over two straight months but with a smaller gain in the second stanza. It retreated in the third month in four of those cases, posting an average loss of 5.8%. The only exception was a period through February 2021, when the token was in the midst of a powerful bull run. Bitcoin ended in the red Sunday for the third week in four, hurt by the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates to damp inflation. A regulatory clampdown in the US after the collapse of the FTX exchange is also squeezing the sector.

Finance ministry officials and central bankers from G20 countries are seemingly in agreement when it comes to the regulation of crypto assets, with a complete ban on them also on the table.

Ai-powered Web3-focused search engine Kaito just raised $5.3 million in a seed fundraising round, according to a recent TechCrunch report. Kaito says the funds will be used to increase the size of the team and speed up product development. 

More interest rate hikes are coming from the US Federal Reserve. At least, that was the takeaway from the recently released minutes of the 1st of February meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) earlier this Wednesday. This could be a major medium-term headwind for crypto.

crypto market started the week with a correction after the US-based crypto exchange, Kraken, paused its staking service and paid a fine of US$30 million to the SEC last week for failing to register the service. Bitcoin started by trading at US$22,000 level and dropped to US$21,000 before the release of the US CPI data. After the release, most cryptocurrencies rallied. Bitcoin hit its highest peak since August on Thursday. BTC traded at the US$25,250 level. However, BTC could not sustain the gains and fell back to the US$23,000 level after the PPI data release, which was higher than expected, raising concerns among investors and traders over the inflation. Whenever there is a fear of inflation, BTC falls as it does not like it. Investors run short of funds to spend when interest rates go up. Hence BTC falls. Despite the decline, BTC is up by more than 72% from its cycle’s lowest point in January.

Major cryptocurrencies were trading largely higher on February 21 as the global crypto market-cap rose 1.36 percent to $1.13 trillion. The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours decreased 0.21 percent to $63.34 billion.

Bitcoin touched a six-month high on Thursday, swept higher with equities and other relatively risky assets as investors gained confidence in the economic outlook and dismissed concern about regulatory scrutiny of the sector.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a draft that would make it harder for hedge funds, private equity firms, and pension funds to work with crypto companies. 

Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said crypto assets and web3 sectors require significant international collaboration for effective implementation of domestic legislations. She said these are relatively new and still evolving sectors, with no specific regulations. «By definition, these sectors are borderless and require significant international collaboration for any specific legislation on these sectors to be fully effective,» Sitharaman said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. The minister was replying to a question by DMK MP T Sumathy on whether the government has prepared any future roadmap to regulate virtual digital assets / cryptos/web3 sectors in the country. In reply to a separate question, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the government is engaging with G-20 countries to build international coordination on regulating crypto assets.

cryptocurrency transactions and holdings. As the popularity and use of cryptocurrencies continue to grow, countries around the world are grappling with how to regulate and tax these digital assets. Some countries have adopted favourable tax policies towards cryptocurrencies, while others have implemented strict regulations. In this article, we will examine the crypto tax policies of several nations and see how they handle this evolving asset class.United States of America In the United States, cryptocurrencies are treated as property for tax purposes, similar to property taxes. Transactions involving cryptos, such as selling for fiat currency, token airdrops, mining, or staking, are all taxable with rates ranging from 0-37% for capital gains and income tax. However, holding crypto for the long term or buying with fiat currency is not taxable. Taxpayers can choose to calculate their crypto taxes using either the FIFO (first in, first out) or LIFO (last in, first out) method. Capital gains and losses, cost basis, and keeping records of transactions is important to keep in mind for tax reporting.