Analysis

Once the coronavirus hit, registered nurse Shannon Garcia suddenly needed to work from home, like thousands of others in the U.S. Not only would her isolation make space in a crowded hospital, she’d keep herself safe. Having cardiac arrhythmia and lung damage, she’s more vulnerable to the global virus taking a toll on her health.

A group of former State Street blockchain builders are now launching their own company – but with distributed ledgers playing only a minor role. “We could have retrofitted Hyperledger or any other blockchain project to do the management of consumers’ personally identifiable information, but it would have just added so much unnecessary burden on the

A new cryptocurrency wallet insurance product from Coincover offers better protection than many existing custodial solutions, the firm says. The Cardiff, U.K.-based risk management provider announced Tuesday that its insurance policy, underwritten by Lloyd’s of London, would now provide Civic wallet users up to $1 million in cover. The insurance is assigned automatically when a

Crypto-literate public accountants are concerned their clients might face Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits and penalties for underpaying taxes on their crypto holdings, a new survey finds. Cryptocurrency accounting service provider Blox and tax software developer Sovos conducted a survey of roughly 45 Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) familiar with crypto, finding that the majority believe

The game once known as MLB Crypto is getting a facelift by reducing its dependency on its underlying blockchain, Ethereum.  Announced Tuesday, MLB Champions introduced a slew of new features while cutting the game’s in-app minting process for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The update introduces a range of new gameplay options but also adds more steps

Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and CoinDesk’s director of research. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and are not investment advice. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here. Shuttered shops. Empty streets.

The submission deadline for the Mt. Gox rehabilitation plan has been pushed back again after a draft proposed last week was met with opposition from numerous creditors. In the plan, proposed to Mt. Gox creditors at a March 25 meeting, rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said he would, if authorized by the court, sell off some

Bug bounty platform HackerOne severed ties with Medici Ventures-backed Voatz, the blockchain-based mobile voting app for breach of partnership standards.  The removal cuts off Voatz’ access to HackerOne’s network of “ethical hackers” who trade their expertise in finding code faults for cash. HackerOne partners with corporations interested in shoring up potential security vulnerabilities. Across 1,800

After the weekend slump, many cryptocurrencies made strong gains Monday, as did major stock indexes, while the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the global economy. Traders weren’t confident the green flashing across all markets would last, however.   Bitcoin (BTC) climbed 8 percent and ether (ETH) gained 6 percent. Other notable performers include bitcoin SV

How the once-in-a-generation COVID-19 pandemic is shifting the way we think and talk about different parts of the crypto industry – from bitcoin (BTC) to DeFi to stablecoins. On Jan. 28, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal tweeted, “Notable overlap on here between the most alarmist people tweeting about the virus and those who are obsessed with the

Although China remains, by far, the leading region for bitcoin mining, the coronavirus downturn is changing the picture in other geographies. According to Thomas Heller, business director of one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining operations, F2Pool, market dips have made it unprofitable for some bitcoin (BTC) miners with older machines to operate.  “We lost

Frances Coppola, a CoinDesk columnist, is a freelance writer and speaker on banking, finance and economics.  Her book “The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing” explains how modern money creation and quantitative easing work, and advocates “helicopter money” to help economies out of recession. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, Universal Basic Income has suddenly

France’s central bank wants to experiment with integrating digital currencies. On March 27, the Banque de France published a request for proposals for CBDC “experiment” applications. These projects will help France’s central bank understand the risks and mechanisms of CBDCs and also contribute to the eurozone’s digital cash conversation. The call brings France to the

Berlin-based blockchain startup Spherity has developed a decentralized identity prototype that would help people get the medicines they need while maintaining proper social distance. “We see a big opportunity when it comes to social distancing to get decentralized ID out the door,” said Spherity CEO Carsten Stocker. “Humans interact with smartphones, but governments and doctors’

The CEO of Binance says the exchange had no choice but to delist FTX leveraged tokens because users didn’t understand how to trade them and failed to read the warning notices. In a tweet thread Saturday, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said too many users had suffered significant devaluations and the exchange had decided to remove all

Bitcoin is looking buoyant Monday despite renewed risk aversion in traditional markets. The top cryptocurrency by market value picked up bids near $5,850 during the Asian trading hours and rose around $500 to $6,344 at 07:14 UTC. At press time, the global average price, as calculated by CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, is seen at $6,290,

Lending platform Celsius Network has teamed up with an oracle provider to make the price feeds it uses to calculate crypto asset interest rates less centralized. Announced Monday, Celsius has subscribed to Chainlink, which connects smart contracts with real world data, as a middle pathway to decentralization, said Chainlink CEO Serey Nazarov in a telephone

Microsoft has proposed a system that can mine cryptocurrencies using data collected from humans as they exercise or read an advertisement. In a patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Thursday, the American computer giant said sensors could detect activity associated with specific tasks – such as time spent viewing ads –

Riot Blockchain is worried that COVID-19 may “seriously disrupt” its bitcoin mining operations.  The Nasdaq-listed rig builder revealed its concerns in its annual 10-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed Wednesday. Such reports always include a “general risks” section detailing worst-case business scenarios. This year, Riot added two pandemic-specific subsections to discuss COVID-19.

Some financial publications around the world are touting the “shortest bear run in history” for U.S. equities, as if the dark days of the Coronavirus sell-off are behind us. Markets in the U.S. are beginning to show signs of life thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s $2 trillion stimulus package. The Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Breitling Top Time, pictured above, was a hand-wound chronograph from the 1960s popular with the Jet Set of the era. James Bond wore it in “Thunderball,” although his featured a miniature Geiger counter. The company has rereleased the watch, black and white “panda” face and all, to a new generation and it’s doing something

The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations. Last week the Let’s Talk Bitcoin! Show gathered to discuss how the MakerDAO DeFi stablecoin actually works and what happened during the sudden, precipitous drop in crypto prices earlier this month. In the aftermath of the so-called “Black Thursday” crash from several weeks ago, MakerDAO’s “DAI” ethereum backed

Josh Lawler is a partner at Zuber Lawler, which focuses on mergers & acquisitions, securities law and technology transactions. Everyone played the game of “Telephone” as a kid. The first kid says something in a whisper to the next kid who whispers to the next and so on until the last kid states what they

“I think the right lesson to draw from all of this is that a global order needs to be based on a distributed operating system, not on a centralized architecture…” – Niall Ferguson In this wide ranging conversation CoinDesk’s Michael Casey speaks with author, historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow Niall Ferguson about our disrupted

Is a cash-based society sustainable in the age of coronavirus? Hoarders say yes, health experts say maybe and the visionaries say no: COVID-19 is the catalyst for systemic payments change. This wrecking ball of a virus stands to change the way consumers, and businesses, think about their use of physical currency. In many countries, cash

It’s been a week since the community that drove the Steem blockchain largely broke off to form Hive, and the market action so far has been on the side of the dissidents. Hive tokens are trading at $0.321 versus steem at $0.168, according to CoinGecko at the time of this writing. The upstart is almost

Big names including IBM, Oracle and the World Health Organization (WHO) are among the collaborators on an open-data hub that will use blockchain technology to check the veracity of data relating to the coronavirus pandemic. The solution, dubbed MiPasa, is launching as a “COVID-19 information highway,” said Jonathan Levi, CEO of Hacera, the company that

After staging a recovery earlier this week, cryptocurrencies were stuck in a holding pattern Friday afternoon. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) appeared to be in a period of consolidation where prices bounce around within a tight range, showing indecisiveness among traders.  Bitcoin and ether had both climbed by less than a percent. Notable performers on

As another unprecedented week winds down, @NLW breaks down unlimited QE, digital dollars, the last break of institutional trust and more. In this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW reflects on the themes that defined an absolutely wild week in global markets and society.  Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media

In a role reversal befitting these topsy-turvy times, Wall Street has recently seen more turbulence than the top cryptocurrency.  The S&P 500’s 30-day volatility of daily returns, or historical volatility, jumped to 200 percent Wednesday, nearly 10 times the average volatility of 27 percent observed in the preceding 12 months, according to data from the