Analysis

Independent Reserve, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Australia, is expanding to Singapore after an “overwhelmingly positive” response from the regulator. Adrian Przelozny, CEO and founder of the Sydney-based exchange, announced Friday it had expanded its trading services to users in Singapore, saying in a statement that his team “felt the time was right

Holders of the ONE token from the team at Harmony should make plans to swap their ERC-20 (ethereum) or BEP-2 (binance chain) tokens for the coin on Harmony’s blockchain if they want to be able to participate in staking and other network activities.  According to a blog post shared Thursday, Harmon’s token swap is ready

In addition to our news roundup, for the next few episodes we’ll also be highlighting select interviews from the CoinDesk crew reporting inside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  Today, we’ll hear from former Monero head “Fluffypony” and more from cypherpunk Harry Halpin. Listen or subscribe with your preferred service: Disclosure Read More The

Identity thieves now have another tool at their disposal: bitcoin hashing power.  That’s the conclusion from a new cryptanalysis paper published earlier this month on SHA-1 (pronounced “shaw”), a once-popular hash function created by the National Security Agency and disapproved in the mid-2000s after failing against theoretical hack attacks. SHA-1 continues to see use in

Bitcoin’s price pullback has gathered steam in the last 24 hours, erasing a major portion of the cryptocurrency’s recent gains. The top cryptocurrency dived out of the $8,460–$8,750 congestion zone during the European trading hours on Thursday, signaling a continuation of the pullback from Sunday’s high near $9,200. So far, the follow-through to the range

Politicians from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party plan to propose the nation issues its own digital currency. According to a Reuters report on Friday, about 70 lawmakers from the party feel a digital yen is needed to counter the approaching launches of Libra and China’s digital currency. The effort – aimed to keep Japan at

In this video from the WEF 2020, Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin speaks to CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen in Davos, Switzerland, about the World Economic Forum, privacy and the future of blockchain. Halpin pulled no punches when it came to describing the scene at Davos. “I do think there are lots of well-meaning people here that

In this video from WEF 2020, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, also known as “Crypto Dad,” discusses his push to digitize the U.S. dollar and the future of global currencies. “We believe that the dollar usage in the global economy is underserved by serving as a continual analog instrument in a

The Gemini crypto exchange has completed a new examination to ensure its security system controls operate effectively.  Gemini announced Thursday that it had completed an independent SOC 2 Type 2 examination conducted by consulting firm Deloitte, a year after it completed an SOC 2 Type 1 examination. Where the previous examination evaluated Gemini’s design and

Stablecoin issuer Tether is launching a new token backed by physical gold. Tether Gold “represents ownership of one troy fine ounce of physical gold on a specific gold bar,” a press release said Thursday. The new stablecoins, with the XAU₮ ticker, will be issued on ethereum and tron as ERC-20 and TRC20 tokens. “Tether Gold

This story is part of CoinDesk’s 2020 election series exploring questions of information integrity, the rights of digital citizens, the power of centralized platforms, and the future of money. The 2020 campaigns are largely focused on Trump, the progressive versus centrist wing of the Democratic party, and, apparently according to the New York Times, identifying

Digital asset storage provider Ledger is partnering with FLETA, a South Korea-based blockchain platform for decentralized applications (dapps) to provide custodian services compliant with local laws. The French startup has been trying to extend the reach of its institutional-level services with Ledger Vault, building on the success of its nano wallets which primarily targeted retail

View Bitcoin’s range breakdown has opened the doors for a deeper pullback to support levels at $8,200 and $8,000. The short-term indicators have turned bearish, supporting the case for further losses.  A move above $8,750 is needed to revive the immediate bullish view.  The broader outlook will remain bullish as long as prices are holding

A fully-regulated tokenized real estate fund has been approved by officials in Liechtenstein. The AARGOS Global Real Estate Fund was approved as an alternative investment fund (AIF) by Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA), the company announced. The fund provides exposure to a global real estate portfolio through AARGO security tokens – built on the ethereum

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov pushed back against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) attorney’s speculation that his company’s 2018 token sale was meant to refill its cash reserves. During an 18-hour deposition, Durov disputed in particular SEC attorney Jorge Tenreiro’s claim that the sale would help Telegram to pay for servers. This claim is

Bitcoin’s lightning torch is back, and it’s zipped through at least 38 countries already. The torch is a digital game first ignited in January 2019 by pseudonymous bitcoin enthusiast Hodlonaut, known for his Twitter avatar of a cat in a spacesuit. Each “torchbearer” sends a tiny amount of bitcoin to the next. A key rule

Hacker Noon is putting its money where its pen is, embedding blockchain features into its new publishing platform.  Annotations on Hacker Noon’s blog-styled content, with some 4 million monthly readers, will now be locally hosted on users’ spare storage space, said Hacker Noon CEO David Smooke in a press release. These annotations and in-line comments

Sports live-streaming provider SportsCastr is launching its own cryptocurrency to reward viewers and encourage interactions. The company – which is backed by the NFL Players Association – announced Wednesday that it has teamed up with the FanWide platform for the effort. The new FanChain (FANZ) token will be made available on FanWide, which helps people

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is taking action against yet another ICO issuer: blockchain-based B2B marketplace Opporty. In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the SEC alleges that, from September 2017 to October 2018, Opporty International, Inc. and its founder and sole owner Sergii Grybniak conducted a “fraudulent” sale of digital assets called OPP

Crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank has made its first hire from the hardcore bitcoin community to support an ambitious roadmap for its business serving digital currency clients.  Benjamin Richman, formerly director of business development and partnerships at bitcoin tech startup Blockstream, joined the La Jolla, Calif.-based bank at the end of last month as director of digital

British telecom conglomerate Vodafone has become the eighth company to pull out of the Libra Association, the governing council for the Facebook-created global digital currency initiative, CoinDesk has learned.  Vodafone and Libra both confirmed Tuesday that the company is no longer part of the consortium. Vodafone will dedicate resources previously intended for Libra to its

Square Crypto, the payment company’s bitcoin-focused wing, is building a “Lightning Development Kit” for wallet and app developers to more easily build on the layer-2 solution. Announced Tuesday, the new kit includes an API, language tools, demo apps and other features to help developers integrate support for Lightning payments into their own wallets. Existing bitcoin

Paxos announced Tuesday a new feature allowing customers to automatically wire transfer funds from their bank accounts into either Paxos Standard or Binance USD stablecoins. Conversely, any PAX or BUSD sent to the designated address will be automatically wired back to the individual’s bank account in USD. Zach Kwartler, senior product manager at Paxos, told

The Swiss government has attempted to strike a more conciliatory tone on the Facebook-led Libra project, weeks after the country’s now-departed president called the project a failure. A government memo, seen by Bloomberg, emphasizes that the country’s regulators have not ruled out the possibility that Libra could one day receive their approval. Swiss officials will

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the nation’s central bank, has explained that it “ringfenced” financial institutions from dealing with cryptocurrencies over a range of perceived risks. In a response to a petition from the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) – which is currently fighting a supreme court case over the issue on

A project which conducted a 2016 initial coin offering (ICO) has voted to liquidate its $64 million treasury, returning funds to investors. Project Ragnarok, a measure to return ether to ICO investors from the Digix project’s treasury – which was held independently of the company in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), DigixDAO – has passed

Open interest in bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) have doubled in the first few days of the year, as noted by data analytics firm Skew. About $235 million worth of positions (5,329 contracts) were open on the CME on Jan. 17 compared to $110 million seen in early December. Open interest

CoinDesk will be on the ground in Davos from Jan. 20–24 chronicling all things crypto at the annual gathering of the world’s economic and political elite. Below is the first edition of our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos. Subscribe below. Get your Fourth Industrial Revolution hardhats on – it’s time to ponder the slew of problems

Sheila Warren is the Head of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology at the World Economic Forum. Sumedha Deshmukh is a Project Specialist on the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology team at the World Economic Forum. The opinions expressed here are their own. If the last few years have taught us one thing, it’s this: users

Plaintiffs in three separate putative class action lawsuits against Bitfinex and Tether have moved to consolidate their cases, according to a Thursday court filing. Court filings by David Leibowitz et al, Eric Young et al, and Bryan Faubus et al, accuse the sister companies of manipulating the crypto markets. Their cases share common threads, filings