Analysis

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on July 16 regarding Facebook’s new cryptocurrency, Libra. The hearing, “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations,” comes in the wake of calls from members of Congress to more closely examine Libra and its potential risks. There have even been calls to halt work

Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said Wednesday that social media giant Facebook met with the central bank in the run-up to the reveal of its Libra cryptocurrency. Speaking during a press conference that followed a two-day Fed policy meeting, Powell was asked if he or the Fed had any concerns about Libra

China’s internet giants appear unlikely to follow Facebook into the cryptocurrency space anytime soon – though you can be sure they’re paying attention. Pony Ma, the CEO of Tencent, the parent company of social messaging and payments app WeChat, said Wednesday that he thinks regulation will be the deciding factor for the success of Facebook’s Libra initiative. “The technology

Analysts at investment bank Canaccord Genuity think Facebook’s new cryptocurrency might benefit the world – if regulators allow it. In a note to clients Wednesday, analyst Michael Graham wrote that Facebook’s Libra Network, unveiled on Tuesday, would seemingly benefit the blockchain space, unbanked individuals and (to some “modest” amount) Facebook’s bottom line. However, he highlighted

According to venture capitalist Dovey Wan of Primitive Ventures, finding sustainable funding for bitcoin developers is the biggest challenge facing the ecosystem in 2019. To bridge that gap, she’s helped gather 50 BTC — an amount worth just north of $450,000 at press time prices — that are now up for grabs. Wan partnered with

View Bitcoin fell 2.87 percent on Tuesday, ending the longest stretch of daily gains since July 2018. The long-term outlook, however, remains bullish with the 3-day chart calling a move to $10,000. On the way higher, BTC may face resistance at the key Fibonacci retracement level of $9,642. The hourly and 4-hour charts are reporting

Livepeer, a decentralized video encoding platform built on the Ethereum network, announced it has received an $8 million Series A venture capital round lead by Northzone. Noticing the prodigious increase in video streaming across the web and the prohibitive costs involved in transcoding, serial entrepreneurs Doug Petkanics and Eric Tang built a platform that links

U.S. authorities seized more than $200,000 worth of bitcoin after alleged drug manufacturer and dealer met with undercover law enforcement officers to exchange the digital currency for cash at a hotel in Norwood, Massachusetts. The arrest — which occurred on March 27, 2019 — was part of a wider investigation into a Boston-based drug syndicate

Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency has captured the imaginations of experienced blockchainers but how can you explain it to people who don’t know much about technology? Thankfully, Facebook posted a few easy-to-follow videos about the Libra ecosystem and even the new Calibra wallet. First up we see a short demo of the Calibra app running on iOS.

The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee wants Facebook to stop developing its new Libra cryptocurrency network – at least temporarily. Congresswoman Maxine Waters asked Facebook to halt development of the Libra Network until hearings can be held. The move follows a letter written to her by her Republican counterpart, Representative Patrick

Edan Yago is the founder of CementDAO, an effort to bring together stablecoins into a unified ecosystem. The views expressed here are his own. With the announcement of Libra, cryptocurrency has entered the big leagues. Facebook’s entry into this market means every single company now has to take cryptocurrency seriously. Companies around the world are

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the filing of a civil enforcement action against Control-Finance Limited, a purported Bitcoin trading and investment company, and its founder, Benjamin Reynolds, of the United Kingdom. The complaint charges the defendants misappropriated at least 22,858.822 bitcoin—worth at least $147 million at the time—from more than 1,000 customers through

“The (virtual) gold rush is on, and as in the Wild West of yore, the outlaws are ever present,” wrote blockchain developers and academics in a recent paper, Polygraph: Accountable Byzantine Agreement. Luckily, these researchers have have discovered a way to detect and punish dishonest blockchain users. The authors — Vincent Gramoli and Pierre Civit of the

A new cryptocurrency exchange service is available on the border between Colombia and Venezuela and its aim is to help refugees traveling across the Simon Bolivar International Bridge. Visitors are now able to use the point-of-sale service with cryptocurrencies to buy goods. The POS is located in Santander, Colombia, just across the border from Venezuela.

Facebook is still working on its responses to a plethora of consumer protection questions about the Libra cryptocurrency asked by a group of U.S. senators last month. The Senate Banking Committee wrote an open letter to Facebook at the beginning of May, asking the social media giant a number of questions about Libra, after word

Binance will issue a number of tokens pegged to leading cryptocurrencies on Binance Chain to boost the number of trading options on its platform. The tokens are also likely to be extended to Binance DEX, the firm’s recently launched decentralized exchange, as they create the potential to in effect move cryptos from different blockchains onto its

Two of the world’s largest top-10 enterprise software companies by revenue have joined the Hyperledger blockchain consortium. Microsoft and Salesforce are among the eight new members announced by Hyperledger Tuesday. The recruits also include Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), a Russian metal company; Gloscad, a Polish tech company developing solutions for the agriculture industry; and Milligan Partners,

With the long-awaited Libra white paper, Facebook is showing off its blockchain smarts, and making a bid for crypto credibility. Released Tuesday morning, the 29-page paper describes a protocol designed to evolve as it powers a new global currency. More than a year in the making, the document opens by trumpeting the new blockchain’s ambitious goal:

A historic change in strategy is taking place at R3 and Digital Asset (DA), who are now collaborating to maximize their respective blockchain ecosystems. Announced Tuesday, DA will be bringing its smart contract language DAML (Digital Asset Modelling Language) to R3’s Corda platform, as well as Hyperledger Fabric, following on from its Hyperledger Sawtooth tie-up

Grayscale Investments, the cryptocurrency asset manager backed by Digital Currency Group, which acquired CoinDesk in 2016 – has released a report showing what it argues is bitcoin’s potential as a hedge against global liquidity crises. Overall, the authors suggest bitcoin ought to be considered a strategic position within long-term investment portfolios considering its transparent, immutable

Four of Brazil’s major financial authorities have come together to regulate emerging technologies, including blockchain. The Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Brazil, the Securities Commission, and theSuperintendent of Private Insurance recently announced their intention to adapt new regulations to manage fintech and cryptocurrency advances. The regulations will affect Brazil’s securities, financial, and capital

Blockchain payments startup Ripple has struck a deal to buy a stake in money transfer giant MoneyGram, the companies announced Monday. Under the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal and Fortune, Ripple will spend $30 million to buy shares at a price of $4.10 apiece. And in the next two years, MoneyGram has the option

The developers behind the Cosmos network released today a full disclosure of last month’s “critical security vulnerability” which reportedly enabled hackers to bypass certain penalties for misbehavior on the network. Zaki Manian, director at Tendermint Inc – the for-profit entity behind the core technology of the Cosmos network – detailed to Coindesk in an interview:

Algorand, a permission-less, proof-of-stake blockchain and technology company, announced that their node repository is now open source. Part of Algorand’s ongoing mission to develop and promote a decentralized blockchain, the company has made several of its projects open source over the past year, including a Verifiable Random Function and their Developer SDKs. The blockchain’s nodes

Noted economist and cryptocurrency skeptic Nouriel Roubini has said Facebook’s soon-to-be unveiled cryptocurrency, reportedly called GlobalCoin, is not really crypto. In a conversation with CoinDesk, Roubini – also nicknamed “Dr. Doom” for his prediction of the financial crash in 2007–2008 – said: “It has nothing to do with blockchain. Fully private, controlled, centralized, verified and authorized by a

The head of Russia’s central bank has said the institution could one day launch its own digital currency. Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina told a student conference that, while such a project “cannot be realized immediately,” various central banks, including Bank of Russia, are investigating the possibility, TASS reported Saturday. Key to the utility of a central

THE TAKEAWAY: FINRA has sat for months on roughly 40 broker-dealer applications from companies dealing in crypto assets, denying them a broker-dealer license that would let these firms offer securities in the U.S. Some think FINRA, a self-regulatory organization, is holding off on these approvals at the SEC’s request, as the agency has yet to offer clear

Breez, a non-custodial wallet and payment platform, is launching its services for the iPhone. This is the first payment project built on Neutrino, a bitcoin lightning network client, according to the company announcement. Additionally, Breez has resolved the issue of how to dispute purchases and receive refunds, “so it’s suitable for every kind of purchase

BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has taken over as CEO of his current company, Chia Network, CoinDesk has learned. Co-founder Ryan Singer has stepped away from the company to focus on family priorities. Cohen is viewed as a pioneer of the decentralized internet for creating the BitTorrent filesharing protocol. In August 2017, he left BitTorrent to found Chia,

A number of South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges have been forced to update their terms and conditions to accept liability for potential hacks and service issues. According to a report by the Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s antitrust watchdog, the Fair Trade Commission, said Monday that five exchanges in total had made the change after it