In the past week, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has received two applications for bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds. According to EDGAR, the SEC’s public filing system, the two ETF applications were filed on December 8th and December 11th. The first application, the REX Bitcoin Strategy ETF and REX Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF, was filed by Connecticut-based REX, while the…
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In a CNBC interview, Andrew Busch, the Chief Marketing Intelligence Officer for the United States’ Commodities Future Trading Commission, said that integrating bitcoin into traditional exchanges will come with its own unique challenges. One of these challenges will be keeping potential futures manipulation in check. It’ll be up to regulators to remain diligent to avoid such malicious market tactics, Busch believes:…
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An army of digital furballs have laid siege to ethereum’s blockchain in the form of the game CryptoKitties. The feline frenzy is the brainchild of Axion Zen, a Canadian creative venture firm. Built on ethereum’s blockchain, the gaming platform is the first of its kind. Kittens are displayed on the game’s online marketplace like a digitized menagerie, and players can choose…
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The popular video game marketplace Steam will stop accepting bitcoin as a form of payment on their purchasing platform. On the morning of December 6th, the company announced the news on its website’s public forum, stating the change will be effective immediately. Steam first began accepting bitcoin back in 2016 as the cryptocurrency began its rise to public prominence. Steam Says…
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The Philippines has set its regulatory sight on ICOs, a December 4th Bloomberg report revealed. As Initial Coin Offerings have become more popular, top government officials have called for regulation of the industry. Nestor Espenilla, governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), believes that the “strong growth potential” of ICOs necessitates this oversight. The Securities and Exchanges Commission will…
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Blockstack closed their initial coin offering on December 1st, selling a total of 440 million coins that racked up an impressive $50 million in revenue. The ICO launched back on the 16th of November and included no presale. Presale or not, the ICO still saw plenty of attention from big name players. A healthy mix of venture capital firms and…
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The Indonesian government will enter the new year in arms against Bitcoin and its cohorts. In an annual meeting held last week, Indonesia’s central bank officials announced their plan to institute an all inclusive ban on the purchasing, trading, and transacting of cryptocurrencies in 2018. The governor of Bank Indonesia, Agus Martowardojo, defended the need for such extreme regulation on the…
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Litecoin founder Charlie Lee and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin weighed in on the controversial investment platform BitConnect late this week. Crypto fans have long questioned the program’s validity. With Bitconnect, investors are encouraged to stake their coins in the currency’s core wallet, earning interest on their initial investment as a result. BitConnect isn’t the first crypto to attract users with proof of…
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Coinbase director of communications, David Farmer revealed in a November 29th blog post that Coinbase won a “partial victory” in their month-long court battle against the Internal Revenue Service. But this partial victory still means relinquishing data on 14,000 active accounts. The courtroom drama dates back to November of last year, when the IRS originally requested account details of more 480,000…
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On November 29th, the cryptocurrency market experienced a substantial pullback from its November bullrun, which saw many top coins keeping pace with Bitcoin’s growth. It’s not every day that you see most of crypto’s top 10 competing with Bitcoin’s rise. Sitting at a 55.1% market dominance, when Bitcoin is pumping hard, it usually leaves other coins stagnant or at a…
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