Bitcoin tumbled in an extended selloff for cryptocurrencies, falling past $38,000 to its lowest level in six months. The largest token sank as much as 8.7% on Friday, marking a three-day downturn. More than 236,000 traders had their positions closed over the past 24 hours, with liquidations totaling $867 million, according to data from Coinglass, a cryptocurrency futures trading and information platform. Other cryptocurrencies were similarly in the red as investors offloaded risky bets in a volatile week for global markets. Ether fell below $3,000, losing as much as 11%, while Solana, Cardano and Binance Coin also slumped. Bitcoin has suffered a rocky start to the year and prices are down more than 40% from the early November peak. Digital assets suffered especially in recent days against a wider tech selloff, rising regulatory threats and concerns around tightening U.S. monetary policy. Regulators in the U.K., Spain and Singapore this week suggested toughening the rules on crypto-asset promotion to inexperienced investors, while the Russian central bank on Thursday proposed a ban on cryptocurrencies entirely. “Rumors of Russian mining bans, the effects of tapering programs and ongoing regulatory concerns in certain jurisdictions are currently taking more weight in trading and investment decisions than the underlying long-term fundamentals,” said Jason Deane, an analyst at digital asset research firm Quantum Economics. “At the same time, increased use and adoption of Bitcoin in high-inflation economies creates a confusing market picture leading to lack of decisive direction and momentum either way,” he added. Deane predicted “choppy, directionless trading” in […]

Russia’s central bank proposed a blanket ban on the use and creation of all cryptocurrencies within one of the world’s biggest crypto-mining nations, citing the dangers posed to the country’s financial system and environment. Crypto bears the hallmarks of a pyramid scheme and undermines the sovereignty of monetary policy, the central bank said in a report Thursday. It also took aim at mining, which it said hurts the country’s green agenda, jeopardizes Russia’s energy supply and amplifies the negative effects of the spread of cryptocurrencies, creating incentives for circumventing attempts at regulation. “Potential financial stability risks associated with cryptocurrencies are much higher for emerging markets, including in Russia,” the central bank said. Russia already bans the use of crypto to make payments and the central bank in December prohibited mutual funds from investing in it. Thursday’s report called for individuals and businesses that flaunt the rules to be held to account, citing estimates that put Russian’s crypto trading turnover at about $5 billion a year. Proposals would not apply to assets held abroad by Russians, Elizaveta Danilova, the central bank’s financial stability department head, said at an online briefing Thursday, adding that people with offshore exchange accounts will be able to trade crypto. While any ban would first need to be passed into law before taking effect, speaker of the lower house of parliament Vyacheslav Volodin said this week that creating a regulatory framework will be a priority in the State Duma’s spring session. Russia is home to a thriving mining industry, which has […]

Cardano’s ADA token has surged in the past week, even as the likes of Bitcoin and Ether traded sideways, amid some promising developments on its blockchain. ADA has risen 30% in the past seven days, according to pricing from CoinGecko, while Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP have advanced less than 5%. That comes as data from Messari show Cardano’s 24-hour transaction volume at $5.31 billion, compared with Ethereum’s $5.59 billion. But Cardano’s gas fees – payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process transactions – were around $75,400 compared with the latter’s $44 million over that period. “One could quite easily argue that the NFT market has found a gas-light way to transact, and that is the Cardano blockchain,” said Hayden Hughes, chief executive officer of Alpha Impact, a social-media platform for crypto traders. “Many have argued that it’s only a matter of time before gas fees and congestion clog up the Cardano blockchain, leading to high gas fees, but despite the $5.31 billion in daily activity we have not yet seen this.” Just getting started Lark, it’s just January https://t.co/ToJ923QOAk — Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) January 17, 2022 Cardano has had its ups and downs in recent months. For a time it was the third-biggest cryptocurrency, topped by only Bitcoin and Ether, and neared $100 billion in market value amid optimism about the addition of smart contract capabilities. However, it dropped after that and is about 50% below its early-September record, even with the recent rally. While […]

Istanbul, Turkey – Just off of Istiklal street, Istanbul’s busiest pedestrian walkway, the occasional passerby stops to glance at a screen displaying the prices of cryptocurrencies in the window at NakitCoins. Only a handful of people enter the shop, but the brick-and-mortar exchange, which lets them buy or sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is a physical example of how the ailing Turkish lira is propelling the popularity of virtual cryptocurrencies in Turkey, despite a recent history of scandalised exchanges. Interest in crypto among Turks, like the rest of the world, has increased over the years. But Turkey’s economic crisis has pushed millions of curious observers to actually sink their savings into Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins. The new converts aren’t simply drawn to the investment promise of cryptocurrencies, which are prone to wild, volatile price swings. They see virtual currencies as a potential store of value to shield their savings as the lira is roiled by routs that saw the Turkish currency lose more than 40 percent of its value last year alone. The growing appetite for crypto is the latest manifestation of the Turkish public’s search for reliable investments, said Cem Yilmaz, who founded NakitCoins in 2018 and has now opened three branches in the country. “Turkish people are very interested in investing, it could be forex [foreign exchange], or gold, or now crypto,” he said. Yilmaz launched NakitCoins to help the crypto-curious overcome their apprehensions about sinking their money into a new virtual investment vehicle via exchanges that […]

It’s one of the hottest corners of crypto – and now the U.S. government wants its share of the profits. Investors and creators of nonfungible tokens – a market that has ballooned to $44 billion, Chainalysis data show, and attracted fans from Justin Bieber to Melania Trump – face billions of dollars in taxes and rates as high as 37%, according to tax experts. Internal Revenue Service officials who deal with tax evaders say they are gearing up for a crackdown. The surprises looming for NFT enthusiasts when tax filing season begins this month are crypto’s latest wake-up call from Washington as officials across the U.S. government set their sights on the burgeoning industry. The rules about taxing tokens aren’t clear, leaving NFT collectors scrambling to calculate how much they owe. Investors may not realize they need to pay any taxes at all or that they should file more than once a year, increasing the odds they’ll face future penalties. “You don’t get to not report gains or losses because the IRS has failed to provide guidance that meets your expectations,” said San Francisco-based tax attorney James Creech. “The harder it is for people to get to a reasonable — or ideally, a right — conclusion, the easier it is to ignore it.” NFTs gained attention as representations of digital art and are expected to be a key part of the so-called metaverse that tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg say is the future of the Internet. The tokens are digital […]

North Korea launched at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms that extracted nearly $400m worth of digital assets last year, one of its most successful years on record, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis said in a new report. “From 2020 to 2021, the number of North Korean-linked hacks jumped from four to seven, and the value extracted from these hacks grew by 40 percent,” said the report, which was released on Thursday. “Once North Korea gained custody of the funds, they began a careful laundering process to cover up and cash out,” the report added. A United Nations panel of experts that monitors sanctions on North Korea has accused Pyongyang of using stolen funds to support its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to circumvent sanctions. North Korea does not respond to media inquiries but has previously released statements denying allegations of hacking. Last year the United States charged three North Korean computer programmers working for the country’s intelligence service with an enormous, years-long hacking spree aimed at stealing more than $1.3bn in money and cryptocurrency, affecting companies from banks to Hollywood movie studios. Chainalysis did not identify all the targets of the hacks but said they were primarily investment firms and centralised exchanges, including Liquid.com, which announced in August that an unauthorised user had gained access to some of the cryptocurrency wallets it managed. The attackers used phishing lures, code exploits, malware, and advanced social engineering to siphon funds out of these organisations’ internet-connected “hot” wallets into North Korea-controlled addresses, the […]