Bitcoin continued its slide on Monday, losing close to 5 percent after a brutal weekend that at one point saw the world’s most popular cryptocurrency lose more than a fifth of its value. The selloff sent Bitcoin’s price and the amount invested in Bitcoin futures back to where they were in early October, before a massive price surge that sent the token to an all-time high of $69,000 on November 10. It was last down 3.9 percent at $47,567. Traders said the weekend fall was connected to a broad move away from riskier assets in traditional markets that was sparked by worries about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, combined with lower trading liquidity that can exaggerate market moves and tends to plague cryptocurrencies at weekends. “Our expectation is the rest of Q4 will be a hard month; we aren’t seeing the strength in Bitcoin that we generally see after one of these crushing days,” said Matt Dibb at Stackfunds, a Singapore-based crypto fund distributor. “Leverage markets have been completely reset, and open interest within leverage markets has completely reset.” Crypto data platform Coinglass showed open interest – the total number of futures contracts held by market participants at the end of the trading day – across all exchanges was last at $16.5bn compared with $23.5bn on Thursday, and as much as $27bn on November 10. “There’s barely any liquidity on weekends so markets are slightly more vulnerable to shocks – that and a lot of demand coming from institutionals, […]

The Australian computer scientist who claims he invented Bitcoin was told by a U.S. jury to pay $100 million in damages over claims that he cheated a deceased friend over intellectual property for the cryptocurrency. Jurors in Miami federal court took about a week to reach Monday’s verdict, following about three weeks of trial. The jury rejected most claims against Craig Wright and the outcome probably won’t resolve the debate over whether Wright is the mythical creator of the peer-to-peer currency, Satoshi Nakamoto. The brother of Dave Kleiman, a computer security expert who died in 2013, alleged that the late Florida man worked with Wright to create and mine Bitcoin in its early years. As a result, the plaintiffs claimed the estate was entitled to half of a cache of as many as 1.1 million Bitcoins worth some $70 billion, which are thought to be held by Satoshi. Some cryptocurrency investors see Wright as a fake, and yearslong litigation in Florida has done little to quiet the skeptics. Wright has declared many times in court that he invented Bitcoin, as he has previously in news interviews. Had the jury’s verdict gone against Wright, that would have forced to him to produce the Satoshi fortune. To some observers, that would have been the true test. Wright said after the verdict, “I have never been so relieved in my life.” He said he won’t appeal. He also said he feels vindicated and that the verdict proves he’s the creator of Bitcoin. “The […]

Palau – population roughly 18,000 – is unlikely to be at the top of many people’s minds when they think of places at the cutting edge of technological innovation. But the tiny Pacific island nation, located about 900km (559 miles) west of the Philippines, is on a bold mission to spearhead the official adoption and endorsement of cryptocurrencies. Under a partnership with United States-based cryptocurrency company Ripple, Palau is exploring plans to launch the world’s first government-backed national stablecoin in the first half of 2022. Pegged to a real-world currency While running on the same digital ledger technology, or blockchain, as other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins differ from other digital currencies in having their value pegged to a real-world asset such as the US dollar. For stablecoin proponents, that gives the digital currencies an edge over notoriously volatile cryptos such as Bitcoin, whose price has swung between $5,000 and $65,000 in the last 20 months alone. Palauan President Surangel Whipps, Jr has touted the adoption of a stablecoin as a way to make life more convenient for citizens and diversify the economy away from tourism, which before the pandemic accounted for about half of gross domestic product (GDP). Palau’s GDP shrank by 8.7 percent last year, with a further contraction of 17.6 percent expected in 2021, according to a report by the Graduate School USA, largely due to the collapse of travel due to COVID-19. The Asian Development Bank in April granted the country a $25m loan to keep it afloat. Ripple, […]

With approval for a conventional cryptocurrency ETF still nowhere in sight, at least one U.S. money manager is looking to tap one of the other hot trends on the blockchain. Defiance ETFs is launching the Defiance Digital Revolution ETF (ticker NFTZ) on Thursday, which will track a blockchain-related-companies and non-fungible-token index. It won’t invest in any cryptocurrencies directly – the gauge tracks firms that have exposure to the industry – but it is one of the first ETFs to tap the booming market for NFTs. The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission allowed an ETF that holds Bitcoin futures to begin trading in October, the closest regulators have come to approving a fund that invests in cryptocurrencies. Blockchain thematic ETFs have proliferated while the SEC rejected numerous applications for a spot ETF over the last several years. The NFTZ fund “is a great way for investors to gain access to not only the fast-growth blockchain technology aspect of the digital world, but companies involved in the renaissance of NFTs,” said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer for Defiance ETFs. “The companies in this index are key players in the build-out of Web 3.0,” or an idealized version of the internet that is decentralized and based on blockchains. The fund carries a management fee of 0.65%, meaning $6.50 for every $1,000 invested. Its top positions are in Silvergate Capital Corp., Cloudflare, Inc., Bitfarms Ltd., Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., Hut 8 Mining Corp. and Coinbase Global Inc., among others. NFTs, which allow holders of art, collectibles […]

Bitcoin is staging a comeback along with other riskier assets on Monday, bouncing back from its Black-Friday lows. The largest digital asset rose as much as 3.4% during the session to trade around $58,266. Other coins also posted snap-backs, with the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index adding 5.5% at one point. So-called alternative coins like Polkadot and Dogecoin gained too. A brutal selloff Friday saw investors fleeing a number of riskier assets, including cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin posting its worst day in roughly two months. The drubbing came after the announcement of a new coronavirus variant named omicron that was identified in southern Africa and which experts are now trying to understand. The session’s decline saw Bitcoin drop 20% below a record high notched earlier in November, which for many strategists showcases the coin’s tendency to closely track moves of the broader stock market. “It highlights that Bitcoin is a risk-on/risk-off asset,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co. Meanwhile, in a development that is quintessentially cryptonian, a coin called Omicron crashed and then recovered as news of the eponymous variant spread. Though little is known about the coin thus far, data on CoinGecko.com shows it’s been in existence for a few weeks and that its market cap hovers around $370 million. Bitcoin has been under pressure since reaching a record of almost $69,000 Nov. 10 on enthusiasm over the first U.S. exchange-traded fund linked to futures of the digital asset. But a multitude of factors have weighed on returns since then, […]

Bitcoin tumbled 20% from the record high it notched earlier this month as a potentially worrisome new variant of the coronavirus spurred traders to dump risk assets across the globe. The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 9% to $53,552 on Friday. Ether, the second-largest digital currency, dropped more than 12%, while the wider Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index declined as much as 7.7%. A new variant identified in southern Africa spurred liquidations across global markets, with European stocks falling the most since July and U.S. equity benchmarks also trading lower. Bitcoin wasn’t spared from the carnage despite increasingly being seen by many crypto enthusiasts as a hedge against financial-market turmoil. And even as Bitcoin has gained more mainstream acceptance, the cryptocurrency is still prone to wild swings. “To us, it is still by and large a risk asset,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird. “When things get kind of scary, there are going to be sellers.” Meanwhile, gold — a traditional safe-haven asset — climbed as much as 1.5% Friday morning, though the precious metal has still significantly underperformed Bitcoin year to date. “I think the role that Bitcoin will eventually play is still uncertain. The role that something like gold and Treasuries play is pretty well known at this point. So the conclusion is that when things really look ugly, the traditional safe havens will rise to the top,” Mayfield added. The variant news that roiled markets wasn’t the only negative factor weighing on Bitcoin. Coming […]