• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Bandits Swipe $700,000 in Apparent Targeted Attack in Costa Rica

Thieves stole roughly $700,000 worth of Bitcoin along with other belongings in a robbery in a Costa Rican beach town last week, according to local news reports. At least eight armed robbers violently robbed a group of Israeli nationals at a social event in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, taking a “substantial” amount of Bitcoin from them, local news agency Teletica reported Friday. The assailants, who were heavily armed and wearing police uniforms, appeared to have had law enforcement training, accordin...

• Aug 11, 2024

SEC Charges NovaTech Founders in Alleged $650 Million Crypto Scheme

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against the founders of NovaTech for running a Ponzi scheme that netted $650 million in cryptocurrency, the agency said on Monday. The SEC is accusing Cynthia and Eddy Petion of allegedly orchestrating the scam as a “crypto asset investment program” and multi-level marketing (MLM) company that, according to the agency, primarily targeted the Haitian-American community between 2019 and 2023. “NovaTech and the Petions caused untol...

• Aug 11, 2024

Coinbase Urges SEC to 'Abandon' Its 'Irrational' DeFi Exchange Rule

Coinbase once again came out swinging Monday against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC’s) yearslong attempt to expand a bureaucratic definition of the word “exchange,” which if successful would bring the DeFi ecosystem firmly under the regulator’s purview.  In an eight-page comment submitted to the SEC on Monday, Coinbase Chief Legal Office Paul Grewal chastised the potential rule change as “arbitrary” and “irrational” in several respects, and urged the agency to “abandon its effo...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Price Slump Tied to Rise of Kamala Harris Over Trump, Says Bernstein

Growing excitement over the Kamala Harris presidential campaign may be contributing to Bitcoin’s recent price decline, analysts at Bernstein wrote in a report published Monday. Odds that Harris will win the election have shot up in recent polls, as well as on crypto prediction markets platform Polymarket since President Joe Biden backed out of the race for the Democratic candidacy in favor of his vice president. This is a bearish sign, according to analysts at the investment firm, due to how Dem...

• Aug 11, 2024

Democratic Crypto Voters Are Still 'Up for Grabs' This Election: Poll

Could crypto holders influence the result of this year’s U.S. presidential election? According to Paradigm, a prominent crypto venture capital firm, fresh polling data suggests yes. In a report released by Paradigm Monday, the company stated that “making inroads with crypto owners” could boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ victory odds come November. Specifically looking at Democrats, the company found that plenty of “crypto voters are up for grabs.”  Former President and current Republican cand...

• Aug 11, 2024

Crypto Startups Raised $2.7 Billion in Q2—Here's the Good and Bad News

In a notable shift from the previous quarter, venture capital (VC) funding in the cryptocurrency sector experienced a modest rise in total investment value during Q2 2024, even as the number of deals saw a significant decline. According to the latest PitchBook report, startups in the crypto space secured a total of $2.7 billion across 503 deals. The good news is that it represents a 2.5% increase in invested capital compared to Q1 2024, but there's been a 12.5% drop in deal volume. VC Sentiment...

• Aug 11, 2024

Binance Will Start Converting Monero to USDC on September 2 as Part of Delisting

Following Binance’s February announcement that it would delist Monero (XMR) and its finalization later that month, the exchange has now announced its last steps to get the privacy coin off its platform. In an August 12 blog post, Binance said it will convert the balances of 15 different tokens, including XMR, to USD Coin (USDC) on Sept. 2, 2024. The conversion will be complete and the USDC will be in users’ wallets by Mar. 1, 2025. The announcement explains that the conversion rate for the asset...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Recovers From Dip Below $58,000 as Institutional Buying Slows Down

Bitcoin's (BTC) price dipped below $58,000 in early morning hours, as institutional investors appear to have temporarily halted their buying spree. At the time of writing, BTC is trading for $59,332.20. The dip comes as analysts noted a cessation in the transfer of Tether (USDT) from Tether Treasury to exchanges over the past two days. The halt in USDT transfers to exchanges suggests institutional investors are pausing their crypto purchases, likely contributing to the current price dip. The mov...

• Aug 11, 2024

You Can Earn Bitcoin By Listening to Podcasts—Here’s How Much

There’s a growing pile of mobile games that pay small amounts of Bitcoin as you play—but the concept is not just limited to gaming. In fact, you can earn Bitcoin by listening to podcasts through the Fountain app, without any additional ads, hurdles, or hoops to jump through. It’s just awarded inconsistently, and not at all times. Like some of the games we’ve covered, including Bitcoin Miner and SpaceY, the Fountain app offers rewards through Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in a collaboration with pa...

• Aug 11, 2024

Tether Slams Celsius Lawsuit as a 'Shakedown,' Vows to Fight Claims in Court

Tether Limited has hit back against a lawsuit from Celsius Network over disputed Bitcoin, labeling it a "shakedown" and "baseless" while vowing to defend itself vigorously in court. Filed on August 9 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the suit seeks to claw back some $2.4 billion in Bitcoin that former crypto lender Celsius claims was improperly liquidated by Tether before its bankruptcy over two years ago. “No good deed goes unpunished,” Tether wrote in a respon...