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Bitcoin surged to a five-month high on Monday, climbing back above $57,000 to outperform the broader cryptocurrency sector.

The digital currency claimed an intraday high of $57,776 before paring gains to trade up 3.48% at $57,331 as of 12:50 p.m. ET Monday. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization hit a record high of $65,000 in April.

Tim Frost, the CEO of the digital-wealth-management platform Yield App, couldn't point to one particular reason behind the rally. Catalysts could include the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent approval of an exchange-traded fund made up of stocks with bitcoin exposure, growing institutional adoption of the digital asset, and the daily settlement hitting $31 billion worth of transactions for the first time last week, he said.

But bitcoin could be headed for another short-term dip.

Continue reading at businessinsider.com

Robinhood has sounded the alarm to investors about potential risks to its business model related to increased regulatory scrutiny of cryptocurrencies and payment for order flow (PFOF), a payment arrangement with market makers which allows trading platforms to offer low-commission or commission-free trading.

According to Robinhood, payment for order flow and transaction rebates from cryptocurrency trading accounted for 79% of the company's total revenue in the second quarter, with PFOF making up 38% and cryptocurrencies making up 41%.

"Regulation of the cryptocurrency industry continues to evolve and is subject to change. Moreover, securities and commodities laws and regulations and other bodies of laws can apply to certain cryptocurrency businesses,"  the platform said in an amended S-1 filing on Friday.

Continue reading at foxbusiness.com

North American retail giant Walmart is looking for an experienced crypto expert who can develop and drive an ambitious digital currency strategy and product roadmap. 

In the listing for the role, Walmart indicates it is looking for someone who has a track record in leading and scaling businesses, with at least 10 years of experience in product/program management and technology-based product commercialization. The ideal candidate would have expertise in cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related technologies and in-depth knowledge of the crypto ecosystem and its core actors.

Walmart has hinted at the focus of its future digital currency strategy by noting that it already enables a “broad set of payment options for its customers” — although not yet in cryptocurrency. Back in 2019, Walmart had already filed a patent for a blockchain-based U.S. dollar-backed digital currency that was, at the time, similar to Facebook’s early proposals for what was then known as Libra.

Continue reading at fxstreet.com

A clash over tax rules for digital currencies like bitcoin turned into a political coming-of-age moment for the cryptocurrency industry, galvanizing a usually fractious coalition of investors, exchanges, financiers and social-media influencers.

In public, Ashton Kutcher, Elon Musk and Square Inc. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey brought the Twitter heat over a provision in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill seeking to expand and strengthen tax enforcement of crypto transactions. That helped prompt tens of thousands of followers to call members of Congress.

Behind the scenes, lobbyists, trade-group officials and executives at crypto companies hopped on Google Meet every few hours to coordinate Congressional outreach and tracked legislative contacts in a shared spreadsheet.

Continue reading at wsj.com

A new stablecoin pegged to the value of the Chilean Peso is now live on the open-source Stellar payments network — but is yet to prove popular with users.

Chile-based firm CLPX Inc launched what it describes as the first-ever Chilean Peso pegged stablecoin dubbed the “CLPX” token.

According to the public ledger on Stellar Expert, since the launch on Monday the stablecoin has seen limited volume of just $12,689 from a total of 12,902 trades.

CLPX was designed to provide a cheaper alternative to traditional Peso-based remittances, with the firm utilizing the Stellar Network as it incurs “substantially” lower fees than wire transfers or remittance services.

“The new CLPX token is set to streamline remittances and make it easy for investors worldwide to use the copper-linked Chilean peso as a hedge,” an announcement read.

CLPX also has an eye on offering international exposure to Chile’s booming copper market, which has been a critical driver of economic recovery amid the global pandemic. The Latin American nation is the current world’s leading copper producer by a long distance, with China being the main buyer of Chile’s red metals.

Continue reading at fintechzoom.com

Ripple is a payment processing network that was created to meet the requirements of the financial services sector. XRP, a cryptocurrency designed to operate on the Ripple network, has regularly ranked 5th in cryptocurrencies in terms of market value. Ripple refers to both a cryptocurrency (XRP) and also an open transaction network via which that money may be exchanged. It is a decentralized, open-source payment method that is currently under development. According to the ripple system’s website, the system aims to allow individuals to break free from the “walled gardens” of financial networks – i.e., credit cards, financial institutions, PayPal, and other organizations that limit access through fees, currency conversion costs, and processing delays.

In What Ways Are Ripple (XRP) And Bitcoin Different From One Another?

The primary distinction between bitcoin as well as a ripple in its initial purpose. Firstly, Bitcoin has been created as a decentralized peer-to-peer replacement to the conventional payment system. The concept behind bitcoin has been that a third party or intermediary is no longer required to trade value. On the other hand, Ripple is being designed to supplement rather than replace banks’ existing payment systems. Ripple’s protocol may be used to send money.

Continue reading at eyeonannapolis.net

CoinDesk Learn Editor Ollie Leech explains why the cryptocurrency community isn't excited about the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Video Transcript

- Something else to understand is what's going on in the Crypto Corner. And we want to bring in Ollie Leech, Coindesk Learn Editor. Lot to talk about here. I mean, I got Bitcoin back above $46,000. But I can't avoid the elephant in the room.

We saw the PolyNetwork, the decentralized finance platform that got hacked. Apparently, the hackers have returned, what, about a third of the 600 million that was stolen. But what is the message that this is sending to investors and to the crypto world?

OLLIE LEECH: Yeah, it's a really interesting story, actually. Like you said, you know, over $260 million has been returned. SlowMist, a blockchain-based security team was able to somehow uncover the hacker's mailbox, IP, fingerprints. And a lot of the industry got together-- [INAUDIBLE], Binance, a lot of these leading exchanges acknowledged the attack and were going to help blacklist these addresses to try and cut off the hackers' escape routes.

Continue reading at finance.yahoo.com

It is well-known by now that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. They have become an asset class with a market cap of over $1.7 trillion to their name. The market even topped the $2 trillion mark back in April.

Yet, despite the growing adoption, the gap between crypto and fiat worlds is still some ways off from completely closing. There are two main issues holding back cryptocurrency adoption.

The first is that while crypto and blockchain applications are prevalent, it isn’t straightforward for companies in the fiat world to integrate cryptocurrencies into their service offering.

A good example is Revolut. While they have the resources to introduce crypto-related services, they are still in the process of rolling out crypto-derived services after several years’ worth of effort. They only introduced a crypto withdrawal facility earlier this year. 

Similarly, crypto projects have a hard time accepting payments in fiat. There are practically no solutions that make conducting local/cross-border payments possible for such projects.

Continue reading at beincrypto.com

Bitcoin managed to hold above its key US$45,000 price level on Tuesday as a key vote on crypto regulation neared in the US Senate, raising hopes of a further bull run.

In late morning trading in London, Bitcoin was up 2% in the last 24 hours at US$45,791, giving it a market cap of just over US$860bn.

The increase means Bitcoin has broken above its 200-day moving average for the first time since April, which was then followed by a strong bull run for the digital currency, leading many analysts to predict a similar trend will emerge this time.

Continue reading at proactiveinvestors.co.uk

Digital Currency Investment House, Silver Castle, and The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Ltd (TASE: TASE) announced today the first-ever issuance of Bitcoin linked and backed bonds on TASE UP. This new channel of investment in Bitcoin creates a pathway for institutional and qualified investors into the digital currency realm and further diversification of their investment portfolio.

The series of bonds issued will have term of three years and will not bear interest. The capital raised in the issuance will be used solely in the purchase of Bitcoin and the monies will be fully exposed to the exchange rate of the Bitcoin. The trading of the bonds will be subject to the rules of TASE UP. The redemption of the Bitcoin will be paid for in Shekels, based on the exchange rate of the Bitcoin on redemption date, less commissions. Weekly early redemption will become available at the end of three months, based on a formula that weights the exchange rate of the Bitcoin on early redemption, less commissions.

The new instrument enables exposure to Bitcoin with significantly reduced operational risks and product holding costs. Until now, Bitcoin could be obtained by way of direct purchase and holding, bitcoin delivery agreements, and Israeli or foreign hedge funds. Starting today, institutional and qualified investors can also purchase Israeli Bitcoin bonds on TASE UP.

Continue reading at prnewswire.com