The top officers of HDR, the parent company of crypto trading platform BitMEX, which has been charged with facilitating unregistered trading and other violations, systematically looted $440,308,400 from HDR accounts, a civil lawsuit claims. A spokesperson for HDR called the claims “spurious.” The suit, filed on behalf of plaintiffs BMA LLC, Yaroslav Kolchin and Vitaly Dubinin, seeks an order of...
Investors who say they lost hundreds of thousands of British pounds in an alleged cryptocurrency fraud have had no luck persuading the police that there was, in fact, a crime committed. According to an investigation by the Metro newspaper published Tuesday, a number of investors said they had invested in a cryptocurrency project called Lyfcoin on promises of hefty returns,...
A survey conducted by digital asset manager Grayscale Investments suggests investor interest in bitcoin is on the rise and the top cryptocurrency by market cap is well on its way toward mainstream adoption. Released Tuesday, Grayscale's "Bitcoin Investor Study" revealed more than half (55%) of U.S. investors who responded are interested in buying bitcoin (BTC) in 2020. Compared to the...
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma criticized global financial regulations for stifling innovation and urged China to seek a system that accommodated development. “After the Asian financial crisis, the risk control highlighted in the Basel Accords has been” the priority for regulators, Ma said at the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Saturday. Now the world “only focuses on risk control, not...
Digital asset manager Grayscale Investments has acquired an additional $300 million in cryptocurrencies over the last 24 hours. Grayscale CEO Barry Silbert made the announcement via tweet late Thursday evening, shortly after his company posted an update to its digital asset portfolio. "Added a cool $300 million in assets under management in one day," Silbert said. The additional sum brings...
Call it Crypto Lite – for now. Fintech giant PayPal confirmed its long-awaited move into digital assets Wednesday, offering its 346 million users the chance to buy, hold and sell bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin, with the blessing of New York state regulators. While the cryptosphere acknowledges the bullishness of a firm the size of PayPal making a move...
This week saw more exchange drama rock the crypto markets. OKEx, one of the industry’s largest crypto-fiat exchanges, suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals, saying one of the exchange’s key holders has “been out of touch” with the exchange because they are “currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations.” Coming hard on the heels of the BitMEX indictments from a...
OKEx has suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals indefinitely, saying one of the exchange’s key holders has “been out of touch” with the exchange because they are “currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations.” OKEx’ CEO later said the investigation is due to the key holder’s “personal issue.” Most of the top cryptocurrencies sold off on the news, with the...
Coinbase’s chief compliance officer (CCO), Jeff Horowitz, is leaving the firm after two years. First reported by The Block, Horowitz joins at least 60 other employees in leaving the exchange – roughly 5% of the company's headcount. The majority of those departures come in response to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently declaring an "apolitical" non-activist stance against social issues at...
This week the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates the country’s financial services, issued a ban on the sale of crypto derivatives and ETNs to retail investors. While this may not seem particularly material to crypto asset markets overall – U.K. retail investors weren’t that much into crypto derivatives anyway, and the market hardly reacted at all – it...