Author: Coindesk
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to reset its relationship with the crypto industry, even before a permanent chair is confirmed by Congress. The latest effort was Friday’s roundtable, hosted at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and featuring a dozen attorneys representing different views and positions within the crypto industry.You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.The narrativeThe SEC’s reset began when Acting Chair Mark Uyeda launched a crypto task force and oversaw his agency withdraw Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, drop…
The Lazarus Group, a hacking group closely associated with North Korean, holds more bitcoin (BTC) than Tesla (TSLA), the electric car manufacturer led by Elon Musk, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. At press time, Lazarus held 13,441 BTC worth $1.14 billion, according to data source Arkham Intelligence. That’s 16% more than Tesla’s bitcoin stash of 11,509 BTC.Lazarus Group’s bitcoin holdings (Arkham Intelligence) Last month, Lazarus Group struck crypto exchange Bybit, draining $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) from the platform. Recently, some of the stolen funds have been converted into bitcoin, with 12,836 BTC distributed across 9,117 unique wallets, as Bybit’s CEO Ben…
Bakkt Holdings (BKKT) is bringing on Akshay Naheta as co-CEO and entering a strategic partnership with Naheta’s payments startup, Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), as the firm moves to unlock new revenue streams.Naheta, a former SoftBank executive with past investments in Nvidia and ARM, will officially join Bakkt’s leadership team from today. Alongside current CEO Andy Main, he’s expected to help steer the company deeper into blockchain-enabled payments. Naheta is also joining Bakkt’s board of directors.The centerpiece of the announcement is a planned integration of Bakkt’s trading and brokerage platform with DTR’s stablecoin-based payments infrastructure. DTR’s infrastructure, according to a press…
Just when it appeared that the yen scare could be easing, Japan has reported an uptick in core inflation.Data released early Friday showed Japan’s core inflation, which stripes out prices for fresh food, rose 3% year-on-year in February, moderating from January’s 3.2% but beating the consensus forecast for 2.9%. The headline consumer price index eased to 3.7% from 4%. Overall, both indices remained well above the Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation target, validating the central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda’s declaration of victory over decades of deflation. Notably, since November, Japan’s headline inflation has been running hotter than that of the…
A key gauge of economic sentiment and corporate credit health has receded from its recent multi-month highs in a positive development for risk-taking in stocks and crypto markets. The relief, however, could be short-lived, per some observers.The indicator in consideration is the ICE/BofA U.S. High Yield Index Option-Adjusted Spread (OAS), which measures the average yield difference (spread) between U.S. dollar-denominated high-yield corporate bonds and U.S. Treasury securities, adjusted for embedded optionality in the bonds.It’s widely tracked as a credit risk barometer, with the widening spread representing growing investor concern about corporate defaults or economic weakness, often leading to investors lightening…
The Trump administration is preparing to restructure the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and integrate blockchain technology into its procurement system, Wired reported, citing a memo circulating among State Department staff.The plan proposes rebranding the agency as U.S. International Humanitarian Assistance and moving it directly under the authority of the Secretary of State, Wired said. It would leverage a blockchain to trace aid distributions and enforce payment models based on outcomes rather than inputs.“All distributions would also be secured and traced via blockchain technology to radically increase security, transparency, and traceability,” the memo reportedly reads, adding that such an…
Strategy (MSTR) will likely soon be in the market for additional sizable bitcoin purchases after pricing an upsized sale of its latest preferred stock issue.The company sold 8.5M shares of its 10% Series A Perpetual Strife Preferred Stock at price of $85 each, raising roughly $711.2M. Strategy initially had hoped to raise $500M.The latest series of preferred stock differs from the original STRK in that it comes with a higher coupon (10% versus 8%) and has no common share conversion provision.The company at last check owned more than 499,200 bitcoin, so this coming fresh round of purchases should take the…
The crypto industry’s Fairshake political action committee is flooding Republican candidates with last-minute money in special congressional elections in Florida.Two U.S. House of Representatives seats had been opened by resignations when their occupants were tapped for posts in President Donald Trump’s administration, including that of Matt Gaetz, the politician Trump sought for the attorney general job who was tied to accusations of sex with a minor and drug abuse. The open seats are pivotal for Republicans’ control of their tight margin in their House majority, so Democrats have devoted tremendous money and attention to them.An affiliate of the Fairshake super…
The U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions watchdog removed Tornado Cash from its global blacklist Friday.The crypto mixing tool has been accused of helping North Korea’s Lazarus Group launder stolen funds from its various hacks and thefts, and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control sanctioned it — meaning no U.S. person or anyone doing business with the U.S. could engage with it financially — multiple times. However, a federal appeals court ruled last November that OFAC couldn’t sanction Tornado Cash’s smart contracts because they weren’t the “property” of any foreign national.”We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking…
HK Asia Holdings (1723) said it bought another 10 bitcoin (BTC) for $858,581.The Thursday purchase took the Hong Kong-listed company’s total to around 18.88 BTC at a cost of roughly $1.72 million. The acquisitions were made via open market transactions and funded through internal cash reserves.In a statement, the company said it views bitcoin as a viable store of value amid global economic uncertainty, inflation concerns and expanding use of cryptocurrencies in investment strategies as well as “its potential to act as an effective hedge against depreciation of fiat currencies.”Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from…