Author: Coindesk

An address tied to long-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox moved large amounts of BTC to an unidentified address early Thursday as the cryptocurrency’s price rose to six figures.The address labelled as Mt. Gox (1FHOD) by analytics firm Arkham Intelligence moved 27,871 BTC worth $2.8 billion to another address: 1N7jWmv63mkMdsYzbNUVHbEYDQfcq1u8Yp. The exchange still holds 39,878 BTC worth over $4 billion at press time.The latest outflow comes three weeks after the defunct exchange transferred 2,500 BTC to an unknown address and has grabbed eye balls on crypto social media. These on-chain movements are likely related to creditor reimbursements, which were a significant…

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned five individuals and four entities tied to the TGR Group, a sophisticated international sanctions evasion service catering to Russian elites.The TGR Group, believed to be led by Ukrainian national George Rossi, used cryptocurrencies — including Tether (USDT) — to help clients, including Russian oligarchs, ransomware gangs and international crime syndicates, obfuscate their illicit activities via a variety of money laundering techniques (including the in-person trading of cash for cryptocurrency and pre-paid credit cards) in order to get around international sanctions, according to a Wednesday press release from the Treasury Department. Tether, the issuer…

Bitcoin’s price has surged past the $100,000 mark for the first time in its history, fueled by institutional demand, corporate accumulation and heightened expectations of crypto-friendly policies under Donald Trump’s presidency.Now ahead about 130% year-to-date, bitcoin’s market capitalization has risen to just shy of $2 trillion only 15 years after coming into existence. For reference, Nvidia and Apple sport market caps of about $3.5 trillion, Microsoft $3 trillion, and Google and Amazon $2.2 trillion. The market capitalization of all the gold in the world is roughly $17.7 trillion.At the forefront of this rally was the early-2024 launch of spot-based bitcoin…

Having long lagged behind bitcoin (BTC) in terms of price action, ether (ETH) saw some solid gains on Wednesday, rising 8% to over $3,880 in the last 24 hours.The second largest cryptocurrency’s price benefitted from $800 million worth of shorts closing their positions, according to Tom Dunleavy, a partner at venture studio Master Global. But it’s also profiting from a capital influx reminiscent of the 2021 bull market, CoinDesk Senior Analyst James Van Straten pointed out.Crypto capital rotation. Credit: Checkonchain Bitcoin’s dominance peaked on Nov. 21 at 61.85% and has since slumped to 54.84%, Van Straten noted. Solana’s dominance has…

The Binance-adjacent cryptocurrency BNB, the native token of the BNB Chain, surged to new all-time high price on Wednesday, the latest large-cap crypto to notch fresh records following bitcoin (BTC), solana (SOL) and Tron’s TRX as capital rotation to altcoins marches on full steam.BNB hit a $793 session high earlier Wednesday before paring some of the gains, breaking above the $700-$720 level that posed a resistance more than three years, TradingView data shows. The token recently changed hands at $730, still up 14% over the past 24 hours and outperforming BTC’s 0.4% gain and the broad-market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index’s…

Bitcoin (BTC), which had traded in a tight range for most of Wednesday, suddenly surged toward $100,000 during the U.S. afternoon, nearing a milestone price that it’s been unable to bust through for weeks.After briefly dipping below $95,000 around midday, BTC later jumped nearly 5%, hitting a $99,177 session high, CoinDesk data shows. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was up 3.2% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index’s 1.3% gain.The price action happened as the so-called “Coinbase Premium,” a key metric to gauge BTC demand among U.S. investors, spiked to rarely seen highs.TradingView…

Ethereum developer Justin Drake said his comprehensive proposal to overhaul the second-largest blockchain’s consensus layer isn’t about catching up with a rival, it’s about sticking around for the long haul.Drake unveiled the proposal, known as the Beam Chain, at Ethereum’s biennial Devcon gathering in Bangkok last month, at a time when the network’s native token ETH is lagging behind its counterparts at other major layer-1 blockchains.The Ethereum network enjoyed wide adoption over the last few years, making it more expensive and slower to use. In response, a cohort of layer-1s, known as “Ethereum killers,” emerged in 2020 to compete with…

Viral personality Haliey Welch has released her official token on the Solana blockchain, the latest in a long line of celebrity tokens floated on the network.Welch went viral earlier this year after using a “hawk tuah” onomatopoeia to describe a sexual act. “Hawk Tuah” quickly became a phase used for memes across social platforms — making Welch an overnight sensation from a minimum wage worker who didn’t even have an Instagram account.As often happens with memes, “hawk tuah” has found its way to the blockchain. Welch’s HAWK token went live on Solana-based exchanges at 22:00 UTC on Wednesday in partnership…

For the last decade, financial institutions have defaulted to closed, private blockchains for digital assets over open, permissionless systems. Many, if not most of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions have invested in, and tested out digital assets on private, permissioned blockchain networks. None of them have achieved traction with customers, businesses or institutional investors.A key argument that financial institutions have made for prioritizing these efforts over putting assets on public blockchains is that regulators and regulations strongly prefer, and in some cases, specifically require permissioned blockchains. I believe that time is coming to an end.The “default” regulatory perspective…

President-elect Donald Trump named Patomak Global Partners founder and CEO Paul Atkins as his pick to head up the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.Atkins, who co-chairs the Digital Chamber’s Token Alliance and is an adviser to Reserve, previously served as a commissioner at the agency under former President George W. Bush between 2002 and 2008. The former regulator visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, earlier this week but was initially reluctant to take on the role, CoinDesk reported Tuesday.In his announcement, Trump called Atkins a “proven leader.” “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are…