Author: Coin Telegraph

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has been given the green light to sell around $873 million of trust assets, with proceeds used to repay creditors impacted by the exchange’s collapse in 2022, according to a Nov. 29 filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court.The $873 million in assets will be sourced from FTX’s stakes in various trusts issued by crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments, valued at $807 million, and custody service provider Bitwise — valued at $66 million. While the court document references a total of $744 million in assets — this is due to the valuation figure being as of Oct.…

Swiss asset manager Pando Asset has become an unexpected late entrant into the spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) race in the United States.On the same day, investment giant BlackRock met with the country’s securities regulator to pitch an updated ETF model based on the agency’s feedback.On Nov. 29, Pando submitted a Form S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission — used to register securities with the agency — for the Pando Asset Spot Bitcoin Trust.Like other ETF bids, the trust aims to track Bitcoin’s price with the custody arm of the crypto exchange Coinbase to hold Bitcoin on behalf…

Brazilians may soon be required to pay up to 15% tax on income derived from cryptocurrencies held on exchanges outside the country, after new income tax rules were approved by the Brazil Senate on Nov. 29.The bill has already passed in the Chamber of Deputies and is expected to be approved by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as his administration initiated the income tax rule changes, Cointelegraph Brazil reports.Under the bill, any Brazilian who earns more than $1,200 (6,000 Brazilian reals) on exchanges based outside Brazil would be subject to the tax, effective Jan. 1, 2024. The change makes…

Investors are eagerly anticipating the potential approval of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The excitement began in early June when the investment giant BlackRock submitted a filing for the product and gained further momentum after a court decision mandated the SEC reconsider its rejection of Grayscale’s proposal to transform its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot ETF.The SEC’s objection to ETFs is related to the fact that Bitcoin (BTC) is traded in unregulated venues around the world, which poses a challenge in preventing fraud and price manipulation.One attempt to address…

More than three-quarters of all blockchain games launched in the last five years are dead in the water, according to a recent study from CoinGecko.Out of 2,817 games launched between 2018 and 2023, which were included in the study, only 690 of them still have a somewhat active player base. CoinGecko defines a “failed” Web3 game as one where the 14-day moving average number of active users drops 99% or more from its peak.More than 75% of Web3 games have failed over the last five years. Source: CoinGeckoWhile 2021 saw the highest number of blockchain games launched in a single…

Sony and Microsoft, two of the biggest names in gaming, have been making significant moves towards blockchain technology in recent years. This is an important development, as it has the potential to not only revolutionize the gaming industry but it could be the Trojan horse that makes blockchain a mainstream possibility.Sony has filed a patent for a system allowing players to transfer digital assets between PlayStation titles using blockchain technology. This would enable unified progress and asset ownership across different games rather than having assets locked to individual games. Sony has also explored tokenizing in-game assets, allowing players to sell…

The demand for institutional investors for Bitcoin (BTC) became evident on Nov. 10 as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures flipped Binance’s BTC futures markets in terms of size. According to BTC derivatives metrics, those investors are showing strong confidence in Bitcoin’s potential to break above the $40,000 mark in the short term.CME Bitcoin futures open interest, USD. Source: CoinglassCME’s current Bitcoin futures open interest stands at $4.35 billion, the highest since November 2021 when Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000–a clear indication of heightened interest, but is it enough to justify further price gains?CME’s remarkable growth and…

Ivan Turogin and Sergei Potapenko, co-founders of Bitcoin cloud miner HashFlare, have successfully appealed their extradition from Estonia to the United States, where the two face 18 counts of fraud and money laundering. The Tallinn Circuit Court overturned a lower court’s order on Nov. 29, according to a local press report.According to the United States Justice Department, HashFlare, which operated from 2015 to 2019, was a Ponzi scheme with hundreds of thousands of victims paying in a total of $575 million. The company claimed to lease hashing power for crypto mining. It also encouraged investment in a fake bank. If…

Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the United States Treasury Department, said his department is looking into new sanctions tools to pursue bad actors in the crypto space, citing a recent settlement with Binance.In prepared remarks for the Blockchain Association’s Policy Summit on Nov. 29, Adeyemo said the U.S. Treasury had called on Congress to allow sanctions in which an entity could be fully cut off from the U.S. financial system. The deputy treasury secretary said the move aimed to stop actors such as Hamas from “find[ing] safe haven within the digital asset ecosystem,” but also referenced U.S. authorities’ settlement with…

In this week’s newsletter, read about footballer Cristiano Ronaldo facing a lawsuit after promoting nonfungible tokens (NFTs) tied to crypto exchange Binance, and find out how an NFT collector thwarted a hacking attempt by a person impersonating a journalist. In other news, Azuki DAO is rebranding to Bean, game developer Square Enix announces an NFT collection, and one user claimed tokens worth $11 million in the recent Blur airdrop. Cristiano Ronaldo sued for promoting Binance, unregistered securitiesFootball superstar Cristiano Ronaldo faces a class-action lawsuit for allegedly participating in the sale of unregistered securities in partnership with crypto exchange Binance. The famous…