Author: The Daily Hodl

Binance’s head of financial crime compliance reportedly appeared at a Nigerian court hearing on Thursday following charges of money laundering and tax evasion. Nigerian prosecutors have asked that Tigran Gambaryan, Nadeem Anjarwalla and Binance itself be put on trial for operating without the required license, unlawfully negotiating foreign exchange rates, tax evasion and concealing the origin of illegal proceeds and revenue of $35.4 million, according to a report from Associated Press. However, only Gambaryan appeared in court, as his colleague Anjarwalla fled Nigerian custody last month. A spokesperson for Anjarwalla said, “Nadeem left unlawful custody on Saturday [March 23rd], he…

Bitcoin (BTC) is flashing a bullish signal based on one historical factor, according to market intelligence platform Santiment. In a new thread, the crypto analytics firm says that it appears as if the top crypto asset by market cap is losing momentum after skyrocketing nearly 150% since October. However, Santiment notes that historically, the more people are worried about BTC in the long term, the higher the chances are of a continued market rise. “Is crypto still in a bull market after Bitcoin’s +144% price return since October 15th? Well, according to the crowd, the belief has fizzled out significantly.…

A widely followed crypto strategist believes that top meme token Dogecoin (DOGE) looks bullish even after last week’s marketwide correction. Pseudonymous analyst Altcoin Sherpa tells his 214,100 followers on the social media platform X that DOGE has managed to stay above a key support level on the weekly chart even after dropping to a seven-day low of $0.169. With the weekly support intact, the trader now sees DOGE igniting a nearly 60% rally from current levels. “DOGE: held above [the] weekly level for now, resume the pump to $0.32. I think being long DOGE is a completely reasonable idea and…

The blockchain infrastructure project Espresso Systems has raised $28 million in a Series B funding round led by investment giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Espresso aims to increase interoperability between Ethereum (ETH) rollups by building a marketplace where rollups can sell the right to build their blocks to bidders. Rollups are solutions that execute transactions outside of Ethereum’s blockchain but record the transactional data. Espresso notes that Polygon, Taiko, o1Labs, StarkWare, Offchain Labs and strategic investors from more than 30 ecosystem projects joined their recent Series B round. The project had already raised $32 million between a seed round in 2020…

The Blockchain Association, a prominent crypto advocacy group, is showing support for the two developers of mixing service Tornado Cash in their legal battle against the United States. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Tornado Cash founders Roman Storm and Roman Semenov with aiding the North Korean hacking group Lazarus in laundering illicit funds through the mixing service. Last week, lawyers for Storm pushed to have the case dropped, arguing that the developer simply created decentralized software solutions to “provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users,” which is technically not a crime. Now, the Blockchain Association is…

Banking giant HSBC has reportedly launched a tokenized gold product for its retail customers in Hong Kong as the bank and the government both push to make real-world assets available in digital form. SCMP reports that the HSBC Gold Token, which is now available on HSBC’s online banking and mobile app, is the first tokenized gold product to be issued by the bank. Tokenized gold is the digital representation of physical gold on a blockchain. Citing data from crypto data aggregator CoinGecko, the report says the value of tokenized gold assets surpassed $1 billion in 2023. HSBC’s gold token is…

Merkle Manufactory, a Los Angeles-based software company behind the Farcaster decentralized social networking protocol, is reportedly nearing the conclusion of a funding round with a $1 billion valuation. Bloomberg, citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” reported the billion-dollar valuation and noted that the crypto investment firm Paradigm is leading the round. Merkle is behind Farcaster, a decentralized social network built on Ethereum (ETH). The network, which has an open-source protocol, allows users to build profiles, make posts called “casts,” and follow other users. Anyone can broadcast short text messages on the network and connect their Ethereum address. Verifying ownership…

Digital assets manager CoinShares says institutional investment in crypto products last week helped push inflows to their highest-ever year-to-date levels. In its latest Digital Asset Fund Flows report, CoinShares says digital asset investment products brought in $646 million in inflows last week. “Digital asset investment products saw continued positive sentiment with inflows totaling US $646 million last week. inflows year-to-date at US$13.8 billion are at their highest ever level, now far surpassing the US $10.6 billion seen in 2021.” However, according to CoinShares, weekly flows are still down from March, when Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) hype was at its peak,…

A widely followed trader believes that Solana (SOL) is in a position to massively outperform its rival Ethereum (ETH). Seasoned trader Peter Brandt tells his 723,800 followers on the social media platform X that the SOL/ETH chart is now trading very close to a key resistance level. Brandt says that Solana may witness 100% gains against Ethereum if the pair manages to shatter the resistance area. “The SOL/ETH chart is at huge resistance. Resistance = supply. If this supply line is absorbed, then there is a prospect of SOL doubling in value vs. ETH.”  Looking at the trader’s chart, he…

American retail trading giant Robinhood has reportedly grown its digital asset holdings substantially in the past six months, according to an on-chain expert. Parsing through data from blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, Coinbase director Conor Grogan estimates that Robinhood’s Bitcoin (BTC) stash has grown 14%, adding to its $23.59 billion holdings. At the same time, Grogan says Robinhood users’ Ethereum (ETH) holdings have decreased. “Robinhood’s BTC holdings have increased by ~14% in the last 6 months; meanwhile user ETH holdings have actually decreased ~9% Retail users are beginning to come back to crypto, just not to ETH so far.” Grogan says…