Monat: Februar 2022

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Charlie Munger on crypto trading: The US made a ‘huge mistake’ allowing it

Munger said China was “wiser” for banning crypto trading and that the US’ failure to act is like letting a “bad genie out of the bottle.”

Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway says the US government made a “huge mistake” in not banning cryptocurrency trading, noting that the “bad genie” got out of the bottle.

The Daily Journal Chairman made the remarks during an interview with Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

In the wide-ranging interview, Munger told Yahoo Finance’s Andy Serwer that Bitcoin, despite its massive success over the years and growing mainstream acceptance, remains the ideal currency for extortion and racketeering among other negative things.

The veteran investor, who has remained critical of Bitcoin and crypto trading, believes the government should have cracked down on the sector.

„I don’t think it’s good that our country is going crazy over bitcoin and its ilk,“ he adds.

He noted that he doesn’t understand why a “civilized government” would want to allow Bitcoin to come into the payment system, given its “run by a bunch of people who want to get rich quick for doing very little for civilization?”

In his opinion, China was “wiser” than the US for banning crypto trading.

Asked about his predictions on what he thinks is going to happen regarding crypto regulation in the US, Munger was even more critical.

“You let a bad genie out of a bottle, God knows what happens. I think it was a huge mistake to allow it at all,” he said.

The Berkshire vice-Chair also criticized regulators who join crypto firms after they exit their government jobs, noting that such moves make it difficult for authorities to come up with “wise decisions about something like Bitcoin.”

Munger’s comments mirror those of Warren Buffet, the billionaire investor and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet has previously criticized Bitcoin as ‘rat poison squared.”

The remarks also come as the US government looks to regulate the crypto sector, but with the Fed and the US Securities Exchange Commission noting in 2021 that they were not considering a ban on crypto.

Apart from China, countries that have come close to banning crypto trading are Russia and India. Both have however not taken the Chinese route yet.

The post Charlie Munger on crypto trading: The US made a ‘huge mistake’ allowing it appeared first on Coin Journal.

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DEX platform Portal outlines multi-chain future without ‘risky’ wrapped tokens

  • Portal says centralization and wrapped tokens have been the “curse of cross-chain bridges”

  • “When hundreds of Millions and Billions of dollars are being secured by poorly engineered systems and custodians with untested security practices, it becomes hard to secure user funds,” says Portal executive chairman Chandra Duggirala.

Portal, a cross-chain decentralised exchange (DEX) built on Bitcoin wants to advance a crypto future where multi-chains thrive without the need for wrapped tokens or third-party custody providers.

The platform, which offers a DeFi ecosystem it says provides for anonymous, zero-knowledge transactions and a cross-chain DEX featuring trust-minimised functionality has pointed out the security threats linked to wrapped tokens.

In a press statement released recently, the Portal team says its technology will eliminate the minting of wrapped coins such as wBTC and wETH as well as the risky staking users have been falling victim to when leveraging intermediaries.

Chandra Duggirala, Portal’s executive chairman said bridges “are hard to reason about.” according to him, the chains only work on the “guarantees of an IOU” and having billions of dollars worth of assets on these bridges is basically putting trust in “poorly engineered systems and custodians with untested security practices.”

“We like simplicity, and trusting proven, lasting contract types and transaction models that Bitcoin has versus all sorts of experimental approaches to real user money,” he added.

Johnny Dilley, the inventor of Liquid Federation (Blockstream) noted:

“The industry needs a smarter, permanent answer for cross-chain asset movement, and Portal represents the best step forward on that path. “

Centralised platforms make cross-chain bridges even more vulnerable; given attackers have the loophole to transfer their loot to other chains.

Portal seeks to use its peer-to-peer atomic swaps to provide true decentralization. The technology provides for secure transactions and does not central servers that open networks up for malicious exploits.

Cross-chain bridges that have been exploited in the past year or so include MultiChain, THORChain, pNetwork, Poly Network and most recently Wormhole.

The post DEX platform Portal outlines multi-chain future without ‘risky’ wrapped tokens appeared first on Coin Journal.

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Higher interest rate concerns put a dampener on Bitcoin, says analyst

Market’s speculation of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes continues to hinder Bitcoin, according to Marcus Sotiriou of GlobalBlock.

Bitcoin continues to hold above $43,000 after a recent uptick in prices. However, the bellwether cryptocurrency “remains hesitant,” to make a major move upwards, suggests an analyst with UK-based digital asset platform GlobalBlock.

And he points to market concerns over higher interest rates as one of the factors to put a dampener on the flagship cryptocurrency’s chances of further gains.

In a note shared with CoinJournal in which he comments on various Bitcoin-related news events this week, Marcus Sotiriou points to data showing Bitcoin’s latest upside to have been fueled by an uptick in the futures market. He notes that the recent rally had its legs propped by the derivatives markets while spot sold-off.

The aggregated Cumulative Volume Data (CVD) for spot and the futures market shows that the latter has posted a significant surge in recent weeks while spot volumes continued to stagnate.

“This suggests that this price rise was driven by speculation or hedging, rather than genuine demand,” he noted.

As the broader market watches out for the language in the US Federal Reserve’s minutes from the January 25th-26th policy meeting, Sotiriou says the contents could provide an “insight” into the Fed’s thinking on interest rates.

While he thinks the market is unlikely to be “shocked” by today’s FOMC minutes given investors have already priced in the March rate hike, concerns remain around just how aggressive the Fed will be going.

Despite these concerns, Sotiriou says increased investment into the crypto sector by major financial institutions is a positive indicator of a possible rebound. 

Such companies include Singapore’s DBS that plans to launch a crypto trading service for retailers by the end of 2022, and Fidelity, which just launched an exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe.

Bitcoin currently trades around $43,630, nearly 1% lower in the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency looks to be mirroring the US stock market, which has the S&P 500 and Nasdaq down by 0.76% and 1.31% respectively.

The post Higher interest rate concerns put a dampener on Bitcoin, says analyst appeared first on Coin Journal.

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RCMP orders blacklist of 34 crypto wallets: report

2 RCMP on horse back

The police order, Counter Signal reports,  is part of the government’s “emergency” measures and puts over 25 Bitcoin, or roughly $1.4 million at risk of being blocked to the truckers’ access.

Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has reportedly ordered all FINTRAC regulated companies in the country to cease all business transactions with 34 cryptocurrency wallets, following an order from the government.

According to a report covered by the media platform The Counter Signal, the blacklisted crypto wallets are allegedly linked to the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.

“The Ontario Provincial Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police are currently investigating cryptocurrency donations being collected in relation to illegal acts falling under the scope of the Emergency Measures Act,” Counter Signal quotes the RCMP order.

The order then mentions the Emergency Economic Measures Order and states that 29 Bitcoin addresses, 2 Ethereum addresses and one each involving Cardano, Monero, and Litecoin should cease all transactions as stipulated Emergency Act, subsection 19(1).

 “Any information about a transaction or proposed transaction in respect of these address (es), is to be disclosed immediately to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at CryptocurrencyNHQ-CryptomonnaieDG@rcmp-grc.gc.ca,” the RCMP order continued.

As noted by Counter Signal, the listed wallets have accounted for transactions ranging from $0 to $1.1 million. Around 25 bitcoins worth $1.4 million are likely to be affected if the order is effective, said the report.

The Freedom Convoy’s protests have stretched the past 18 days, with truckers blocking highways in Ottawa amid a tough stance from Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

According to local news, the Ottawa Police Service has spent more than $14.1 million on efforts to bring the protests to an end.

The post RCMP orders blacklist of 34 crypto wallets: report appeared first on Coin Journal.