Kategorie: Crypto News

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Blockchain.com secures Singapore license

Blockchain.com has received an in-principle regulatory approval from the Singapore Monetary Authority (MAS).

Blockchain.com, a leading cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider, has received regulatory approval to offer its services in Singapore.

In an announcement on Wednesday, the crypto company said it has secured approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

The in-principle approval is for the Major Payment Institution License for Digital Payment Token services, the company noted in a blog post.

Singapore’s growing importance as a crypto hub

The preliminary approval sees Blockchain.com Singapore joins Coinbase that received a similar approval on Tuesday, 11 October, 2022, and Crypto.com as major crypto exchanges to be granted regulatory approval in the country.

Blockchain.com considers Singapore a crucial market, with the city-state offering an attractive ecosystem for advancing the exchange’s institutional customer base. Singapore is SouthEast Asia’s biggest economy and growth within the crypto sector has continued amid a regulatory push from MAS.

In a comment, Blockchain.com CEO and co-founder Peter Smith said the Singaporean authorities’ licensing will help drive further innovation in the crypto sector.

“Blockchain.com commends the Monetary Authority of Singapore on its transparent regulatory process that prioritizes crypto industry oversight while allowing innovation to thrive.”

Blockchain.com plans to continue growing its institutional client base, with the Singapore office a key component going forward.

There are more than 84 million Blockchain.com wallet holders, the exchange’s website shows. The users are spread across 200 countries from where they can buy, sell and earn different types of cryptocurrencies.

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Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet is turning sour

Meta honcho Mark Zuckerburg is a pantomime villain.

When Facebook announced last year that they were rebranding as “Meta”, in a signal of intent about where they believed the industry at large was heading, it disappointed some.

“How dare they take the metaverse name”, many decried. Yet with the nebulous concept of metaverse now being referred to more as Web3, this chatter has died down a bit.

Meta vision struggling

But what exactly is going on with Meta, and their push to kick off the new age of social media?

Zuckerburg’s announcement did nothing to quell the slew of selling, as Facebook’s share price today trades at $129, a nasty 59% plunge since the rebrand announcement.

Nearly a year to the day of the Meta rebrand, Zuckerburg’s utopian vision of some Ready Player One type of virtual reality world has never seemed so far off.

Thousands of employees are working on this goal, but the results thus far have been underwhelming, to say the least. This week, internal memos were leaked, which the Verge reported on.

They were, I’m sure you agree, sombre in tone.

“Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time”? Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, asked.

“The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?” he added.

“The aggregate weight of papercuts, stability issues, and bugs is making it too hard for our community to experience the magic of Horizon” another quote read, referring to Meta’s virtual reality game.

Metaverse tokens lagging market-wide

The fall in metaverse tokens in the year since is stark. Of course, cryptocurrency tokens market-wide have fallen off a cliff, but the scale at which metaverse-related tokens have dropped is nonetheless worrying.

Looking at the nine tokens within the CoinMarketCap top 100 which are classified as “metaverse” related, the average decline since Meta’s rebrand is daunting. I plotted them in the graph below:

Even more concerning is the dropoff in users of these games. While there appeared to be misreporting around the active users on Decentraland – with alarming data suggesting 38 daily active users turning out to be exaggerated – the fact of the matter is that engagement in these metaverse games has collapsed in line with token prices.  

What happens now?

For Zuck, it’s been a tough time. He even fell out of the top 10 richest people in the US this week, yet another bitter pill to swallow.

In all seriousness, the struggles of the vague but seductive metaverse are concerning. Games are struggling to be made with the standard of conventional non-blockchain games. With token prices through the floor, the play-to-earn model has suffered as a result, as without the potential for large earnings, these games are just…less fun.

It will be interesting to see how Zuck and Meta build from here. But for the time being, their metaverse bet thus far has been ill-advised.

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HBAR up by 9% today after Tejouri launched on the Hedera blockchain

HBAR is the best-performing cryptocurrency amongst the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap in the last 24 hours.

HBAR, the native coin of the Hedera blockchain, is the best performer amongst the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap over the past few hours. It has added more than 9% to its value today and could rally higher over the next few hours.

The rally comes after the HBAR Foundation, the development team behind the Hedera blockchain, announced that the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts has launched Tejouri, a global digital vault, on the Hedera network. 

The HBAR Foundation said the Tejouri platform would make it possible for users to upload and secure storage of documents, including insurance contracts, title deeds, Wills, financial certificates, images and multimedia files.

HBAR’s rally comes as the broader cryptocurrency market slowly recovers from its recent slump. The total crypto market cap stands at $923 billion, up by less than 1% in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin continues to trade above $19k and is also up by less than 1% so far today. Ether is up by less than 1% in the last 24 hours but continues to struggle to surge past the $1,300 resistance level.

Key levels to watch

The HBAR/USD 4-hour chart has turned bullish as Hedera has been performing well over the past few hours. 

HBAR/USD Chart By TradingView

The MACD line crossed into the positive zone a few hours ago, indicating that the bulls control the Hedera market at the moment.

The 14-day relative strength index of 66 shows that HBAR could be entering the overbought region in the coming hours or days if the momentum is sustained.

At press time, HBAR is trading at $0.06344 per coin. If the bulls remain in charge, HBAR could surge past the first major resistance level at $0.07426 before the end of the day. However, it would need the support of the broader market to surpass the $0.08271 resistance level for the first time since August. 

Where to buy now

eToro

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Capital.com

Capital.com is a global broker which offers over 200 cryptocurrencies for its users. It comes with a range of features such as; great security, 24/7 support, demo accounts and a wide variety of assets. On top of that, it also has no inactivity, withdrawal or deposit fees, which makes it stand out from other crypto brands.

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Bittrex fined $24 million for violating US sanctions

The US treasury has finned Bittrex exchange $24 million for violating sanctions issued by the United States against individuals in different countries around the world. According to the US treasury, Bittrex did not stop sanctioned individuals from Cuba, Crimea, Iran, Syria, and Sudan from using the exchange.

The US Treasury fine against Bittrex is one of the biggest fines that has been issued against any entity especially for contravening sanctions.

Where it all started

1,730 individuals that fell under the list of sanctioned individuals by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) were found to have used Bittrex between March 2014 and December 2017. It is reported that these individuals conducted about 116,421 transactions involving digital assets worth about $263.4 million.

It is important to note that Bittrex operated without a sanctions compliance program until December 2015, after which customer identity verification was enacted, followed by the retainment of a third-party vendor for the sanction screening process.

But even after putting in place measures to screen sanctioned individuals, Bittrex still lacked in its efforts leading to the issuance of a subpoena against it by the OFAC. The subpoena drove Bittrex to put in place multiple measures in a bid to curtail the number of violations.

The Treasury Department has noted this by saying:

“Bittrex subsequently implemented a number of other remedial measures, including implementing new sanctions screening and blockchain tracing software, conducting additional sanctions compliance training, and hiring additional compliance staff. Once implemented, these remedial measures substantially curtailed the number of Apparent Violations.”

The $24 million fine

To settle the fines of the aforementioned violations, specifically for allowing sanctioned individuals to transact with the exchange, Bittrex agreed to remit about $24.2 million.

It is however not the first time that the US Treasury has penalized a crypto exchange for violating sanctions. In February 2021, BitPay was fined $507,000 and BitGo was fined $98,000 for sanctions violations.

The post Bittrex fined $24 million for violating US sanctions appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Litecoin price: what’s the outlook after the latest dip?

Litecoin has been underperforming over the last seven days and could record further losses before the end of the week.

LTC, the native coin of the Litecoin blockchain, has been underperforming over the last few days. The coin is down by more than 5% in the last seven days and has lost more than 2% of its value over the past 24 hours.

However, with LTC underperforming at the moment, what is the outlook after this latest dip?

What drove the Litecoin price to dip toward $50?

LTC is trading at around $51 per coin at press time. The cryptocurrency could record further losses and lose its support above the $50 psychological level over the next few hours.

Litecoin’s poor performance comes as the Litecoin Foundation announced on Tuesday, October 11th, that its MWEB feature will soon come to mobile phones.

MWEB is a privacy-preserving improvement on the Litecoin network. Essentially, MWEB makes Litecoin a sounder way to transact with as it doesn’t allow the person you’re paying (or, the person you’re receiving money from) to see how much money you hold in your address.

Since the launch of MWEB earlier this year, the feature has only been available for users that have Litecoin Core downloaded on their computer. However, according to David Burkett (MWEB Lead Developer), light-client adoption may be just around the corner.

What’s the outlook for the Litecoin price?

Litecoin has been underperforming despite the news that MWEB could soon be available for mobile users. The poor performance coincides with that of the broader cryptocurrency market.

The broader cryptocurrency market has lost nearly 2% of its value in the last 24 hours, and the total crypto market cap could drop below $900 billion if the momentum is maintained.

Litecoin could drop below $50 soon as the broader cryptocurrency market continues to underperform. 

However, this latest cryptocurrency news could push LTC’s price higher in the near term when the feature is launched for mobile users. The current announcement is not enough to push Litecoin’s price higher in the near term.

Litecoin technical analysis

The LTC/USD 4-hour chart is currently bearish, as Litecoin has been underperforming over the last 24 hours. 

LTC/USD Chart By TradingView

The MACD line is below the neutral zone and continues to drop lower, indicating bearish momentum for Litecoin.

The 14-day relative strength index of 37 shows that Litecoin could enter the oversold region soon if the bears continue to control the market.

Litecoin could drop below $47 support level over the next few hours or days if the current momentum is maintained. However, the bulls should defend LTC around the $43 support level in the short term.

How to buy Litecoin?

eToro

eToro is a global social investment brokerage company which offers over 75 cryptocurrencies to invest in. It offers crypto trading commission-free and users on the platform have the option to manually invest or socially invest. eToro even has a unique CopyTrader system which allows users to automatically copy the trades of popular investors.

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Skilling

Skilling is a Scandinavian based cryptocurrency broker which has a desktop website as well as apps for iOS and Android devices. It supports over 50 cryptocurrencies and it has a demo account to allow users to gain familiarity with the platform. Skilling has no hidden fees, it is an officially regulated broker and it supports a wide range of payment methods.

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