Monday, April 6, 2020

Coinhouse became the first AMF registered crypto company. The Financial Markets Authority (AMF), France’s financial regulator, will soon require all firms in France, which provide crypto exchange and custody services, to register with the regulator.

The Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank, has launched a 2-year pilot program exploring the design, implementation and legal obstacles of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Crypto exchange Kraken is expanding its legal team, hinting at future acquisitions.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

German banks are reportedly refusing service to crypto companies due to perceived uncertainties despite the legal framework for that being in place.

A CBDC analyst working for the Bank of England suggested that private companies could take part in the issuance and distribution of digital money.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

A judge at the High Court in Christchurch has ruled in favor of Cryptopia users, a New Zeland crypto exchange, which ceased operation following a hack in early 2019. According to the court ruling, the remaining assets in Cryptopia’s user accounts are considered “property” and as such belong to the users of the crypto exchange and cannot be used to settle claims by creditors.

Tokenized bitcoin (tzBTC) will soon become available on the Tezos blockchain and will lay the foundation for future decentralized finance projects.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH), a bitcoin fork and the 5th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, underwent its first halving, reducing the network’s block mining reward from 12.5 to 6.25 tokens. In anticipation of the event BCH hash rate dropped from 5.5 exahashes per second (EH/s) to 3.5 EH/s and currently sits at 1.6 EH/s.

Crypto exchange Huobi announced that it will be re-entering the U.S. market after it halted operations 5 months ago due to regulatory obstacles. To prevent future problems the crypto exchange will be partnering with a locally regulated firm.

A hacker managed to steal $250k on crypto exchange Bisq by exploiting a flaw in the trading protocol, which allowed him to manipulate the destination address. The flaw emerged as a consequence of the crypto exchange removing trusted third parties in favor of decentralization.

U.S. state regulators demanded bitcoin cloud mining company Ultra Mining to halt operations due to fraudulent activities. The crypto company allegedly sold unregistered securities in the form of investments in hash power, promised unrealistic returns and boasted questionable donations.

Block.one, the company behind the EOS protocol, announced that it will start exercising its voting rights. The company plans to initially use its stake to highlight the efforts of block producers, who “have contributed a tremendous amount of code, knowledge, and leadership” to the EOS project.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital reported another quarter of losses largely attributed to the trading arm of the bank. The bank painted, furthermore, a bleak picture of the coming months expecting further losses as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Bitcoin mining manufacturer Canaan Creative reported a net loss of $148.6m in 2019 citing an overall decline in demand and rising costs. Specifically, the bottom line of the company was affected by the COVID-19 outbreak as well as the recent bitcoin volatility.

Internet’s biggest online forum Reddit is working on a points system based on blockchain, which will represent a user’s involvement in the community.

U.K. based CoinShares appointed a new chief revenue officer to lead future expansion projects outside of the U.K. According to CoinShares chairman Danny Masters, the environment in the U.K. is becoming more hostile towards crypto companies, which motivates his willingness to move business abroad.

Canadian digital asset fund manager 3iQ listed a $14m bitcoin fund on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The fund is a type of exchange-traded product (ETP) and tracks the performance of bitcoin using an index feed.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Bitcoin SV (BCV), a Bitcoin Cash fork and the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, underwent its first halving, reducing the network’s block mining reward from 12.5 to 6.25 tokens.

A class-action lawsuit against pyramid scheme OneCoin may end up getting dismissed due to lead plaintiffs failing to follow procedural code.