CRYPTO TALKS

James Alexander was employed as the CCO of Cred, a crypto lender that filed for bankruptcy in November. Cred, a cryptocurrency platform being investigated by the bankruptcy court in Delaware, had a U.K. fugitive as its chief capital officer (CCO). James Alexander was employed as the CCO of Cred, the crypto lender that  filed  for bankruptcy in November with liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million. Alexander had been convicted of crimes relating to illegal money transfers in the U.K. in December 2007 and sentenced to over three years in prison. Subscribe to  First Mover , our daily newsletter about markets. SUBSCRIBE By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products  and you agree to our  terms & conditions  and  privacy policy . According to the court examiner’s report filed Monday (see below), there was a prison break at the facility where Alexander was incarcerated and he was identified by the U.K. government a...

Bitcoin (BTC) and the cryptocurrency industry have gained  popularity  in recent months, in tandem with Bitcoin’s  price journey  up to $50,000 and beyond. Given the likely influx of new market participants, here are five things I would have liked to know when I became interested in the industry years ago.  Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment. Bitcoin Can Be A Currency Or A Store of Value Essentially, Bitcoin is a way to send value from one person to another, without needing to provide sensitive details, such as banking information and credit card numbers. Although it began as a transactional currency, as  detailed  in its original description published in 2008, Bitcoin has become  known  more as of a store of value asset similar to gold in recent years. Bitcoin is easy to move, borderless and is not tied to any...

Ethereum (ETH)   fans are celebrating the news that Ethereum scaling solution,   Optimism , is now set to launch on the network's mainnet next month, ahead of schedule. But what does this mean both for Ethereum and its users? "Mainnet in March. Scaling is coming to Ethereum,"  commented   SetProtocol  product marketing manager Anthony Sassano on the latest  announcement  by Optimism: the team has said that they'll be launching arbitrary contract deployment on mainnet in March instead of public testnet, with details to follow.  So what's the big deal? Layer 1 (L1) is the base protocol (the Ethereum blockchain), while Layer 2 (L2) is any protocol built on top of Ethereum. Optimism is an L2 scaling solution, which allows for the Ethereum mainnet to be 'unburdened' from the great number of transactions it has to process. It uses optimistic rollups to achieve lower fees and latency, as well as greater throughput compared to Ethereum L1 alone. The team ...

The Spanish Tax Agency – known in the nation as the Hacienda – has announced its intentions to step up its monitoring of crypto, and will move to force citizens and residents alike to declare their bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin holdings, even if those are held on overseas-based platforms. Per El Economista, the Hacienda has recently outlined its plans for 2021, and appears to suggest that it will apply Modelo 720 rulings to crypto holdings as of this year. The Modelo 720 is a declaration of overseas assets, held outside Spanish territory. Citizens must complete and submit the form if they are receiving money from companies based overseas, hold real estate outside the country or keep bank accounts in other nations. And now, this declaration will be applied to crypto and digital assets, as the body also “expands its surveillance” and will demand crypto holders hand over information on their assets. The much-maligned Modelo 720 system has come under fire from political rivals and critics,...

UK’s NHS Taps Blockchain Tech to Monitor Coronavirus Vaccine Cold Chain Hedera Hashgraph's blockchain platform will provide the health service with a tamperproof record of vaccine temperatures, the firm said. COVID-19 vaccine  -   Tanzeel Akhtar The U.K. National Health Service (NHS) is working with blockchain platform Hedera Hashgraph to monitor COVID-19 vaccines’ temperature while in cold storage. Asset-monitoring company Everyware will provide software to track the vaccines' temperature around the clock, while Hedera’s distributed ledger technology will provide the NHS with a tamperproof and efficient record of the data, according to a press release Tuesday. NHS facilities in the U.K.’s South Warwickshire, Stratford Upon Avon and Warwick hospitals region will be using the technology initially, with a wider rollout planned as vaccine distribution progresses. The vaccines need to be kept well below freezing in order to prevent spoiling, so accurate monitori...

Hong Kong Crypto Robbers Strike Again: Gang Makes off with 450k Tether Haul Trading crypto in person is becoming increasingly risky in Hong Kong – with a second trader this month robbed by violent thugs after agreeing to swap cash for tokens offline. Per the South China Morning Post and Apple Daily’s Hong Kong site, the latest victim was attempting to make an offline tether (USDT) transaction worth some USD 0.45m in the busy Chong Yip Street. The media outlets stated that a female trader had sold a man USDT in two previous transactions worth around USD 77,000 and USD 90,000 each in previous transactions and had arranged for her uncle to wait outside an office building on the street while she conducted the third – much bigger – deal. But instead, when she met the man for the third time, she received the nastiest of surprises, when she reportedly came face-to-face with a gang of three “20- to 30-year-old” thugs armed “with knives and sticks” who robbed her of the cash the man had give...

__________________________________________________________________________________________ I. Bitcoin A solid and continuous  Bitcoin (BTC)  bull run is expected in 2021. Since the inception of Bitcoin, the amount of BTC owned by the exchanges has steadily increased. However, starting from February 2020, institutional investors have started to withdraw large volumes of BTC from these exchanges for strategic long term holding. Such withdrawals have created pressure on BTC liquidity, and the sell-side crunch has driven up the BTC price since mid-2020 according to the chart below. We expect this trend to continue in 2021, and due to the decrease in BTC supply, the price of BTC is reasonably expected to align with the trend. Amount of Bitcoin owned by crypto exchanges decreased since institutions started buying Bitcoin in 2020 (ref: CryptoQuant) Grayscale  in the US provides further evidence of the increasing institutional interest as it is a vehicle through which institution...