Wednesday, February 5

Tag: Bitcoin

The crypto industry is in the dumps. So why is bitcoin suddenly flying high?
4Dec By adminNo Comments
Money

The crypto industry is in the dumps. So why is bitcoin suddenly flying high?

Although the cryptocurrency industry remains shadowed by recent blowups and controversy, the world's most important token — bitcoin — is making a comeback. The value of bitcoin soared to nearly $42,000 on Monday, marking the first time the digital currency cracked $40,000 in 18 months, price tracker CoinDesk Indices shows. The resurgence stands in contrast to the questions that have dogged the sector since last year's spectacular flameout of crypto exchange FTX, leading to the November conviction of founder Sam Bankman-Fried on seven counts of fraud. Also last month, Binance — the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange platform — agreed to pay $4.3 billion after admitting that it violated U.S. laws to prevent money laundering and sanctions violations, with CEO Changpeng Zhao pleading gui...
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Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Found Guilty of Fraud
3Nov By adminNo Comments
Technology

Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Found Guilty of Fraud

The US Department of Justice (DoJ), says Estes, will consider Bankman-Fried’s conviction a “signature victory,” as its first high-profile crypto scalp. Cryptocurrency has been used for more than a decade to conceal payment for illicit products, enable extortion-based cyberattacks and launder the proceeds of criminal activity. In 2021, the DoJ announced the formation of a specialist crypto enforcement team, to “tackle complex investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency,” it said. But until now, the agency had secured few landmark convictions.Though he was charged with old-fashioned fraud, Bankman-Fried was crypto royalty, which lends his conviction a symbolic importance, says Estes. The DoJ, she says, has sent “a message to the crypto industry that fraud and wheel...
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Crypto Groups Gemini, Genesis, and DCG Sued for $1.1 Billion ‘Fraud’
20Oct By adminNo Comments
Technology

Crypto Groups Gemini, Genesis, and DCG Sued for $1.1 Billion ‘Fraud’

“These cryptocurrency companies lied to investors and tried to hide more than a billion dollars in losses, and it was middle-class investors who suffered as a result,” Letitia James, New York attorney general, said in a statement. “Hardworking New Yorkers and investors around the country lost more than a billion dollars because they were fed blatant lies that their money would be safe and grow if they invested it in Gemini Earn.”Gemini did not return a request for comment, but in a post on X, formerly Twitter, said it “looks forward to defending ourselves” against the lawsuit. Neither Genesis nor DCG returned requests for comment.The lawsuit filed against the trio is the latest in a line of civil cases brought against crypto companies in the US this year. In February, the SEC reached a se...
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Citing Hamas, the US Wants to Treat Crypto “Mixers” as Suspected Money Launderers
20Oct By adminNo Comments
Technology

Citing Hamas, the US Wants to Treat Crypto “Mixers” as Suspected Money Launderers

Hamas and militant groups’ use of cryptocurrency, while significant, pales in comparison to the amount of cryptocurrency used by other illicit actors. Hamas, for instance, raised $41 million in cryptocurrency over the past two years, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad raised $91 million, according to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal that cited analyses by cryptocurrency tracing firms and seizures by the Israeli government.It’s not clear, however, how much of those funds actually made it to these groups before being seized. In fact, Hamas asked its donors to stop using cryptocurrency in April of 2023, due to the public nature of the transactions on blockchains and the risk of prosecution. Cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis, which frequently works with government and law enforc...
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Texas paid bitcoin miner more than $31 million to cut energy usage during heat wave
10Sep By adminNo Comments
Money

Texas paid bitcoin miner more than $31 million to cut energy usage during heat wave

As a bitcoin mining enterprise, Riot Platforms runs thousands of computers in the energy-guzzling pursuit of minting digital currency. Recently, however, the company got big bucks from Texas to lower the mining operation's electricity usage.Riot said on Wednesday that the state's power grid operator paid the company $31.7 million in energy credits in August — or roughly $22 million more than the value of the bitcoin it mined that month — to cut its energy consumption during a record-breaking heatwave in the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state's power grid, issues the credits to incentivize companies to reduce activities that might strain the state's already overloaded energy system. "The effects of these cr...
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Hear from Brevard investigator working to recover money from crypto scams
7Sep By adminNo Comments
Money

Hear from Brevard investigator working to recover money from crypto scams

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – It’s a mind-boggling, eye-opening story involving your friends and neighbors losing millions of dollars and an investigator who got much of it back.Twenty percent of Americans have gotten involved in cryptocurrency, mainly the popular Bitcoin, so scam artists have too – even in Central Florida.Just in Brevard County, more than 100 people have reported they’ve been ripped off.Brevard County realtor Isabel Castro is one of them.“So one of my friends on Instagram was posting the screenshots of pretty hefty deposits on his Cash App account,” Castro said. “And so it was late at night and I messaged him and asked him if it was legit and he was like ‘yeah.’ And we went back and forth a little and I thought I was talking to him. I trusted my friend, I’ve known him since gra...
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