Author: James Wilson

Inflation cooled more than expected in February, offering hope that the Federal Reserve may be closer to cutting interest rates. However, the crypto market remained largely unresponsive despite the positive economic signal. Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index report showed that inflation eased to 2.8% over the past 12 months, down from 3% in January and slightly beating the 2.9% forecasted by economists. Perhaps surprisingly, crypto prices were unresponsive. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $82,770.45 late Wednesday afternoon, roughly flat over the past 24 hours. The total crypto market was valued at $2.68 trillion, down 0.25% over the past day. Dr. Yang:…

Indian police have arrested Aleksej Besciokov, co-founder of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the U.S. and the European Union for facilitating money laundering.  Besciokov, a Lithuanian national, was detained in Varkala, Kerala, under India’s extradition law, according to state police officials, TechCrunch and Brian Krebs reported.  The arrest occurred at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday following an arrest warrant issued by the Patiala House Court in New Delhi.  Besciokov is expected to be transferred to the court on March 14. Indian authorities have not disclosed whether the arrest was directly linked to his indictment in the U.S.,…

Etherlink has deployed its third protocol upgrade, Calypso, on mainnet to bring a massive performance boost to the Tezos layer 2 network. The Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer 2 solution built on Tezos (XTZ) announced the Calypso upgrade was live on the mainnet on March 12, coming a few weeks after the EVM-compatible L2 deployed on testnet. The road to mainnet included a governance vote by Tezos bakers, key ecosystem components that work alongside Tezos nodes.  Following approval for the mainnet launch, Calypso has successfully deployed to bring improvements such as enhanced network speed, resilience, and efficiency to developers of decentralized…

Binance has received a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi-based MGX, marking the first institutional investment in Binance’s history.  The investment was conducted entirely in unnamed stablecoins, which grants MGX a minority stake in Binance and signals the firm’s entry into the cryptocurrency and blockchain sectors.  MGX, known for its focus on AI and advanced technology, said the investment aligns with its strategy to support blockchain innovation and finance. “MGX’s investment in Binance reflects our commitment to advancing blockchain’s transformative potential for digital finance,” said Ahmed Yahia, Managing Director and CEO of MGX. “As institutional adoption accelerates, the need for…

The Bank of Russia has submitted proposals to the government to establish a regulated framework for cryptocurrency investments under a three-year experimental legal regime. The initiative, following directives from the Russian president, would permit a restricted group of investors to buy and sell digital currencies. Under the proposal, only “particularly qualified” investors — those with investments exceeding 100 million rubles in securities and deposits or an annual income above 50 million rubles — would be eligible.  Additionally, corporate-qualified investors and financial organizations meeting regulatory standards could participate. The central bank will introduce specific risk-based requirements for financial institutions investing in…

Despite the recent volatility in crypto markets, the long-term potential of digital assets remains strong. Brett Reeves, Head of Go Network and European Sales at BitGo, who manages institutional digital asset infrastructure at the company, expressed this sentiment in a note to crypto.news. He reflected on the current market downturn while highlighting ongoing advancements in technology and regulation. “Market volatility in recent weeks has revived the voices of crypto doubters who feel vindicated by recent declines in asset prices,” said Reeves. “But for those innovators and believers in the technology and asset class, there’s much more to just falling prices.”…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is on the verge of ending its long-running case against Ripple, according to sources close to the development. On Mar. 12, former FOX Business journalist Eleanor Terrett said the SEC vs. Ripple case was “in the process of wrapping up.” The regulator sued Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP (XRP) cryptocurrency in 2020. It’s a landmark case that set into motion what has become one of the longest running legal battles between the agency and a crypto company. However, the regulator has recently ended multiple investigations and cases, including against Coinbase, Kraken and…

Polkadot price is hovering near its all-time low as the crypto sell-off accelerates and the fear and greed index remains in the extreme fear zone. Polkadot (DOT) coin has crashed to a low of $3.60, where it has failed to drop below since December 2022. It has dropped by over 93% from its all-time high.  Polkadot has three potential catalysts that may push it higher in the longer run. First, the developers are working on the Polkadot 2.0 upgrade, its biggest since inception.  Polkadot 2.0 introduces three key concepts in the network: async backing, agile coretime, and elastic scaling. Async…

Frustrated Time.fun creator calls out Base’s X profile for promoting AI-made Grok token while ignoring their projects. Another day, another blockchain drama and this time featuring Time.fun’s creator 0xKawz, calling out layer-2 network Base for promoting a memecoin while ignoring months of work on their project. The dispute centers around Base’s X account, which recently promoted GrokCoin, a memecoin tied to Elon Musk‘s AI chatbot Grok, while giving no attention to Time.fun. icymi, @grok launched a token on Basethanks to @bankrbot and Clanker’s trading mechanisms, Grok’s AI-controlled wallet is already stacking fees ($200K+ and counting)why does it matter? AI is…

California State Senator Ben Allen is eyeing further pro-crypto representation with an endorsement of Dom Bei for election to the board of California’s public pension fund. Bei is the founder of Proof of Workforce, a Bitcoin (BTC) non-profit focused on promoting BTC adoption via educational initiatives targeting workers, unions and pension funds. He is in the race to join the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, CalPERS, as a board member. Notably, CalPERS is the largest public pension fund in the United States with over $500 billion and serves more than 2 million public retirement system members. CalPERS manages the retirement…