Bitfinex
Crypto can get weird: The 5 strangest stories of the industry in 2022
From Terra to FTX, 2022 has given us many weird crypto stories. While investors have been enduring a bear market that saw the crypto industry sink below the $1 trillion market capitalization mark, adoption in the space has been growing, and old mysteries were finally solved. From the incredible short squeeze of a bankrupt company’s token to old anti-crypto arguments used by a major central bank, we’re getting weird with five stories the best fiction writers couldn’t dream up. “Comedic rapper” charged over Bitfinex hack Back in 2016, popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex suffered a major security breach that saw attackers steal 119,756 Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $72 million at the time. It was one of the largest crypto hacks in history, and although Bitfinex continued operating, ...
US regulator touts to ‘aggressively police’ crypto in new report
The U.S. commodities regulator certainly doesn’t want to look like it’s going easy on crypto, revealing it was behind 18 separate enforcement actions targeting digital assets in the 2022 fiscal year. In an Oct. 20 report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a total of 82 enforcement actions were filed in 2022’s fiscal year, imposing $2.5 billion in “restitution, disgorgement and civil monetary penalties either through settlement or litigation.” The CFTC said that 20% of the enforcements were aimed at digital asset businesses, with chairman Rostin Behnam stating: “This FY 2022 enforcement report shows the CFTC continues to aggressively police new digital commodity asset markets with all of its available tools.” One of the more recent CFTC enforcement actions tha...
Bitcoin margin long-to-short ratio at Bitfinex reach the highest level ever
Sept. 12 will leave a mark that will probably stick for quite a while. Traders at Bitfinex exchange vastly reduced their leveraged bearish Bitcoin (BTC) bets and the absence of demand for shorts could have been caused by the expectation of cool inflation data. Bears may have lacked confidence, but August’s U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in higher than market expectations and they appear to be on the right side. The inflation index, which tracks a broad basket of goods and services, increased 8.3% over the previous year. More importantly, the energy prices component fell 5% in the same period but it was more than offset by increases in food and shelter costs. Soon after the worse-than-expected macroeconomic data was released, U.S. equity indices took a downturn, with the tech-he...
Accused ‘shadow banker’ Reggie Fowler seeks a 6-month sentencing delay
Reggie Fowler, a former NFL team owner and alleged “shadow banker” who might face up to 30 years of imprisonment, asked the court of the Southern District of New York for a six-month adjournment. Technically, it was Fowler’s lawyer Ed Sapone who requested an “unusually long adjournment,” justifying it with his “serious medical condition” as well as with the necessity to obtain information relevant to the case from financial institutions, entities and individuals located in Europe. According to independent journalist Amy Castor, who reported this development, Sapone made his request on Saturday — three days before the scheduled sentencing. As the prosecutors didn’t protest the adjournment, it will grant Fowler at least six months of freedom. He now resides in Arizona on ba...
El Salvador Bitcoin bond delayed due to security concerns: Tether CTO
El Salvador, the Central American nation that adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender in September last year, has delayed the launch of its billion-dollar Bitcoin bond again. The Bitcoin bond, also known as the “Volcanic bond” or Volcanic token, was first announced in November 2021 as a way to issue tokenized bonds and raise $1 billion in return from investors. The fundraiser will then be used to build a “Bitcoin City” and buy more BTC. The bond was set to be issued in the first quarter of 2022 but was postponed to September in the wake of unfavorable market conditions and geopolitical crises. However, earlier this week, Bitfinex and Tether chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino revealed that the Bitcoin bond will be delayed again to the end of the year. Ardoino, in...
Hacker tries to exploit bridge protocol, fails miserably: Finance Redefined
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. This past week, there were some major developments in the run-up to the upcoming Ethereum Merge slated for Sept. 15. Bitfinex became the latest crypto exchange to throw its support behind the chain split token. While DeFi bridge hacks have become a norm this year, developers behind Rainbow Bridge managed to foil an exploit attempt within seconds, leading to the hacker losing their safety deposit. The Tornado Cash developer who was arrested last week was sent to 90-day judicial custody awaiting charges. It didn’t go down well with the crypto community, who have actively rallied behind the developer and have accused...
Tether, Bitfinex, Hypercore collab to launch encrypted P2P apps
Staying true to the “bear market is for building” motto, crypto exchange Bitfinex along with Tether (USDT) and Hypercore announced the launch of a fully encrypted platform, Holepunch, for building peer-to-peer applications. As part of the initiative, the trio launched Keet, an encrypted application capable of facilitating real-time audio and video calls, text chat and file sharing. Partners aim to bestow control over data while breaking technology monopolies with Holepunch, according to the announcement. Tether and Bitfinex funded the development of the Holepunch platform. Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer of Tether and Bitfinex, will lead the new initiative as the chief strategy officer. Speaking on behalf of Tether and Bitfinex, Ardoino highlighted the need to address the growi...
Tether is ‘instrument of freedom’ and ‘Bitcoin onramp,’ says Bitfinex CTO
On a sun-splashed day in the Swiss Alps, the chief technology officer of Bitfinex and Tether, Paolo Ardoino, shed light on the Plan B Lugano strategy, Tether as an onramp into Bitcoin (BTC) and —crucially — his favorite pizza toppings. Fresh off the plane from Norway, where Ardoino attended an increasingly Bitcoiner-friendly event, the Oslo Freedom Forum, the Italian explained that, in contrast to the WEF,there was no “shilling” in Norway. Tether was invited to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum as the stablecoin is increasingly considered an “instrument of freedom.” Tether has been adopted by the Myanmar government while the Ukrainian government has accepted crypto donations, including Tether, since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. “Tether is one of the tools to be used by di...
Bitfinex Bitcoin longs hit a record-high, but does that mean BTC has bottomed?
Bitcoin (BTC) has been unable to close above $32,000 for the past 28 days, frustrating bulls and pushing the Fear and Greed index to bearish levels below 10. Even with June 6’s small boost, the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock market index is down 24% year-to-date. Investors who keep a close eye on regulatory development were possibly scared after New York state made clear its intention to regulate the crypto industry, including Bitcoin mining. On June 2, New York Attorney General Attorney Letitia James issued an investor alert against “risky cryptocurrency investments,” citing the assets’ volatility. According to Cointelegraph, the attorney general is convinced that crypto investments create “more pain than gain” for investors. The New York State Senate approved a pro...
Stablecoins are the perfect trojan horse for Bitcoin, says Tether CTO
As one of a number of Cointelegraph representatives attending the Paris Blockchain Week Summit (PBWS) at the historic Palais Brongniart — a neoclassical building previously serving as the headquarters for the Parisian stock exchange from 1826 to 1987 — European news reporter, Joe Hall sat down for an in-depth interview with the Chief technology officer of Bitfinex and Tether, Paolo Ardoino. Previously ranked 88th in Cointelegraph’s prestigious Top 100 2021 for his influential impact on the growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, Ardoino spoke on an array of topics including the adoption of Bitcoin and Tether as de facto legal tender in the Swiss city of Lugano, the scalability concerns of popular blockchain networks, as well as the potential for new countries to accept Bitcoi...
President Bukele hits out at Bitcoin Bond ‘FUD’ as CZ jets in to El Salvador
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter on Wednesday evening, hitting out at a Reuters report claiming Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) was flying in to save El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bond. “Please don’t spread Reuter’s FUD,” Bukele tweeted to his 3.6 million followers, rebuking the claim that CZ was flying in to assist after the $1 billion bond offering, originally scheduled for mid-March, was postponed until September. He was responding to a tweet on the subject by Bitcoin Magazine, which has now deleted the post. I’m a fan of @BitcoinMagazine, please don’t spread @Reuters FUD. The #Bitcoin Volcano Bonds will be issued with @bitfinex. The short delay in the issuance is only because we are prioritizing internal pension reform and we have to send that to congress before. https://t.co...
Bitfinex refuses to freeze crypto belonging to non-sanctioned Russians
Amid global businesses boycotting the Russian residents over military conflict in Ukraine, some companies in the cryptocurrency industry stand up for the rights of non-sanctioned Russian citizens. Bitfinex, an affiliate firm of the world’s largest stablecoin provider, Tether (USDT), will not unilaterally freeze the accounts of ordinary Russian customers as part of the global sanctions unless it’s forced to do so, a spokesperson for Bitfinex told Cointelegraph on Thursday. The representative emphasized that Bitfinex has taken appropriate action against the accounts of Russian users who have been sanctioned. “As with all our customer accounts, we work to ensure that there are no irregular movements or measures that might be in contravention of applicable international sanctions,” the s...
- 1
- 2
