$20K Bitcoin may return, says analyst as US unemployment hits 54-year low

Bitcoin (BTC) fell prior to the Feb. 3 Wall Street open as fresh United States economic data came in “hot hot hot.” BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Think again” over U.S. recession Data from Cryptox Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it erased gains from earlier in the day to center on $23,000 support. The pair reacted negatively to U.S. unemployment data for January, which beat expectations so considerably that overall jobless figures fell to their lowest since 1969. Non-farm payrolls (NFP) data likewise outperformed, while average…

Bill Gates Views Musk Agenda to ‘Put People on Mars’ as Imprudent Way to Spend Money

Bill Gates recently said Elon Musk looking to colonize Mars does not paint him in the best philanthropic light.  Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) founder Bill Gates recently questioned the Mars colonization quest spearheaded by Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk. In a media session, Gates opined that Musk’s long-held ambition of colonizing Mars is not a good use of money. According to the Microsoft co-founder and former CEO, the Mars funds would better serve humanity by facilitating vaccine development. Gates also suggested that he does not consider his fellow billionaire a good philanthropist, given his current priorities.…

Russia’s Sberbank plans to launch DeFi platform on Ethereum

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, is moving forward with the plan to launch its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, preparing to trial the product in a few months. Sberbank expects to launch open trials of its DeFi platform by May 2023, Sber’s Blockchain Lab product director Konstantin Klimenko announced, the local news agency Interfax reported on Feb. 3. Currently being tested in private beta, Sberbank’s upcoming DeFi platform will be fully open by the end of April, enabling users to conduct the first commercial transactions, Klimenko said. The executive noted that the…

Russia’s Sberbank plans to launch DeFi platform on Ethereum

Russia’s largest bank Sberbank is moving forward with the plan to launch its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, preparing to trial the product in a few months. Sberbank expects to launch open trials of its DeFi platform by May 2023, Sber’s Blockchain Lab product director Konstantin Klimenko announced, the local news agency Interfax reported on Feb. 3. Currently being tested in private beta, Sberbank’s upcoming DeFi platform will be fully open by the end of April, enabling users to conduct the first commercial transactions, Klimenko said. The exec noted that the…

Binance severs ties with Indian crypto exchange WazirX

The debacle between the global cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Zanmai, the operator behind the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, continues in a new blog post from Binance banning the latter from utilizing its services. On Feb. 3, Binance released a post that acknowledged the ongoing “public debate” with Zanmai over its claims of Binance involvement in running WazirX. Binance said on Jan. 26 it gave WazirX the ultimatum of retracting its statements and continuing using Binance wallet services or terminating its usage. According to the announcement, Zanmai made no retraction and…

Did US institutions prevail over Asian retail traders?

Bitcoin experienced the second-strongest January in its history — and the best since 2013 — rising nearly 40% amid wide reports that institutional investors were back on board. Zhong Yang Chan, head of research at CoinGecko, told Cointelegraph that there were “net institutional inflows into digital asset funds in January 2023, particularly in the last two weeks, with Bitcoin the largest beneficiary.” Meanwhile, a Jan. 30 CoinShares blog noted that the total assets under management in digital asset investment products — a good gauge of institutional participation — had risen…

5 biggest economic bubbles in history

An economic bubble is a time of fast economic expansion that is driven by speculative enthusiasm and excessively high asset prices. A bubble is characterized by an increase in demand for an asset, such as commodities, stocks or real estate, which drives up its price. A number of factors, including easy access to credit, low interest rates and investor optimism, frequently combine to create financial bubbles. The asset’s price rises as more individuals invest in it, luring even more capital. Its price eventually falls below a level that can be…