In a document dated August, three months after Anthony Albanese defeated the coalition administration of Scott Morrison, the Treasury reveals how some stakeholders might be disappointed with a “perceived delay in implementing a licensing regime” but viewed the concerns as “somewhat mitigated” by the collapse of several crypto companies and market crash earlier in the year. Source
Babel is on the verge of filing a moratorium extension that would prevent creditors from making claims for at least six months, the report said. The filing alleges that co-founder Wang Li racked up $524 million in proprietary trading losses, with another $224 million being lost after lenders liquidated collateral that underpinned loans issued to Babel. Source
Crypto legislation in Australia could be dragged out past 2024 and beyond, with the government seemingly wanting to take its time in order to get a full picture of the industry — internal documents from the government have revealed. The documents, obtained by The Australian Financial Review under Freedom of Information laws, reportedly reveal that the government aims to release consultation papers in the second quarter of 2023, and will hold stakeholder roundtables on crypto licensing and custody in the third quarter. The industry has been waiting to see the next…
Central banks show continued demand for gold in 2023, as per a recent report from the World Gold Council (WGC), which noted that the world’s central banks accumulated 31 tons of the precious metal in January. Turkey was the largest gold buyer, adding 23 tons to its central bank’s stash, while the People’s Bank of China also purchased 15 tons of gold. Central Bank Gold Purchases Remain Steady Despite Potential Challenges in 2023 At the time of writing, a troy ounce of fine .999 gold is $1,857.50 per unit, up…
Crypto exchange Binance sought to hire Gary Gensler as an advisor before he became chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to a Wall Street Journal report based on messages and documents from 2018 and 2020, as well as interviews with former employees. Gensler was approached by the crypto firm while teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018 and 2019. During that tim, he was a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair as well. Messages from Binance’s executives seen by the newspaper indicate…
As the number of Bitcoin-based Ordinal inscriptions nears the 300,000 mark, Galaxy Digital’s research team published a report on the subject that says the market size of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) built on Bitcoin could reach $4.5 billion over the next two years. The researchers at Galaxy think that new use cases stemming from the inscription trend will “drive growing interest and adoption” for bitcoin. Galaxy Researchers Explore the Potential Use Cases of Bitcoin-Based Ordinal Inscriptions and NFTs At the time of writing, there are more than 288,000 Ordinal inscriptions hosted…
On March 2, 2023, FTX debtors released their second stakeholder presentation, which contains a preliminary analysis of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange’s shortfalls. The latest presentation reveals a significant shortfall, as approximately $2.2 billion of the company’s total assets were found in FTX-related addresses, but only $694 million is considered “Category A Assets,” or liquid cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, tether, or ethereum. In addition, John J. Ray III, FTX’s current CEO, stated that the debtor’s effort had been significant, and he added that the exchange’s assets were “highly commingled.” A Preliminary…
Riot Platform inc., one of North America’s largest bitcoin (BTC) mining companies, released its 2022 annual financial report indicating a net loss of $509.6 million. According to the annual report released on March 2, the company suffered significant non-cash impairment charges. Non-cash impairment charges are accounting expenses not settled in cash payments. They include amortization, stock depreciation, and goodwill charges. In the case of Riot, non-cash impairment payments related to goodwill, bitcoin, and miner impairments were the most impactful, grossing about $538.6 million. Additionally, bitcoin depreciation and amortization accounted for…
The Riot 2022 reports showed that the Bitcoin miner tripled its hashrate capacity to an all-time high of 9.7 EH/s. Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Riot Platforms recently released a full-year 2022 report on its financial and operational performance. For the period ended December 2022, the company raked in revenue of $259.2 million while also tripling its hashrate capacity. Riot explained that its full-year revenue haul resulted from increased BTC production. The company also said its end-of-year proceeds were due to an entire year of hosting and engineering revenues. Last year, Riot produced…
United Kingdom babanks HSBC Holdings and Nationwide Building Society are banning cryptocurrency purchases via credit cards for retail customers. They join a growing list of banks in the country to tighten restrictions on digital assets. A Bloomberg report on March 2 claims the step back is a response to warnings by UK regulators and scandals surrounding the crypto industry. Nationwide is reportedly applying daily limits of £5,000 ($5,965) on debit-card purchases of crypto assets, while credit cards will no longer be available for crypto transactions. Customers of HSBC were barred…