Cryptocurrencies

12 most popular types of cryptocurrency
Is Crypto in Terminal Decline?

NFTs, stablecoins and the value of Bitcoin: Predictions for crypto assets in 2022
By Dr Sean Stein Smith
Central banks will take an increasingly leadership oriented role in crypto asset development, whether or not Bitcoin maximalists are in agreement with this development or not.
NFTs will mature
Stablecoins will become mainstream
Bitcoin will hit $100,000 during 2022 (15/02/2022)
Decoding Crypto: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Get Started
By John Hyatt
(Nasdaq) Cryptocurrency is often described as “digital money.” This description may be true, but it fails to capture what makes cryptocurrency unique and so appealing to many investors.
At its core, cryptocurrency is a system of value. When investors buy a cryptocurrency, they are betting that the value of that asset will increase in the future, just as stock market investors buy securities when they believe the company will grow and share prices will increase.
Stock valuations boil down to discounted estimations of a company’s future cash flows. There is no comparable valuation metric for cryptocurrencies because there is no underlying company; the value of a cryptocurrency is tied only to investor appetite.
Cryptocurrency runs on blockchain technology, but what exactly is a blockchain? The term has become so commonplace, its meaning and significance are often blurred. A blockchain is simply a digital ledger of transactions. This ledger (or database) is distributed across a network of computer systems. No single system controls the ledger. Instead, a decentralized network of computers keeps a blockchain running and authenticates its transactions.
Proponents of blockchain technology say that it can improve transparency, increase trust and bolster security of data being shared across a network. Detractors say that blockchain can be cumbersome, inefficient, expensive, and can use too much energy. (July 2021)

28 March
(Bloomberg Business) The US and UK are said to be reviewing more than $20 billion of crypto transactions that passed through a Russia-based virtual exchange, part of allied efforts to crack down on sanctions evasion that’s supporting Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The payments under scrutiny went through Moscow-based crypto exchange Garantex using the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency Tether. Garantex has been sanctioned on suspicion of enabling financial crimes and illicit transactions in Russia. The inquiry shows the West’s continued struggle to cut off the flow of money to the Kremlin.

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Just 18 months ago, Sam Bankman-Fried was a titan of the corporate world and was one of the youngest billionaires on the planet.
(NYT) …the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris.
Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum penalty of 110 years behind bars. But the punishment was far above the six and a half years requested by his defense lawyers.
The sentencing signified the finale of a sweeping fraud case that exposed the rampant volatility and risk-taking across the loosely regulated world of cryptocurrencies. In November 2022, FTX imploded virtually overnight, erasing $8 billion in customer savings. At a trial last fall, he was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
His sentence ranks as one of the longest imposed on a white-collar defendant in recent years.
… Just 18 months ago, Mr. Bankman-Fried was a corporate titan and one of the youngest billionaires on the planet. With his face plastered on billboards and magazine covers, he could raise money seemingly at will. He hobnobbed with actors, musicians and superstar athletes, cultivating an image as a nerdy do-gooder who intended to donate all his wealth to charity.
Based in the Bahamas, FTX was one of the largest marketplaces for cryptocurrencies — an easy-to-use platform where investors could exchange dollars or euros for digital coins like Bitcoin and Ether. Its valuation was north of $30 billion.
(Bloomberg) FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing billions of dollars from customers, the final chapter in a case that captivated and overshadowed the crypto industry.
The sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years prosecutors had recommended, but far above the six-and-a-half-years his lawyers were seeking. The fallen mogul was also told to forfeit more than $11 billion.
SBF said he was sorry about what happened, acknowledging that it’s been “excruciating” to watch it all unfold. “I know a lot of people feel really let down.”
Unfortunately, the conditions that allowed people to fall for such  schemes  remain. And his sentencing will serve as a harbinger of crypto trials to come.
As for SBF’s friends who helped seal his conviction, they now face their own reckoning.

6 March
Why is Bitcoin at an all-time high?
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has dramatically bounced back in early 2024. What’s behind the sudden rise and can it last? We asked an expert.

Bitcoin’s price is surging. What happens next?
The cryptocurrency is up by 63% this year
(The Economist) For a brief moment, everyone who owned bitcoin had made money from it. On March 5th the crypto token rose to an all-time high of just above $69,000—a level sure to delight the meme-loving crypto-crowd—before slipping back a little. The record capped a remarkable comeback from the dark days of November 2022, when interest-rate rises were crushing risk appetite and ftx, a crypto exchange, had just gone bust. At the time, buying bitcoin on such exchanges seemed like little more than a fun and novel way to get robbed.
Bitcoin is hardly rallying in isolation: everything is going up. Stockmarkets all over the world are near record highs. So are gold prices. Even bond prices are climbing after a miserable two-year stretch. The catalyst is a combination of artificial-intelligence hype, joy at the state of the global economy and expectations of looser monetary policy to come.

28 February
Bloomberg Close
Bitcoin surged past $60,000 for the first time in more than two years as demand widens beyond hardcore enthusiasts—the start of what Split Capital’s Zaheer Ebtikar calls “a pretty clear FOMO kind of rally.”
But with big bets being made across the market, investors may see a “sharp correction” of 20% or more, AnB Investments’ Jaime Baeza said.
Coinbase experienced outages amid the surge in traffic, but tried to assure users who may see zero balances across their accounts that their “assets are safe.”
The boom also drove $520 million into BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, a one-day record.

2023

3 December
Bitcoin Surges Past $42,000 Even as Stocks and Bonds Take a Hit
—Natasha Solo-Lyons and David E. Rovella
Crypto rally has been driven by ETF hopes, rate-cut bets
Bitcoin is on track for biggest annual gain since 2020
(Bloomberg) After a series of collapses, scandals and one very high-profile federal conviction, crypto—and specifically Bitcoin—actually looks to be making a comeback. The funny money topped $42,000 for the first time in 19 months as frenzied speculation in cryptocurrencies (as if there were another kind) extended a rally in the largest digital token to more than 150% this year. Bitcoin rose as much as 6.1% on Monday in New York, on track for the biggest annual gain since 2020. Smaller tokens such as Ether and meme-crowd favorite Dogecoin also pushed higher. Bitcoin Cash jumped 8% and a gauge of the largest 100 crypto coins added more than 3.3%. So what’s driving this? Three letters: ETF.

3 November
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried convicted of defrauding cryptocurrency customers
(AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s spectacular rise and fall in the cryptocurrency industry — a journey that included his testimony before Congress, a Super Bowl advertisement and dreams of a future run for president — hit rock bottom Thursday when a New York jury convicted him of fraud for stealing at least $10 billion from customers and investors.
After the month-long trial, jurors rejected Bankman-Fried’s claim during testimony in Manhattan federal court that he never committed fraud or meant to cheat customers before FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, collapsed into bankruptcy a year ago.
The jury rejected Bankman-Fried’s insistence during three days of testimony that he never committed fraud or plotted to steal from customers, investors and lenders and didn’t realize his companies were at least $10 billion in debt until October 2022.

5-6 June
US tightens crackdown on crypto with lawsuits against Coinbase, Binance
(Reuters) – The top U.S. securities regulator sued cryptocurrency platform Coinbase on Tuesday, the second lawsuit in two days against a major crypto exchange, in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown on the industry and one that could dramatically transform a market that has largely operated outside regulation.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday took aim at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The SEC accuses Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao of operating a “web of deception”.
If successful, the lawsuits could transform the crypto market by successfully asserting the SEC’s jurisdiction over the industry which for years has argued that tokens do not constitute securities and should not be regulated by the SEC.
“The two cases are different, but overlap and point in the same direction: the SEC’s increasingly aggressive campaign to bring cryptocurrencies under the jurisdiction of the federal securities laws,” said Kevin O’Brien, a partner at Ford O’Brien Landy and a former federal prosecutor, adding, however, that the SEC has not previously taken on such major crypto players.
The SEC sues Binance, unveils 13 charges against crypto exchange in sweeping lawsuit
(NPR) On Monday, it filed 13 charges against Binance, which operates the world’s top crypto exchange, as well as its billionaire co-founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, who is widely know as CZ. It’s the latest in a string of actions being taken against crypto companies.
In the Binance lawsuit, the S.E.C. accused Zhao and his company of misleading investors about Binance’s ability to detect market manipulation as well as of misusing customer funds and sending some of that money to a company controlled by CZ, among other charges.

16 May
EU states approve world’s first comprehensive crypto rules
(Reuters) – European Union states on Tuesday gave the final nod to the world’s first comprehensive set of rules to regulate crypto assets on Tuesday, piling pressure on countries such as Britain and the United States to play catch up.
An EU finance minister meeting in Brussels approved rules that were thrashed out with the European Parliament, which gave its approval in April.
The rules are expected to be rolled out from 2024.
The rules require firms that want to issue, trade and safeguard cryptoassets, tokenised assets and stablecoins in the 27 country bloc to obtain a licence.
Ministers took steps to combat tax evasion and the use of cryptoasset transfers for money laundering by making transactions easier to trace.
They agreed on a requirement that from January 2026 service providers obtain the name of senders and beneficiaries in cryptoassets, regardless of the amount being transferred.

The Economist special report
The promise of crypto has not lived up to its initial excitement
A crypto-finance revolution looks further off than ever
Two years ago everyone wanted to be us. Now everyone hates us,” laments a 24-year-old crypto founder at a gathering in New York. After once seeming as if it might threaten to remake the entire financial system, crypto has gone through a spectacular decline. The market value of all cryptocurrencies ballooned from $250bn at the start of 2020 to $3trn by late 2021. But it has since fallen back to just $1.3trn. Even more important, public trust in crypto has hit rock bottom after a string of high-profile swindles and crashes, notably the downfall of FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, in November 2022.
Yet in Dubai, crypto talk remains boisterous. The emirate has opened its doors to the industry by creating a regulatory body dedicated to crypto that has created “much needed clarity”, argues Alex Chehade, the local boss of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance and other exchanges such as Crypto.com and Bybit set up shop in Dubai in 2022. Big questions still hang over the industry. At one meeting in Dubai this correspondent met an indignant response when he asked if crypto would ever find its “killer app”. “We already have it,” snapped a developer.

The Rise of FTX, and Sam Bankman-Fried, Was a Great Story. Its Implosion Is Even Better.
About a year after the author Michael Lewis began to shadow Bankman-Fried, the founder of the crypto exchange FTX, Bankman-Fried was arrested. As the story evolved, Lewis has had a front-row seat to the drama.
FTX has imploded in a spectacular fashion: Federal prosecutors have brought an array of charges against Bankman-Fried, accusing him of money laundering, bribery and orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to misappropriate billions of dollars of customer money. (He has pleaded not guilty.) When Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last December, Lewis was there, and had been shadowing him for roughly a year.

24 April
The swift and messy demise of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire
FTX quickly went from multibillion-dollar operation to total collapse, with its CEO facing felony charges
The broad strokes of the FTX debacle may be known, but right now, there are still some blank spots on the canvas. Some bizarre, troubling and occasionally hilarious details have emerged in court filings, but important questions haven’t been answered.

18 April
Dubai jobs: Crypto exchange Bybit opens global headquarters in UAE, will recruit 100 people
Company will move around 80 people from Singapore and Hong Kong, and will hire to expand its marketing, community, and business development, as well as other departments
Bybit, the world’s third most visited crypto exchange and second-largest in the Mena region, on Monday opened its global headquarters in Dubai and plans to recruit 100 people.
With 15 million users globally, Bybit is one of the first exchange services to obtain in-principle approval from the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) to operate in Dubai. it also expects to get the full licence in the second quarter of this year.

18 March
Crypto at a crossroads: Some provinces are wary of the technology’s vast appetite for electricity
B.C. energy minister says province must put its power to the best use
Proponents of cryptocurrency mining say the industry’s future in Canada is hanging in the balance after several provinces moved to restrict new projects earlier this year in response to concerns about their electricity usage.

13 March
Signature Bank’s collapse spells trouble for cryptocurrency industry
As choice institutions fall, crypto companies may be driven to alternative, often riskier, banking options
Signature Bank, a New York based financial institution with deep ties to the cryptocurrency industry, collapsed over the weekend after depositors made a run on the bank, further roiling the digital assets industry, which has suffered a string of major blows in recent months
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Signature Bank, guaranteeing that clients’ deposits over the $250,000 federal limit became available Monday morning. But it is unclear how the bailout impacts other parts of the bank’s operations, notably a transaction system, Signet, used to process cryptocurrency transactions.

23 February
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried gets a dozen charges in unsealed indictment
Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new criminal charges on Thursday, in an expanded indictment accusing the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to make more than 300 illegal political donations.
Bankman-Fried now faces 12 criminal charges, including four for fraud and eight for conspiracy, up from eight charges in an earlier indictment, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The new indictment adds to pressure on the 30-year-old former billionaire, who has already seen two of his former top lieutenants plead guilty. He is also trying to convince a judge he should remain free on bail.

2022

20 December
Cryptocurrencies at a crossroads after annus horribilis.
(Reuters) Crashes, contagion and collapses came in such quick succession this year that investors are asking serious existential questions. Next year, the traditional financial world could use the crypto malaise to up its game: snap up platforms and assets in the blockchain world, issue tokenised bonds and stocks or maybe even roll out more central bank digital currencies

18 December
‘Crypto winter’ has come. And it’s looking more like an ice age.
Prices have crashed, investors are walking away, and Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail. It’s not clear if the industry can recover.
By Julian Mark and Gerrit De Vynck
(WaPo) A year ago, the crypto world was booming, with prices for bitcoin and ethereum at all-time highs, celebrities stumbling over each other to promote expensive digital art, and logos from blockchain companies gracing sports stadiums and Super Bowl ads.
That era is over.
In the last year, cryptocurrency prices have fallen by more than half, trading volume has cratered, and several high-profile companies have collapsed in liquidity crises. The arrest last week in the Bahamas of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of what until very recently was one of the biggest and best-respected cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has only deepened the sense that the crypto bubble has definitively popped, taking with it billions of dollars of investments made by regular people, pension funds, venture capitalists and traditional companies.
Governments that had long demurred on regulation are suddenly pressing for more oversight, while federal regulators and law enforcement have rolled out multiple civil and criminal investigations.
The crypto industry is calling this moment its “crypto winter.” They say it’s cyclical, much like a bear market for Wall Street — something that has happened before and will eventually blow over.
But experts say the ferocity and scale of this downturn could end up leading to more of an ice age.

14 December
Sam Bankman-Fried Got What He Wanted
The now-arrested crypto king had long said he wanted Washington to wise up about the industry. That’s finally happening.
By Will Gottsegen
(The Atlantic) That every government agency with even a cursory relationship to crypto seems to be working overtime to string up SBF suggests that, after years of dallying, the powers that be are losing patience with this industry. … For the first time, Congress and regulatory agencies seem collectively energized about making a real example out of someone. Lawmakers, like their constituents, are visibly, viscerally annoyed.

7 December
Lebanon’s neglected dams are powering a secret community of crypto miners
By Jacob Russell and Adam Hasan
Amid a crumbling economy, power cuts, and police raids, an underground community mines on.
(Rest of World) Amid Lebanon’s crumbling infrastructure and socio-economic decay a cottage industry of crypto miners has found razor-thin profits using hydroelectric power in the mountains.
Photography by Jacob Russell for Rest of World
That puts them into direct competition with local residents over one of country’s most prized resources: electricity

6 December
Cryptoverse: Forget crypto winter, this is a bitcoin ‘bloodbath’
(Reuters) Bitcoin balances on crypto exchanges – where retail investors typically transact – have fallen to around 2.3 million from its 2020 all-time high of 3.1 million, exchange Bitfinex said. Self-custody wallet balances have not grown at the same pace, indicating more selling than storage, it added.
It’s been a brutal year for investors. Bitcoin’s price has dropped 63%, while the overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has lost $1.63 trillion in value.
Crypto retail investors losing money is nothing new. A study from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), conducted between 2015 and 2022, estimated that 73% to 81% likely lost money on their investments in cryptocurrencies.
Retail trading has grown increasingly difficult as deeper-pocketed, more sophisticated investors like hedge funds entered crypto as the asset class grew.
Meanwhile
Goldman Sachs on hunt for bargain crypto firms after FTX fiasco
Goldman Sachs plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to buy or invest in crypto companies, showing a willingness to keep investing even after the collapse of the FTX exchange. FTX’s implosion has heightened the need for more trustworthy, regulated cryptocurrency players, and big banks see an opportunity to pick up business.
Read our exclusive report. And sign up here to our new weekly newsletter, Reuters Crypto Wire.

30 November
‘I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone,’ FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried says
The man at the centre of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX made his first public appearance since the saga began, telling a New York audience on Wednesday that it was never his intention to commit fraud.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, appeared at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit on Wednesday, for an interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin about what happened to cause his cryptocurrency firm to collapse into bankruptcy earlier this month.
The firm, once worth more than $32 billion US, entered bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11 after a whirlwind series of days that saw it go from trying to solve a liquidity crunch by merging with a rival, to having that deal fall apart and succumbing to a run on the bank as traders pulled out $6 billion in funds within three days.
Filings show the company owes almost $10 billion to various creditors, and at least $1 billion worth of customer deposits are missing.
Among numerous allegations, customer deposits at FTX appear to have been used as capital and collateral for loans for Bankman-Fried’s personal investment firm, Alameda — an allegation that amounts to fraud, and one that he pushed back against strongly.
FTX collapse hits Gadze Finance, crypto fund led by Top Hat founder Mike Silagadze
Sean Silcoff, Technology Reporter
… The loss may sound like a relatively modest hit from a historic wipeout; it’s certainly not a fund-killer. But Mr. Silagadze had pitched Gadze as a relatively safe bet in the Wild West of crypto, a low-risk yield fund that could generate 10 to 12 per cent a year.
The fund did not invest directly in cryptocurrencies, so as to protect itself from fluctuating prices. It provided liquidity to crypto exchanges and earned a yield in return, a process referred to as “yield-farming” in the industry, which Mr. Silagadze had even called a “boring way to invest in crypto” at the time of his launch.
FTX’s Collapse Validates Gary Gensler’s Crypto Skepticism
Sam Bankman-Fried fooled a lot of people—but not the SEC chairman, whose warnings about risk and lack of regulation were well-founded.

29 November
Russian Crypto Billionaire Dies in Mysterious Chopper Crash
Forex Club founder Vyacheslav Taran was the sole passenger on the chopper that crashed near Monaco.
(Daily Beast) A Russian billionaire has become just the latest cryptocurrency figure to die under bizarre circumstances in recent weeks. [He] was the sole passenger on a Monacair helicopter that crashed near the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer over the weekend.
Taran, 53, had taken off from Lausanne in Switzerland en route to Monaco with an experienced 35-year-old pilot before the aircraft went down. The chopper crashed into a hillside in good weather, local reports said.
Russia’s Central Bank pulled the licenses of Forex Club and several other forex dealers in the country in 2018, reportedly because the companies’ subsidiaries lured clients to offshore companies.
Taran’s death comes amid a string of fatal accidents involving cryptocurrency leaders.
Tiantian Kullander, the founder of Amber Group, died suddenly in his sleep last week at the age of 30. Just a few weeks earlier, 29-year-old cryptocurrency developer Nikolas Mushegian was found dead on a Puerto Rico beach in what was found to be a drowning.

28 November
BlockFi Files for Bankruptcy as FTX Contagion Spreads
BlockFi received a $400 million line of credit from FTX earlier this year.

24 November
Global regulators to target crypto platforms after FTX crash
(Reuters) – The crash of FTX exchange has injected greater urgency into regulating the crypto sector and targeting such ‘conglomerate’ platforms will be the focus for 2023, the new chair of global securities watchdog IOSCO [International Organization of Securities Commissions], said in an interview.
Jean-Paul Servais said regulating crypto platforms could draw on principles from other sectors which handle conflicts of interest, such as at credit rating agencies and compilers of market benchmarks, without having to start from scratch.
Cryptoassets like bitcoin have been around for years but regulators have resisted jumping in to write new rules.
IOSCO, which coordinates rules for G20 countries and others, has already set out principles for regulating stablecoins, but now the focus is turning to platforms which trade in them.
FTX’s Bahamas crypto empire: Stimulants, subterfuge and a spectacular collapse
Crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried had promised the island paradise a path to financial glory. His meltdown has left some Bahamians worried about the ripple effects.

17 November
As the crypto chaos continues, Liberals remind voters of Poilievre’s praise for bitcoin
The price of bitcoin is a fraction of what it was when Poilievre announced in March his plan to make Canada the “blockchain capital of the world” — a reference to the system that records bitcoin and other cryptocurrency transactions.

10-12 November
Funds vanish at bankrupt crypto exchange FTX; probe underway
(AP) — Collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX confirmed there was “unauthorized access” to its accounts, hours after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday.
The embattled company’s new CEO John Ray III said Saturday that FTX is switching off the ability to trade or withdraw funds and taking steps to secure customers’ assets, according to a tweet by FTX’s general counsel Ryne Miller. FTX is also coordinating with law enforcement and regulators, the company said.
Exactly how much money is involved is unclear, but analytics firm Elliptic estimated Saturday that $477 million was missing from the exchange.
10 November
Collapse of FTX cryptocurrency under scrutiny by federal authorities
The blow comes soon after rival Binance backed out of a merger deal this week after due diligence of the exchange’s books
The swift collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX sent more shockwaves through the crypto world on Thursday, with authorities now investigating the firm for potential securities violations and analysts bracing for a further downturn in crypto prices.
Crypto crash and gold sell-off show there’s no place for investors to hide
By Paul R. La Monica,
(CNN Business) The spectacular implosion of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a so-called unicorn startup that was recently valued at $32 billion, is just the latest bit of bad news for investors in bitcoin, ethereum and other digital assets. But 2022 was already an awful year for crypto before the FTX-Binance soap opera.
Bitcoin prices are currently hovering around $16,500, down from a level of $20,000 just a week ago. Still, even at $20,000, that was a far cry from the price of just north of $46,000 that bitcoin was trading at on the last day of 2021.
It turns out that investors who were hoping that rising interest rates and higher levels of inflation would be good for so-called alternative assets like cryptos and gold have been in for a rude awakening this year.

31 October
Crypto Community Celebrates 14th Anniversary of Satoshi’s Bitcoin White Paper
It was on 31 October 2008 that Satoshi released Bitcoin’s white paper, which was titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. The original goal for Bitcoin was to be “a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” that “would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

Bitcoin Years Later: Was the Nakamoto White Paper Right?
(Investopedia) Bitcoin’s controversial and volatile nature has a way of obscuring the greater picture at times in favor of whatever trending news about it dominates the day’s headlines. This could be why it seems Bitcoin’s first two-digit birthday has crept up on us: a ripe old age for a technology that’s been declared dead 436 times, at last count.
But, Bitcoin is not dead. In fact, it is more vibrant than ever. The cryptocurrency surged to new all-time highs, exceeding $68,000 per BTC in November 2021, following a wave of popular and institutional interest.
Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin in 2009 and handed off the project to the community the following year.
The anonymous Satoshi published his famous Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, describing the cryptocurrency’s technical specifications and motivations.
In the paper, Satoshi suggests how Bitcoin provides a strong case for the invention of a new online payment system.
He explores how transactions work, the use of a network, and how individuals are rewarded for their efforts.
Satoshi outlines how privacy is key to Bitcoin—the same way it is for the banking industry. (Updated May 2022)
The White Paper by Satoshi Nakamoto review – the future of cryptocurrency
Bitcoin was radical and utopian, a way to avoid both government and big business. What happened? (June 2019)

26 October
Debunking the narratives about cryptocurrency and financial inclusion
(Brookings) There are numerous narratives regarding crypto and financial inclusion, but a closer examination of these narratives reveals a mismatch between what crypto can actually provide and the needs of the groups it purports to serve. Tonantzin Carmona discusses crypto’s potential to exacerbate unequal financial services to historically excluded groups and how policymakers and regulators can protect retail investors and consumers while addressing financial inclusion in ways that do not require crypto
… When it comes to cryptocurrencies and financial inclusion, the unbanked, underbanked, Black, and Latino or Hispanic communities often get lumped together in reporting, survey results, or even the crypto industry’s marketing.[3] Often, this is done without acknowledging that while some of these groups may occasionally overlap, they may also have entirely different crypto usage rates and, more importantly, markedly distinct financial needs and objectives.

3-4 October
Crypto Needs More Rules and Better Enforcement, Regulators Warn
A federal panel responsible for monitoring financial system risks sounded a warning on Monday about cryptocurrency markets, saying that the widespread adoption of digital assets poses risks if the market continues to grow without better oversight and enforcement.
 Report on Digital Asset Financial Stability Risks and Regulation by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is led by the Treasury Department and was created after the 2008 financial crisis to help identify and mitigate threats to the financial system.
FSOC warns crypto is possible systemic risk
Its report identifies a wide range of regulatory gaps and market risks.
(Politico Pro) Top U.S. banking and markets regulators on Monday warned that the crypto industry could pose a major risk to the financial system if lawmakers and agencies don’t act soon to set ground rules.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council — a Treasury-led panel of top officials from the Federal Reserve, SEC and other agencies — released a 120-page report that identified a wide range of regulatory gaps and market risks affecting everything from Bitcoin trading platforms and stablecoins to consumer protection and cyberattacks.
Those risks will get more severe as the industry expands and digital asset businesses forge ties with traditional financial institutions like banks and payment systems, according to the report, which was produced in accordance with President Joe Biden’s March executive order on crypto.

29 September
Bitcoin’s steep environmental costs go beyond its hunger for energy
Bitcoin’s climate impact rivals that of beef or crude oil, according to a new analysis.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are notorious for their massive energy consumption, relying on power sources that emit greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. But even if digital currencies were to be produced and exchanged using 100 percent clean energy—which is far from the current reality—their environmental impact would still be overwhelmingly negative, due to Bitcoin’s hardware demands and other factors.

28 September
The Crypto World Is on Edge After a String of Hacks
(NYT) More than $2 billion in digital currency has been stolen in hacks this year, shaking faith in the experimental field of decentralized finance, known as DeFi.
Hackers have terrorized the crypto industry for years, stealing Bitcoin from online wallets and raiding the exchanges where investors buy and sell digital currencies. But the rapid proliferation of DeFi start-ups…has given rise to a new type of threat.

18 September
ECB Chooses Amazon and 4 Other Companies to Help Develop Digital Euro
(Bitcoin.com) The European Central Bank (ECB) has selected five companies to help develop user interfaces for a digital euro. Each company will work with the ECB and focus on one specific use case of the digital euro. Amazon has been chosen to focus on e-commerce payments.
The ECB formally started investigating what its central bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital euro, might look like in October last year, noting that the investigation phase should last about two years. ECB President Christine Lagarde said in February that a digital euro will not replace cash but will complement it. “A digital euro would give you an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to accessibility and inclusion,” she explained.
Cryptoruble to Give Russian Companies Another Option for International Settlements
Cryptoruble to Give Russian Companies Another Option for International Settlements
(Bitcoin.com) Developers are working on a “cryptoruble” that, as they say, can improve Russians’ access to global exchanges and be used for cross-border payments. Defi platform Indefibank, which is behind the project, says the token will be pegged to the national fiat but independent from a state-issued digital ruble.

17 September
Ethereum’s big breakthrough shows crypto has hope — but a long way to go
By Megan McArdle
(WaPo) It has now been almost 14 years since bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency, launched in January 2009. Ever since, we have had a lively debate between early adopters proclaiming that crypto was the future, and skeptics (including me) pointing out that crypto had a lot of disadvantages compared to good old-fashioned money and the array of institutions dedicated to moving it around.
Even if you are not deeply versed in the intricacies of various cryptocurrencies, you are probably aware of some of these problems: Unlike money, crypto still has to persuade people other than enthusiasts to use it. It has to persuade governments to leave it alone. Transactions are pricey and cumbersome. And one of the most cited drawbacks is crypto’s environmental impact; the “mining” infrastructure for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies is estimated to consume more electricity than many countries.
On Thursday, ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency platform, moved to put that last concern to rest, undergoing a gut renovation of its architecture. The tricky feat (known as “the merge” for technical reasons that need not concern us) has radically reduced the amount of electricity needed to process transactions; by one estimate, ethereum’s energy usage and carbon footprint have now fallen by 99.9 percent.
15 SeptemberThe Ethereum ‘Merge’ is complete, says Vitalik Buterin
The move will transition the Ethereum blockchain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, which is less energy intensive. The Ethereum Foundation estimates energy consumption will drop by 99.95%. Currently, its consumption is equivalent to that of Chile.

15 August
The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion Dollars Everyone trusted the two guys at Three Arrows Capital. They knew what they were doing — right?
(New York) Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, two Andover graduates who ran a Singapore-based crypto hedge fund called Three Arrows Capital … filed for bankruptcy and disappeared.
With their hedge fund in the midst of chaotic liquidation proceedings, Zhu and Davies are currently believed to be in hiding. (Multiple emails to them and their lawyers requesting comment went unreturned, except for an automatic reply from Davies that reads, “Please note I am out of office at this time.”) For an industry constantly defending itself against accusations that cryptocurrency is, at its heart, a scam, Three Arrows seemed to prove the antagonists’ point.
… For a firm that had always portrayed itself as playing just with its own money — “We don’t have any external investors,” Zhu, 3AC’s CEO, had told Bloomberg as recently as February — the damage Three Arrows caused was astonishing. By mid-July, creditors had come forward with more than $2.8 billion in claims; the figure is expected to balloon from there
Zhu and Davies are two ambitious young men, by all descriptions exceedingly smart, who appeared to understand the structural opportunity of digital currency rather well: that crypto is a game of creating virtual fortunes out of thin air and convincing other humans with traditional forms of money that those virtual fortunes deserve to be real-world ones.

9 August
Canadian watchdogs join probe of Celsius’ multi-billion-dollar collapse, sources say
Quebec’s largest pension fund had $150 million invested in bankrupt crypto lender
In July, crypto lender Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and owes users about US$4.7 billion.
Canadian regulators are working with counterparts in the United States as multiple jurisdictions investigate the multi-billion-dollar collapse of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network LLC, according to sources with knowledge of the probes.
Caisse de dépôt writes off US$150-million investment in crypto lender Celsius (17 August)

7 August
How cryptocurrency became a powerful force in Washington
The infrastructure bill is in part stalled as negotiations proceed on how closely to regulate the crypto industry
(WaPo) Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and the Biden administration had agreed on a proposal that would give federal regulators authority to impose new tax reporting obligations on cryptocurrency brokers, which enable traders to buy and sell cryptocurrency. The crypto provisions emerged as lawmakers struggled to find ways to pay for the bill, with nonpartisan estimates suggesting the tax changes — which would codify work the Internal Revenue Service was beginning to undertake — would increase federal revenue by about $28 billion over 10 years.
But an odd-couple coalition of liberals concerned about government overreach into tech and conservatives skeptical of financial regulation have pushed back strongly against the plan, which, they argue, would harm innovation.
Regardless of the measure’s ultimate fate, the fact that crypto regulation has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks to passage of the bill underscored how the industry has become a political force in Washington — and previewed a series of looming battles over a financial technology attracting billions of dollars of interest from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and financial players around the world, but that few still understand.
“What I think you’re seeing is the maturing of the industry — you see the crypto folks now understanding how Washington can influence their world and Washington learning a little bit about the technology,”

12 July
They couldn’t even scream any more. They were just sobbing’: the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash
Fuelled by hype and hysteria, the market in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies went from an obscure niche to a $3tn industry. Then the house of cards collapsed
(The Guardian) The cryptocurrency industry is in roiling waters. Scarcely a day seems to pass without a wave crashing across the sector. “The rollercoaster has turned and taken crypto holders on a downward spiral,” says Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Many people have been caused serious financial pain.”
Last month, major coins including bitcoin and ethereum dropped by more than one-third in just a week. While bitcoin has tumbled significantly on several occasions, this bear run – meaning a period of declining prices – feels different. The industry is larger and more interconnected than ever, with retail and institutional investors jostling for space in what was, until last year, a $3tn market. (The crash has wiped $2tn off the market’s value.)
… The mania around bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was fuelled by a social media hype machine unprecedented in the history of financial markets. Investors touted new coins that were amassing huge returns, hung off the tweets of crypto-influencers and spoke in impenetrable jargon. “Demand for bitcoin related purely to the level of interest in this new technology, and that interest was manipulated by the companies that offered different cryptocurrencies and exchanges and startups,” [Dr Larisa Yarovaya, an associate professor of finance at the University of Southampton] says. “All of this happened on social media, meaning that investors didn’t even know whether there was genuine interest in crypto, or lots of Twitter bots encouraging people to buy. The system wasn’t transparent.”

1-2 July
Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows files for Chapter 15 bankruptcy
(CNBC) Singapore-based 3AC is one of the biggest casualties of the latest so-called “crypto winter” to date. CNBC reported Wednesday that Three Arrows had fallen into liquidation.
This crypto winter is warm compared to the next one
(The Hill) How in the world did we let cryptocurrencies become a $10 trillion industry before examining the systemic risks being created? Crypto coins, derivative securities, exchanges and the leverage created to support them now equal nearly half the asset size of the entire U.S. banking industry.
So, we really have caught a big break by having a crypto winter now before this unregulated industry grew even larger and subsumed other financial markets.
What should we have learned from this? As Bill Gates correctly notes, everyone is beginning to appreciate that the current version of cryptocurrencies to some extent relies on the greater fool theory. Purchasers expect the price to rise solely because they will be followed by additional purchasers with the same expectations. No such investment scheme has ever succeeded
The crypto world mesmerized legislators and regulators into a decade of inaction as it grew exponentially. But there is still time for them to come to their senses, modernize financial regulation and regulate cryptocurrencies like the money and securities they purport to be.
Perhaps then, crypto can proceed toward a more lasting future. With the economy simultaneously being buffeted by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and global conflict, crypto investors should for now prepare for a difficult winter. But it will not be nearly as harsh as the next one if the crypto orgy continues without smarter investors and better oversight.
Major crypto broker Voyager Digital suspends all trading, deposits and withdrawals
(CNBC) Voyager’s announcement comes amid a raft of margin calls and defaults across the sector, making the digital broker the latest collateral damage of the broad market selloff in cryptocurrency. The two most widely traded cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and ether, are down more than 70% from their peaks last November, and the May collapse of the UST stablecoin sent shockwaves through an already tumultuous market.
The news comes a few days after one of Voyager’s customers failed to make payments on a loan worth hundreds of millions of dollars, fueling growing concerns of an insolvency contagion effect across the industry.

30 June
Is Crypto in Terminal Decline?
(Project Syndicate) Opinion is divided as to whether the current massive downturn in private digital currencies and related services represents a necessary and healthy shakeout or an existential threat to the crypto industry. While the sector’s true believers no doubt subscribe to the former view, others increasingly wonder whether decentralized finance will turn out to be a flash in the pan.
In this Big Question, we ask Dante Alighieri Disparte, Simon Johnson, Jim O’Neill, and Anne C. Sibert whether the death knell is sounding for the crypto craze.
Simon Johnson The creation of Bitcoin and the rise of cryptocurrencies more broadly offered the prospect of three kinds of economic transformation: full decentralized cash-like payments (Bitcoin); a novel way to fund new ventures (by issuing various kinds of digital coins); and lower-friction peer-to-peer asset transactions (crypto investment vehicles). All three potential accomplishments are now under serious threat for the same simple reason. While the crypto project was founded on the premise of “government bad, private sector good,” it turns out that the private sector by itself – with no government oversight – creates its own vulnerabilities, including a tendency to financial panics and crashes.Whether we are talking about the collapse of the Terra and Luna stablecoins or the freezing of withdrawals from crypto lenders such as Celsius, the key lesson is that allowing people to operate like banks without a license is very dangerous.

13 June
Crypto Is Crashing. It Deserves to.
The decline feels like more than just a price reboot or a washout. It points to a system-wide failure.
(New York) If you’re anything but a die-hard observer of the crypto markets, all the crashes, frauds, Ponzi schemes and criminal indictments that have plagued the market during the past six months have been something of a blur. Crypto is volatile, but it lives at the margins of the financial world. In the U.S., at least, traditional markets and the broader economy have never really integrated with digital currencies, and most people don’t use bitcoin or dogecoin or ethereum on a day-to-day basis, like the dollar. When bad news happens, it can feel like hearing about a coup in a country you’re only vaguely aware of. Bad for somebody, sure, but does it affect me? So when bitcoin started to crash over the weekend, then continued to fall below $23,000, its lowest point in 18 months, it might have seemed like just another point of red on the downward continuum, another “crypto winter” that, its advocates will tell you, is part of a natural cycle that strengthens and purifies the market. And maybe it is. But the crash this weekend looks like more than just a reset after things got too hot — there are signs that the system could be breaking and that the money propping it all up was less solid than it seemed.

8 June
What are cryptocurrencies and how do you use them? Everything you need to know as a beginner
(Euro News) Cryptos are just like any other currency. You can buy goods and services with them or trade with them. Where they differ from traditional paper currencies we have in our wallets is that there are no physical coins or notes – the money is completely virtual.
Units of cryptocurrency can be bought from brokers or generated through an online process called “mining” and used to make payments or store money anonymously.
While they are popularly depicted as coins similar to casino chips, the physical coin is worthless without the printed code inside it.
According to Investopedia, there were more than 4,000 cryptocurrencies in circulation at the beginning of 2021. More and more are being launched all the time.
Some have also criticised cryptocurrencies for being environmentally unsound. The surge in their use (particularly Bitcoin) has meant growing demand for the computer hardware needed to run the technology that sustains them. The process of mining – unlocking reward coins by validating blocks with randomly generated numbers – has also spurred the use of energy-guzzling supercomputers to do the mathematical heavy lifting. (8 June 2021)
When China and other big countries launch cryptocurrencies, it will kick off a global revolution
Liang Zhao, Doctoral Researcher, Lund University
(The Conversation) One of the hottest topics in cryptocurrencies is the prospect of major economies launching state-backed digital coins. China’s central bank recently accelerated plans for what is currently known as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). It could launch within the next 18 months, while the European Central Bank is looking at something similar.
Meanwhile, Russia has been working on a state-backed cryptoruble for several years, and Sweden has its e-krona project. Indeed, several countries have got there already: Senegal and the tiny Marshall Islands now have digital coins that sit alongside their existing currencies, while others such as Venezuela and Ecuador have tried but failed to gain traction. (December 12, 2019)

6 June
How crypto giant Binance became a hub for hackers, fraudsters and drug traffickers
(A Reuters Special Report) As Reuters reported in January, Binance kept weak money-laundering checks on its users until mid-2021, despite concerns raised by senior company figures starting at least three years earlier. In response to that article, Binance said it was helping drive higher industry standards and the reporting was “wildly outdated.” In August 2021, Binance compelled new and existing users to submit identification.
With around 120 million users worldwide, Binance processes crypto trades worth hundreds of billions of dollars a month. The sector was hit by a sharp correction in May, its overall value slumping by a quarter to $1.3 trillion. [Binance CEO Changpeng]Zhao said he saw “new found resiliency” in the market.
The flow of illicit crypto through Binance, identified by Reuters, represents a small portion of the exchange’s overall trading volumes. Yet as policymakers and regulators, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, voice concern over the illegal use of cryptocurrencies, the trade demonstrates how criminals have turned to the technology to launder dirty money.

21 May
Crypto is starting to lose its cool – just look at El Salvador
Rowan Moore
Fantasies of a Bitcoin City have been undermined by the country’s huge losses in cryptocurrency
(The Guardian) To its evangelists, bitcoin is a frictionless, empowering form of money that liberates citizens of the world from the shackles of banks and national governments. To sceptics, the cryptocurrency is a tool of kleptocrats and gangsters, environmentally monstrous in its consumption of energy, a digitally glamorised Ponzi scheme whose eventual crash will most hurt those least able to afford a loss.
Prepare for Recession: Musk and Goldman Sachs’ Blankfein Weigh In; Galaxy Digital’s CEO Talks on Terra Collapse — Bitcoin.com News Week in Review

19 May
Remember him? The charmer who raised the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750. Although he is barred from the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of this life, I cannot believe he won’t find another nefarious activity.
“I Started Using Uniswap in Prison”: Martin Shkreli
On an early Saturday Twitter Spaces call, the controversial entrepreneur discussed his thoughts on the future of Bitcoin and DeFi to an audience of crypto enthusiasts.
Shkreli decried the process of buying stocks in the U.S., suggesting that DeFi could improve the experience. “The idea that I can’t buy a Tesla share without going through this SEC apparatus and all these other steps is kinda nuts… there are people breaking the silo and trying to destroy it forever, I hope.”

17 May
The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding
As an inevitable crash occurs, many of the swindles and alleged swindles are coming to light.
By John Cassidy
Last week, federal prosecutors arrested a fifty-year-old Long Island man and accused him of defrauding hundreds of investors by offering them gains of five per cent per week—yes, per week—from a fictional crypto-trading platform. …the indictment came during what is increasingly looking like the unwinding of the great crypto “bezzle.” The term comes from John Kenneth Galbraith’s classic account of the 1929 stock-market crash, and it refers to the “inventory of undiscovered embezzlement” that builds up during speculative booms, when investors become ever more credulous and rising prices create the appearance that real wealth is being created. In this halcyon part of the cycle, Galbraith noted, “the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.” It is only after the inevitable crash occurs that many of the swindles, and alleged swindles, come to light.
The day before Alexandre’s arrest, Europol, the E.U.’s law-enforcement agency, placed Ruja Ignatova, the German inventor of the OneCoin cryptocurrency, on its most-wanted list, for “having induced investors all over the world to invest in this actually worthless ‘currency,’ ” which has produced a total loss that “probably amounts to several billion” dollars. Earlier this year, the F.B.I. arrested a New York couple and accused them of helping launder billions of dollars in stolen bitcoin.

16 May
$3 billion in bitcoin was sold in a last-ditch attempt to save UST stablecoin from collapse
The debacle rippled through crypto markets, wiping out more than $200 billion of wealth in a single day. Bitcoin on Thursday briefly fell below $26,000, its lowest level since December 2020. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency was last trading at $29,526.75, down 1.4% in the last 24 hours.
Don Pittis: Crypto markets tumble and investors get their fingers burned
Canadian fintech scholar who warned of meltdown says economy will feel impact
(CBC) People who put their hard-earned cash into a tumbling cryptocurrency unit that is at the heart of the latest sharp decline in digital coins may be regretting they did not read a recent paper by Canadian financial technology scholar Ryan Clements demonstrating why it was bound to fail.
Now, other financial commentators are echoing his warning that this time, the loss of more than a trillion U.S. dollars in asset value from world cryptocurrency markets will have an impact well beyond the “crypto bros” who put in their own money.
But as Canadians who still hold a stake wait to see what Friday the 13th will do for asset values, Clements said the past week’s crypto sell-off has settled a few questions. One is whether, like gold, the limited supply of the most important cryptocurrencies means they are a hedge against inflation or against the decline of other risk assets. We now know they are not.
As inflation has climbed and markets have declined, even the best-known crypto token, bitcoin, was trading down nearly two-thirds from its peak of $69,000 in November of last year.
There were reports on Thursday that El Salvador, which has accepted bitcoin as legal tender, had lost $40 million US — enough for the cash-strapped Central American country to cover its next bond payment — and credit rating agencies warn of an increased risk of default.

13 May
Cryptocurrencies: why they’ve crashed and what it could mean for their future
By Gavin Brown, Associate Professor in Financial Technology, University of Liverpool; Richard Whittle, CAPE Policy Fellow, UCL; and Stuart Mills, Fellow of Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science
(The Conversation) Some (but not all) stablecoins rely to a large extent on perception and confidence – and once this is shaken, big falls can come into effect.
Crucially, the recent major falls in cryptocurrencies have called into question just how stable stablecoins really are. After all, they are designed to have practically zero volatility by maintaining a “peg” to some other underlying asset.
… For if stablecoins aren’t stable, then where is crypto’s safe space?
How investors respond will be key to the future of cryptocurrencies. We have already seen panic and despair, with some comparing this crash to a traditional run on the banks. But with bank runs, customers tend to be worried that their bank will be unable to give them their money, rather than worrying that their money has become worthless.
A more accurate comparison is with stock market crashes where investors worry that the stocks and shares they hold may soon be worthless. And so far, reaction to this crypto crash suggests that a large section of crypto holders view their investments in a similar way.
Stablecoin volatility shows an urgent need for regulation to protect consumers

11 May
The Crash of Crypto’s Perpetual Wealth Machine
(New York) This week…Luna and its partner coin, Terra, both imploded in spectacular fashion. Terra is supposed to be trade reliable at the value of exactly one U.S. dollar, but it plummeted to 29 cents on Wednesday morning. Luna was down 99 percent since its highs last month. More than $40 billion in wealth — no small part of it from retail investors — was gone in a matter of hours. The shock of the sudden collapse sent the price of bitcoin falling to its lowest point since July, exposing how a coin labeled a Ponzi scheme by its critics had impacted the larger market in digital assets. Meanwhile, shares in leading U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase were off by 25 percent, and the trillion-dollar-plus crypto industry is teeming with rumors about large funds or companies that may be on the brink of failure.
Many of the same crypto players who today are much poorer and more anxious than they were a week ago used to be vocal fans of the Terra-Luna currency duo. [Do] Kwon, a 30-year-old resident of Singapore and, naturally, a Stanford graduate, launched the coins in 2018, but they really caught fire among crypto speculators only in the past few months.
The other side of the Bitcoin
Philosophy professor David Morris: ‘There is a tension between cryptocurrency as a technology and social issues that are key to currencies and finance’
By Damon van der Linde, BA 08
(Concordia University Magazine) Part of the appeal of Bitcoin and other digital currencies is that many are deliberately untethered from the monetary policy, inflation rates and economic growth measurements that influence conventional currency values.
Instead of relying on trust in banks, governments or other people — as is the case with government-issued currencies — currently most cryptocurrencies depend on intense computation, or “mining,” to validate and approve transactions, in ways that prevent theft or fraud

27 April
Bitcoin ban: These are the countries where crypto is restricted or illegal
(Euro News) Bitcoin has been controversial since its beginning in 2009, as have the subsequent cryptocurrencies that followed in its wake.
While widely criticised for its volatility, its use in nefarious transactions and for the exorbitant use of electricity to mine it, crypto is being seen by some, particularly in the developing world, as a safe harbour during economic storms.
El Salvador became the first country to make it legal currency in September 2021, followed now by the Central African Republic in April this year.
But as more people turn to cryptos as either an investment or a lifeline, criticisms of crypto have continued to manifest in an array of restrictions on their usage.
The legal status of Bitcoin and other altcoins (alternative coins to Bitcoin) varies substantially from country to country, while in some, the relationship remains to be properly defined or is constantly changing.

18 April
From niche technology to mainstream market
Though blockchain-based currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are still evolving, Concordia experts agree: They’re reshaping the global financial industry.
By Damon van der Linde, BA 08
(Concordia University Magazine) The genesis of blockchain-based currency can be traced to a nine-page paper published in 2008 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the person or people who created Bitcoin.
“The initial intention of cryptocurrency was not to replace the American or Canadian dollar — it was an experiment,” says Boulianne.
“It became a revolution for those who disagree with the established financial system.”
Bitcoin was issued in 2009 as the world’s first digital currency. As of February 2022, more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies have been created, often by companies seeking to raise money through initial coin offerings (ICOs).

12 December 2019

When China and other big countries launch cryptocurrencies, it will kick off a global revolution
Liang Zhao, Doctoral Researcher, Lund University
(The Conversation) Today’s [international monetary] system dates to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, in which to create a stable trading environment the Allied nations agreed to peg their currencies to the US dollar and the US agreed to peg the dollar to gold.
While technological change has been incredibly fast in the information era, the system of international payments has lagged behind. But once sovereign digital currencies start taking off, this will suddenly change.