Digital Currency

This week, two developments point toward continued interest in bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the reason the “commerce on the internet” meme may be more accurate than the “digital gold” narrative. One of the developments is the debut of a service allowing use of Lightning – a protocol built to scale transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain – for payments with online merchants that use the Visa network. The company behind the service is called Moon, and it uses a similar mechanism to that used by other bitcoin commerce startups, such as Fold. The…

The white-hot market for non-fungible tokens has become so big, NFTs are even showing up in the headlines of mainstream publications like the New York Times and on cable news programs. But can the craze have much of an effect on bitcoin (BTC, -0.41%)? Probably not, at least for now. The oldest and largest cryptocurrency, which, at around $57,000, ended a weeklong winning streak Friday, sits at the center of digital-asset markets, accounting for some 62% of the overall industry’s $1.7 trillion market capitalization. So it would stand to reason there might be some spillover…

Web 3.0 analytics and querying platform The Graph announced Radicle, a peer-to-peer software building stack, will host its governance protocol, the Graph Improvement Proposal (GIP) Process. All future protocol governance will also be hosted on Radicle, which is akin to a decentralized GitHub. The GIP process is meant to make sure protocol upgrades are frictionless and to allow the decentralized community and stakeholders to contribute to the overall development of the Graph protocol. It lays out how contributors can propose an idea and provides a methodology for the The Graph Council, which governs…

Most people never even see the server that runs the internet network in their houses. But Start9 Labs is working to change that with its latest upgrades to the Embassy Server, a self-sovereign, private internet server and operating system for your home. It’s an ambitious project to make self-sovereign computing viable for consumers, but one that offers a way out of the centralized internet people know. To expand on their efforts, Start9 Labs recently closed a $1.2 million funding round spearheaded by Collider Ventures, Ten31 and Erik Voorhees, CEO of…

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has hired former U.S. senator and ambassador to China Maxwell Baucus as a government relations adviser. The exchange announced Thursday in a press release it had hired the long-term government official to provide guidance and advice to the firm and work with U.S. regulators. The move could signal a shift in Binance’s approach to the U.S. market, which it currently doesn’t serve directly. Baucus was an ambassador to China under former President Barack Obama between 2014 and 2017. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Senate and…

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has hired former U.S. senator and ambassador to China Maxwell Baucus as a government relations adviser. The exchange announced Thursday in a press release it had hired the long-term government official to provide guidance and advice to the firm and work with U.S. regulators. The move could signal a shift in Binance’s approach to the U.S. market, which it currently doesn’t serve directly. Baucus was an ambassador to China under former President Barack Obama between 2014 and 2017. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Senate and…

Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $57,572.97 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Climbing 2.11% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $54,323.61-$57,632.81 (CoinDesk 20) BTC trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians. bitcoin trading on CoinbaseSource: TradingView The bitcoin market is back in bull mode but for one key attribute, almost like a missing tooth: low trading volume. Bitcoin’s price on Thursday extended its winning streak to a seventh day as a renewed appetite for risk-taking in traditional markets sent U.S. stocks to…

Crypto.com has launched a free service it says reduces the complexity of filing cryptocurrency tax returns. In a blog post Wednesday, the Hong Kong-headquartered exchange said its new tool provides “an estimation of taxable gains/losses on relevant crypto transactions,” which can be downloaded for tax filing. Users can import transaction records from supported exchanges and wallets via CSV files or using API synchronization where supported. Initially, the service is only available in Canada but will later be rolled out to other jurisdictions. When that happens, the tool will use country-specific tax calculation…

Youtube is said to have settled a court case brought by Ripple that alleged the video platform failed to enforce its own policies and allowed fake accounts to impersonate the blockchain payments company and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse. In a series of tweets Tuesday, Garlinghouse said the companies have now opted to “work together” with YouTube to “prevent, detect and take down these scams.” In April, Ripple sued the video streaming giant for failing to effectively police against scams involving the cryptocurrency XRP (-1.91%), resulting in monetary damage to users and reputational harm to Ripple. The…

Digital Currency Group, the parent of Grayscale, said it’s authorized the purchase of up to $250 million worth of the lagging shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC), its subsidiary’s flagship product. In an announcement Wednesday, DCG – which is also the parent company of CoinDesk – said it will be buying GBTC shares on the open market. The purchase comes as the price of GBTC shares has fallen from an all-time high of $58.22 set last month to $41.40 last week before rebounding somewhat. In addition, the shares, which had…