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• Both Bitcoinica and slush’s pool bear the theft’s losses on behalf of their customers.
• The Ontario Securities Commission has approved the launch of Purpose Bitcoin ETF, Toronto-based asset management company Purpose Investments Inc.
• AMC will begin accepting Bitcoin payments for concessions and theater tickets as soon as the end of the year, marking the latest development in AMC’s hard lean into memestock superstardom.
• Because crypto traders are aping into Bitcoin-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — specifically, BRC-20 tokens.
• Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and the stock markets dropped violently in mid-March 2020.
• Using offshore banks, novel cryptographic voucher systems and other solutions, these trading platforms continue to operate, but at greatly reduced volumes from their hayday in 2013.

VanEck CEO Jan van Eck explained that the companies filing the rule change proposal had been in talks with the SEC, but these talks ended when the shutdown began. To avoid a probable rejection due to the closure, the proposal was withdrawn. CoinMarketCap removed prices from South Korean exchanges from its calculations of cryptocurrency rates without any warning, resulting in a steep drop in all prices. Additionally, Korea’s financial authorities on Jan. 8 launched an investigation into cryptocurrency-related services provided by local banks amid criticism that recent government measures are having little impact on cooling the markets. A forensic study on bitcoin’s 2017 boom has found that nearly the entire rise of the digital currency at the time is attributable to “one large player,” although the market manipulator remains unidentified. Finance professors John Griffin and Amin Shams – instructors at University of Texas and the Ohio State University, respectively – analyzed over 200 gigabytes of data for the transaction history between bitcoin and tether, another digital currency.

Fake Bomb Threats Across US Demanding Bitcoin Ransom – December 13, 2018

On May 7, the price of the then-$18-billion algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD (UST), which is supposed to maintain a $1 peg, started to wobble and fell to 35 cents on May 9. Its companion token, LUNA, which was meant to stabilize UST’s price, fell from $80 to a few cents by May 12. Luna Foundation Guard, the nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the Luna ecosystem confirmed it depleted its BTC reserves from around 80,000 Bitcoins to 313 bitcoins during the attempt to save UST’s peg. This eventually lead to the largest crypto crash ever, with an estimated $60 billion wipeout, shaking the complete global digital currency market. However, in February Mt. Gox – still one of the largest and most important crypto exchanges – suspended withdrawals.

By mid-August, Bitcoin had powered through $4,000 and then much higher. Retail traders were suddenly aware of the cryptocurrency and were driving volumes and prices higher. Mt. Gox, the Japan-based https://www.tokenexus.com/ exchange that in 2013 handled 70% of all worldwide bitcoin traffic, declared bankruptcy in February 2014, with bitcoins worth about $390 million missing, for unclear reasons.

Tradehill Shuts Down (Again) – August 30, 2013

The host of CNBC’s Mad Money, Jim Cramer, played himself in a courtroom scene where he testifies that he doesn’t consider bitcoin a true currency, saying “There’s no central bank to regulate it; it’s digital and functions completely peer to peer”. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group, started accepting bitcoins in January 2011, then stopped Bitcoin Price History accepting them in June 2011, citing concerns about a lack of legal precedent about new currency systems. The EFF’s decision was reversed on 17 May 2013 when they resumed accepting bitcoin. Shaking confidence in Bitcoin and the validity of some transactions, the price briefly plummets and the Mt. Gox exchange temporarily suspends bitcoin deposits.

The block reward was decreased for the second time in Bitcoin’s history, resulting in a new reward of 12.5 bitcoins per mined block. The automatic 50% drop continued Bitcoin’s original design to gradually decrease the number of newly created bitcoins until the block reward ends completely, which is estimated to occur in the year 2140. The US government denied the application of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss — the brothers who once claimed to be co-inventors of Facebook — to operate an exchange-traded fund (ETF) to make it easier for investors to buy Bitcoin.

Week Key Points

Tether is an asset known as a “stablecoin,” which has its trading value connected to the dollar. The professors’ study found that tethers being traded for bitcoins revealed a pattern. Benjamin M. Lawsky, Superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services, announces a proposed set of regulations for businesses that interact with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The goal of the new regulations, according to Lawsky, are to help “protect consumers and root out illegal activity – without stifling beneficial innovation”. The regulations would require entities that deal in Bitcoin to run background checks/fingerprints for all employees, get written approval for new business activities by the state, and to immediately convert any Bitcoin profit to US dollars. Affected entities would be exchanges, mining pools, bulk Bitcoin sellers, and altcoin software creators based in New York state, or that have customers in New York state.