A cryptocurrency credit startup "SALT Lending" and a former member of the board of directors of the company Erik Voorhees are under investigation by a US regulator. It is reported by the publication The Wall Street Journal, citing "sources familiar with the situation."
According to the report, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) called "SALT Lending" representatives to court in February. The reason for this was the $ 50 million ICO spent by the company at the end of 2017.
At a meeting with the Deputy General Counsel of the International Monetary Fund Ross Leckow, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed the opinion that universal regulation would spur Bitcoin and blockchain adoption. The meeting was held as part of the Fintech Festival in Singapore.
"Regulatory clarity has a huge ability to drive digital asset and blockchain adoption. It is surprising how many markets still have uncertainty," said Garlinghouse.Enter heading here...
The eccentric cryptocurrency enthusiast and creator of one of the first antivirus companies, John McAfee, once again confirmed his opinion about Bitcoin for a million dollars by 2020. Moreover, according to him, this is a very conservative forecast.
Despite the significant market downturn and Bitcoin prices, McAfee remains calm and optimistic about his prediction.
At the Web Summit conference held in Lisbon, venture investor Tim Draper once again confirmed his opinion that by 2022, Bitcoin will cost $ 250,000.
Initially, such a statement regarding the first cryptocurrency Draper made back in April of this year. He noted that it is not important what the public believes in - Bitcoin will add value.
Former chairman of Google, billionaire Eric Emerson Schmidt, gave an interview to economist Tyler Cowen at an organized Village Global event, which was held in San Francisco.
The dialogue covered various topics, such as the future of technology, the division of the Internet, recruitment methods and the reform of corporate governance. In addition, Schmidt expressed his opinion about Ethereum, stating that he has enormous potential and has every chance of becoming a powerful platform.
The developer, who formalized the code that underlies most of the primary token allocations (ICO), the Ethereum standard ERC-20, proposed a new approach in an attempt to make financing schemes safer for investors.
Speaking in Prague on Devcon4, the annual Ethereum Developer Conference, Fabian Vogelsteller proposed the concept of a "reversible ICO" or RICO that would allow token investors to return their funds at any stage of the project's life. In particular, the concept involves the creation of a special smart contract that allows investors to "cancel their financing obligations".
The head of the largest Bitcoin derivatives trading platform BitMEX Arthur Hayes expressed the opinion that the "bearish" trend in the cryptocurrency market may last another 18 months.
"My view is the volatility environment that exists right now could persist for another 12 to 18 months, the flatness. I am just basing it off my previous experience. I started in bitcoin in 2013, when the price went from $250 to $1,300. And then 2014 to 2015 was sort of the nuclear bear market. Price crashed, volume crashed — very, very difficult to make money," he said.
Former head of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen, known for her extreme skepticism about cryptocurrency, unexpectedly for herself became the owner of a small part of Bitcoin, having received it as a gift.
It is reported that the founder of the Bitcoin-gift service Biterica Raz Suprovichi sent Yellen 0.0031642 BTC (approximately $ 20) via her email address at the University of Berkeley.
The well-known critic of the Federal Reserve and part-time supporter of cryptocurrency Ron Paul published an article entitled "Trump Is Right, Fed Is Crazy", where he urged to abandon the fiat money printed by central banks, and start using alternative calculation options, which include cryptocurrencies.
Paul, discussing recent interest rate rises that US President Donald Trump called "crazy", explains that people always prefer using precious metals in cases where the national currency becomes unstable because the value of gold and silver is more stable. Therefore, the only chance to avoid a pending crisis is to abolish the "monetary madness," which includes the taxing of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The founder and CEO of Xapo, Wences Casares, stressed that Bitcoin is an intellectual experiment that still needs years to prove its success.
"It may work, it might not work," Casares said on Monday in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We are in the equivalent of 1992 for the internet," said Casares.
During the international meeting of regulators held last week, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) positively assessed the potential use of the blockchain, emphasizing that the agency should respect the role of technology in financial markets.
CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam called for "unbiased regulation" of the financial technology industry, in particular, noting a number of applications for the distributed registry (DLT) during his speech at the annual International Association of Swaps and Derivatives (ISDA) in Tokyo.
The head of the Indian non-profit trade organization called the cryptocurrency "illegal" and urged enterprises to comply with local legislation.
Debjani Ghosh, president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), consisting of more than 2,000 companies, said that, from an organization's point of view, cryptocurrencies in India are illegal. According to her, the "illegal" status of cryptocurrencies was because the government could not keep up with innovations.
The head of deVere Group, Nigel Green believes that in the coming years, the superiority of Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market will significantly decrease. However, this will not prevent the first cryptocurrency to grow by another 5000%.
Green, however, recognizes the merits of Bitcoin and the revolution accomplished by this cryptocurrency, but believes that new technologies and cryptocurrencies will surpass the progenitor in time.
Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor said that cryptocurrency issued by central banks is "the inevitable future." However, he noted that people themselves will decide what forms of money and when to use.
In a conversation with the Cointelegraph at the "Money20/20" conference, Taylor said that central banks have advantages in issuing their own cryptocurrencies. However, it all depends on the adoption of such coins by the market: "the free market can certainly develop a better embodiment of money than the government."
Large economies should begin coordinated regulation of cryptocurrency, said Circle cryptocurrency startup leader Jeremy Allaire. He stressed the growing support for the creation of international regulations for the regulation of digital assets by the cryptocurrency industry.
"Ultimately there needs to be normalization at the G20 level of critical crypto-related regulatory matters," he believes.
The creator of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer expressed concern about the arrival of institutional investors in the cryptocurrency industry. In his opinion, such a development of events could turn a decentralized ecosystem into "Wall Street 2.0".
"This is why I never understand people getting excited about ETFs, Bakkt, etc. Goodbye to decentralized peer-to-peer cash. Hello to Wall Street 2.0." Palmer tweets.
The loud statements of the President of Venezuela about the upcoming triumph of El Petro cryptocurrency and the possibilities to destroy the US sanctions pressure with its help have not yet received practical confirmation.
Against this background, a number of questions arise: is there a future for the coin, will it be presented in the listing of stock exchanges and can Maduro be able to put the country "on its feet" with the help of Petro.
Fake mining apps for XRP, Cardano (ADA) and Tether cryptocurrency found on Google Play. However, in reality, these applications only pretend that they are mining virtual coins, because from a technical point of view, mining of these tokens is impossible.
Fortinet employees noticed that applications are being promoted on Google Play as a means of mining XRP, Cardano (ADA) and Tether crypto-assets, but in fact, they are used only for displaying advertisements.