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China continues to dominate the crypto crime scene despite its latest crackdown

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As China was seen progressing towards its central bank digital currency [CBDC], the digital yuan, it decided to bid adieu to the crypto-verse. While several believe that crypto is liberating and allows individuals to steer away from the shackles of centralized institutions, the Chinese government takes down the interest in crypto in the country.

Recently, China shut down an array of crypto mining firms across the region. Despite this immense clampdown, the rate of crypto crime in the country has remained relatively high however, the numbers have comparatively reduced.

A recent report from Chainalysis revealed that the country’s crypto criminal record has been depleting since the end of 2019, yet China remains in the top five.

China’s crypto crime rate slowly decreasing

Chainalysis’s recent report titled, “Cryptocurrency and China” pointed out that the country had witnessed about $2.2 billion worth of crypto involved in illicit transactions. In addition to this, the majority of Chinese addresses had reportedly garnered crypto worth over $2 billion through scams as well as the dark web.

Despite this, the report suggested that the country’s crypto-related criminal activities were reducing. The report further read,

“Notably, China’s transaction volume with illicit addresses has fallen drastically over the time period studied, both in terms of raw value and in relation to other countries. Much of the drop is due to the absence of large-scale Ponzi schemes like the 2019 PlusToken scam, which primarily targeted users across Asia and whose proceeds were largely laundered through Chinese services. While China remains one of the top-ranked countries for illicit transaction volume, it used to beat all others by a wide margin, suggesting that cryptocurrency-related crime in the country has fallen.”

The Chinese police weren’t far behind. The country’s law enforcement managed to nab several criminals in over 1,000 arrests in June alone.

While the US remains the top-ranked country in terms of receiving the most number of crypto, China was right behind the US.

Amidst this bustle, the country plunged way ahead in the crypto game. The digital yuan was already being used by the public while several other countries were still in the research stage.

Mastercard teams up with Australian crypto exchange CoinJar to issue crypto cards

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Mastercard has been making immense news in the crypto-verse. The payments platform continued to embrace cryptocurrencies despite the market’s steep fall. While the platform has made an array of advancements in the crypto-verse, another feather was added to its cap.

In a recent announcement, an Australian cryptocurrency exchange, CoinJar revealed that it had joined hands with Mastercard. This partnership will elevate the exchange’s CoinJar Card as it would allow users to carry out crypto purchases at places that accept Mastercard.

Considering the payments giant’s immaculate user base, this move would be great for the crypto industry as it would boost adoption.

Mastercard and CoinJar to ramp up crypto-adoption

Elaborating about its latest association with Mastercard, CoinJar in its latest blog post pointed out that users would be able to avail this service by either physical or digital cards. Along with this, an Apple Pay and Google Pay integration would also be made available.

Soon after a user initiates a payment in crypto, CoinJar would reportedly convert the desired crypto asset into Australia’s fiat currency before the transaction is carried out. A total of 30 cryptocurrencies are supported by the CoinJar Card and this list includes, Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], etc.

The blog post further read,

“CoinJar Card allows you to use the cryptocurrency in your CoinJar to make purchases, wherever Mastercard is accepted. All you need to do is choose which crypto you want to spend and it’ll be automatically converted to Australian dollars when you make a transaction – no need to preload. […] With full digital wallet support, you can spend your crypto instantly and securely with the device in your hand (or on your wrist).”

In addition to this, the platform pointed out that the activation of the card was free of cost. Furthermore, users would be able to enjoy CoinJar Rewards as it claims to have a low 1% transaction fee.

Dormant Bitcoins [BTC] are moving again as sentiment turns neutral

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Bitcoin [BTC] was back above $40K after the weekend tumble. August has opened the doors for the silent bulls that have managed to stir a resurgence in the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. The dollars invested in Bitcoin and are on the move according to the blockchain analytics platform Santiment.

According to the firm, the mean dollar invested ages in the bull run for both Bitcoin and Ethereum has not stayed dormant. As a matter of fact, more and more dollars are being poured into the coin market and the previously dormant investment was being moved.

Santiment’s latest insight revealed the flattening of the Mean Dollar Invested Age as Bitcoin was marching closer to its all-time high depicting a phase of dry up. However, this trend has since changed. As price saw a series of downtrend after mid-May, the metric for not just Bitcoin but also Ethereum has been moving back up.

The crypto analytic platform revealed,

“We’re seeing some renewed movement in invested dollars (for BTC at least, not ETH), and BTC’s line is curling down again. If the line continues to move down from here, it can be a prime signal to reveal a second bull cycle may be starting.”

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Bitcoin [BTC] sentiment turns to Neutral

Bitcoin addresses currently owning 100-10,000 BTC now collectively hold 9.23 million coins in their wallets. Interestingly, this is a new peak for this tier demonstrating a massive bullish phase. In fact, the previous all-time high was observed to be on the 5th of April, just one week prior to the crypto-asset’s price surging above $64K.

Over the past month, these addresses have accumulated nearly 170K more BTC. This tremendous pace mirrors to that of late December 2020, just before the staggering bull run that started this year.

Additionally, the flagship cryptocurrency finally made a comeback to ‘neutral’ after being stuck in ‘fear’ territory since mid-May. As Bitcoin reached $42,600 after recovery last week, sentiments around the collective crypto market appeared to be returning back to normal.

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Jack Dorsey’s Square to buy Afterpay for $39B in Australia’s largest-ever buyout

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Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s digital financial platform Square has announced its plans to acquire ASX-listed buy now pay later behemoth Afterpay in an all-stock deal. At $29 billion, the transaction for the entire deal is said to be Australia’s biggest-ever buyout.

The founders of Afterpay, Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen will continue to hold the position with the company.

Jack Dorsey asserted that both Square and Afterpay have a shared purpose to create a business to make the financial system fair, accessible, and inclusive. The exec claimed that the Australian ‘buy now, pay later’ firm Afterpay, has built a trusted brand aligned with those principles. Dorsey went on to add that company’s buy now, pay later feature would be implemented with its Seller and Cash app products.

“Together, we can better connect our Cash App and Seller ecosystems to deliver even more compelling products and services for merchants and consumers, putting the power back in their hands.”

The main objective behind this acquisition is to facilitate the two entities to deliver innovative financial products and services that foster access to more users and encourage incremental revenue for merchants of all sizes. According to the official press release by the payment juggernaut, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, if all the closing conditions are met.

Commenting on the latest development, Alyssa Henry, Lead of Square’s Seller business stated,

“Buy now, pay later has been a powerful growth tool for sellers globally. We are thrilled to not only add this product to our Seller ecosystem but to do it with a trusted and innovative team.”

Square’s Bitcoin Revenue

Cash App, which happens to be the peer-to-peer payments service of the payment firm Square, raked in $2.72 billion in Bitcoin revenue in the second quarter of 2021. Interestingly, the yearly revenues rose by 200%. Announcing the impressive earnings figures, Square also revealed that its Bitcoin service accounted for the lion’s share of its total net revenue of $4.68 billion for the second quarter which was up by 143% year over year despite a series of market corrections.

Bitcoin revenue and gross profit declined from the first quarter of the year because of unstable prices that had an adverse effect on the trading activity as opposed to prior quarters.

Bitcoin on the cusp of breaking $42K amidst improving difficulty, hash rate

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Bitcoin [BTC] clinched 25% weekly gains and was currently flirting with a $42K level. The recovery comes amidst considerable network improvements. The world’s largest cryptocurrency broke the second-longest streak of difficulty mining drop on the 31st of July. At the time of writing, the figure stood at 14.50 T after surging by 6%.

The increase was observed for the first time since China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency mining in May this year which resulted in four consecutive drops. It continued to decline in June and July as the crackdown intensified in China, causing them to leave the country or sell their mining equipment. The damage was severe since Chinese miners contributed to more than 65% of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate at the time.

Downward trend slowly reverses as BTC miners complete relocation process 

The largest drop in mining difficulty occurred on the 3rd of July of this year when the rate fell by 28%. Two weeks later, the Bitcoin network encountered another drop of almost 5%. While it was still far from the all-time high of 25.05 T, the positive adjustment revived the network from the 13 T level, where it had dropped during the previous adjustment.

Difficulty Line 150426 BTCCOM

Several industry experts have speculated the quick expansion of mining facilities across North America, as well as the comeback of Chinese miners via overseas hosting sites as two major factors that have fostered the growth of Bitcoin mining difficulty.

Bitcoin’s Hash rate up by 27%

Besides, this difficulty adjustment essentially marks the beginning of a surge in hash rate in the coming year. Since meandering in the lows below 85 exahash per sec, the BTC hash rate has gone by more than 27% in less than a month. It has managed to maintain an upward consistency. Needless to say, Beijing’s crackdown on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining has been no less than a disaster for miners in the country. But it can also be a stroke of good luck for the miners in other parts of the world.

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Many experts are of the opinion that Bitcoin might have surpassed the minimum low difficulty point and since now the network could potentially follow an uptrend if there aren’t any regulatory upheaval or changing BTC price.

Microstrategy Doubles Down On Bitcoin As Michael Saylor Continues Bring Bullish

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Bitcoin’s burgeoning reputation has been helped along by price fluctuations and changes in the cryptocurrency’s market cap. Despite the latest bear trends, proponents of the cryptocurrency believe that Bitcoin will be the currency of the future. Microstrategy, the popular business intelligence and mobile software firm claimed on Friday that they will be adding more Bitcoin to their roster. 

The company’s stance on the world’s largest cryptocurrency comes on the back of reports suggesting losses incurred by Microstrategy. This loss was spread across sectors and according to CEO Michael Saylor, the asset class would only help in revitalizing the market. The report also said:

“We continue to be pleased by the results of the implementation of our digital asset strategy. Our latest capital raise allowed us to expand our digital holdings, which now exceed 105,000 bitcoins. Going forward, we intend to continue to deploy additional capital into our digital asset strategy.”

2021 is turning out to be a great year for the company as second-quarter gross profits cross the $100 million mark. Microstrategy’s latest report further touched on the company’s total BTC holdings. According to sources, Microstrategy had amassed 105,085 BTC with cumulative impairment losses of $690 million. A subsidiary of the parent company, Micrtostrategy LLC holds approx. 92,079 BTC. 

As of now, Saylor and Microstrategy look to be putting their faith in Bitcoin’s functionalities. The BTC proponent even reiterated recently that if the price of Bitcoin was lower four years later than it is now, he would consider his cryptocurrency strategy. Other players in the market praised Microstratagey’s bullish nature and urged them to keep up the good work. 

Finland is looking to get rid of seized Bitcoin [BTC]

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Finland revealed that it was looking to carry out the sale of all the Bitcoin [BTC] that the government had acquired.

Law enforcement across the globe had to elevate their skills as cybercrime started flourishing. Criminals started exploring the crypto market as soon as they figured that the industry was less regulated. However, the government proved to be way ahead of these miscreants as multiple cybercrimes related to cryptocurrencies were taken down by the police. While the crypto market has witnessed a surge in both price as well as popularity, governments across the globe have started to sell the crypto assets acquired during these busts. Finland has become the latest country to take this route.

In a recent blog post, the Finnish Customs elaborated on how the agency was looking for an operator to carry out the sale of cryptocurrencies amassed during busts.

Finland calls for operators to carry out sale of crypto

Interested operators throughout the European Union would be allowed to apply and the last day for doing so was set to 30 August 2021. Out of the list, only three entities would be selected to carry the sale out. Finland’s Tulli revealed that it was seeking a safe and reliable source to sell all the cryptocurrency that has been seized.

Pekka Pylkkänen, Director of Financial Management of the Finnish agency stated,

“We ask interested operators to participate in the tendering. Our aim is to create a permanent procedure through which we safely and reliably can realise cryptocurrencies forfeited to the State also in the future. The chosen operator must e.g. extensively fulfil the requirements of the legislation on cryptocurrencies.”

Previously, the Lithuanian government also executed something similar. The government reportedly put 6.5 million Euros of seized cryptocurrency for sale. Finland would be selling about $78 million worth of Bitcoin during the imminent sale.

Erik Voorhees calls out toxic Bitcoin maxis for “disgusting” behavior

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The crypto-verse has a variety of people including Bitcoin [BTC] lovers to Bitcoin haters. While Erik Voorhees, the founder of ShapeShift respects everyone’s choice, toxic maximalism is something that he can’t stand. Further prolonging his angst against toxic Bitcoin maxis, Voorhees appeared on a podcast and called them out.

Bitcoin has been in existence for more than a decade now. While several have immense respect and love for Bitcoin as it is the first cryptocurrency to exist, a few others believe that other currencies that were rolled out later have better use cases than Bitcoin.

Appearing on Laura Shin’s recent podcast episode, Erik Voorhees went on to elaborate on his recent encounter with Bitcoin maximalists.

Erik Voorhees embarrassed by toxic Bitcoin maximalists

Speaking about his recent experience at the Miami conference, Voorhees suggested that he was embarrassed about the people that were there. During his time at the conference, he stated,  “Did I hear someone on that prior panel say ‘If you’re against toxic maximalism, you’re against Bitcoin and you’re against freedom?’… Yeah, that’s some bullshit.”

Addressing this comment, the ShapeShift CEO pointed out how Bitcoin maxis have spun themselves on to thinking how trashing other people with different views, “is a virtue and its helping Bitcoin.”

While noting how this behavior was nothing but “disgusting”, Erik Voorhees revealed that he was embarrassed by the same. He further stated,

“These people were on stage talking about the virtues of toxic maximalism. I don’t know when they got into Bitcoin, but absolutely that is not the community that I come from in Bitcoin.”

Furthermore, he noted how Bitcoin maxis often forget that the entire crypto community was dealing with a common enemy which is the central banks and fiat currency. He once again stressed how the Dogecoin community or the Ethereum community weren’t a rival.

Bitcoin Miner Genesis Digital Assets Raises $125M

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Bitcoin mining operator Genesis Digital Assets has raised $125 million in equity funding to drive its aggressive expansion plans. According to the official press release, the funding round was led by Kingsway Capital, a UK-based private equity fund with over $2 billion in assets under management [AUM] that focuses on frontier emerging markets. As part of the funding round, Kingsway’s CEO Manuel Stotz has joined the Genesis Digital Assets board of directors.

Stotz spoke about the importance of Bitcoin in terms of financial inclusion of the global poor and unbanked and said that BTC mining provides security to make this possible. He also revealed that the team behind the mining operator has been building highly profitable large-scale mining farms for approximately eight years while the industry as a whole has only been around for twelve. The exec also added,

“There’s no one else in the bitcoin mining industry that has this level of experience and we’re incredibly excited to support their next wave of growth and long-term vision.”

Bitcoin Mining Firm’s Aggressive Expansion Plans

Genesis Digital Assets plans to pour in the freshly acquired capital of $125 million to buy equipment and develop new data centers across the United States and the Nordic region. As of July 2021, the firm’s data center capacity is at more than 150MW. This represents a total hash rate of over 2.6 Exahashes (EH/s); which accounts for almost 3% of the global Bitcoin mining hash rate. Within a year, the BTC mining firm anticipates an additional 5.5 EH/s to be online. Besides, the GDA also expects to reach a capacity of over 1 gigawatt by the end of 2023.

Following the development, Abdumalik Mirakhmedov, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Genesis Digital Assets, reportedly stated,

“Our mission is to provide the infrastructure that will power the open-source monetary system revolution and we’re excited to have Kingsway Capital and Manuel onboard as we continue to scale our mining operations.”

Over 13.8K Bitcoin Moved From Binance After Price Hits $40K

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Bitcoin [BTC] has performed exceptionally well this week. What previously appeared to be a case of a “dead cat bounce” pattern, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has once again sent the market into a frenzy. The market saw substantial gains that pulled the coin back up to $40K. As the confidence among investors grew, a fresh sign of accumulation was noted by the on-chain analytic platform Intotheblock.

As per its data, the leading crypto exchange, Binance witnessed the largest Bitcoin withdrawal from this platform in the last three months. Over 13.8K BTC was withdrawn from the centralized exchange after the crypto-asset touched $40K on the 27th of July. Last time, this amount of BTC was withdrawn on the 19th of April when the price stood at $56K. ITB mentioned that negative exchanges Net Flow typically signals an accumulating trend, as market players seek to transfer their assets to cold storage wallets or yield services.

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Binance Tightening KYC

Another reason as pointed out by a community member was Binance’s plans to beef up KYC provisions. The exchange had revealed its intention of strengthening withdrawal limits and launching a new tax reporting instrument as it faces a flurry of government investigations as well as bad publicity. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case, as Bitcoin outflows were only been limited to Binance. As a matter of fact, several prominent exchanges observed significant outflows during the same time frame.

Charles Edwards, who happens to be the Founder of Capriole Investments, revealed the same in his latest tweet while attaching a chart by CryptoQuant. His tweet read,

“Massive exchange outflows across multiple exchanges. BTC reserves on exchanges now sitting near 2021 lows.”

Bitcoin Sees Third Straight Week of Massive Outflows

CoinShares had recently revealed that crypto investment products and funds have been recording massive outflows for a third straight week. Bitcoin, undoubtedly, outshines the rest of the market as it saw a third straight outflow. The official numbers for the crypto outflows currently stood more than $27 million for the week that ended on the 23rd of July. A massive portion of this was derived from Bitcoin outflows which amounted to $24 million. James Butterfill, investment strategist, at CoinShares stated,

“Last week’s outflows suggest negative sentiment still pervades the asset class despite more recent constructive comments from key industry players.”