DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

A vast web of companies and securities are tied to the 601,550 bitcoin (BTC) at MicroStrategy. Stretching across the globe from its Virginia headquarters, there are shareholders trading instruments tied to those coins as far away as the Australian Securities Exchange. According to TickerGate, retail investors own over 99% of MicroStrategy (MSTR) common stock. However, the form of their ownership varies wildly.  The most basic instrument is MSTR, yet there are countless funds, securities, and derivatives tied to that $71 billion trove of digital gold. Read more: Is MicroStrategy the bitcoin bank Hal Finney dreamed of? As these vehicles proliferate in number and by trading venue, it is illuminating to list the quantity of funds and securities whose investors believe that they have exposure to MicroStrategy’s bitcoin. Indeed, MicroStrategy itself is the first entity that has a claim to BTC that it does not fully possess. Instead, it has legal possession over priva...

A 24-year-old Dutch law student who was the subject of a police manhunt last year was arrested this week after further evidence was submitted in relation to his alleged multi-million euro crypto scheme.  The self-styled crypto banker from Hengelo, Netherlands, vanished last year after his crypto trading scheme collapsed and investments of up to €4.5 million ($4.6 million) from an estimated 300 people, including friends and family, were lost. RTV Oost reports that the man went into hiding after investors harassed him . He then went to the police and, after a consultation, was moved to a safe location in the country.  Dutch student allegedly stole up to €10M running crypto bank Read more: Have Finnish police seized Richard Heart’s Rolex watches? However, he was arrested on Monday after a foundation set up by out-of-pocket investors and which aims to discover what happened to the lost funds, submitted further evidence. According to one victim, the alleged scamme...

Today’s investors face many options beyond stocks and bonds, with crypto vs. traditional finance becoming an increasingly common discourse. Both public and private players are constantly searching for opportunities to deploy capital into investment vehicles that yield substantial returns while posing minimal risk. However, the nature of risk appetite has evolved in the last decade with the emergence of a new asset class accessible from anywhere in the world. Before committing resources to any industry, whether it’s decentralized finance (defi) or traditional markets, invest ors need to understand what separates the two. This article explores crypto vs. traditional finance : the differences, similarities, and whether now is a good time to get into them. Сryptocurrency or traditional finance In the debate of cryptocurrency vs. traditional finance, the key differences lie in their operational models and accessibility. Traditional finance (tradfi) relies on centralized entitie...

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz was among those over the moon with the news, others warn it could be the start of a major institutional takeover. BlackRock’s latest filing for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) trust will drive investors’ confidence in Bitcoin and may even be “the best thing that could happen ” to BTC, according to some crypto industry observers — but others warn of a hidden cost. During an interview on June 16, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said the approval of BlackRock’s ETF application would be “the best thing that could happen to $BTC.” “I say a Hail Mary every night that Larry Fink and @blackrock pull off a @bitcoin ETF," Novogratz said on the Fox News segment, according to a tweet by host Liz Claman. Fun being on @LizClaman show!! And yes, @BlackRock getting a $BTC ETF through would be the best thing that could happen to $BTC. https://t.co/2fFBeB9eyo — Mike Novogratz (@novogratz) June 16, 2023 Meanwhile, cryptocurrency analyst James Edwards of Finder.com —...

TikTok videos sporting popular crypto-related hashtags — such as crypto, cryptok, cryptoadvice, cryptocurrency, cryptotrading and cryptoinvesting — have cumulatively churned over 6 billion views. More than 1 out of 3 influencers on TikTok, the go-to social media platform for the young generation, have been found to post misleading videos about Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency investments in a recent study.  TikTok has been widely adopted as a video-based alternative to Google searches. However, some influencers have been found to share unvetted misinformation on the social media platform about crypto investments, often trying to convince unwary viewers to put their (or their parents) hard-earned money into loss-making cryptocurrencies. TikTok influencers use the hashtag ‘#cryptok’ while posting crypto-related content. An analysis of over 1,161 such TikTok videos — conducted by dappGambl — revealed that over one in three videos on crypto TikToks were misleading. The research also found...

Q4 2022 saw investment capital inflows of $2.3 billion, continuing the trend since April sparked by the collapse of Terra and subsequent fallout. Cointelegraph Research has analyzed all the deals and trends from Venture Capital in the Blockchain industry during the fourth quarter of 2022. The second half of 2022 saw a dramatic decline in capital inflows across all five major sectors of the Blockchain industry: decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs), infrastructure and Web3. The first half of 2022 brought in just under $30 billion of investment , while the second half only saw $7.3 billion — a dramatic plunge. As the crypto industry moves into 2023, Cointelegraph Research has looked at the data from its Venture Capital Database, which contains comprehensive details on deals, mergers and acquisition activity, investors, crypto companies, funds and more. Using this database, Cointelegraph Research crunches the numbers to find the most import...

November saw a reduction in BTC mining revenue for publicly traded miners, a decline in venture capital investment, and signals of Bitcoin going to $12,000. The crypto market s have been in decline since the start of the second quarter of 2022. Each time it seemed like the apparent crypto winter would experience a minor thaw, another notable collapse happened: Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, and more recently, FTX. Approaching the end of 2022, it appears that the same negative sentiments are likely to remain. While some analysts say that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) derivatives are currently flashing positive signals for the market due to their high volatility, that same volatility is impacting the sentiment of other areas, including regulation, mining, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto stocks. Even with all this, companies such as Porsche are getting into the Web3 and NFT space and Brazil passed a law legalizing crypto payments nationwide. Over 60 deals from Venture Capital w...

“We could not sleep properly for a few days,” said Jaime Zulueta, as he told Cointelegraph the story of how he and his wife dealt with losing their funds at FTX. While it’s undeniable that companies were significantly affected by the FTX debacle, retail investors like Jaime Zulueta – who recently just got married – also bore the burden of trusting a trading platform that ended up collapsing to oblivion.  Speaking to Cointelegraph, Zulueta told the story of how he and his wife dealt with the challenge of losing some of their Investments right after their wedding . According to the crypto investor, he first found out about the exchange because it was popular in Taiwan, his partner’s home country. “Prior to using the platform I also read the numerous media articles on FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried,” he added. When asked about how they felt when they found out about the collapse of FTX, Zulueta said that he was "saddened and surprised" because some of their personal fu...