A key exec from the US Federal Reserve warned investors this week that cryptocurrency prices could plummet to zero in the future.
Fed governor Christopher J Waller said in a recent speech at the Global Interdependence Center:
“To me, a crypto asset is nothing more than a speculative asset, like a baseball card. If people believe others will buy it from them in the future at a positive price, then it will trade at a positive price today. If not, its price will go to zero.”
He continued: “If people want to hold such an asset, then go for it. I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t collect baseball cards, either […] If you buy crypto assets and the price goes to zero at some point, please don’t be surprised and don’t expect taxpayers to socialize your losses.”
Waller continued, explaining that several major “crypto-related firms,” which included “payment platforms, exchanges, crypto lenders, and hedge funds” had filed for bankruptcy. He added that retail and institutional investors faced difficulties due to the ongoing crypto winter.
He also criticised banks and other financial institutions facilitating cryptocurrency trading. He stated such organisations backing crypto transactions presented “a heightened risk of fraud and scams, legal uncertainties, and the prevalence of inaccurate and misleading financial disclosures.”
Waller later urged that banks joining cryptocurrency trading programmes should meet Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering obligations.
He concluded that “spillovers” across the financial system had been “minimal.”
Fed Comments on Bank-Crypto Collaborations
The news comes after Michael Barr, Federal Reserve vice chairman of supervision, warned banks accepting cryptocurrency deposits should remain aware of increased liquidity risks.
In a speech in October, he said the Fed was working with regulatory groups to note risks to crypto-backing banks across the financial industry.
Barr stated at the time: “The recent volatility in crypto markets has demonstrated the extent of centralization and interconnectedness among crypto-asset companies, which contributes to amplified stress. While banks were not directly exposed to losses from these events, these episodes have highlighted potential risks for banking organizations.”
Swanage, United Kingdom, 14th February, 2023, Chainwire
UK-based PEGA Pool announces the official launch of its eco-friendly Bitcoin mining pool that enables clients to offset their carbon footprint and incentivizes them to use renewable energy. By allowing clients to connect their ASIC miners to its platform and mine together, it provides them with a more consistent and attractive income than mining alone.
PEGA Pool is one of the world’s top 10 largest Bitcoin mining pools, according to BTC.com. With the growing adoption of Bitcoin, the Proof-of-Work mining operations have received a lot of criticism from individuals, corporations, and governments over the industry’s fossil fuel consumption. Countries such as China have banned crypto mining due to its negative environmental impacts. As a result, the industry is witnessing a spike in demand for sustainable mining options.
PEGA Pool’s mission to create a more sustainable industry began with its parent company PEGA Mining Ltd, which uses only renewable energy for its mining operations, demonstrating that large-scale Bitcoin mining with green energy alone is absolutely possible.
David Bungay, CEO of PEGA Pool, said, “I am very excited to announce the official launch of PEGA Pool, our British Eco-Friendly Bitcoin Mining Pool. Our journey began with PEGA Mining which gave us the desire to build PEGA Pool and provide the world with what was missing in our industry. We built PEGA Pool so that we could not only offer our clients a top-performing trustworthy mining pool but also provide them with an incentive to change the industry for the better and follow in our green footsteps.”
PEGA Pool offers an aggressive payout structure with a competitive Full-Pay-Per-Share (FPPS) model that incentivizes miners to switch to renewable energy sources. It is one of the highest paying Bitcoin mining pools for revenue per TH (Terahash). The platform is open to all Bitcoin mining clients, irrespective of what energy source they use.
Clients mining with renewable energy pay 50% lower pool fees. It not only rewards miners making a positive impact on the environment, but also encourages others to use renewable energy.
For those mining with fossil fuel sources, PEGA Pool uses a portion of their pool fees to plant trees in order to partially offset their carbon footprint. It has already planted over 148,000 trees, resulting in a yearly offset of 3,967 tons of CO2. This initiative gives miners the peace of mind that PEGA Pool is planting trees on their behalf to help offset their carbon emissions.
Currently, with the Bitcoin price low and mining difficulty rising, miners are finding it difficult to generate profits. With PEGA Pool, they benefit from the reduced pool fees, which can make a noticeable difference in their profitability. It ensures that miners can stay afloat even during the bear market.
PEGA Pool’s unique Global Pool Infrastructure ensures that it is resilient to outages and equipment issues, including those caused by natural disasters. Established and operating in the UK, the platform offers the world a trustworthy and reliable mining pool that was built by miners themselves.
About PEGA Pool
PEGA Pool is a UK-based, eco-friendly Bitcoin mining pool which enables clients to obtain a more consistent, stable income than they would mining alone whilst offsetting their carbon emissions. The platform is open to all Bitcoin miners, regardless of whether they use renewable or non-renewable energy.
For more information, visit: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn
Contact
Magda Lesniowska
marketing@pega-pool.com
A prominent cryptocurrency investor has stated that Bitcoin (BTC) and rising altcoins are sound purchases.
Arthur Hayes wrote in a blog post that his previous risk-averse position on cryptocurrency investments had changed and he had become more bullish on some BTC purchases.
JAYPOW is up to speak today. He ain’t ready to stop the bull market. “Be Present” is my essay on why I have started to buy $BTC. Yaaaarrrr!!!!https://t.co/SzwusFRSI5 pic.twitter.com/2iZtuAFU19
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) February 7, 2023
He stated that ongoing economic issues at the United States Federal Reserve forced him to avoid risky assets. Federal rate hikes aimed at slowing rampant inflation have triggered rises in cryptocurrency investment activity, he stated.
The BitMEX co-founder said in his post,
“My concerns about this potential outcome, which I handicapped would most likely happen later in 2023, has led me to keep my spare capital in money market funds and short-dated U.S. Treasury bills. As such, the portion of my liquid capital that I intend to eventually use to purchase crypto is missing out on the current monster rally we’re seeing off of the local lows. Bitcoin has rallied close to 50% from the $16,000 lows we saw around the FTX fallout.”
He also predicted that Bitcoin would see additional rises in valuation after 40 percent climb in January.
Liquidity Returns, Debt Ceiling Looms
Despite this, Federal Reserve measures come amid quantitative tightening to remove liquidity from US markets and diminished risk assets. However, the first fiscal half of 2023 will see liquidity return to markets to avoid triggering a debt ceiling crisis, which lawmakers will vote on in the summer, he explained
Treasury General Account (TGA) will eliminate roughly $500 billion USD in cash, which will effectively counteract the Fed’s $100 billion monthly liquidity removals.
He continued: “The TGA will be exhausted sometime in the middle of the year. Immediately following its exhaustion, there will be a political circus in the U.S. around raising the debt limit. Given that the Western-led fiat financial system would collapse overnight if the US government decided to forgo raising the debt ceiling and instead defaulted on the assets that underpin said system, it’s safe to assume the debt ceiling will be raised.”
Time to (Macro) Unwind
Hayes added that he would mostly invest in USD and Bitcoin but would require sufficient timing.
He added: “I’ll deploy over the coming days. I wish my size actually mattered, but it doesn’t — so please don’t think that when this happens, it will have any discernible effect on the price of the orange coin.”
Additionally, altcoins offered opportunities, relying on optimal timing to receive the highest returns.
He concluded: “The key to shitcoining is understanding they go up and down in waves. First, the crypto reserve assets rally — that is, Bitcoin and Ether. The rally in these stalwarts eventually stalls, and then prices fall slightly […] “At the same time, the shitcoin complex stages an aggressive rally. Then shitcoins rediscover gravity, and interest shifts back to Bitcoin and Ether. And this stair-stepping process continues until the secular bull market ends.”
The news comes amid a tumultuous February as Bitcoin surged after the US revealed strong jobs data and modest growth for 2022.
The digital coin skyrocketed past $23,000, indicating the first massive rally since 2020. It also retained its value of around $23,000 amid several interest rate hikes at 25 base-points interest each.
BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives firm, has found over 13,000 Ordinals non-fungible tokens, indicating a surge in popularity over the digital assets.
According to the company, 13,000 Ordinals had been minted (inscribed) from 14 December to 7 February.
Shortly after the news debuted, markets reported a massive inflow of JPEGs and media assets on Bitcoin totalling 526 megabytes of block space and 6.77 Bitcoin (BTC), it explained.
The transactions indicated a major “hockey stick” curve, or an exponential surge in NFT trading activity on the BTC network.
The news comes after Ordinals sparked anger from Bitcoin enthusiasts, with some stating Ordinals fans were “spamming” the world’s most widely-used blockchain with massive JPEGs.
Ordinals have only reached roughly 3 percent of total Bitcoin transactions this week but took roughly 70 of BTC block space.
According to reports, the Ordinals are relatively new to Bitcoiners, allowing them to attach key metadata and digital assets to BTC to inscribe fresh digital artefacts.
Doing so can reshape how people use the Bitcoin blockchain, opening new use cases for the emerging technology. However, others believe it uses vital space on the blockchain needed for other transactions.
Bitcoin’s price rally of over 38 percent in January owes its successes to high US performance metrics earlier last month, A Matrixport research report said.
According to the document, Bitcoin led to positive returns in five out of the six years where its price rallied in the month of January. Subsequent gains in the respective years saw 245 percent gains.
2014 was the only year that evidenced a decline after a strong January and bull-market peak, it added.
Markus Thielen, Head of Research for Matrixport, authored the study. It added the bull market this year could receive backing from a forecasted bitcoin halving cycle in March of next year.
Bitcoin halving cycles indicate when cryptocurrencies entering the market drop by 50 percent each 10 minutes. This indicates a return to Bitcoin prices around $45,000 by the year’s end, it concluded.
The news comes after Bitcoin rallied to around $23,000 in January multiple times, indicating a return to bull markets. This follows a disappointing bear market in 2022, namely due to the collapse of FTX and subsequent crypto exchanges.
Core Scientific (CORZ), one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin (BTC) mining firms, has struck a deal on a $70 million loan from investment bank B Riley.
The company said in its filing it would request the loan from bankruptcy courts in Houston, Texas as part of its financing plan outlined in December.
Receiving the funds will allow the troubled firm to pay off its debtor-in-possession (DIP) offices, providing the firm up to 15 months of additional time.
It will also use the funds to replace its current facility and maintain its operations amid a massive bankruptcy, reports showed on Tuesday.
According to Core Scientific, the new loan conditions were “reasonable and generally superior” to its DIP facility terms. A hearing is set to take place on 1 February, the document revealed.
“The Replacement DIP Facility lays the foundation on which the debtors will seek to negotiate a consensual Chapter 11 plan with all of their key constituents and maximize value for all stakeholders,” it added.
Crypto Crisis Contagion Spreads
The news comes after last year’s cryptocurrency bear market sent markets reeling due to the collapse of disgraced crypto exchange FTX. The crisis triggered further issues with Core Scientific’s operations due to plummeting cryptocurrency prices and rising gas and electricity fees.
Prior to the collapse, the company held 10 percent of computing shares on Bitcoin’s network. To date, it owes up to 5,000 creditors and faces liabilities from $1 billion USD to $10 billion USD.
Core Scientific continued its operations despite filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, financing its operations by selling over 6,900 BTC. Additional firms such as Genesis, Voyager, and Three Arrows Capital (3AC) also failed due to ongoing crises in the crypto market.
A key member of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated authorities cracked down on the Hive crypto ransomware collective.
In a 26 January statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated the FBI in Tampa, Florida had received “clandestine, persistent access to Hive’s control panel.”
This allowed authorities to exploit access to Hive’s data, identifying victims and providing more than 1,300 of them keys to decrypt their ransomware-infected networks. To date, the recovered networks total more than $130 million in ransomware payments.
FBI agents also secured additional ghost servers on Wednesday evening. The operation included US personnel, the German Federal Criminal Police, German Reutlingen Police Headquarters, the Netherlands National High Tech Crime Unit, and Europol.
The teams tracked ransomware payments, recovered the assets for victims, and dismantled Hive’s networks, the statement added.
“So, a reminder to cybercriminals: No matter where you are, and no matter how much you try to twist and turn to cover your tracks—your infrastructure, your criminal associates, your money, and your liberty are all at risk. And there will be consequences,” he said in his statement.
Stirring up the Hive
The comments come after Hive launched several cybercrime offences, including attacks on Costa Rica’s Public Health Service and Social Security Fund. Taking place from April to May last year, Hive criminals seized infrastructure with a $5 million Bitcoin ransom.
This caused roughly 4,800 people to miss critical doctors appointments. Wray explained that over the past seven months, victims only reported around 20 percent of attacks.
The news comes after a CertiK report that outlined potential cybercrime set to take place in 2023, where it expected the number of crimes to remain consistent.
Last year, online criminals such as hackers, phishers, scammers, and others stole up to $3.7 billion, with $595 million in thefts taking place in November.
Irish central bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf called on legislators to ban cryptocurrency firms from advertising digital assets to young adults, reports revealed.
The longstanding crypto critic slammed digital coins not backed by underlying assets as Ponzi schemes. Despite this, he claimed they posed a small risk to financial stability but could negatively impact retail customers.
Speaking further, Makhlouf explained to an Irish parliamentary committee that there was a number of young adults that had invested in crypto. There was also an “uncomfortable level of advertising” targeting the group.
“I would recommend that adverts to that cohort are banned,” he said.
He added: “Unbacked crypto is essentially a Ponzi scheme… People who put their money into unbacked crypto, and most of the significant stock of crypto out there is unbacked, they are essentially gambling. When you gamble you can win, but most of the time when you gamble, you’re actually losing.”
MiCA and EU Crypto Markets
The European Central Bank governing councillor urged EU regulators to impose “guardrails” for emerging stablecoins. These types of coins include central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and provide stable trading values.
In July, European lawmakers passed rules requiring cryptocurrency firms to obtain licences and customer safeguards to buy and sell digital currencies across the bloc.
Regulators in Brussels called the cryptocurrency market the “Wild West.” To date, the EU aims to pass regulations to fight fraud and money laundering, among others. Parliament passed the deal at the time as its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) law.
Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong has hinted Brazil and Argentina should adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as a sovereign currency, according to a recent report.
The two South American nations announced on Saturday they had launched plans to use the digital coins along with their respective national currencies.
The report noted that both nations would soon invite other Latin American nations to join the world’s second-largest currency bloc. It added that it planned to outline its efforts at a summit in Buenos Aires and later, invite additional nations on the continent to join.
Brazil aims to create potentially the “Sur,” or South, to reduce dependence on the US dollar. Countries such as Venezuela have created similar currencies such as the Petro in recent years for similar reasons.
Speaking to the Financial Times (FT), Argentinian economy minister Sergio Massa said,
“There will be . . . a decision to start studying the parameters needed for a common currency, which includes everything from fiscal issues to the size of the economy and the role of central banks.”
Replying to the news, Armstrong tweeted the following day that it could be a “right long-term bet” and hoped both countries would consider the option.
Crypto as Legal Tender
His comments come after numerous countries have begun adopting BTC as sovereign currencies. El Salvador has long remained a supporter of Bitcoin as its national currency after it adopted it in 2021.
In late November last year, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved measures to legalise cryptocurrencies for payments across the nation. Former president Jair Bolsonaro signed off on the bill last month, which will enter force in June this year.
The Argentinian province of San Luis also passed a bill for a future US dollar-linked stablecoin for adults 18 and over and backed by government assets.
Nations such as Fiji and Tonga have also pushed for similar legislation. In late December, the former nation’s new prime minister, Lord Fusitu’a, announced support for Bitcoin adoption in Fiji.
He stated at the time that Fiji could “do bitcoin legal tender like Tonga,” allowing two Pacific islander nations to have two legal tenders for 2023.
Bitcoin (BTC) prices have seen a massive rally at the weekend after surging past $23,000 USD and settling later on Sunday. BTC’s market capitalisation reached up to $23,051.72, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Despite this, the crypto comeback also comes amid a major price adjustment following a bearish 2022, which saw the collapse of Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Voyager, and disgraced crypto platform FTX.
The news has restored optimism for many crypto traders and investors, namely as many laud its return to over $20,000 following a massive slump from July to December.
Crypto intelligence platform Santiment tweeted on Friday: “Bitcoin has now surpassed $22.7k for the first time since August 18, 2022. The price rise has come as the large whale tier group of addresses holding 1,000 to 10,000 $BTC has collectively accumulated 64,638 ($1.46 billion) $BTC in the past 15 days.”
Other major cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Dogecoin, Cardano, Solana, and many others jumped amid the huge rally.
Potential Contributors to BTC Rally
The news comes amid an email Binance sent to its users that SWIFT would not allow transfers less than $100,000 USD. The new rule will take effect on 1 February, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
Signature Bank, Binance’s banking partner, initiated the measures, prompting Binance to seek a new banking partner. The news also comes amid allegations from US authorities that Binance helped contribute to transactions linked to crypto exchange Bitzlato and Russian darkweb space Hydra.
Additional market contributions have fuelled skyrocketing prices, including the collapse of Genesis Holdings. The cryptocurrency lending firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.
The enterprise remains locked in a massive row with crypto trading firm Gemini over its Earn programme, which ceased withdrawals in mid-November. Over 340,000 clients have lost access to over $900 million USD in online holdings.