Author: Ibiam Wayas

Ibiam is an optimistic crypto journalist. He loves to associate with like-minded individuals and collaborate with them on similar projects. He spends much of his time honing his writing and critical thinking skills.

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Binance

Leading Exchange, Binance Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Forbes Media

Leading Exchange, Binance Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Forbes Media

On October 29, Forbes published a viral report, “Leaked ‘Tai Chi’ Document Reveals Binance’s Elaborate Scheme To Evade Bitcoin Regulators,” asserting that the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance planned to evade US regulations by establishing an exchange in the country. Shortly after the publication, the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), took to his Twitter handle to refute the claims. He argued that the statements and accusations in the report were incorrect.

Today, the exchange took things a little further by opening a defamation lawsuit against the American business magazine, Forbes.

All Statements are “Highly Defamatory,” Says Binance

According to the information, Binance filed the complaints with the United States District Court in News Jersey, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The crypto exchange hired a popular media litigation attorney, Charles J. Harder of HARDER LLP in New York, to represent them in the ongoing case. Binance also wants the article to be taken down because it has tarnished the exchange’s reputation.

Charles J. Harder, the attorney for Binance, commented:

“Forbes’ misleading story has done great harm to Binance’s reputation. Binance demanded Forbes’ retraction or correction, but it has refused. This lawsuit therefore became necessary. Binance intends to see this lawsuit through to the end, to ensure the truth and protect its reputation.”

Forbes Stands on its Report

Basically, the statements and claims in the Forbes document were drawn from a document which is assumed to have been created by a senior executive in Binance. The document was more like an outline of how Binance allegedly planned to evade regulations in the US by establishing a subsidiary in the country. 

As Forbes staff writer Michael del Castillo reported, Binance allegedly plotted to “distract regulators” with such a strategy in order to “move revenue in the form of licensing fees and more to the parent company, Binance.”

Although Binance flagged the statement as defamatory, Forbes is holding ground on the report. “We stand by our reporting,” said Forbes Chief Communications Officer Matthew Hutchison. 

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin FOMO is Kicking Harder as New Addresses Keep Soaring

Bitcoin Outperformed Oil, Gold With Over 100% Increase in Q1 2021

The leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC) kept showing exponential growth since the beginning of this week. Yesterday, the crypto surged past US$17,000, making another yearly high of US$18,393 earlier today. No doubts, the bullish performance in the market is creating more FOMO (fear of missing out) for many investors who aren’t invested in the digital currency yet. 

This is evident as recent data from Glassnode, a crypto analytics platform, shows that new Bitcoin addresses were created at a very high rate during this time of the rally. 

New Bitcoin Addresses Spike

According to Glassnode, new addresses created in the Bitcoin network today surged to a level not seen since January 2018. The development simply suggests that there is more adoption for the cryptocurrency presently. Many people are probably being FOMOed to buying bitcoin as industry experts and analysts continue to present their predictions that the cryptocurrency could be making another historical run in price anytime soon.

Data from Blockchain.com, the Bitcoin blockchain explorer, shows that there are 562.93K new addresses created in the network. In total, there are currently 32.81 million Bitcoin addresses with a balance that is greater than zero (i.e., non zero balance), of which 1.14 million are currently active. Addresses with zero balance totaled 653.42K, according to the explorer.

Who’s Buying Bitcoin

Although the majority of Bitcoin addresses are dominated by retail investors, the number of large Bitcoin transactions has been surging for quite some time now. There were about 17.09K on-chain transactions containing more than US$100,000 as of November 18. This shows the activeness of deep-pocketed crypto traders. Looking at the cryptocurrency’s rich list, there are 3,442 addresses holding at least US$10,000,000 worth of Bitcoin at the moment. About 26 million addresses hold US$1.

The growing list of Bitcoin richest addresses follows the surge in the crypto’s price. At the time of writing, the leading cryptocurrency is trading at US$17,840 on Coinmarketcap.

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Australia

Crypto Adoption Likely to Increase in Australia as NAB Closes Branches

Update 20/11/2020: NAB reported on Twitter that the branches were only shut down for a few hours on 18th Nov and the “advice from State and Federal police is that the physical threat is not credible and has been deemed a hoax”.

Millions of residents in Australia have been locked out from cashing their funds, as one of the biggest banks in the country, National Australia Bank (NAB), has reportedly closed all branches. There are chances that the development today can cause some customers to consider cryptocurrencies as another option for monetary transactions. A similar case was witnessed in Venezuela, where banks closed, causing the residents to increasingly adopt cryptos.

NAB Shuts Down Branches for Security Reasons

According to the bank’s notice on Wednesday, it had to temporarily close the branches due to a physical security threat against them. Hence, the decision to halt the banking operations comes as NAB considers its customers’ security as a top priority. While citing the Queensland Police, recent reports claimed that NAB actually received bomb threats across its branches in the country.

As the police have been informed and investigations are ongoing, the bank promised to keep the customers updated about the situation and, perhaps, the safety of their funds. At the moment, however, all the funds remain locked, given that the commercial offices are currently closed. Likewise, the ATMs located within branches are offline.

Does the NAB Situation Promote Crypto?

The NAB is reportedly one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia, with about 859 branches and 9 million customers. There are possibilities that some of the affected customers might eventually adopt cryptos, like Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) as another alternative to process payments or send funds abroad. For instance, the Venezuelan government closed down banks in the country during the severe times of the coronavirus pandemic in March. 

Peer-to-peer exchanges (P2P) like Localbitcoins witnessed a sudden spike in trading between Bitcoin and the country’s fiat currency. Transactions with digital currencies can be done peer-to-peer (P2P), which enables users to avoid certain banking fees. More so, international payments with crypto are cheaper compared to traditional methods.

Categories
Bitcoin

Milestone: Open Interest in Bitcoin Futures Surge Above $6 Billion

It’s clearly an exciting time for Bitcoin investors as the leading cryptocurrency is making another heavy push once more. A few days past, the cryptocurrency slightly declined from the US$16,000 price level, only to surge back to over US$16,600 yesterday. Today, Bitcoin has reached another milestone, making a new yearly high of US$17,033 according to data provided by Coinmarketcap, a crypto price tracking platform.

Bitcoin is trading at US$17,030 at the time of writing. On this performance, its market capitalization increased to another historical level at over $315 billion. The derivatives market, especially Bitcoin futures, is also booming amid Bitcoin’s bullish moves.

Open Interest in Bitcoin Futures 

Data from crypto analytics platform Skew showed that open interest (OI) in Bitcoin futures had surpassed $6 billion in total value combined across derivatives trading platforms. A further glance at Bybt confirmed the all-time high (ATH) of Bitcoin futures OI at $6.52 billion. This is an exponential kind of growth, given that the futures product only had a valuation of $5.4 billion on November 4.

The Malta-based digital currency derivatives exchange, OKEx, continues to lead the BTC futures market at a dominance rate of 17.9 percent. The exchange accounts for $1.17 billion of the total OI in Bitcoin futures. The leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, holds nearly one billion USD in the futures market ($999.9 million) as the second-largest trading platform. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) follows Binance with $963.55 million.

Bitcoin spike in the derivatives market

CME is an institutional-grade derivatives trading platform. Its increasing futures trading suggests the activeness of institutional investors in the derivatives market. Other major trading platforms – Bybit, BitMEX, Huobi, FTX, Deribit, BTSE, Bitfinex, Kraken, and Gate – account for over $3 billion in total open interest in Bitcoin futures combined.

The Bitcoin derivatives market is expected to grow even further, provided the underlying assets continue its bullish momentum. For context, the cryptocurrency is up by more than 137 percent since this year. It remains unknown if and when Bitcoin will break past its $20,000 all-time high.  

Categories
Scams

Australian Authorities Charge Former BitConnect Promoter, John Bigatton

Global authorities are still going after the conspirators of BitConnect, the biggest crypto Ponzi scheme that pulled off leaving a bad reputation for the nascent cryptocurrency industry. Today in Australia, the national corporate regulator, ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission), charged John Louis Anthony Bigatton, who was responsible for promoting BitConnect in the country.

ASIC Unseal Charges Former Australian BitConnect Promoter

Per the information, the regulator unsealed several counts against Bigatton, who’s precisely based in Carss Park, New South Wales. The charges included one count of operating an unregistered managed investment scheme, which attracts a fine of $42,000 or five years imprisonment. Among other charges, the former BitConnect was accused of running unregistered financial services on behalf of someone else. The charge itself attracts a fine of $42,000 or two years imprisonments.

The development today follows ASIC long-running investigations into the matter. Bigatton reportedly began promoting the crypto Ponzi scheme in the country between August 2017 to January 18, 2018. According to the regulator, he conducted several seminars across the country in the promotion of BitConnect, which ASIC said was an unregistered investment scheme. The matter today is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The next court hearing is slated to hold on February 2, 2021.

It’s also worth noting that Bigatton was banned from traveling abroad last year due to his role in promoting the crypto Ponzi scheme. In addition to being enlisted on the Exit Control List (ECL), all his funds, including his assets, were frozen as requested by the regulator. 

BitConnect Bust

BitConnect collapse came as a heavy blow for the cryptocurrency industry. The crypto investment scheme pulled out on the investors about two years ago, with over $2.5 billion lost in crypto assets. It was such a hard pill for many invested persons to swallow, which also raised a red flag for the industry at the time.