- Finance School Bentley University Now Accepts Cryptocurrency Payments for Tuition
According to an announcement stemming from Bentley’s newsroom, the school of accounting and finance has partnered with Coinbase in order to give students and their families the ability to pay tuition with crypto.
Bentley will accept three crypto assets including bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), and usd coin (USDC). Bentley president E. LaBrent Chrite explained that the school founded 105 years ago is embracing a technology that may shift the traditional financial landscape entirely.
“Bentley University is at the forefront in preparing business leaders with the skills and knowledge to succeed in the changing world economy,” the university president said in a statement. “We’re proud to embrace this technology that our students are learning about, which will soon transform the global business landscape they’re about to enter.”
- Council of Europe Calls for Crypto Laundering Clampdown
European states were urged to clamp down on crypto-enabled money laundering by the Council of Europe’s Moneyval committee in a report published Wednesday.
Moneyval, which monitors smaller European states’ compliance with dirty-money norms, warned of the challenges posed by decentralized finance, privacy coins and what it said was market manipulation of major crypto assets.
“It is well known that money launderers have been abusing cryptocurrencies from their inception a decade ago,” Moneyval Chair Elżbieta Frankow-Jaśkiewicz said in a foreword to the report. “Methods are becoming ever more sophisticated, and larger in scale,” extending from drug trafficking into areas such as fraud, corruption and tax evasion.
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/05/04/council-of-europe-calls-for-crypto-laundering-clampdown/
- Bored Ape Ethereum NFT Price Drops 32%, Down $135K Since Last Week
Last week, ahead of Saturday’s mint for NFT land for the upcoming Otherside metaverse game, everything was looking up in the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem. The price of ApeCoin (APE) was surging, and NFTs themselves rose to record prices and sold briskly.
But while the land offering was a smashing success in terms of trading—with almost $1 billion to date between the initial mint and secondary sales—there’s now been a downturn. Backlash to Yuga Labs’ sale format and its response has been swift, APE’s price has tanked, and now the original Bored Ape NFTs on Ethereum have dropped to the lowest entry price since March.
Currently, the cheapest available Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT on top marketplace OpenSea is listed for 105 ETH, or about $292,000. That’s a dramatic slide from the record price of 152 ETH, or nearly $429,000 set last Friday. It’s a drop of almost $137,000 in a matter of days.
https://decrypt.co/99366/bored-ape-ethereum-nft-price-drops-32-down-135k-since-last-week
- ‘Smart Money’ Is Staking ETH on Rocket Pool and Selling ENS, Nansen Data Suggests
Highly successful cryptocurrency traders have been staking their ETH on the Rocket Pool decentralized node operator network and offloading ENS according to data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen.
In the past 24 hours, $1.37 million worth of rETH has flowed into wallets categorized by Nansen as “smart money,” more than any other token tracked by the firm.
Nansen considers a wallet to be “smart money” if it meets at least one of several conditions, including:
It is known to belong to an investment fund;
It has made at least $100,000 by providing liquidity to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, SushiSwap and Uniswap, excluding so-called impermanent loss;
It has made multiple profitable trades on a decentralized exchange (DEX) in a single transaction, through mechanisms such as “flash loans.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7103691
- BTC price gains 4% pre-Fed as MicroStrategy vows to protect Bitcoin from $21K crash
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it bounced between support and resistance after hitting $37,600 Tuesday evening.
A subsequent bounceback saw the pair clip $39,000 at the time of writing, providing relief to low-timeframe traders at 4.1% off the lows.
More broadly, however, Bitcoin stayed rangebound and beholden to macro triggers as markets braced for Fed-induced volatility.
The two-day meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) and press conference was due to begin at 2pm Eastern time Wednesday.
With little to comfort bulls, some turned to historical comparisons. The start of the Fed’s previous cycle of key interest rate hikes in 2015 proved a turning point for BTC price strength, this culminating in the December 2017 blow-off top.
- Equinox Group to Start Accepting Crypto Payments
Equinox Group, one of the most popular luxury health and fitness clubs in the United States, is now permitting its members to pay for their membership subscriptions in cryptocurrencies.
While ranking as the very first gym centre to accept Bitcoin, it is not the first luxury brand to lend support to the nascent asset class in North America.
Equinox Group has partnered with crypto payments service provider, BitPay for the service, and per the new push, crypto owners can largely take advantage of the new payment model through the digital assets that BitPay is supporting.
“More than ever, consumers are making luxury purchases through cryptocurrency, and offering cryptocurrency as a form of payment enables Equinox to continue to meet their community where they are,” the company said in a statement.
https://blockchain.news/news/equinox-group-to-start-accepting-crypto-payments
- Pakistan Forms Committees to Decide Whether Crypto Should Be Legalized or Banned
Pakistan’s federal government has constituted three sub-committees to decide the future of cryptocurrency and related businesses in the country, the Express Tribune reported Tuesday citing documents it has seen.
The sub-committees were formed during a meeting chaired by Finance Secretary Hamed Yaqoob Sheikh to decide whether to legalize or ban cryptocurrency business. They will review all aspects of the cryptocurrency business and come up with recommendations on the country’s crypto policy. Their proposals will be sent to a committee headed by the finance secretary.
The first sub-committee was formed under the chairmanship of the Pakistani law secretary. Members of this sub-committee include the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
- LGT, World’s Largest Family-Owned Private Bank, to Offer Crypto
LGT Bank, the financial institution owned by the princely House of Liechtenstein and part of the largest family-owned banking group in the world, is offering cryptocurrency custody and brokerage services to private clients, starting in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Swiss-regulated digital asset services provider SEBA Bank will provide the crypto services to LGT’s private banking and asset management group, which holds over CHF 280 billion ($288 billion) in assets under management.
Responding to growing demand among its wealthy clientele, LGT will initially offer investment services for bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The bank is in discussions to add more coins as well as staking and yield earning possibilities, according to Mathias Schütz, SEBA’s head of client and tech solutions.
“LGT is starting with their booking center in Liechtenstein for clients that are located in Liechtenstein and Switzerland,” Schütz said in an interview. “This will see further expansion over the next couple of months.”
In addition to Switzerland, SEBA Bank is active in Singapore, where LGT also has a booking center and a significant footprint, having acquired ABN AMRO Asia’s private banking operations in Asia and the Middle East in 2016.
- Hawaii Becomes Latest State to Approve Task Force to Examine Bitcoin, Web3 Technology
The Hawaii State Senate today approved bill SB2695, co-signed by Sens. Donovan Dela Cruz and Rosalyn “Roz” Baker, that establishes a blockchain and cryptocurrency task force.
As crypto becomes more mainstream, thanks partly to the interest in NFTs, governments worldwide are looking for ways to regulate and take advantage of digital assets like Bitcoin.
In March, President Joe Biden signed an executive order for “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” intending to protect American citizens from scams while not stifling innovation. State governments are following suit.
Hawaii’s bill, “A Bill for an Act Related to Cryptocurrency,” aims to see how the state can regulate, provide oversight, and potentially use blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. The task force intends to review data from other states, including but not limited to the development of “a plan to expand blockchain adoption in both the private and public sectors.”
https://decrypt.co/99372/hawaii-becomes-latest-state-to-approve-crypto-taskforce
- Solar-powered Crypto Mining Becomes Legal in Uzbekistan
The decree has also exempted all crypto operations by domestic and foreign firms from income tax.
According to Reuters, the Tashkent government wants miners to generate power for their farms by installing their own solar panels.
The decree also stated that mining companies can connect to the main power grid for double the regular price. However, during peak consumption period extra surcharges can be levied.
It further added that companies do not require a mining license, but they must be registered by a newly formed Uzbek National Agency for Perspective Projects.
Crypto mining involves computers solving complex puzzles to “mine” or generate cryptocurrencies. These computers usually require large amounts of electricity.
https://blockchain.news/news/solar-powered-crypto-mining-becomes-legal-in-uzbekistan
