- Bitcoin Rally May Slow as Order-Book Imbalance Hints at Profit Taking
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price rally may face temporary resistance as the climb to a record high seems to have spurred profit-taking among holders of the largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
That’s the message from the imbalance between potential sellers and buyers in bitcoin’s aggregated order book across 33 centralized exchanges. The gap between the total dollar value of orders to sell bitcoin, the so-called ask side, and orders to buy, the bid side, within 2% of the market price has widened to nearly $100 million, according to Paris-based Kaiko. That’s about five times its usual value.
- Shuttered Crypto Exchange ShapeShift Settles Illegal Securities Charges With SEC
Cryptocurrency platform ShapeShift—which wound down operations in 2021—has agreed to a cease-and-desist order and a $275,000 fine to settle allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it allowed users to trade digital tokens without registering as a broker or exchange.
The settlement, announced on Monday, resolves a years-long SEC investigation into whether ShapeShift’s conduct violated federal securities laws.
The SEC’s case focuses on ShapeShift’s operations between July 2017 and November 2019, when the former crypto exchange allegedly facilitated the purchase and sale of digital assets that were investment contracts and therefore securities that ShapeShift had not properly registered to sell.
https://decrypt.co/220359/shapeshift-exchange-defi-token-sec-settlement-fine
- Bitcoin price retraces from $69K ATH as BTC hodlers take profit
Bitcoin’s BTC $67,194 price recorded a new all-time high of $69,000 on March 5; however, the time above $69,000 was short-lived as the BTC price experienced a flash crash and briefly fell below $60,000. The price crash was attributed to heavy selling from hodlers as several whales and dormant accounts woke up to take profits.
According to data from CryptoQuant, crypto exchanges witnessed a three-day streak of BTC inflows worth $525 million, suggesting traders were moving their BTC from cold storage onto exchanges to take profit in anticipation of the all-time high (ATH).
One case that intrigued the crypto community was a dormant whale that awoke after 14 years to deposit 1,000 BTC ($67.1 million) onto Coinbase when BTC’s price was trading at $67,116. The whale mined this Bitcoin in 2010 when the price was below $0.28, suggesting that the whale has made more than $60 million in profit.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-retraces-ath-btc-hodlers-profit
- OneCoin’s Konstantin Ignatov Sentenced to Time Served
According to Bloomberg, Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of fugitive ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova, has been sentenced to the 34 months he had already spent in jail after pleading guilty to helping run the OneCoin cryptocurrency scam. US District Judge Edgardo Ramos called OneCoin ‘a massive fraud with hundreds of thousands of victims,’ most of whom stand little chance of getting any of their money back. However, he credited Ignatov’s cooperation with prosecutors, who recommended the sentence of time served.
- Bitcoin ETFs Smash $10B Trading Volume Record Amid Wild BTC Price Action
U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs had their busiest day ever on Tuesday as bitcoin’s (BTC) run for all-time high price turned into a bloodbath, the price tumbling more than 10% after hitting a record above $69,000.
The ten ETFs topped $10 billion in trading volume during the session, breaking last week’s daily record, according to Bloomberg data compiled by Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, Bitwise’s BITB and ARKB, co-managed by Ark Invest and 21Shares, all broke their personal volume records, Balchunas noted.
- Revolut teams up with MetaMask in latest example of fintech’s crypto creep
Revolut is diving deeper into crypto with a new MetaMask collaboration in a bid to give more people access to digital assets.
The challenger bank unveiled a new feature on Wednesday. Dubbed Revolut Ramp, it will allow its 40 million users to buy cryptocurrencies and deposit them directly into MetaMask wallets.
“This partnership is really about giving our users what they want — more control over their crypto, in a straightforward way,” Lorenzo Santos, senior product manager at Consensys, the company behind MetaMask, said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It also plays a crucial role in fostering broader crypto adoption, opening up the world of crypto to more people.”
https://www.dlnews.com/articles/fintech/revolut-deepens-crypto-push-with-metamask-collaboration/
- Bitcoin Crashes 6% After Hitting New All-Time High Price
The price of Bitcoin today hit a new all-time high of $69,324—but the excitement was short-lived. Bitcoin has since crashed by more than 6%, trading for just over $65,000.
The drop wiped out more than $31 million in long positions, according to data on Coinglass.
Today’s volatility has taken those placing leveraged bets on the price of Bitcoin on a wild ride. In just 24 hours, over $675 million in both long and short positions have been liquidated across the crypto market. Roughly $200 million was in Bitcoin derivatives alone.
https://decrypt.co/220227/bitcoin-crashes-after-hitting-new-all-time-high-price
- Cryptoqueen’s brother is freed after 3 years jail over OneCoin scheme: Report
The brother of Ruja “Cryptoqueen” Ignatova has been released from prison after spending 34 months behind bars for his role in OneCoin’s infamous $4.4 billion fraud scheme.
Konstantin Ignatov — once the “defacto leader” of the OneCoin sha — was handed a “time served” verdict by district court judge Edgardo Ramos on March. 5, according to a report from Bloomberg.
A “time served” verdict refers to when a court deems that a defendant has spent an adequate amount of time in jail while awaiting another sentencing hearing.
An “emotional” Ignatov took full responsibility for his actions at the hearing, according to a March 5 report by Law360.
“I can only blame myself […] still have trouble looking into my own eyes in the mirror. The last five years were a very painful period in my life, but I’m glad for the lessons I’ve learned.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/cryptoqueen-onecoin-brother-freed-three-years-jail-fraud-scheme
- Hedgehog Raises $1.5 Million in Pre-Seed Funding to Address Crypto Trading Fee Volatility
According to Foresight News, cryptocurrency trading fee hedging protocol Hedgehog has completed a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round. The round was participated by Marshland Capital, Tenzor Capital, Prometeus Ventures, 3Commas Capital, and Nothing Research, as well as angel investors such as Vasiliy Shapovalov, co-founder of Lido Finance, Banteg, an anonymous developer from Yearn Finance, and ivangbi, an anonymous core contributor from Gearbox.
Hedgehog aims to address the issue of significant volatility in cryptocurrency trading fees. Its core objective is to create an asset whose price reflects the current transaction fee prices on Ethereum.
- South Korea Launches Investigation Into Worldcoin’s Data Collection Practices
Worldcoin, a project that seeks to prove humanness through biometric data, is facing increased oversight in South Korea. The government of South Korea is now inquiring about the biometric data collection practices of the organization in the country.
According to a press release, the Personal Information Protection Commission, the agency in charge of formulating data privacy policies and supervising data protection law compliance, has opened an investigation against Worldcoin. Ko Hak-soo, chairman of the organization, took this initiative after receiving complaints about the “collection and processing of personal information” practices of Worldcoin and associated parties.
