China News Official TheBitTimes.com

CME Bitcoin futures hit a 2-year high, but options market data reflects investors’ hesitancy. Bitcoin (BTC) futures open interest at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) hit an all-time high of $3.65 billion on November 1. This metric considers the value of every contract in play for the remaining calendar months, where buyers (longs) and sellers (shorts) are continually matched. Bullish momentum on CME Bitcoin futures, but cautious BTC options markets The number of active large holders surged to a record 122 during the week of Oct. 31, signaling a growing institutional interest in Bitcoin. Notably, the Bitcoin CME futures premium reached its highest level in over two years. In neutral markets, the annualized premium typically falls within the 5% to 10% range. However, the latest 15% premium for CME Bitcoin futures stands out, indicating a strong demand for long positions. This also raises concerns as some may be relying on the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded futures ...

BitGo originally announced it was setting up two regulated custodial entities in Germany and Switzerland in February 2020. Major cryptocurrency custody firm BitGo is reportedly expanding its regulatory compliance in Germany more than three years after launching a dedicated local subsidiary. BitGo has obtained a crypto currency license from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), according to a Nov. 1 report by Finance Magnates. The firm has been storing crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC) for its clients since 2019 under the supervision of BaFin as part of a transitional regime, the report notes. The German license secures BitGo's presence in the European market and is an important milestone for BitGo, BitGo Europe managing director Dejan Maljevic said. “BaFin is recognized as one of the world’s key trendsetters in crypto regulation,” Maljevic noted, adding that the license “enables the progress that digital currencies entail while creating a secure regulatory ...

Bitcoin’s strong rally to $30,000 may have kick started a sharp recovery in SOL, LINK, AAVE and STX. Bitcoin (BTC) had a good week with prices rising about 10% to reach the psychologically important level of $30,000. After the rally, the question troubling investors is whether the uptrend will continue or is time for a reversal to happen. Trading team Stockmoney Lizards recently said that Bitcoin may soon break above its overhead resistance and start a sharp rally. They believe the approval for the exchange-traded fund will drive mass adoption and trigger the rally before the halving due in April 2024. Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360 A positive development this week was that Bitcoin’s strength rubbed off to several altcoins, which surged above their respective overhead resistance levels. This suggests that the sentiment is gradually turning positive and that it may be time to consider buying selectively. Typically, the coins that lead the markets higher are the ones th...

Sam Bankman-Fried trial reaches the third day in Manhattan with Adam Yedidia and Gary Wang as witnesses. A young entrepreneur who made mistakes while running a crypto empire or a liar who stole and used people's money to enrich himself? In the first hours of Sam Bankman-Fried's six-week trial, that was the tone between his defense counsel and the prosecution. The former FTX CEO is facing a total of seven charges related to fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. He could spend over 100 years in prison if convicted of these charges. At trial, Bankman-Fried appeared to be focused on his defense strategy, constantly checking his laptop and attorneys' paperwork. As his defense counsel delivered an opening statement, he turned his focus towards the 12 jurors who will decide if Bankman-Fried intentionally misused its customers' money or if mistakes were made in good faith. Related: Sam Bankman-Fried FTX trial — 5 things you need to know Two witnesses testified on the first day...

The unlicensed exchange allegedly solicited than $128 million from users before being reprimanded by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Troubled Hong Kong crypto exchange JPEX has applied for deregistration in Australia. According to a filing seen by Cointelegraph on September 20, Jieyi Chen, director of JP-EX Crypto Asset Platform PTY LTD (JPEX), has filed a deregistration application with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). In the filing, JPEX claims that all members of the company agree to the deregistration , the company is no longer carrying business, its assets do not exceed $1000 Australian Dollars, and carries no liabilities. On September 13, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, the JPEX team allegedly abandoned its corporate booth after Hong Kong police arrested six JPEX employees on charges of fraud for operating an unlicensed crypto exchange . The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said on the same day that it...

South Korean financial regulators accused Delio of fraud and embezzlement and seized its assets in July earlier this year. South Korean Bitcoin lender Delio is reportedly preparing for an administrative lawsuit against regulators for the wrong interpretation of law leading to an investigation and hefty fine against the crypto lending firm. Bitcoin lender Delio said the allegations of fraud and embezzlement levied by the Financial Service Committee (FSC) are baseless, according to a report published in a local daily.  The crypto lender claimed that the regulator implied the law unreasonably in a situation where there were no clear regulations for virtual asset deposit and management products. The report revealed that the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) recommended the dismissal of Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho through a sanctions announcement on Sept. 1. Delio claimed that this was a clear indication that the financial authorities were putting pressure on Delio to close down the busi...

BTC futures and options data show pro traders’ sentiment was not impacted despite last week's 11.4% correction. In the past few months, Bitcoin (BTC) traders had grown used to less volatility , but historically, it's not uncommon for the cryptocurrency to see price swings of 10% in just 2 or 3 days. The recent 11.4% correction from $29,340 to $25,980 between August 15 and August 18, took many by surprise and led to the largest liquidation since the FTX collapse in November 2022. But the question remains: was this correction significant in terms of the market structure? Certain experts point to reduced liquidity as the reason for the recent spikes in volatility , but is this truly the case? BTC surged 70%+ in 2023, yet the "Alameda gap" - liquidity dip post FTX and Alameda Research collapse - remains, supported by low volatility. Read full analysis here: https://t.co/kVslgLQtpL pic.twitter.com/g8Ac7udBl7 — Kaiko (@KaikoData) August 17, 2023 As indicated by the Kai...

The top 100 DeFi tokens had a mixed week, with most of the tokens trading in a narrow range before surging on July 13 courtesy of Ripple’s partial win in its court battle with the SEC. Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week. This week, Finance Redefined looks at the growing popularity of zero-knowledge proof-based scalable solutions. Zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) technology has gained a lot of traction over the past year thanks to its increased use in the Ethereum ecosystem. Bug bounties are seen as a great reward system for white hat hackers to weed out bugs in the DeFi ecosystem, which often fall prey to exploits. However, recent analysis suggests these programs have mixed results. After a series of exploits on the Multichain protocol over the past couple of weeks, the founder of Connext proposed a “Sovereign Bridged Token” standa...

As Web3 redefines digital interactions, the conventional legal system lags, underlining the need for a new on-chain legal mechanism. Web3 is poised to revolutionize digital interactions, but this innovation is moving faster than the conventional legal system can manage it. Unlike traditional infrastructures that rely on intermediaries, Web3 is powered by blockchain, and most rules are enforced by code. How should people build trust in decentralized, trustless systems without an on -chain legal system? While Web3 offers unprecedented opportunities, it also comes with unique challenges, one of which is Web3 conflict resolution. The legal challenges of Web3 Given the global and decentralized nature of Web3, conflicts could appear in many scenarios: criminal acts like hacks, scams, regulatory disputes and private law disagreements. These disputes can arise from interactions with centralized or decentralized exchanges, malfunctioning smart contracts or governance disagreements within de...

Web3 is struggling to shake off the connotations associated with Play to Earn. What needs to change in order to turn skeptics around? The world of crypto and Web3 is fast-moving, with new trends emerging all the time. However, the industry has a bit of a problem when it comes to public perception. Figures from Pew Research Center suggest that among Americans who have heard about cryptocurrencies, 75% are either not very or not at all confident in their safety and reliability. While there has been no shortage of innovation across this vibrant sector in recent years, some misconceptions have continued to stick. Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) hit headlines worldwide after rare pieces of digital art began changing hands for millions of dollars. This led to a narrative that all NFTs were expensive — but in actual fact, the average revenue per user stands at just $114.80. Away from eye-watering prices for CryptoPunks and Bored Apes, many crypto collectibles are being sold at far more affordable ...

This decision has implications for users who utilize bridged tokens on networks such as BNB Smart Chain, Fantom, Ethereum and Avalanche blockchains. Binance cryptocurrency exchange has announced it is ceasing its support of deposit and withdrawal services for a range of Multichain-bridged tokens, effective from July 7, 2023.  Binance has officially stated in its blog that the tokens impacted by the decision are Polkastarter (POLS) via BNB Smart Chain, Alchemy Pay (ACH) via BNB Smart Chain, Beefy.Finance (BIFI) via Fantom Network, SuperVerse (SUPER) via BNB Smart Chain, Travala (AVA) via Ethereum Network, Spell Token (SPELL) via Avalanche C-Chain, Alpaca Finance (ALPACA) via Fantom Network and Harvest Finance (FARM) via BNB Smart Chain. This news comes after deposits for various Multichain-bridged tokens were earlier suspended on May 25, 2023, following days of stalled transactions that sparked uncertainty surrounding the Multichain protocol. This decision to now cease support has impl...

The entire crypto market awaits the result of todays Federal Reserve presser, and traders are hopeful that positive news will trigger a price breakout to the upside. The United States equities markets rose after the consumer price index print on June 13 came in below expectations but Bitcoin (BTC) and the altcoins failed to recover. This suggests that cryptocurrency traders are focused on crypto-specific issues and are not buying on favorable macroeconomic news.  However, there is a ray of hope for the bulls because Bitcoin is still holding above the $25,000 support. MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor said in a Bloomberg interview on June 13 that the regulatory crackdown by the Securities and Exchange Commission may be bullish for Bitcoin. Saylor expects Bitcoin’s dominance to hit 80% in the future as “mega institutional money” flows into crypto after the “confusion and anxiety” dies down.  Although Saylor’s views may sound comforting to the Bitcoin bulls, they should keep in mi...

The MULTI protocol's TVL remains largely unchanged at $1.6 billion despite a large selloff in the token price. On May 24, the token price of cross-chain router protocol Multichain (MULTI) fell by 30% over 24 hours to trade at $4.97 at the time of publication.  The selloff came after users reported that their multi-chain funds had not arrived due to a backend node upgrade "taking longer than expected." An admin in the Multichain Discord channel wrote: "Most routes are working as usual, as some routes (Kava, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM) are temporarily suspended. All affected transactions will arrive after the upgrade is complete. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused." At the same time, a wallet address linked to layer-1 blockchain developer Fantom Foundation reportedly removed 449,740 MULTI ($2.4 million) from liquidity on decentralized exchange SushiSwap. Rumors also appear to have fueled the selloff. In a tweet viewed over 300,000 times since publ...

The transparency of blockchain technology and the active involvement of crypto exchanges help law enforcement agencies combat criminal activity. Cryptocurrency is often associated with criminal activity, but this is mostly a myth, especially today. Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies don’t provide complete anonymity due to the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) policies implemented by most crypto exchanges. Even without KYC scanning, law enforcement agencies can easily track crypto transactions to identify criminal activity, as the blockchain is transparent and immutable. In 2019, United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that Bitcoin was a national security issue, since it had been used for illicit activities. To him, cryptocurrencies were dominated by illegal activities and speculation. But the facts say otherwise. Though illicit crypto volumes reached an all-time high at $20.6 billion in 2022 (primarily due to sanctioned entities), the share of all crypto activity linked wit...

Macroeconomic headwinds continue to pressure the crypto market, but bulls appear steadfast on holding $28,000 for support and this could provide tailwinds for altcoins. Bitcoin’s (BTC) price initially dipped, but then recovered on April 3. The volatility happened after several OPEC+ members announced plans to cut oil production totaling 1.65 million barrels per day until the end of the year. Some analysts expect this move to tighten supply, resulting in higher prices at the pump. That may in turn boost inflation, warranting a continued hawkish stance from central banks. Initially, the United States Dollar index (DXY) rose but it could not sustain the intraday rally. This suggests that the market participants believe the event will not cause any major deviation in the Federal Reserve’s policy. A weaker DXY is generally considered a positive for risky assets. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Cryptocurrencies have remained strong in the face of adverse macroeconom...