Cryptocurrency

The current price of Ethereum stands at $1,667.44. The whale’s purchase at $1,676 indicates a close alignment with the current market price, suggesting that the asset is fairly valued at the moment.Lido is currently priced at $1.69, exactly the same price at which the whale made the purchase. This could indicate that the market agrees with the whale’s valuation of LDO.Uniswap is trading at $4.75, slightly below the whale’s purchase price of $4.83. This minor discrepancy could be an opportunity for retail investors to enter at a slightly better price point.Whale activity often serves as an indicator of future market movements. The recent purchases could potentially lead to bullish trends for these assets. Whales usually have access to extensive market research and insights, which is why their investment moves are closely watched by retail investors.The fact that a whale is diversifying its portfolio by investing in different kinds of assets — ranging from a leading smart contract platform like Ethereum to DeFi tokens like LDO and UNI — could signify broader bullish sentiment on the crypto market.Moreover, the whale’s investment in these assets could serve as a catalyst for further upward movement, especially if other large investors follow suit. It is worth noting that such significant investments often create a ripple effect, attracting smaller investors and thereby increasing trading volumes, which could further fuel a bullish market.This article was originally published on U.Today More

In an Aug. 23 order filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan said SBF would be allowed access to discovery materials in his criminal case in a courthouse cell block with 48 hours’ notice to prosecutors and the U.S. Marshals Service. The order came prior to Kaplan reaching a decision on motions from the Justice Department and SBF’s legal team regarding how much time the former FTX CEO would be allowed outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in order to assist in the preparation of his case.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More

Source: The recent ruling in favor of , where it was marked as a nonsecurity, has also buoyed the crypto market. Endorsements from institutional investors like BlackRock further provide a strong setup for a new bull market in digital assets.While Pantera’s prediction is optimistic, it is essential to approach it with caution. The crypto market is highly volatile and influenced by a myriad of factors, including regulatory developments and macroeconomic conditions. Moreover, past performance is not indicative of future results.This article was originally published on U.Today More

According to data provided by CoinGecko, over the past week, the floor prices of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) declined by 21% and 27%, respectively.Per the price aggregator, the starting cost of a BAYC collectible sits at 24.5 Ethereum (ETH), worth around $41,060 at the time of writing.MAYC’s floor price is currently at 4.6 ETH, worth roughly $7,700 with a $150.15 million market capitalization.Moreover, Azuki and Moonbirds NFTs both recorded 25% drops over the past week. The floor prices of each collection currently stand at 3.9 ETH ($6,535) and 1.24 ETH ($2,080), respectively. Other collections — Cool Cats, Doodles, Azuki Elementals, DeGods, Pudgy Penguins, and CryptoPunks — also registered notable declines over the past seven days.The downfall comes while the amount of NFT sales over the past 24 hours, according to CryptoSlam, reached $13.51 million, marking a 2.89% hike. The global NFT trading volume came from a total of 345,911 transactions.Furthermore, data provided by CryptoSlam shows that the global annual NFT sales plunged from roughly $23.5 billion on Jan. 1, 2022, to $5.5 billion on Jan. 1, 2023.Most NFT all-time sales have been done on the OpenSea marketplace — reaching almost $36 billion.According to a crypto.news report on Aug. 23, a former OpenSea executive, Nathanial ‘Nate’ Chastain, has been charged with insider trading and money laundering. Chastain is sentenced to three months in jail and is obliged to return the assets he gained from his activities.This article was originally published on Crypto.news More

The flagship cryptocurrency finally gained bullish traction with a 1.5% rise in the past 24 hours — the upward momentum came while the BTC price dropped below the $26,000 mark six times over the past week.BTC whale activity and supply on exchanges – Aug. 24 | Source: SantimentMoreover, Bitcoin is trading at $26,460 with a $515 billion market cap at the time of writing. The asset’s 24-hour trading volume also rose by 5.4%, reaching $16.4 billion. According to market intelligence platform Santiment, the Bitcoin whale activity has slightly declined. The number of whale transactions consisting of at least $100,000 and $1 million worth of BTC dropped from 9,372 and 1,337 to 6,760 and 1,314, respectively.This suggests that small investors rather than whales could have driven the recent upsurge.Moreover, Bitcoin supply on exchanges plunged to a 58-month low of 1.14 million coins. This was last seen in November 2018, per Santiment. The indicator suggests that investors are moving more Bitcoins to self-custodial wallets.According to data provided by Glassnode, Bitcoin’s reserve risk has also dropped to 0.000024, marking a five-month low. When reserve risk goes down, long-term investors rise and accumulate.Per Santiment, the number of addresses holding more than 0.1 BTC reached an all-time high of 4.44 million. This article was originally published on Crypto.news More

On May 3, the U.K. government announced an ambitious fraud strategy, which would involve adding 400 new jobs to update its approach to intelligence-led policing. As Cointelegraph previously reported, the National Crime Agency estimates that fraud costs the country approximately 7 billion pounds ($8.7 billion) annually. Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More

Hedging of bitcoin and ether will provide a means to lessen FTX’s exposure to adverse price movements before their sale, the filing said. Galaxy, owned by billionaire investor Mike Novogratz, will also help “stake” FTX’s crypto, a process where crypto is lent to validate blockchain transactions, earning interest in the process. “Galaxy Asset Management has extensive experience in areas relevant to digital asset management and trading, including with respect to the types of transactions and investment objectives contemplated,” the filing said, referring to the investment advisory arm of Galaxy.FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 in the wake of claims that the company misused and lost billions of dollars worth of customers’ crypto deposits. FTX attorney Brian Glueckstein said on Wednesday at a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, that FTX remains on track to conclude its bankruptcy in the second quarter of 2024, resisting a call for expedited mediation from the court-appointed committee that represents FTX creditors. More

(Reuters) -The United States on Wednesday indicted Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, two co-founders of the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, for their involvement with the banned outfit and related laundering of up to $1 billion in criminal proceeds. Storm, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Washington state, was arrested on Wednesday, while Semenov – a Russian national – is yet to be taken into custody, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York said in a statement.The criminal charges against both men, which include conspiracy to commit money laundering and sanctions violations, come one year after the U.S. Treasury banned Tornado Cash on allegations that it supports North Korea.The outfit facilitated more than $1 billion in money laundering transactions and laundered “hundreds of millions of dollars” for North Korean government-linked cybercrime group Lazarus, U.S. officials said. So-called virtual currency “mixers” take the cryptocurrencies of many users and mash them together to help hide the source and owners of the funds. They have become the “go-to method for criminals to conceal their ill-gotten gains,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri said in a statement. “The defendants operated Tornado Cash as a safe haven for criminal actors to obfuscate the trail of funds tied to their criminal activities, such as computer hacking and wire fraud,” she added. Storm’s lawyer Brian Klein said his client “disputes” having engaged in any criminal conduct and had been cooperating with prosecutors’ investigation over the past year. “We are incredibly disappointed that the prosecutors chose to charge Mr. Storm because he helped develop software, and they did so based on a novel legal theory with dangerous implications for all software developers,” Klein said. Waymaker Law, the firm representing Storm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did the FBI. A third co-founder of Tornado Cash, named Alexey Pertsev, had been detained by Dutch law enforcement officials on money laundering charges in Aug. 2022. The Lazarus Group, which was banned by the United States in 2019, was using Tornado Cash to launder funds it obtained from several major cybercrimes, and Storm and Semenov “did not take meaningful steps to reduce its use for illicit purposes,” the Treasury statement said. The sanctions mean the property and interests in property of both founders that are in the United States or in control of U.S. persons will be blocked, it added. More