Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently adopted updated standards for ETF listings. Under these rules, ETFs that meet predefined criteria no longer require individual regulatory review, significantly reducing approval times. Industry sources report that the approval process could shrink to 75 days or less, compared with up to 270 days under previous procedures. The new standards are designed to streamline market entry for ETFs tied to a broader range of cryptocurrencies, including solana, XRP, and cardano.

Starting Oct. 15, financial advisors will be able to offer bitcoin and crypto funds to any client - including those with retirement accounts - according to reporting by CNBC. Until now, only investors with more than $1.5 million in assets and an aggressive risk profile could participate. In other words, Morgan Stanley will soon let all its wealth management clients, including those with retirement accounts, invest in crypto. No asset-cap required.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has initiated operations in Australia, expanding its digital currency exchange services to meet increasing local demand. The firm aims to offer a platform tailored for Australian users and institutions, enhancing accessibility and regulatory compliance. The expansion represents part of Gemini's broader strategy to strengthen its presence in international markets and cater to regions with growing cryptocurrency adoption.

The broader crypto market is under pressure. Bitcoin slipped roughly 2% over the past 24 hours, retreating from recent highs. That drop is rippling into crypto-linked equities - Strategy is one of the most exposed. Strategy (MSTR) is currently trading at $319.84 Strategy, co-founded by Michael Saylor, reported $3.9 billion in fair value gains for the third quarter of this year.

The firm specializes in fixing errors that automated crypto tax software misses. Research shows that 90% of the time, crypto tax software overestimates capital gains because it misclassifies DeFi transactions, NFT mints, liquidity pool activities, and cross-chain bridges. What sets them apart is their flat-rate pricing model. Most accounting firms charge $300-500 per hour, but Crypto Tax Made Easy provides transparent quotes upfront. No surprise bills at tax time.

The morning sun was warm, and the air buzzed with excitement and laughter. Children who had rarely strayed beyond their rural village in Bugiri, Uganda, were now getting off buses, eyes wide at the expectation of giraffes and elephants. Many of these kids had never even heard of a zoo before, let alone seen one. Yet here they were, grinning ear to ear after breakfast, ready to celebrate a quirky Bitcoin holiday.

The meteoric rise of crypto has not only been the greatest creation of wealth in the last decade but also an incredible harbinger of wealth destruction. While numerous fortunes were built on the buy and hodl strategy, some of these were lost to time or technology, depending on your point of view. Investors that haphazardly tried their hand at crypto found out quick that this isn't for weak hands or weak minds.

Harris highlighted the "borderless nature" of the crypto market, suggesting that a passporting system - where companies regulated in one jurisdiction can operate in another without undergoing a full authorization process - could enhance investor protection, reduce compliance costs, and improve market interoperability.

Bitcoin treasury companies have become one of the most important demand drivers in this cycle. Collectively, 86 publicly traded firms now hold more than 1 million BTC on their balance sheets. What began with MSTR (Strategy) in 2020 has since spread across the corporate landscape, with new entrants joining seemingly every week. But a closer look at their purchase history reveals a surprising insight that many of these companies could be holding considerably more Bitcoin today if they had followed a simple, rules-based strategy for accumulation.

Google has helped strike another deal with a Bitcoin miner. On Thursday, Cipher Mining announced that it was leasing a data warehouse it owns in Colorado City, Texas, to an AI computing startup. The Bitcoin miner projects the contract to net the company $3 billion over its initial 10-year term and $7 billion if two five-year extensions are exercised. Cipher Mining struck the deal with Fluidstack, an AI computing startup based in the U.K.

The YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy ETF ( NYSEARCA:MSTY) has been moving steadily lower over the months. With shares now going for $15 and change per share, many investors are wondering if it's worth it to keep buying on the way down to lower that average cost basis or if it's better to just hang on for the ride. In a specific case I stumbled upon on Reddit, a poster asked if they're the only person out there that's continuing to buy on the way down. Of course, this person may feel alone in buying MSTY shares into weakness, but they're not. Many folks on Reddit are just content with hanging on and collecting that massive distribution payout that continues to be quite towering to this day at just north of 92%.

Botanix, founded in 2023 at Harvard by Willem Schroé, operates as a Bitcoin Layer Two protocol or sidechain similar to the Liquid Network and Rootstock - but with some novel differences, including the use of more modern scripting tools in Bitcoin, the sharing of network fee revenue with stakeholders and a federation of 16 node operators as its custody foundation.

Chainflip is building the next generation of native cross-chain financial infrastructure, starting with seamless asset swapping and now expanding into cross-chain lending. We enable users to swap major crypto assets like BTC, ETH, and SOL across chains - without wrapped tokens- and have already processed almost $4 billion in trades since launch. Chainflip achieves this by running its own blockchain and a network of validators that control vaults across multiple ecosystems, making the user experience smooth, secure, and fast.

First coined in 2021 by Demetri Kofinas, the host of the Hidden Forces podcast, "financial nihilism" is a trend that describes how Gen Z and even some younger millennials, who are profoundly disillusioned with the traditional financial system, believing it's unfair and unpredictable, are finding it pointless to save for retirement or invest in the stock market, or in bonds, or other conventional ways.

Earlier this year, CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that Tether now holds over 100,000 BTC - worth more than $11 billion - alongside more than 50 tons of gold as part of its reserves. Those holdings make Tether one of the largest corporate owners of Bitcoin globally, a fact that further ties the fate of its business to the world's leading digital asset.

Since his appointment, Soohoo has wasted little time accelerating MoneyGram's transition into a competitive force. Over lunch, the new CEO told me that digital transactions accounted for only about 20% of total transactions in 2019, but had climbed to 50% when he took over. During his tenure, he has already boosted that to 70% and, in another impressive feat, integrated a stablecoin tool into MoneyGram's app.

For all the hype around blockchain, many enterprises remain hesitant to make the leap. The hesitation is not about whether blockchain has potential. It is about risk. Most blockchain projects today require committing to a single chain, which is placing a long-term bet on a rapidly shifting market. If the chosen chain fails, becomes too expensive to operate on or is outpaced by competitors, that investment could quickly unravel.