The blockchain intelligence company Crystal Intelligence is expected to continue growing through 2024, according to Navin Gupta, the company’s recently recruited CEO.In an interview with Cointelegraph, Gupta stated that, as the unregulated portion of the cryptocurrency market continues to contract, he anticipates that the company’s growth will pick up speed. This is because the US government’s approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has increased the number of businesses seeking operating licenses, according to Gupta. Says he. “Hundreds of firms were waiting in license queue, and they are in some form of regulatory discussion with the regulator to make sure that they get licensed. Every single firm that gets regulated needs compliance software, monitoring, and to prove to the regulator that they are doing Anti-Money Laundering compliance…” Institutions and regulators can obtain blockchain analysis, as well as investigative and compliance solutions, from Crystal Intelligence.A news announcement sent with Cointelegraph states that the company’s global customer base increased in 2023 and that over 50,000 businesses are currently being monitored by Crystal’s software.Bitfury established the business in 2017. Gupta predicts that when stablecoins become more widely used, there will be a greater need for Crystal’s compliance services. “[Stablecoin

Attorney John Deaton, who has supported the cryptocurrency sector, formally announced his candidacy for the US Senate from Massachusetts, but he made no mention of digital assets in his platform.In a video posted on his X account on February 20, Deaton declared that the main goal of his campaign would be to “take on the Washington elites,” alleging that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts “gets nothing done.”In the video, there was a picture of a headline from Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly that mentioned Deaton’s involvement in defending cryptocurrency against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States, along with the lawyer’s wearing an XRP shirt.The premiere video, on the other hand, concentrated on national concerns like border security and inflation. “I am running for U.S. Senate to continue my life’s mission to shake things up for the people who need it most,” said Deaton. If Deaton’s campaign is successful, Senator Warren, the current member of the legislature, who has held the position since 2013, will be removed.The senator from Massachusetts has been among the most outspoken critics of digital assets in the American government, arguing that the technology is largely utilized for illegal activities, such as funding terrorist groups.Deaton touted his work as an attorney supporting cryptocurrency on his campaign website, citing his filing of an amicus brief on behalf of XRP holders in a litigation between the SEC and Ripple, among other instances.The attorney has been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency investors’ rights and has frequently criticized the SEC and legislators for their legal measures against digital assets. Despite appearing to be a Republican, Deaton did not identify his political party during the beginning of his campaign or on his website.As a Democrat, Senator Warren is seeking office.At the time of publication, Cointelegraph has not heard back from the offices of Senators Warren or Deaton. As of December 31, Senator Warren had raised around $16 million for her 2024 reelection campaign, with approximately $4 million in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records.She apparently solicited funds before of Deaton’s formal campaign start, identifying Deaton as a “big cheerleader for crypto interests” and alleging the “crypto lobby has put a target on [her] back.”It is unclear if interest groups will be able to support Deaton’s Senate campaign.Senator Warren stated in an interview with Pod Save America that was published on February 18 that there were people in the cryptocurrency space with “giant buckets of money to spend” in an attempt to discredit her backing of the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act in Congress. A 2023 MassINC Polling Group poll found that 41% of Massachusettsans thought favorably of Senator Warren, whom many believed to be a hard shot to unseat.The candidates’ election day is set for November 5.

Popular Ethereum-based self-custody cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask recently declared that it would expand its default security alerts to cover users of mobile apps and browser extensions for Linea, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche blockchains.The wallet is seeing rapid user growth as it approaches its peak in 2022, which coincides with the addition of new security measures.From 19 million in September 2023 to 30 million in January 2024, there was a monthly increase in active users.The acceleration of user growth was ascribed to its mainstream collaborations with well-known trading platforms like Robinho. On January 29, 2024, an extension was used to incorporate the security alert feature for the first time on the Ethereum mainnet.Every time a known threat interacts with a user, security notifications inform them during the transaction.This tool mimics the requested transaction, identifies harmful tendencies, and alerts consumers when a transaction is likely to result in money loss. Unlike the majority of Web3 wallets, which depend on giving users’ transaction data to a third party for validation in order to generate security alerts, MetaMask asserts that its security alerts are privacy-focused. An experimental opt-in OpenSea alert, the security alert system was initially unveiled in April 2023 and contributed to the safeguarding of $500 million worth of assets.Due to the security alerts’ success, the company decided to include MetaMask wallet in their service. Many users who had activated the feature beforehand were able to avoid the notorious phishing scam in September 2023 when Vitalik’s X handle was compromised; according to MetaMask, Blockaid’s systems identified the malicious DApp 24 hours ahead of the hack, saving users $100,000 in assets. The feature was developed in collaboration with its security partner, Blockaid.Later in October, when Uniswap founder Hayden Adam’s Twitter account was hacked, the warning system also raised a red light.Senior product manager Barbara Schorchit of MetaMask told Cointelegraph that the company has noticed a minor increase in customer support tickets from people praising the functionality and alerting them to the dangerous website they were on. As a result, “we would also add it to our public phishing list and help protect others.” Schorchit said that the alert feature also helped users save over a million during the recent Ledger Connect Kit incident in December. “Nearly 100 front-end DApps were compromised, yet every MetaMask user who opted into the security alerts powered by Blockaid were protected, preventing what we estimate to be ~$1.15M

A recent research released on Wednesday suggests that Australian cryptocurrency holders have benefited greatly from the approval of U.S.-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs). But the country’s economic uncertainties keeps opposing the hopeful attitude. After the spot bitcoin ETF was approved in January, 25% of Australians, according to the 5th edition of the Independent

Tyr Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, is at odds with one of its clients over its holdings in the defunct digital asset exchange FTX, according to a Financial Times story published on Tuesday. According to the story, Tyr’s offices were seized by a Swiss prosecutor, and one of its clients, TGT, accused Tyr of “criminal”

According to Economic Secretary to the Treasury Bim Afolami, the U.K. government anticipates seeing stablecoin and staking services legislation for the cryptocurrency sector within six months. A similar schedule was revealed in October 2023 when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England outlined their broad intentions for coordinating the supervision of the

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it will no longer support a few of its Bitcoin-linked leveraged tokens by April 3. On February 19, Binance declared that it will no longer support tokens that are leveraged in conjunction with Tether.BTCUP and BTCDOWN, ETHUP and ETHDOWN, and BNBUP and BNBDOWN are among the affected leveraged tokens.On February 28 at 06:00 UTC, the cryptocurrency exchange will halt trading and subscription services for the three leveraged token pairs.On the specified day, Binance claims that all trade orders for the leveraged tokens would be “automatically removed.”This implies that after that point on, users won’t be allowed to place any orders.Before the deadline, Binance encouraged its customers to exchange the leveraged tokens they were holding for other assets. After that, the exchange said that, beginning on April 1 and lasting until April 3, it will progressively delist and stop redeeming the tokens.Users will be able to redeem their tokens prior to the delisting date, according to Binance. The exchange stated that it will convert the tokens into USDT based on their corresponding value on the delisting date if users do not redeem their tokens by the deadline.Within a day, Binance will transfer the tokens to the users’ accounts and take the leveraged tokens out of their wallets. Leveraged tokens from Binance are derivative instruments that offer investors leveraged exposure to the underlying crypto assets.The price changes in the perpetual contract market have an impact on the tokens, which are a basket of perpetual contract positions.Leveraged tokens, according to Binance, let cryptocurrency traders take on leveraged bets without having to pledge any collateral.Additionally, it frees them from worrying about liquidation and the have to maintain a maintenance margin level.Trading leveraged tokens has advantages, but Binance cautioned that there are hazards involved as well, such as the “effects of price movements in the perpetual contracts market, premiums, and funding rates.”

Groq is a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that is causing quite a stir on social media thanks to its lightning-fast response time and innovative technologies that could eliminate the need for GPUs.After public benchmark testing on the social media site X went viral, demonstrating that Groq outperformed ChatGPT, a well-known AI chatbot, in terms of computation and reaction speed, the product became an overnight sensation. The reason for this is that the Groq team created a unique application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip specifically designed for large language models (LLMs), which enables it to produce about 500 tokens every second.By contrast, the model’s publicly accessible version, ChatGPT-3.5, has a token generation rate of about 40 per second.Rather than using the expensive and rare graphics processing units (GPUs) that are usually used to run AI models, the creator of this model, Groq Inc., claims to have invented the first language processing unit (LPU) that powers its model. The business that created Groq is not new, though.It was established in 2016 and registered the term Groq as a trademark.When Elon Musk’s AI model, also named Grok (spelled with a “k”), began to gain popularity in November of last year, the creators of the original Groq wrote a blog post criticizing Musk for the name selection. “We can see why you might want to adopt our name. You like fast things (rockets, hyperloops, one-letter company names) and our product, the Groq LPU Inference Engine, is the fastest way to run large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI applications. However, we must ask you to please choose another

ARK’s three funds sold 499,149 Coinbase shares. The selling occurred following a run of analyst upgrades for Coinbase as a result of the company exceeding its 4Q earnings estimates. In response to Coinbase Global’s (COIN) better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, which above Wall Street estimates, ARK Invest sold about half a million shares of the cryptocurrency exchange

A bill that permits investment funds and venture capital firms to own cryptocurrency assets was passed by the Japanese government. The law might increase funding for Web3 startups if it is approved by parliament. The Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry stated on Friday that the Japanese cabinet has approved a measure adding cryptocurrency to

The Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Commission has been granted $17,192 annually by Virginia’s Subcommittee on General Government. This funding will support the committee’s operations and reimburse travel costs. Recently, legislation established the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Commission to provide recommendations on blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. In its report released on Sunday, Virginia’s Subcommittee on General Government suggested

According to a PitchBook analysis, venture funding for businesses involved in the cryptocurrency space reached $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, up 2.5% from the previous quarter. For the first time since March 2022, venture capital (VC) investments in cryptocurrency businesses have increased, the main areas of focus for the large cryptocurrency businesses

As bulls made money over the weekend, the price of bitcoin moved back into the middle of its intraday trading range at the weekly close on February 18. The BTC price consolidation center was $52,000, according to data from TradingView and Markets Pro. The day before, the biggest cryptocurrency dropped to $50,680 on Bitstamp, its

An unreported element that the regulator discovered ensured larger remuneration for the influencer as the fund grew: the influencer’s fee was linked to the fund’s development. VanEck Associates Corporation has agreed to pay a punishment of $1.75 million to settle charges brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to the introduction

The Australian federal police officer refutes claims that he transferred Bitcoin to the cryptocurrency exchange Binance via a hardware wallet found at the crime site. A federal police officer has been accused by the Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) of deleting a Trezor hardware wallet containing 81.62 Bitcoin at a crime scene. The authorities claimed

Despite concerns that it would have an effect on the price of Bitcoin, Coinbase predicts that the proceeds from Genesis’ GBTC sell-off will “remain within the crypto ecosystem.” Exchange of cryptocurrencies Coinbase thinks the cryptocurrency market won’t be negatively impacted by Genesis’ approval to sell its interests in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), an insolvent cryptocurrency

The internal compliance team of Jupiter Asset Management has purportedly withdrawn its investment in the 21Shares Ripple XRP exchange-traded product (ETP) on account of regulatory concerns in Ireland. The company lost $834 on its initial investment of more than $2 million in the fund. In the first half of 2023, Jupiter put $2,571,504 into the

The majority of qualified creditors have now received their liquid bitcoin allocations from Celsius’s two distribution agents, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the massive payments company PayPal, according to the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender. The legal team for Celsius, Kirkland & Ellis, recently filed a court document with an update on the creditor distributions specified in

The prohibition was enforced by the Honduran National Banking and Securities Commission due to the absence of regulations in the nation. A resolution prohibiting the nation’s financial institutions from dealing with cryptocurrencies has been released by the National Banking and Securities Commission of Honduras (CNBS). Because cryptocurrency transactions are unregulated, the Honduran central bank stated

Election-related AI content is not outright prohibited by the voluntary agreement. On Friday, February 16, twenty artificial intelligence (AI) development companies declared their intention to stop their software from meddling in elections, including those held in the US. The agreement recognises that there is a substantial risk associated with the products of the companies, particularly

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was predicted to rise by 6% at the time of its automated readjustment on February 15. On Friday, February 16, the Bitcoin.mining difficulty, a measure of how tough it is to solve the mathematical puzzle connected with a block, crossed 80 trillion. According to BTC.com, the mining difficulty reached a record 81.73

The creator of the Xcad Network, Oliver Bell, defended YouTuber KSI after the online personality was accused by crypto investigator ZachXBT of using his digital asset tokens, including XCAD, in a pump-and-dump scheme.Screenshots of KSI’s X account posting about XCAD and then dumping $850,000 of the tokens in the days that followed were published by ZachXBT on February 14.Another crypto investigator, Coffeezilla, referred to the multiple instances of KSI citing other tokens and then selling the assets that the crypto detective had uploaded as the “definition of a pump and dump.” The following day, Bell responded on social media, claiming that the YouTuber was fully entitled to sell his tokens.Bell stated in a post dated February 15 that one of their “biggest value adders” was KSI, which introduced and offered recommendations for the product.Although KSI did sell some tokens, the executive contended that the YouTuber “bought a lot more” than he did. Aside from Bell, a devoted follower going by the handle Vibhor wrote a 36-page defense of the YouTuber.Vibhor, who acknowledged that he might have a prejudice in favor of KSI, said that the YouTuber solely posts about his cryptocurrency activities on X and is well-known for “flipping his mind instantly.”The fan likened KSI to CNBC anchor Jim Cramer, whose calls have the potential to have the opposite effect on assets. Vibhor penned. “Whenever he says he is gonna HOLD a crypto, that crypto will go down and whenever he says it is time to sell a crypto, that crypto will go up. There is a meme based on this to do the opposite of whatever KSI is doing. And KSI himself has acknowledged that many

A cryptocurrency exchange in beta testing by digital bank Revolut is aimed for “advanced traders.” The exchange will provide improved market insights in addition to less fees than trading via the Revolut app. Revolut, a digital bank, is about to launch a cryptocurrency exchange aimed at “advanced traders,” as per a customer email that CoinDesk

Ireland’s laws governing cryptocurrency investments led to the cancellation of the XRP product investment. The asset manager was forced to rapidly write off the $834 loss on the investment. A regulatory concern forced Jupiter Asset Management (JUN), a London-listed company with over $65.8 billion in assets under management, to abandon an investment in a cryptocurrency

Certain restrictions on the stablecoin issuer’s offshore usage are imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department. One such instance is the partnership between Tether and cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. USDT usage may be impeded by international collaboration. In a research paper published recently, JPMorgan (JPM) stated that Tether’s

The introduction of cryptocurrencies has completely changed the financial environment by democratising access to international finance and providing previously unheard-of chances for large rewards. But these same elements, along with the absence of regulation, have also turned the cryptocurrency market into a haven for fraud and swindles. These techniques can lead to artificial price bubbles

The usage of blockchain bridges for money laundering increased last year, while the use of cryptocurrency mixers decreased. The alteration demonstrates the sophistication with which money laundering schemes may be modified by criminal actors.  2022 saw a higher reliance on centralized exchanges and illicit service types, but 2023 saw an increase in the usage of

In a research report released on Thursday, JPMorgan (JPM) upgraded the shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) to neutral to reflect the recent spike in cryptocurrency prices following the legalization of spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States.According to the analysis, increased cryptocurrency prices should boost Coinbase’s earnings power and activity levels in the first quarter. Keeping its price estimate of $80 intact, the Wall Street behemoth upgraded the company from underweight to neutral.In early trade, Coinbase’s stock increased 6.5% to $170.80.With bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, trading near its recent highs of $52,400, other stocks tied to cryptocurrencies also saw gains.Marathon Digital (MARA) gained 3.5 percent, while MicroStrategy (MSTR) increased by 3%.The bank stated that what was once a sell-the-news event—the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs—has now evolved into a significant increase in value of bitcoin. “We think this bitcoin appreciation is contributing to better spot bitcoin ETF flows, which is in turn driving bitcoin prices higher, and pulling other tokens higher as well,” analysts led by Kenneth Worthington wrote. According to the bank’s valuation estimate, Coinbase shares could underperform in 2024 after experiencing a near-400% spike in price last year.“Although we do not currently recommend the stock, we do recognize the positive impact that U.S. spot bitcoin ETF activity and volumes have had on the industry, helping it to overcome its 2022 crypto winter,” the report continued.Following today’s close, the corporation releases its earnings.