Craig Wright – the Australian computer scientist best known for his widely disputed claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin – is now expected to testify in a Miami court on Monday.Wright was initially slated to testify Thursday, according to an earlier schedule drawn up for the jury by Judge Beth Bloom of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.However, Wright’s defense team’s questioning of Ira Kleiman, the plaintiff in the case, went all day Thursday and is expected to spill over into late Friday morning.After Kleiman’s testimony wraps, the plaintiffs are expected to introduce pre-taped video testimony from two witnesses, including Wright’s ex-wife, Lynn Wright.Kleiman is suing Wright for what he alleges to … [Read More...]

“If you’re just now getting started, you’re behind.”“On Purpose” host Tyrone Ross is joined by Amber McLeod, director of customer success at Onramp Invest for a conversation on adviser education in all things crypto. Whether an adviser is starting at ground zero, ready to trade or a full-blown crypto believer, there is always more to learn and a bevy of educational resources to draw from.In the crypto investment class, clients also bring varying levels of understanding, from those who are wary of the volatility to those who are ready to jump in but aren’t sure where to start. Sometimes, advisers can even be behind their advisers when it comes to understanding the complexities of crypto.To create the best possible relationship between advisers and … [Read More...]

No matter what views people hold about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, there’s no denying the general public has an insatiable appetite for news and information about this field.That’s why CoinDesk is building the leading global media platform for a rapidly growing digital asset industry, one that will be a vital information resource for all those engaged in the transformation of the global financial system that it portends.To take that mission to the next level, we’re promoting Kevin Reynolds to the newly reconstituted role of Editor-in-Chief, where he’ll oversee our news, long-form and professional editorial content. A journalist with decades of experience building and running global news teams in fast-moving, high-stress environments and with an entrepreneurial instinct for finding and addressing … [Read More...]

Attorneys for Ira Kleiman and W&K Info Defense Research, LLC began to paint an unflattering portrait of Craig Wright, his business practices and interpersonal dealings in court Tuesday and Wednesday.It started with former Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen, who testified that Wright – the Australian computer scientist best known for his much-debated claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator – “bamboozled” him.In a pre-recorded video deposition shown in court Tuesday, Andresen testified that he began to doubt Wright’s claim after he notoriously failed to deliver cryptographic proof that he had access to Satoshi’s private keys.“I’m starting to doubt myself, and imagining the clever ways you could have tricked me…” Andresen wrote to Wright on May 3, 2016, in an email presented in … [Read More...]

Metaverse startup The Sandbox closed a $93 million Series B funding round led by SoftBank, according to a press release.The Sandbox is an Ethereum-based platform where players can “play, create, own, and govern a virtual world,” its site states.Players can own in-game assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), such as plots of land that they can build on.The Sandbox token, SAND, has a $2.46 billion market cap, according to data from intelligence platform CoinMarketCap.The startup’s majority stakeholder is Hong Kong-based gaming firm Animoca Brands, an early metaverse and GameFi backer that was valued at $2.2 billion after raising $65 million in October.Other investors in the round include True Global Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, … [Read More...]

Stablecoins have a hegemonic hold over the crypto derivatives space. Most of the perpetual contracts across the CEX.IO cryptocurrency exchange are priced in stablecoins, and all contracts on the FTX exchange are USD margined. Likewise, all perpetuals on decentralized finance (DeFi) derivative protocols like Perpetual Protocol and DYDX are USD linear contracts. This is the stablecoin standard in the derivatives market.But a new protocol from Qilin allows altcoins to be used in crypto derivative deals, which will rapidly expand the utility of altcoins. We believe that just as fiat money supply exploded once we came off the gold standard, so altcoin demand will explode as the crypto markets move off the stablecoin standard. And a key driver for this move will be the development of … [Read More...]

The developers behind a crypto project inspired by Netflix’s mega-popular show “Squid Game” say they’ve left the project after the price of its affiliated token crashed to nearly zero.The latest development shows just how risky it can be to invest in a new and hyped token in the crypto market.As CoinDesk reported last week, the play-to-earn crypto project Squid Game gained instant popularity and the SQUID token rose by more than 35,000% in just three days – despite several red flags including grammatical and spelling errors in the project’s white paper and the fact that the project’s website was registered less than a month ago.At press time, the project’s official website and its account on Medium were down and Twitter had … [Read More...]

CoinDesk’s annual list of the “Most Influential” people in the cryptocurrency industry has been a year-end holiday tradition since 2014.It’s our way of raising and praising the finest, those shipping the most-used products, onboarding those who need crypto the most and setting a high bar for us all. For a long time we have celebrated people who were admired in crypto circles but hardly well known in the world at large.This year is a little different. We’re still publishing the list in December, but the tenor has changed. Crypto, in 2021, went from a niche financial asset to a global phenomenon. It is entangling, disrupting and beginning to replace all others (just a little hyperbole for listicles).In the past, “influence” in crypto meant having … [Read More...]

First US exchange traded fund linked to cryptocurrency garners strong demand following debut [Read More...]

‘TradFi’ groups say they are investing in digital asset expertise for defensive reasons [Read More...]