Category: TRENDS IN CRYPTOS

The world of NFTs helped fuel a record year of profits for the world-renowned auction firm Sotheby’s in 2021. According to a report released this past week, Southebys recorded $100 million in sales from its new NFT category, with first-time buyers coming to its virtual Decentraland gallery in search of Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunk...

MYANMAR GOVERNMENT IN EXILE OPTS FOR USDT. Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), currently out of power as a result of a military coup, has announced it is advocating to use a crypto stablecoin to replace the country’s official Kyat currency. An official statement by the exiled leadership read: “To improve and accelerate the current trading...

IMF CALLS FOR “GLOBAL” CRYPTO REGULATION. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) used a recent blog post to call for a “global policy stance on cryptocurrencies that is comprehensive, coherent, and coordinated.” IMF officials Tobias Adrian, Dong He, and Aditya Narain cited the fast rise of the digital asset market, in arguing for global regulations. The...

The Singapore-based Crypto.com digital currency exchange will pay $216 million to take over IG Group’s stake in the North American Derivatives Exchange and in Small Exchange, a futures platform for retail traders, the Financial Times reported. Both exchanges will be folded into the Crypto.com organization but both CEOs will remain in place, the company said....

Speaking together at last week’s Digital Asset Compliance and Market Integrity Summit, two chairs of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed that cryptocurrencies should fall under federal regulations. Jay Clayton, SEC chair in the Trump administration, interviewed current chair Gary Gensler. When Clayton asked Gensler if the SEC plans to regulate crypto, Gensler...

Venture capitalists have plowed more than $27 billion worldwide into cryptocurrency-related start-ups this year as of 1 December, more than in the entire previous 10 years combined, according to data service Pitchbook. Much of the funding has come from the investment arms of crypto companies themselves, whose success depends on the crypto ecosystem continuing to...

SQUARE BECOMES BLOCK. First it was Facebook trying to catch the blockchain tech wave with an announcement that it would change its name to Meta. Now Jack Dorsey’s Square, a payments and and point-of-sale company focused on small entrepreneurs is changing its name to Block. The change reflects an intention to integrate crypto capabilities more...

Neils Juul, the executive producer of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, has launched a new firm with the goal of using NFT sales to finance Hollywood films, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “NFT Studios” already has its first project in the works, a comedy-drama film called “A Wing and a Prayer.” The film will tell the...