The Central Bank of Bolivia is now selling dollars directly to citizens in order to curb what it is calling a speculative attack that has increased the demand of the population for foreign currency. This rise in demand has been caused by several factors which led the population to believe there might be a devaluation
According to reports and a filing that shows its name struck off the U.K. companies’ register list, Blockchain.com is sunsetting its Blockchain.com Asset Management subsidiary. A company spokesperson cited deteriorating “macroeconomic conditions” and the “crypto winter” as some of the reasons for halting the institutional business. The Impact of Crypto Winter on the Cryptocurrency Industry
India’s finance ministry has announced that crypto transactions will be covered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). Noting that the move “is a positive step in recognizing the sector,” a crypto insider explained that it will strengthen the industry’s efforts to prevent virtual digital assets “from being misused by bad actors.” India
The chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has insisted that ether is a commodity, not a security as claimed by the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The CFTC chief stressed that the derivatives watchdog would not have allowed ether futures products to be listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges “if we did
An influential group of City of London chief executives has called on Jeremy Hunt to enact reforms aimed at releasing more investor capital to support UK companies and boost the economy. In a letter seen by the Financial Times, the UK Capital Markets Industry Taskforce (CMIT) told the chancellor there was a “substantial opportunity to
The Bank of England has moved to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into resolution after it applied for £1.8bn of liquidity as its parent company was collapsing on Friday. The BoE said in a late-night statement that it plans to use its bank insolvency procedure which allows depositors to be paid up
Silicon Valley Bank is bust. With $212bn in assets and a market capitalisation of $16bn as recently as Wednesday, it is by far the biggest bank failure since the global financial crisis. SVB is worlds away from Silvergate, the tiny crypto-bank that announced plans to wind down this week. Silvergate had just $11bn in assets
Authorities in Kazakhstan have busted an illegal crypto trading platform, seizing over $350,000. The exchange allegedly processed almost $34 million in transactions through wallets on Binance, two of which have been blocked during the ongoing investigation. Digital Asset Exchange Making Millions in Turnover Closed Down in Kazakhstan A platform illegally trading cryptocurrencies in Kazakhstan, ABS
A top Federal Reserve official has said he is “open to any outcome” regarding the central bank’s conundrum over whether to revert to half-point interest rate rises in the face of unexpectedly strong economic data. Speaking with the Financial Times on Friday, Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin, who has previously been an advocate of quarter-point
Defying global trends, Dubai’s luxury real estate market is showing incredible resilience. Bolstered by a flock of high net-worth buyers, high-end real estate prices have jumped 89% over the past year and the sale of ultraluxe properties priced at more than $10 million reached an unprecedented level. It comes as little surprise then that the
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure on Friday was an extreme consequence of broad trends squeezing profits and clouding the outlook for the banking sector. SVB had grown to about $209bn in assets with a client base concentrated among tech and healthcare start-ups. This business proved particularly vulnerable to the impact of rapidly rising interest rates. When
Big round numbers always pique the interest of investors and the $1 trillion total crypto market capitalization is no exception. It’s a level that held for 48 days before collapsing on March 9. After a 16-hour negative 8.6% price movement, the indicator fell to $914 billion, its lowest level since Jan.13. Concerns about the stability
Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai upgrade will allow users to withdraw staked Ether (ETH), increasing the network’s liquidity and competitiveness while also boosting its staking ratio closer to its competitors. The Shanghai upgrade is a hard fork of Ethereum tentatively scheduled to occur in March. It implements five Ethereum Improvement Proposals, the headliner being EIP-4895, which allows
Municipals were firmer to end the week, outperforming a U.S. Treasury rally after the employment report revealed more jobs than expected were added in February. Equities sold off. Triple-A benchmark yields were bumped five to 10 basis points, depending on the curve, while U.S. Treasury yields fell 20 to 31 basis points, pushing the five-,
Silicon Valley start-ups are scrambling to pay staff and identify sources of back-up funding after regulators stepped in and shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday morning, stranding deposits that serve as the lifeblood of many early-stage technology companies. The bank was the 16th largest in the US and a central part of the Silicon
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has introduced new restrictions for Russian users, in accordance with the latest European sanctions. The platform is restricting access to peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in U.S. dollars and euros for traders based in the Russian Federation. Binance Prohibits US Dollar and Euro Transactions for Russians on Its P2P Market The world’s largest crypto
Some Aave users who accidentally sent tokens to the wrong address may soon be able to recover them, according to the text of a proposal passed by the Aave decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on March 10. The proposal, called “Rescue Mission Phase 1 Long Executor,” authorizes Aave developers to upgrade smart contracts that have been mistakenly
The writer is a former central banker and a professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business In his testimony to Congress earlier this week, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell indicated “the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated” and “restoring price stability will probably
Two and a bit months in, how is 2023 shaping up in financial markets? Bank of America sums it up well with a (sadly anonymised) quote from an investor: “Like watching a mad donkey thrashing around in a field bouncing off all the fences.” If anything, this may be a little harsh on mad donkeys,
There are only ten days into March, and volatility in the crypto markets has heightened, with both bitcoin and ethereum falling to two-month lows. A collapse in Silvergate Bank was one of the major catalysts leading to this month’s bearish sentiment, which now sees bitcoin trading under $20,000. With over three weeks remaining in March,
Classical music maestros are in uproar over the BBC’s decision to scrap the UK’s only full-time professional chamber choir and cut jobs for orchestral performers, warning the sector is grappling with a mounting funding crisis. In its latest response to its own financial pressures, the corporation this week laid down plans to abolish the 99-year-old