Author: Steven Sahiounie

Asia-Pacific markets were lower on Wednesday after Wall Street’s sharp losses overnight, and New Zealand’s central bank continued to hike its benchmark interest rate. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand hiked rates by 50 basis points to 4.75%, the highest in over 14 years, to tame inflation. The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell fractionally to close at 11,794.2 and the New Zealand dollar gained 0.21% to stand at 0.6226 against the U.S. dollar. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.3% lower at 7,314.5 as nation saw its wage price index for the fourth quarter of 2022 come in lower than estimates. Japan’s Nikkei 225 finished 1.34% lower…

BIS general manager Agustín Carstens reckons the war between fiat and crypto has been won by fiat. The community disagrees. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has long taken a cautious approach to Bitcoin  $24,367 and cryptocurrencies. However, there is no need for caution anymore as the “battle has been won” between fiat and crypto, according to BIS. BIS general manager Agustín Carstens, who made the claim, highlighted that “technology doesn’t make for trusted money,” among further criticisms of crypto in an interview with Bloomberg. As the central bank for central banks, the BIS has emphasized the need for regulation and…

The three largest US stock market indexes dropped by up to 3% yesterday. Bitcoin failed at decisively overcoming $25,000 once again yesterday, and the subsequent rejection brought it back down to just below $24,000. Most altcoins have suffered even more on a daily scale, with MATIC, OKB, SOL, and several others dumping by around 7%. Bitcoin Mimicks Wall Street The past several days, more precisely since the end of last week, were highly volatile for the primary cryptocurrency. It skyrocketed to and beyond $25,000 on Thursday, registering a six-month high, before dumping just as rapidly to under $23,500. Another two…

A new partnership between Binance and Ingenico allows in-store payments in France via Binance Pay. Mainstream crypto and crypto-based services adoption continues, with more companies bridging traditional financial (TradFi) solutions with decentralized financial (DeFi) solutions. In an announcement on Feb. 22, a new pilot program launched between the crypto exchange, Binance and credit card service company Ingenico, allows in-store crypto payments via Binance Pay. Currently, the initial test of this offering is only available on Ingenico Axium payment terminals in France. According to the announcement, the program accepts more than 50 cryptocurrencies. Initially, merchants will be paid in cryptocurrency; however, a crypto-to-fiat solution…

The CEO blamed the layoffs on a need to maximise how long its cash reserves will last. Australian crypto gaming company Immutable is cutting 11% of its workforce, according to a letter to employees from the CEO shared with CoinDesk by the platform. The news was first reported by The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Chief Executive and co-founder James Ferguson announced the job cuts in the note blaming the layoffs on a need to maximize how long its cash reserves will last and put its resources towards the most important projects. “I take full ownership for these actions,” Ferguson wrote. He added,…

The Canadian Securities Administrators has tightened registration requirements for crypto exchanges for the second time, after the disorder seen in 2022. he Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a notice on Feb. 22 describing new commitments it expects from crypto asset trading platforms (CTPs) seeking registration in Canada. The CTPs will enter into a new version of preregistration undertakings (PRUs), which are legally binding documents. Registered CTPs will be contacted by their principal regulators about compliance with the new expectations. The new commitments represent investor protections in light of the spate of CTP insolvencies that occurred in 2022, the CSA wrote. The new…

The petition alleged that CoinEx listed various tokens and services that qualify as securities and/or commodities under state law. The New York State Attorney General’s office filed suit against crypto exchange CoinEx on Wednesday, arguing it is an unregistered securities broker and commodity broker-dealer under state law. CoinEx did not register as an exchange with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as a commodities broker-dealer with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or with New York regulators prior to offering services in the state, the complaint said. Despite this, the company said it was an exchange on its website and…

Amid the rubble of FTX and other centralized exchanges, cross-chain technology and on-chain trading offer more trustworthy alternatives, writes Simon Harman of Chainflip. A trend few have paid much attention to is the changing shape of the crypto industry’s spot markets — more specifically in the cross-chain space. What started on Ethereum is spreading as technology advances. In 2020, Uniswap exploded (in a good way) and took billions in daily volume away from centralized exchanges, to the point where much of the price discovery for many ERC-20 tokens now occurs on-chain. If the trend of the last two years is…

More interest rate hikes are coming from the US Federal Reserve. At least, that was the takeaway from the recently released minutes of the 1st of February meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) earlier this Wednesday. This could be a major medium-term headwind for crypto. The FOMC, comprised of an assortment of Federal Reserve Governors and regional Fed Presidents, raised interest rates 25 bps to a 4.50-4.75% target range at their meeting earlier this month. That was a slowdown following a 50 bps rate hike at the last meeting of 2022, which was proceeded by four consecutive 75 bps rate…

As per latest crypto news related to HBAR, Hedera is now home to products that leverage artificial intelligence for the Web3 space. HBAR Crypto News: Hedera (HBAR) is making significant progress despite the fact that the broader cryptocurrency market is experiencing a roller coaster of ride. The network’s performance has been able to distinguish it from the rest of the crypto space, and this distinction has attracted the interest of the crypto community and developers alike. Hedera’s Growing Ecosystem With new products being launched on the network, the latest entry from Unthink.AI allows the Hashgraph-powered layer one solution to leave a mark in the…