Coindesk

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the founder of now-defunct crypto and foreign exchange investment company PGI Global, with violating federal securities laws, alleging he ran a “Ponzi-like scheme” that defrauded investors of nearly $200 million — and spent $57 million of customer money on Lamborghinis, real estate and luxury goods.Ramil Palafox, 59, of Las Vegas, Nevada, also faces parallel criminal charges tied to his role at PGI Global. In March, a Virginia grand jury charged him in a sprawling 23-count indictment that included eight counts of wire fraud. Due to what prosecutors described as Palafox’s “substantial ties” to the Philippines, including dual citizenship, the judge overseeing his criminal case issued an order on Tuesday that he should...

Over the past several years, global discourse around blockchain has been dominated by the United States — its legislative gridlock, inter-agency turf wars, and intermittent moments of regulatory clarity. As the U.S. continued to grapple with its internal contradictions, other jurisdictions have sought to fill the void. Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Gibraltar positioned themselves as crypto hubs. Yet, each of them faced a critical limitation: none were natural centers of technological innovation at global scale.Canada, by contrast, holds an often-overlooked but exceptionally strategic position. Not only is it geographically and culturally aligned with the United States, but it also shares a kindred entrepreneurial ethos. More importantly, Canada has deep, organic roots in blockchain innovation. Ethereum — arguably the...

TRUMP, marketed as Donald Trump's official crypto token, rallied on Wednesday as an invitation to a dinner event with the U.S. President for token holders appeared on the project's website."Join President Donald J. Trump at his Private, Members-Only Club in Washington, D.C. for Dinner!," a banner about the event on the project's website said.The invite is targeted for the 220 largest token holders, per the event's website.The token surged over 70% following the news briefly hitting $16, its strongest price since early March. Later it retraced to below $13, still up 43% over the past 24 hours.The event, notably, comes after $300 million worth of previously locked-up TRUMP tokens were added to circulation on April 18, according to Tokenomist data....

A project aiming to expand Bitcoin's utility is tackling the collateral requirements of bridging the blockchain to programmable layer 2s.Rollup project Citrea deployed its Clementine Bridge on the Bitcoin testnet. The bridge uses the BitVM2 programming language to expand the provision for decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin, by using it to verify layer 2s and sidechains that are fully programable in the way Bitcoin isn't. "A secure bridge between Bitcoin and a secondary layer has always been a bottleneck for using BTC in a programmable environment," Citrea said on Monday.Clementine is designed to solve this by providing a trust-minimized way to bridge bitcoin (BTC) for use in DeFi environments.The BitVM family of computing paradigms, which could allow Ethereum-style smart contracts...

This is a daily technical analysis by CoinDesk analyst and Chartered Market Technician Omkar Godbole.Bitcoin (BTC) has finally surpassed a key resistance that limited recovery rallies earlier this year, after rising over 5% to $93,500 in 24 hours.The leading digital asset by market value has topped the "Ichimoku Cloud," confirming a bullish shift in momentum, while other major cryptocurrencies lag.The Ichimoku cloud, developed by a Japanese journalist in the 1960s, is used to identify support and resistance, momentum, and trend change in price actions. The indicator comprises five lines: Leading Span A, Leading Span B, and the gap between the two representing the cloud, Conversion Line or Tenkan-Sen (T), Base Line or Kijun-Sen (K), and a lagging closing price line.Crossovers...