Coindesk

With only a handful of days remaining until the second inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, crypto policy groups are readying to kick things into higher gear.Blockchain associations from eight U.S. states announced on Tuesday the creation of the North American Blockchain Association (NABA), an organization aiming to provide cohesive crypto policy recommendations to the federal government.“A few years ago Arry Yu and I led an effort to provide more information and best practices sharing between state associations,” Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council and a member of NABA’s board of directors, told CoinDesk. “NABA is the formalization of that process in which each state association is independent and retains agency but can act in concert with...

On Jan. 20, 2025, the United States will start a new chapter in more ways than one. While the nation will be focused on President Trump's inauguration as our 47th President, the U.S. financial sector will be celebrating the resignation of Joe Biden's Securities and Exchange Commission Chair, Gary Gensler.As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, I am well aware of Gensler's heavy-handed approach in stifling innovation and shackling the American economy's engine. His punitive stance was particularly damaging in the burgeoning field of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.While touting his actions as measures to protect investors, Gensler leveraged contrived ambiguity to undermine the growth and technological advancements that make U.S. markets competitive and drive promising projects offshore, including...

Last June, a sailing buddy (and aerospace engineer) asked if I could check out a family friend’s “bitcoin.” He forwarded me an image of a plastic bitcoin wallet held with a private key partially obscured. The family friend had received the card as some sort of “gimmick at a conference” and tossed it in a drawer.This is one of those moments where I find imposter syndrome perched on my shoulder, nodding its head, lips pursed. Two years in the business preceded by another two monkeying around in my personal account didn’t give me nearly enough crypto cred to say, “Oh, yeah, wow. I remember these.” Fine, I’m a noob. I made a no-promises disclaimer and quickly changed the subject.Back home,...

The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR).Since MicroStrategy (MSTR) become a bitcoin treasury company in August 2020, it has used three primary instruments to acquire bitcoin (BTC): cash on hand, at-the-market (ATM) offerings and convertible bond offerings.MicroStrategy's next method of raising capital is to buy bitcoin through perpetual preferred stock, which was announced to the market on Jan. 3. MicroStrategy has announced a capital raise of $2 billion through one or multiple offerings, according to Benchmark.Benchmark hosted a recent investor meeting with MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor at the ICR conference in Orlando to discuss the perpetual preferred stock offering.A perpetual preferred stock typically has no fixed maturity date and continues indefinitely unless the company chooses...

U.S. prosecutors have asked a federal judge to green-light the return of nearly 80% of the 119,754 bitcoins stolen in the 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex.In a Tuesday court filing, prosecutors said the 94,643 bitcoins recovered by the government from the original wallet used by the hacker, Ilya Lichtenstein, can be paid to Bitfinex as restitution in-kind once the court gives the go-ahead. The Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision and Bitcoin Gold generated via several hard forks following the hack will also be sent to Bitfinex.Last November, Lichtenstein was sentenced to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2023. His wife, Heather Morgan – better known by her rap moniker Razzlekhan – received...