Coindesk

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will vote soon on a deal negotiated with Coinbase to entirely drop the agency's legal pursuit of the crypto exchange, according to the company's top lawyer.While the SEC has been making moves almost daily to reverse past positions on digital assets, the pending vote would mark a watershed moment that could start a series of legal dominoes to free other crypto businesses from enforcement actions. Because the deal between Coinbase and SEC staff assumes a dismissal of the case "with prejudice," said Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, the regulator's accusations of securities violations would be shut down permanently."It's a great day for Coinbase, yes, but it's also a great day for crypto in...

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)Cryptocurrency prices are rising after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s former crypto enforcement unit transitioned into the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit and amid dovish comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic.Renaming the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit is significant because it shows the agency is moving away from its crypto focus that often led to accusations of regulation by enforcement and legal battles with major industry participants.“In the near to medium term, clearer regulations will likely boost institutional participation, leading to improvements in market infrastructure,” BackPack founder and CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk. Bitcoin is now above $98,000 after adding 1.2% in 24 hours, while the broader CoinDesk 20 Index...

Altvest Capital (ALV) became the first listed company in Africa to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as a strategic treasury asset, the company said in a press release Friday.Altvest said it bought one bitcoin for its strategic treasury, following a path set by Strategy (MSTR) in the U.S. and Metaplanet (3350) in Japan.The Johannesburg-based company paid 1.8 million rand ($98,200) for just over 1 BTC, and said it doesn't plan to buy alternative cryptocurrencies.Altvest said it sees "bitcoin as the only digital asset that meets its stringent investment criteria for a long-term treasury allocation."Corporates are increasingly adding bitcoin as a strategic treasury asset. Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy) pioneered the a move, starting to buy BTC in 2020. It now...

The cryptocurrency market is lacking positive catalysts in the near term, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a report Wednesday.The correction in crypto markets in recent months has seen both bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures near backwardation, which is a sign of lower demand, the report said. Backwardation occurs when the spot price of an asset is higher than the price trading in the futures market."This is a negative development and indicative of demand weakness by those institutional investors that use regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure into these two cryptocurrencies," analysts led Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.If demand for bitcoin and ether futures is healthy, the futures cost more than the spot price, and the curve is said...

HONG KONG—Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who has repeatedly called himself a "Nazi" in recent weeks, plans to launch a crypto token, according to three sources close to the project.The token, YZY, is designed to help Ye side-step platforms like Shopify that have cut ties with him in response to his hateful rhetoric.Crypto, with its censorship-resistant ethos, offers Ye an alternative avenue for cashing in on his celebrity status: Seventy percent of the YZY token, named after Ye's Yeezy clothing brand, will be reserved for Ye personally, with just 10% allocated for liquidity provisioning and 20% for investors.Ye's foray into crypto comes on the heels of years of public controversy that have strained his business empire. In...