Coindesk

XRP led crypto losses on the second-last day of this year as a stronger dollar weighed down global currencies and assets including bitcoin, with Asian equity markets sliding lower on Monday.XRP sunk more than 5% in the past 24 hours, with dogecoin (DOGE), Solana’s SOL, ether (ETH) and BNB falling as much as 2%. Overall market capitalization fell 3%, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), an index tracking the largest tokens, minus stablecoins, shed 3.5%.US equities declined on Friday and as investors trimmed positions amid uncertainty heading into year-end. An Asia Pacific index reversed 5-day gains, while futures contracts on U.S. indexes S&P 500 and Nasdaq pointed to losses in the U.S. session as of Asian afternoon hours.BTC has historically...

Terraform creator Do Kwon will be extradited to the U.S., Montenegrin Justice Minister Bojan Božović said Friday.The U.S. and South Korean governments have both sought to take custody of Kwon to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra/Luna system in 2022, which kicked off a series of high-profile collapses including that of FTX. Kwon, who was arrested in Montenegro in March of 2023 and sentenced to a few months in prison over passport forgery charges, has been fighting his extradition to the U.S. for more than a year. Various courts in the country have ruled in favor of the U.S. or South Korea taking custody of the onetime crypto executive. In his statement on...

The dominant crypto narrative for 2024 has been institutional adoption. From the U.S. approval of spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds to the burgeoning number of companies pledging to buy the largest cryptocurrency for their treasuries, crypto has entered, more than ever before, the mainstream conversation.Bitcoin has increased almost 130% this year, breaking record highs on several occasions. It is currently hovering near the psychological threshold of $100,000. The ETFs approved in January have seen net inflows of $36 billion and amassed over 1 million BTC.In addition, the number of publicly traded companies saying they're adding bitcoin to their corporate treasury is accelerating. The trend, which started with MicroStrategy (MSTR) in 2020, recently attracted KULR Technology (KULR), a maker of energy...

Stalled bitcoin (BTC) and crypto prices may not be bringing festive cheer to traders, but some with money are trying to spread the goodwill around.Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he'd accepted an invitation to be the “adoptive father” of pygmy hippo Moo Deng when she grows up. He is also donating 10 million Thai baht ($300,000) to the Khao Kheow Open Zoo near Bangkok where the five-month-old lives, he said in a Thursday posting on X.The donations, made in Moo Deng’s name, will be used to upgrade general zoo operations and create a dedicated pygmy hippo habitat within the premises.Buterin said the donations came on the back of the “wonderful hospitality of Thailand” during November’s annual Ethereum developer conference, and...

South Koreans are paying a full 3% more to buy bitcoin (BTC) than their U.S. counterparts as they seek protection from the plummeting won, CryptoQuant data show.Priced in won, the largest cryptocurrency is valued at 145,000,000 ($98,600) on the country's largest crypto exchange, Upbit. That compares with about $96,700 on Coinbase (COIN). The move follows a vote by the South Korean parliament to impeach Han Duck-soo, the prime minister and acting president, just weeks after impeaching President Yoon Suk Yeol. The won slumped a 15-year low against the dollar."This unfolding saga is fundamentally about election fraud and the erosion of trust in South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC)," said Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at investment manager Bitwise,...