Coindesk

El Salvador is in the process of securing a $3.5 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund, but is making some concessions around bitcoin (BTC) to get the funding.Stacey Herbert, director of the Bitcoin Office in El Salvador, posted on Thursday that the government-issued Chivo wallet — launched in 2021 in a bid to spread bitcoin adoption across the country — will be "sold off or wound down" as part of the deal. Other bitcoin wallets operated by private companies will "continue serving El Salvador," Herbert said.The IMF stated on Wednesday that, under the agreement, El Salvador will also make bitcoin acceptance by the private sector voluntary, and that taxes will only be paid in U.S. dollars (not bitcoin). "For...

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3644.43, down 0.3% (-9.33) since 4 pm ET on Wednesday.Four of 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: HBAR (+3.1%) and APT (+2.9%).Laggards: AVAX (-3.7%) and ICP (-3.7%).The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.Source link

EMBARGOED UNTIL 19 DECEMBER 2024 @ 9:00 AM ETBlockchain security firm Blockaid said a full 59% of crypto tokens introduced this year were "malicious in nature."The number of nefarious tokens being sold into the open market ties in with the rising memecoin narrative that has been consistent throughout this cycle.There are now 10 memecoins with a market cap of $1 billion or greater and this relative success has led to copycat tokens being launched on Ethereum, Base and Solana among other chains. Rug-pull scams remain a prevalent threat, making up 27% of malicious tokens, Blockaid said.It's worth noting, however, that the amount lost to cryptocurrency hacks and scams shrank dramatically. The FBI said that in 2023, $5.6 billion was lost...

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pled guilty last year to charges related to the 2016 theft of 120,000 bitcoin from Bitfinex, has made his first public statement since his 2022 arrest.In a five-minute video posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Lichtenstein reiterated that he was the hacker and that he acted alone, denying speculation in a Netflix documentary that his father (or, perhaps, some spy agency, maybe Russia's) might have been involved in the theft.“My dad is no hacker, he doesn’t even know how to use Instagram,” said Lichtenstein, who was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering, including the time he was incarcerated after the arrest while the case was pending. "I offer my sincerest...

Wednesday, Dec. 18, will go down in history as a day of market panic triggered by the 25 basis point Fed rate cut and Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish outlook.Bitcoin (BTC) briefly tumbled below $100,000; U.S. equities dropped around 3%, while the dollar index (DXY) index soared to a two-year high of 108, which continues to put pressure on currencies worldwide.The most significant movement came from the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which skyrocketed by 74%, marking the largest one-day jump in the Wall Street's so-called fear gauge since Feb. 5, 2018. It was also the second-largest increase in its history. The VIX serves as a measure of market fear and expected volatility over the next 30 days.Historically, significant spikes in the...