US to Allow Bitcoin to Be Part of Mainstream Investing Funds | BBC News

Jan 11, 2024 | The US has made the long-awaited decision to allow Bitcoin to be part of mainstream investing funds. It has approved what are known as spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which can be purchased by anyone from pension funds to ordinary investors. The announcement from the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission was accompanied by a stern warning about risks associated with the asset. The US financial watchdog had repeatedly rebuffed earlier requests for approvals, citing concerns about potential for fraud and manipulation.

FTX Co-Founder Wang Testifies He, SBF Committed Giant Fraud

Oct 6, 2023 | FTX co-founder Gary Wang took a stand at Sam Bankman-Fried trial, saying he and his onetime math camp buddy and MIT roommate committed a multibillion-dollar fraud. Ava Benny-Morrison reports on Bloomberg Television.

Historic Financial Fraud Trial Begins: Who Is Sam Bankman-Fried? | Amanpour & Company

Originally aired on October 5, 2023

Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘young, eccentric billionaire’ shtick was just another part of the grift: As with Elizabeth Holmes and Billy McFarland, the story seemed too good to be true – because it was »

Prosecutor Opens Trial for FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Saying He Stole At Least $10 billion | News

Oct 4, 2023 | A prosecutor opened a fraud trial Wednesday by telling jurors that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was on top of the world a year ago, hobnobbing with celebrities, before his historic fraud was exposed, leaving customers and investors without at least $10 billion they thought was secure. A defense lawyer insisted his client didn’t steal from anyone.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Fraud Trial Begins Today - Here's What It Means for the Future of Crypto

Oct 3, 2023 | This week, Sam Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, will stand trial in what federal prosecutors have called one of the biggest frauds in US history.

The 31-year-old former crypto superstar has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in connection with the collapse of FTX, his crypto-trading platform. If convicted and sentenced to the maximum punishment, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Forbes’ Director of Research for Digital Assets Steven Erich sat down with reporter Rosemarie Miller to talk about what SBF has been charged with, how big the fraud was and what it means for the future of cryptocurrency.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Parents Aren't Out of Legal Peril Themselves: New Yorker's Sheelah Kolhatkar

Oct 2, 2023 | Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker staff writer, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the upcoming criminal trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the unique relationship Bankman-Fried's parents played in FTX, what can expect at the trial, and more. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC.

Rise, Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX at Center of Michael Lewis' New Book | 60 Minutes

Oct 2, 2023 | Author Michael Lewis met with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried more than 100 times. Lewis breaks down the crypto superstar’s rise and fall in his new book, “Going Infinite.”

Crypto Goes on Trial, as Sam Bankman-Fried Faces His Reckoning: The FTX founder’s uphill court battle starts Tuesday, after he has come to symbolize everything that went wrong with the cryptocurrency industry. »

Related article here.

Le procès de Sam Bankman-Fried, le « Mozart des cryptomonnaies », et de la faillite de FTX s’ouvre à New York : Inculpé notamment de fraude et de blanchiment, celui qui était surnommé le « Mozart des cryptos » risque plus de cent ans de prison. Son procès doit s’ouvrir mardi. » [€]

Mysterium Satoshi - Bitcoin wie alles begann | Doku HD Komplettfassung | ARTE

Feb 22, 2022 | Anfang 2009, inmitten der Finanzkrise, brachte "Satoshi Nakamoto" den Bitcoin in Umlauf. Er schuf damit die erste dezentrale und zuverlässige Kryptowährung - und ist seit 2011 komplett von der Bildfläche verschwunden. "Mysterium Satoshi" erzählt die spannende Entstehungsgeschichte von Bitcoin und der Blockchain-Technologie aus Sicht seines geheimnisvollen Schöpfers.

Wie im Abspann angegeben ist Satoshis Monolog weitgehend erfunden. Er ist « frei inspiriert von der gleichnamigen Figur ». ...

Daniel Lacalle: Bitcoin’s Worth. Where Next?

April 25, 2023

Bitcoin Faces a Crucial Moment

April 17, 2023
Watch Daniel Lacalle speak on Bitcoin here.

Der Bitcoin steigt über die 20 000-Dollar-Marke. Ist der Krypto-Winter damit schon wieder vorbei?

NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG: Die bekannteste Krypto-Währung Bitcoin hat am Wochenende bisweilen mehr als 21 000 Dollar gekostet. Anleger fragen sich nun, ob die Branche den Untergang der Krypto-Börse FTX bereits verdaut hat.

Der Kollaps von FTX letzten November kam einem Erdbeben in der Krypto-Welt gleich. Hinzu kamen die steil steigenden Zinsen. Diese beiden Faktoren führten dazu, dass die Kurse vieler Krypto-Währungen markant fielen. Allen voran der Bitcoin-Kurs. Der Wert der gemessen an der Marktkapitalisierung wertvollsten Digitalwährung brach seit letztem April von rund 46 000 Dollar auf 16 000 Dollar ein. Am Wochenende hat der Bitcoin die 20 000-Dollar-Marke aber wieder überschritten. » | Isabelle Wachter | Montag, 16. Januar 2023

A Poor Country Made Bitcoin a National Currency. The Bet Isn’t Paying Off.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: It brought El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, the adulation of the tech community, but reduced scarce funds and moved the nation closer to default.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at an event in June to mark his third year in office.Credit...Jose Cabezas/Reuters
Bitcoin was meant to transform El Salvador’s economy, catapulting the poor Central American nation into an unlikely harbinger of a financial revolution.

But nearly a year after the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, shocked the financial world by making its most popular digital coin a national currency, his bet appears to be backfiring, highlighting the gap between the utopian promises of cryptocurrency’s proponents and economic realities.

The government’s bitcoin holdings have lost about 60 percent of their presumed value during the recent market plunge. The use of bitcoin among Salvadorans has collapsed and the country is running out of cash after Mr. Bukele failed to raise fresh funds from cryptocurrency investors. » | Anatoly Kurmanaev and Bryan Avelar | Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Die Bitcoin-Millionäre | ARTE Re: Reupload

Jun 30, 2022 Traumhafte Gewinne, ohne staatliche Kontrollen – das verheißen Bitcoins und andere Internetwährungen. Ihre Anhänger glauben an eine finanzielle Revolution. Trotz extrem schwankender Kurse und Warnungen vor einer gefährlichen Blase investieren sie weltweit Milliarden in das digitale Geld. Mit zu hohem Risiko?

Der Holländer Didi Taihuttu (42) hat für Bitcoins und andere digitale Währungen sein Leben und das seiner Familie auf den Kopf gestellt. Noch vor wenigen Jahren besaß der Unternehmer ein Haus und drei Autos. 2017 verkaufte er alles und investierte sein Vermögen in digitale Währungen. Die kalte Jahreszeit verbringt die Familie nun in Thailand. Didis Vermögen hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren um ein Vielfaches vermehrt. Als der Bitcoin 2018 zwischenzeitlich einbrach, investierte er noch mehr in die Kryptowährung – und profierte auch davon. Der Kurs erholte sich schnell und in der Folge stieg er immer weiter. Aber die Bitcoin-Familie will langfristig Gewinn machen und pflegt deshalb einen minimalistischen Lebensstil. Brechen die Kurse ein, könnten Didi und seine Familie von heute auf morgen bankrott sein.

Auch Robert Küfner und Till Wendler glauben an eine Revolution des Finanzwesens durch digitale Währungen. Und sie wollen ganz vorn mit dabei sein. In der Krypto-Hochburg Berlin haben die beiden Bitcoin-Millionäre das Start-up Advanced Blockchain AG gegründet. Die Pioniere beraten Unternehmen, wie sie die Technologie hinter den Bitcoins – die so genannte Blockchain – künftig nutzen können. Eine dezentrale Datenverarbeitung, die niemand manipulieren kann – mit dieser Idee sollen Finanzmarkt und Industrie umgekrempelt werden. Investoren und namhafte Firmen stehen bereits vor der Tür. Doch noch fehlt es den Jungunternehmern an Mitarbeitern mit dem richtigen Know-how. Auf der Suche nach Programmierern reist Till Wendler in die Ukraine. Die Jungunternehmer stehen extrem unter Druck. Wer im Markt der neuen Krypto-Technologie mitspielen will, muss schnell sein.

Reportage (Deutschland 2018, 30 Min)
Video auf YouTube verfügbar bis 31/07/2022

Crypto Crisis: How Digital Currencies Went from Boom to Collapse

THE GUARDIAN: Savers talk of devastating losses as assets such as bitcoin and ‘stablecoins’ like terra fell sharply

Falling bitcoin illustration: Guardian Design
Yuri Popovich had watched his neighbours’ houses burn down to the ground in Kyiv and he needed a safe place to put his money. So he did what millions of amateur investors have done in recent years: he turned to cryptocurrency.

“It was impossible and unsafe to store funds in the form of banknotes. There was a big risk of theft, we also had cases of looting. Therefore, I trusted a ‘stable and reliable’ cryptocurrency. Not for the purpose of speculating, but simply to save,” he says.

The digital asset that Popovich chose in April was terra, a “stablecoin” whose value was supposed to be pegged to the dollar.

It collapsed in May, sparking a rout in the cryptocurrency market whose victims include Popovich. He lost $10,000 (£8,200).

Popovich says his losses were “devastating”, although donations from sympathetic onlookers on social media have helped make up some of the shortfall. He says: “I stopped sleeping normally, lost 4kg, I often have headaches and anxiety.”

Popovich is one of many experiencing the deep chill of the current crypto winter, more than four years after the market’s cornerstone, bitcoin, marked the first digital freeze by tumbling from its then peak. » | Alex Hern and Dan Milmo | Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Crypto Panic as Digital Assets Follow Share Prices in a Downward Spiral

THE OBSERVER: Last week bitcoin fell 31% and Celsius put a hold on withdrawals – and some fear the turmoil is far from over

Investors used to buy bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, but it has proved to be vulnerable to the wider economic downturn. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
The cryptocurrency market could do with some respite but its convention-breaking nature means there is no hiatus. Trading in digital assets such as bitcoin and ethereum runs 24/7, unlike their conventional peers in equities on the New York and London stock exchanges, which at least get the weekend off.

So one torrid week tends to run into another for this most cutting-edge of markets. Bitcoin – the cryptocurrency cornerstone – fell below the key level of $20,000 on Saturday morning, meaning it has dropped 34% in the past seven days, according to CoinGecko, which showed that ethereum, the other pillar of the market, had fallen 40% to $994 in the same period. There are fears bitcoin’s fall will trigger more sell-offs, leading to another tumultuous seven days for digital assets.

The entire crypto market fell below $1 trillion last week, a precipitous decline from its peak of $3tn in November last year. A number of factors drove the declines – a mix of crypto-specific events and wider macroeconomic issues – and some of them will continue to hang over the market this week as well. » | Dan Milmo, Global technology editor | Sunday, June 19, 2022

Bitcoin: Will El Salvador's Big Crypto Gamble Pay Off? – BBC News

Jun 18, 2022 • The falling value of Bitcoin is affecting investors all over the world.

It’s putting increased pressure on the Central American state of El Salvador, which nine months ago made cryptocurrency legal tender. As legal tender it should be accepted in all shops, you can now buy almost anything in Bitcoin, from pizza to real estate.

The government has encouraged people to use Bitcoin by giving $30 to each person who signs up for a government-sponsored Bitcoin wallet – and offering treatment for pets at a cost of just 25 cents for those who pay in Bitcoin.

But aside from some pockets of enthusiasm, people do not seem to be embracing the cryptocurrency as much as their Bitcoin-loving president who is under increasing criticism for investing so much public money in the project.

Bitcoin Falls below $25,000, Celsius and Binance Pause Withdrawals

Jun 13, 2022 • Yahoo Finance Live anchors Julie Hyman, Brad Smith and Brian Sozzi discuss bitcoin trading below $25,000 and some crypto companies pausing withdrawals in response.

Der Bitcoin-Kurs fällt und fällt: Der Kryptomarkt taumelt: Grund ist auch ein amerikanisches Unternehmen, das in Deutschland beworben wurde. Betroffen sind zahlreiche Digitalwährungen. »

Bitcoin drops 18 percent to lowest price since 2020: The cryptocurrency market melted down again on Monday, as the price of Bitcoin plummeted to its lowest point since 2020, wiping away years of investments »

As Energy Prices Soar, the Bitcoin Miners May Find They Have Struck Fool’s Gold

THE OBSERVER: The rising price of electricity and the plunging value of the cryptocurrency could burst the speculative bubble for today’s prospectors

In the bad old days, prospecting for gold was a grisly business involving hysterical crowds, pickaxes, digging, the wearing of appalling hats, standing in rivers panning for nuggets, “staking” claims and so on. The California gold rush of 1848-55, for example, brought 300,000 hopefuls to the Sierra Nevada and northern California and involved the massacre of thousands of Indigenous people.

In our day, the new gold is bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, and prospecting for it has become a genteel armchair activity, although it is called “mining”, for old times’ sake. What it actually involves is using computers to perform unfathomably complicated calculations to create cryptographic “hashes” – codes that are, in practical terms, uncrackable. » | John Naughton | Saturday, June 11, 2022

Bitcoin, ethereum ou tether… Pour les plus jeunes, argent facile et désillusions au pays des cryptomonnaies

LE MONDE : Malgré la forte volatilité des monnaies numériques, ils sont nombreux à investir dans la blockchain, tant par goût de l’argent facile que par défiance vis-à-vis du système bancaire classique.

Owen Simonin, alias « Hasheur », influenceur dans la sphère des cryptomonnaies, à Metz, le 17 janvier 2021. NICOLAS LEBLANC / ITEM
Lui s’est mis à investir dans les cryptomonnaies au début du mois de mai, à contre-courant, alors que le marché amorçait sa chute vertigineuse. A 19 ans, Arthur, étudiant en prépa HEC à Paris, une fois ses concours passés, cherchait « quoi faire de [sa] vie ». Il jette finalement son dévolu sur ces monnaies numériques, auxquelles se sont frottés avant lui plusieurs élèves de sa classe, passés en cours d’année des paris sportifs à la Bourse puis au bitcoin, la reine des cryptomonnaies. « Autour de moi, ceux qui en achetaient voulaient devenir millionnaires en deux heures. Moi, je m’y intéresse parce que c’est à la mode, dit-il, mais aussi parce que le bitcoin pourrait devenir la monnaie du futur. Peut-être qu’un jour on dira que le bitcoin a été aussi important que l’invention du chemin de fer. »

L’étudiant a acheté pour 500 euros de tether USD (USDT), un « stablecoin » (cryptomonnaie stable) qui vise à répliquer la valeur du dollar américain, après avoir passé de longues heures à lire des livres et à regarder des vidéos d’influenceurs. « J’aime bien me renseigner avant de jouer au loto, dit-il, et, à ce jour, je n’ai à peu près rien perdu. » » | Par Véronique Chocron | mercredi 26 mai 2022

Article réservé aux abonnés

You Should Care about the Crypto Meltdown. Here’s Why. | Amanpour & Company

May 18, 2022 • This week, markets were shaken by plunging prices in cryptocurrencies. If you’re not an investor in crypto, you might wonder why it should matter. Instability in cyberspace, it turns out, could potentially impact the entire economy. Hari Sreenivasan gets the details from Stacy-Marie Ishmael, managing editor of crypto for Bloomberg. Originally aired on May 18, 2022.