DeSantis Launches Presidential Campaign, Vows to Protect Bitcoin
- The current governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, announced he is joining the race for the 47th president of the U.S. during a Twitter Spaces event on Wednesday.
- During his speech DeSantis declared his support for Bitcoin and the wider crypto space, noting that if Joe Biden is re-elected “they’ll probably end up killing it”.
May 25, 2023, 8:21 AM
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Lynchburg, Virginia, 14 April, 2023.The Old Major/Shutterstock
Court Denies SEC’s Request to Seal Hinman Speech Documents in Ripple Lawsuit
- These documents are seen as central in Ripple’s battle against the SEC, which in 2020 accused the company of selling its XRP token without registering it as a security.
- The documents in question are internal emails, text messages, and expert reports that followed Hinman’s 2018 speech, in which he said ETH and BTC were not securities.
May 17, 2023, 1:24 PM
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Binance’s NFT Marketplace to Add Support for Bitcoin Ordinals
- The Binance NFT marketplace said it will soon expand its multichain ecosystem, and add support for Bitcoin Ordinals, which are also known as Bitcoin NFTs.
- The platform said it will allow users to purchase and trade Ordinals directly from their Binance accounts, bypassing the need to create a separate inscription wallet.
May 9, 2023, 12:43 PM
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Binance Resumes BTC Withdrawals Hours After Second Pause
- The exchange first paused Bitcoin withdrawals late on 7 May due to a network congestion issue, but resumed them only an hour and a half later.
- The second pause took place early on 8 May, and lasted almost three hours, but the issue now appears to be fixed after the exchange adjusted its transaction fees.
May 8, 2023, 7:40 AM
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May 4, 2023
Coinbase to Stop Issuing Loans Through Borrow Program
- The crypto exchange warned its users in an email that starting 10 May it will no longer issue new loans through its Coinbase Borrow program.
- The service has been operating since November 2021, and allowed customers to use their Bitcoin as collateral to borrow up to $1 million in fiat from Coinbase.
May 3, 2023
Coinbase Launches International Crypto Exchange
- Called Coinbase International Exchange (CIE), the new platform will allow institutional users outside of the U.S. to bet on the price of crypto via perpetual futures.
- The platform will not be available to retail customers “at this time”, and will initially provide trading of only BTC and ETH perpetual futures, settled in the USDC stablecoin.
Apr 20, 2023
Deribit to Launch Zero-Fee Spot Trading
- The largest crypto options exchange, Deribit, will launch zero-fee spot trading for ETH/BTC, ETH/USDC, and BTC/USDC on 24 April.
- The move comes only a month after crypto exchange Binance terminated its own zero-fee trading campaign for 13 trading pairs.
Mar 27, 2023
Crypto Lender Kokomo Finance Conducts $4M Exit Scam
- Blockchain security firm CertiK warned that the team behind Kokomo Finance have executed a rug pull on Sunday, and stolen around $4 million in user funds.
- The website and social media accounts of the Optimism-based crypto lender have all been deleted, while its KOKO native token fell by more than 98%.
Mar 22, 2023
Magic Eden Launches Bitcoin NFT Marketplace
- Magic Eden’s “fully audited” Bitcoin Ordinal marketplace will only support secondary sales of Bitcoin NFTs, though it is looking into tools to allow for easy mint of such collectibles.
- Royalties will also be unavailable from the start due to the lack of tooling on the Bitcoin network, but the marketplace is “actively looking” into the development of a new royalty standard.
Mar 7, 2023
Yuga Labs’ First Bitcoin NFT Collection Auctioned for $16.5M
- 288 “TwelveFold” NFTs, which are inscribed onto satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain, were auctioned by Yuga Labs for a total of 735.7 BTC.
- Yuga Labs specified that these NFTs will not have any future utility, or interact with the company’s other Ethereum-based projects.