Cryptocurrency
At last year’s bitcoin conference, Trump told crypto supporters that new regulations “will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.” Trump’s pick to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, has been a strong advocate for cryptocurrencies https://playgambling.org/.
Today’s crypto news underscores the sector’s dynamic nature, blending innovation, market reactions and the occasional pitfalls. As bitcoin reclaims the $30K mark and major players like PayPal delve deeper into the crypto realm, the intersection of traditional finance and digital currencies becomes ever more pronounced.
Trump’s election has increased investor confidence among institutions, helping to elevate digital assets as a mainstream asset class. The question remains if this is a long-term shift or just a temporary response, says CCData’s Joshua de Vos.
With PayPal’s recent stablecoin announcement, scammers are attempting to capitalize on the hype by releasing counterfeit PYUSD tokens on various blockchains. This serves as a cautionary tale for investors to exercise due diligence and verify the authenticity of tokens before making any transactions.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency
This is because you’re competing with a network of miners that generate around 745 quintillion hashes (as of Dec. 5, 2024) per second. Machines—called Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) built specifically for mining—can generate more than 400 trillion hashes per second. In contrast, a computer with the latest hardware hashes around 100 megahashes per second (100 million).
When the cryptocurrency was launched at the beginning of 2009, as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the bitcoin genesis block (the first-ever block on the Bitcoin blockchain), 50 BTC entered circulation at a price of $0.00.
Transaction fees were established to create an incentive for people to create network nodes and miners. Bitcoin mining is also expensive, so fees help to offset the cost of equipment and electricity used.
Supporters of the newly formed bitcoin cash believe the currency will “breath new life into” the nearly 10-year-old bitcoin by addressing some of the issues facing bitcoin of late, such as slow transaction speeds.
Unlike traditional money, bitcoin operates without central authorities, relying on a decentralized network to verify and record transactions. It has a fixed supply of 21 million coins, making it resistant to inflation, and can be transferred globally without intermediaries, enabling low-cost payments with final settlement every 10 minutes.
Cryptocurrency regulation
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Money Services Division stated in a 2018 interpretive letter that “ virtual currencies lack the characteristics of mediums of exchange. Therefore, it is the view of the Division that virtual currencies alone do not qualify as monetary value. However, to the extent that virtual currency transactions also involve the transfer of fiat currency, they may be subject to money transmission regulations under the Act.” The same letter stated that “ activities as they relate to virtual currencies do not require a license under the Act.” The Attorney General stated in Administrative Order Number MSD-19003 that “When an ATM does not act as a third party, and only facilitates a sale or purchase of virtual currency by the ATM operator directly with the customer…no license is required under the Act.” However, “ The exchange of virtual currency for fiat currency through an ATM that acts as a third party exchanger that facilitates contemporaneous exchanges of virtual currency for fiat currency…is money transmission and requires a license under the Act.” The South Carolina Attorney General’s Money Services Division has posted further guidance on their Money Services FAQs page.
The rise of cryptocurrencies has demonstrated just how difficult it is both to enforce existing financial regulations in the context of new currencies and to predict how those new currencies will be used, and by whom. That’s not a reason to forswear all new forms of currency but it is a reason to approach them cautiously and with an eye to the opportunities for abuse and illicit activity. It’s also a reason to be less confident about what types of benefits a CBDC will realistically be able to offer, especially since many of those could potentially be addressed through other, less radical changes to existing financial institutions and instruments.
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Now many countries are just beginning to develop a regulatory framework for managing digital worlds. China, for example, licenses the activities of virtual spaces. This is due to the increase in the number of crimes.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Money Services Division stated in a 2018 interpretive letter that “ virtual currencies lack the characteristics of mediums of exchange. Therefore, it is the view of the Division that virtual currencies alone do not qualify as monetary value. However, to the extent that virtual currency transactions also involve the transfer of fiat currency, they may be subject to money transmission regulations under the Act.” The same letter stated that “ activities as they relate to virtual currencies do not require a license under the Act.” The Attorney General stated in Administrative Order Number MSD-19003 that “When an ATM does not act as a third party, and only facilitates a sale or purchase of virtual currency by the ATM operator directly with the customer…no license is required under the Act.” However, “ The exchange of virtual currency for fiat currency through an ATM that acts as a third party exchanger that facilitates contemporaneous exchanges of virtual currency for fiat currency…is money transmission and requires a license under the Act.” The South Carolina Attorney General’s Money Services Division has posted further guidance on their Money Services FAQs page.
The rise of cryptocurrencies has demonstrated just how difficult it is both to enforce existing financial regulations in the context of new currencies and to predict how those new currencies will be used, and by whom. That’s not a reason to forswear all new forms of currency but it is a reason to approach them cautiously and with an eye to the opportunities for abuse and illicit activity. It’s also a reason to be less confident about what types of benefits a CBDC will realistically be able to offer, especially since many of those could potentially be addressed through other, less radical changes to existing financial institutions and instruments.
Cryptocurrency
However, it’s important to note that to some, cryptocurrencies aren’t investments at all. Bitcoin enthusiasts, for example, hail it as a much-improved monetary system over our current one and would prefer we spend and accept it as everyday payment. One common refrain — “one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin” — underscores the view that Bitcoin shouldn’t be measured in USD, but rather by the value it brings as a new monetary system.
Smart contracts can be used to build apps that mirror any centralized application in existence today, including Twitter and Facebook. Smart contracts are most popular today in gaming and DeFi (decentralized finance), which is mirroring our current financial system in decentralized blockchains.
Almost 74% of ransomware revenue in 2021 — over $400 million worth of cryptocurrency — went to software strains likely affiliated with Russia, where oversight is notoriously limited. However, Russians are also leaders in the benign adoption of cryptocurrencies, as the ruble is unreliable, and President Putin favours the idea of “overcoming the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”
Cryptocurrency has a wide range of use cases beyond simple transactions. One of the most common uses is making purchases, as more businesses, such as Microsoft and Shopify, now accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as payment for goods and services. This growing acceptance enables users to make purchases both online and in stores.
Despite these risks, cryptocurrencies have seen a significant price leap, with the total market capitalization rising to about $2.4 trillion. Despite the asset’s speculative nature, some have created substantial fortunes by taking on the risk of investing in early-stage cryptocurrencies.