Bitcoin is now official money in El Salvador, China takes further steps to halt crypto and Americans made the most of BTC profits last year. These stories and more, this week in crypto.
The nation of El Salvador has become the first country in the world to declare bitcoin as legal tender. That means BTC can be used like a credit card or fiat currency to officially purchase goods and services. Up to this point, El Salvador has relied heavily on the U.S. dollar.
China has taken further steps to halt the spread of crypto and has shut down the accounts of several bitcoin influencers on Weibo, a China-based social media platform. Furthermore, China’s Ministry of Public Security has arrested more than 1,000 people on charges of utilizing crypto for money laundering purposes, claiming to have collapsed 170 criminal gangs within the country.
Software firm MicroStrategy has unveiled a plan that will allow it to borrow up to $400 million, which will then be used to purchase bitcoin. MicroStrategy is arguably the world’s biggest institutional fan of BTC, having bought more than $2 billion worth of the asset in less than a year.
Crypto trading platform Coinseed is closing its doors for good, following a lawsuit initiated by the New York Attorney General’s Office earlier this year. Attorney General Letitia James has been after the company since 2017, claiming that the firm engaged in a phony initial coin offering and sold its investors useless tokens.
Clients of 401(k) provider ForUsAll will be able to invest part of their retirement plans in cryptocurrency as a result of a new partnership with Coinbase. Coinbase will manage trading and custody of the crypto through its institutional unit and workers will have the option to invest up to 5% of their contributions in crypto.
Investment management firm Invesco has announced plans to launch two crypto-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Executives claim that 85 percent of the funds—which are known as the Invesco Galaxy Blockchain and Crypto Economy ETF will be allocated to “crypto-linked equities.” Invesco manages more than $1 trillion in assets.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has managed to recover $2.3 million worth of a bitcoin ransom payment stemming from Colonial Pipeline, which fell victim to a cyberattack initiated by a hacking group. While the FBI did not go into specific details, it seems the agency got the private keys from the custodian of the account.
According to a recent study conducted by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, Americans made the most bitcoin profits in 2020, with traders in the U.S. garnering more than $4 billion in returns. In second place was China, which saw more than $1 billion in returns, while other nations in the top ten included Japan, the U.K., Germany, and Russia.
That’s what’s happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
