In the United States, a married couple was arrested on suspicion of laundering nearly 120 000 BTC stolen from Bitfinex; in Russia, authorities announced readiness of a draft bill to regulate cryptocurrencies; Binance invested $200 million in Forbes, and other events from the past week.
Cryptocurrency market capitalisation has returned to $2 trillion
On Monday, February 7, at one point surpassed the $44,000 level, and the market capitalisation of digital assets rose above $2 trillion.
As of writing, digital gold was trading near $42,560.
Most of the top-10 by market capitalisation closed the week in the red. The exceptions were Bitcoin and XRP. The former rose by 2.8%, the latter by 23.8%, according to CoinGecko.
According to CoinCodex, among mid-cap digital assets, the DeFi project Injective Protocol (INJ) recorded the biggest weekly rise, its price increasing by 47% over the last seven days.
The token of the decentralised autonomous organisation ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) fell the most over the week, down 31% after leading the rally last week.
The total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies stood at $1.98 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index rose to 40.5%.
US authorities confiscated $3.6 billion in Bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex
Representatives of the US authorities stated that they had arrested individuals connected to the Bitfinex breach in 2016, and confiscated $3.6 billion in Bitcoin.
The accused are a married couple — 34-year-old Ilya Lichtenstein and 31-year-old Heather Morgan. They used several methods to launder money, but their identification was achieved, among other things, thanks to the shutdown of the darknet marketplace AlphaBay. The court denied the pair’s bail of $8 million.
The online cinema Netflix has already announced a documentary series about the accused. The project will be directed by Chris Smith — the director of films such as “FYRE: The Festival That Turned into a Scam”, “The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann” and “Jim and Andy: The Other World”.
In Russia described the mechanism for bitcoin transfers via banks
The authorities in the Russian Federation intend to impose strict obligations on all market participants. Beyond licensing exchanges and exchangers, all transactions are proposed to go through the banking infrastructure.
ForkLog presented the main provisions of the government-approved concept for regulating the circulation of cryptocurrencies.
Experts we spoke to stated that banks’ entry into the Russian crypto market threatens to monopolise the industry and erode anonymity.
The State Duma said it is ready with a draft bill on regulating cryptocurrencies and proposed to identify illegal miners by IP
The Russian government approved the concept of regulating the crypto industry proposed by the Ministry of Finance — a draft bill is planned to be presented by February 18. According to Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma committee on the financial market, the draft is already ready — it is based on the ministry’s proposals, taking into account market participants’ requirements.
Aksakov expects the bill to be passed in the first half of 2022.
This week in the State Duma there were also proposals to identify illegal miners by IP and cut their electricity.
Interviewed ForkLog participants disagreed in their assessment of the lower chamber’s proposed tax rates. Some said the personal income tax of 15% and a profit tax of 6% were reasonable; others argued the rates should be harmonised.
Kazakhstan plans to license cryptocurrency mining
Against a backdrop of significant strain on the power grids, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at a government meeting ordered an increase in the tax on cryptocurrency mining and to identify all mining farms.
Later authorities stated plans to license miners.
El Salvador will issue the first bitcoin bonds in March
El Salvador will complete preparations for issuing the first $1 billion of bitcoin bonds by 15–20 March. According to finance minister Alejandro Zelaya, oversubscription to the securities will be “no less than $500 million.”
As previously outlined, the coupon rate will be 6.5% per year, the bonds will mature in 2032. To purchase the securities, KYC procedures will be required. The issue will be conducted on Blockstream’s Liquid Network sidechain.
AssangeDAO raises over $50m to aid in freeing WikiLeaks founder
AssangeDAO, the decentralised autonomous organisation created to help free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from prison, attracted 17,433 ETH worth $53.6 million.
The project drew support from many in the crypto community, including Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin. Later those funds were directed to purchase the Clock NFT collection, created by Pak in collaboration with the Assange family.
Binance invests $200m in Forbes
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced strategic investments of $200 million in the Forbes media group. The funds will back Forbes’ plans to go public via a merger with SPAC Magnum Opus Acquisition in Q1 2022.
Polygon raises $450m from Sequoia Capital and other investors
The Polygon team secured $450 million from Sequoia Capital India with the participation of more than 40 venture investors. The funds will be directed to the development of solutions and the deployment of Web 3.0 applications.
NFT from CryptoPunks collection sells for record $23.7m
Dipak Thapliyal, CEO of the infrastructure company Chain, purchased CryptoPunk #5822 for 8,000 ETH (about $23.7m). The purchase was the largest in the collection’s history from Larva Labs.
According to Thapliyal, he used a loan on the lending platform Compound to acquire the token.
Also this week an unknown buyer bought CryptoPunk #5577 for 2,501 ETH (over $7.8m).
Also on ForkLog:
- Gucci bought a plot of land in The Sandbox metaverse, and McDonald’s is considering virtual restaurants.
- The Bitcoin network hashrate reached a historic high.
- Uber chief confirmed the possibility of accepting cryptocurrency in the future.
- On YouTube they announced plans to use NFTs to monetize content.
What else to read and watch
In ForkLog’s educational cards we explored how Decentraland’s GameFi platform works, its tokenomics and metaverse features.
In our traditional digests we covered the week’s main events in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Blockchain technology remains one of the hottest trends among financial, governmental and corporate organisations around the world. ForkLog magazine offers an overview of the most interesting recent initiatives.
On 7 February, in a live ForkLog session, traders Vladimir Koen and Ekaterina Kostevich discussed in detail all the nuances of downside trends, talked about inflation and explained how to trade on a correction.
Read ForkLog’s bitcoin news on our Telegram — crypto news, prices and analytics.