Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology has partnered with two financial technology firms which will provide its students exposure to the financial technology and cryptocurrency business world. The partnership is between Swinburne and small business loan provider Judo Bank along with Banxa, a payment service provider with a fiat-to-crypto platform whose clients include Binance, KuCoin and hardware wallet Trezor, among others. Students of the university’s Master of Financial Technology (fintech) course will be “exposed to real life examples and cases across the spectrum of financial services,” Dimitrios Salampasis Swinburne’s director of the master of fintech told Cointelegraph. Salampasis said Judo Bank …

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has hit out at his state’s BitLicensing regime, claiming that it stifles innovation and economic growth. In a closing keynote interview at the Crypto and Digital Assets Summit in London on Wednesday, Adams suggested his state legislature counterparts in Albany “listen to those who are in the industry” adding: “It’s about thinking not only outside the box, but on this one, we may have to destroy the box.” Adams is a crypto advocate who ran for mayor, planning to turn New York City into the “center of the cryptocurrency industry,” and took his first …

Forty crypto companies cosigned an open letter to the European Parliament, European Commission and other principal EU institutions with a call to ensure common-sense regulation, standardized compliance procedures and an innovation-friendly business environment. An open letter on behalf of the international Web3 community and “businesses across Europe,” shared with Cointelegraph by one of the signatories, went out to EU institutions on Tuesday. The industry players expressed their concerns over some recent EU-level regulatory initiatives: “We wish to urgently convey our concern with proposed EU laws that threaten the privacy of individuals as well as digital innovation, growth and job creation …

India’s 30% crypto tax came into law on March 31 and was effective April 1, despite warnings from several stakeholders about its possible ill impact on the budding crypto industry. As predicted, within just a couple of weeks of the new crypto tax law coming into effect, trading volume across major crypto exchanges dropped as much as 90%. The decline in trading activity was attributed to traders either moving their funds away from centralized crypto exchanges or adopting a holding strategy over trading. Many crypto exchanges were hoping that a crypto tax would at least offer some form of recognition …

Samson Mow, former chief strategy officer of Blockstream and founder of Pixelmatic, said on Thursday that he has started a new company called JAN3 which will focus on accelerating Bitcoin adoption. The Chinese-Canadian Bitcoin entrepreneur told Reuters that JAN3 has already signed a memorandum of understanding to assist in developing digital infrastructure in El Salvador. "It's a general MOU that says we'll work together to build digital infrastructure for the country and for Bitcoin City.” Mow added that making the decision for JAN3 to work with El Salvador was an easy choice, "I just set up my company and I …

Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci believes the blockchain industry has a very bright future, but he is concerned about the “very weak leadership” in American politics. Scaramucci is a former Director of Communications at the White House and Skybridge Capital manages the $7 billion Skybridge Bitcoin Fund. He spoke candidly at the Australian Financial Review Crypto Summit held in Australia today about the current and future states of crypto and politics in the U.S. He said that although blockchain tech “seems clunky right now,” he sees a glittering future for the industry. However, he feels that the biggest hurdle that …

Cointelegraph sat down with Leah Wald, CEO of digital asset investment firm Valkyrie Investments, to learn more about the importance of a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) and the future of digital assets. For context, Valkyrie Investments was launched in 2021 and is one of the only asset managers to have three Bitcoin-adjacent ETFs trading on the Nasdaq. Valkyrie launched a Bitcoin Strategy ETF in October 2021, which offered indirect exposure to BTC with cash-settled futures contracts following a United States Securities and Exchange (SEC) approval for a similar ETF from ProShares. Valkyrie also has a balance sheet opportunities ETF …

In surprising comments made by the Russian director for financial policy, Russia could be softening its stance towards crypto. Ivan Chebeskov, a director within the Ministry of Finance has come out in support of regulating the cryptocurrency rather than banning it. His support is a response to the Russian central bank proposing a blanket ban on crypto mining and trading. According to Chebeskov, banning cryptocurrencies operations and mining will lead to the country lagging behind the worldwide tech industry. The minister instead suggested that cryptocurrencies should be regulated: We need to give these technologies the opportunity to develop. In this …

It wasn’t just a bull run for prices last year. Careers in crypto outstripped price action in 2021, as crypto job searches soared by 395% in the United States alone according to LinkedIn. Crucially, the crypto industry outpaced the wider tech industry, which also saw remarkable development, almost doubling its number of job listings. However, at 98% growth, the tech industry dwindles in comparison to crypto jobs, which gained by a whopping 395%. Furthermore, no industry was safe from “crypto-ization” in 2021. The LinkedIn News post offered valuable insight into crypto influencing other industries: While most of the job postings …

Fidelity Digital Assets — the crypto wing of Fidelity Investments which has $4.2 trillion assets under management–shared their “two sats” on the future of the digital assets space. The key takeaways touched upon miners’ behavior and Bitcoin (BTC) network adoption. In the annual report released last week, the group shared some insights into the world of BTC mining: “As Bitcoin miners have the most financial incentive tho make the best guess as to the adoption and value of BTC (...) the current bitcoin cycle is far from over and these miners are making investments for the long haul.” The report …

One of the world’s largest investment banks has its Bitcoin (BTC) price predictions ready for 2022. In a recent poll, JPMorgan Chase asked its clients “where do you see Bitcoin trading at 2022 year-end?” Just 5% said they saw the digital coin reaching $100,000, and 9% saw it breaking previous all-time highs, reaching over $80,000. The bank is known for its wealthy client portfolio. While some BTC bulls may welcome the news that 14% of JPMorgan's clients expect at least a 2x, it’s not the fireworks the crypto market is accustomed to. On balance, however, the survey is generally positive. …

Michael Saylor, CEO of enterprise data analytics company MicroStrategy, announced Monday morning via a Twitter post and company filing that the firm purchased an additional 7,002 Bitcoin (BTC) worth approximately $414.4 million and an average price of $59,187 per coin. MicroStrategy sold 571,001 shares of company stock between Oct. 1 and Nov. 29 at $732.16 apiece, raising a total of $414.4 million in cash. MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 7,002 bitcoins for ~$414.4 million in cash at an average price of ~$59,187 per #bitcoin. As of 11/29/21 we #hodl ~121,044 bitcoins acquired for ~$3.57 billion at an average price of …