Bitcoin mining operations are on the path to full recovery following the most dramatic short-term disruption in network history earlier this year, and miners are reaping the rewards in revenues. In its Monday “Week On-chain” report, on-chain analytics provider Glassnode reports that Bitcoin’s hash rate has largely recovered despite 50% of the network’s hashing power going offline in May following China’s crackdown on the sector. The hash rate measures the total computational resources of a proof-of-work network. Glassnode asserts that both the hash rate and mining difficulty — which measures competition among miners seeking to solve the network’s next block …

Edward Snowden has touted the antifragility of Bitcoin (BTC) despite increasing regulatory scrutiny on cryptocurrencies around the world. Tweeting on Sunday, the former United States Central Intelligence Agency agent stated that Bitcoin has gotten stronger on the back of government bans and anti-crypto policies. Snowden’s tweet referenced remarks made back on March 13, 2020, amid the throes of the Black Thursday decline that saw crypto and equity markets tank amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic. As reported by Cointelegraph at the time, Snowden was unfazed by Bitcoin’s 50% drop, stating that it was the first time he “felt like buying …

On Monday, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released an official white paper exploring the potential of a retail-focused central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD). According to the document, the HKMA will seek to understand the “potential architectures and design options” from a technical and regulatory policy perspective, with the ambition of creating a dual-tier system — the first being designed for a “central bank to issue and redeem CBDC,” and the second being retail-centric for “commercial banks to distribute and circulate either rCBDC or CBDC-backed e-money.” Hong Kong debuted its investigation into CBDCs in …

Chinese regulatory authorities gave yet another shock to the cryptoverse by imposing a ban on all cryptocurrency transactions on Sept. 24. This measure came just as the market was beginning to recover from the government's June prohibition on cryptocurrency mining activities. The fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that resulted from the ban caused Bitcoin (BTC) to crash nearly 9% within five hours, from exchanging hands in the $45,000 range to bottoming out at $41,142. Soon after, Alibaba announced that it would be banning any sale of cryptocurrency rigs and related accessories starting Oct. 8. However, the flagship cryptocurrency has since …

Bitcoin (BTC) failed to break the so-called September curse, with its price falling by a little over 7% into the month despite a strong rebound rally right ahead of its close. Nonetheless, Bitcoin looks to be making a comeback in October, a month known for painting aggressive bullish reversals. Bybt data shows that Bitcoin has closed October in profit the majority of the time since 2013 — with a success rate of over 77%. Last year, the cryptocurrency surged by 28% to reach levels above $13,500 after finishing September at around $10,800, following an approximate 7.5% decline. Similarly, Bitcoin climbed …

Last week, China’s heavy-handed crackdown on crypto trading briefly sent shockwaves across the market as Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin prices saw a sharp drop following the announcement, but as is the case with all things crypto-related, the market bounced back as resilient traders found other ways to participate in the market. Part of China’s goal in limiting citizens' ability to trade cryptocurrency seems focused on discouraging the use of cryptocurrencies and the growing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, but these maneuvers appear to be having the opposite effect, as the token price and protocol activity for projects like Uniswap and dYdX …

CoinEx cryptocurrency exchange is winding down operations in mainland China to comply with local anti-crypto regulations. The company officially announced on Thursday that it was going to completely retire user accounts verified as mainland China citizens as well as those linked to a mobile phone number from mainland China. The exchange has asked mainland China-based users to withdraw their crypto assets from the platform before Oct. 31, 2021. CoinEx then plans to disable accounts with zero assets starting from Thursday, Sept. 30. “All access will no longer be available to your accounts,” the exchange stated. Despite CoinEx’s aggressive measures to …

Despite Beijing’s ever-increasing crackdown on the crypto industry, there are still some signs of life in the People’s Republic regarding the Bitcoin network and over-the-counter (OTC) trading. China intensified its clampdown on crypto last week in an effort to suppress any remaining activity related to digital assets within its borders. The regime specifically targeted crypto transactions, but as researched by Cointelegraph, this action is nothing new, with at least 19 similar crackdowns over the past decade or so. Despite the latest move, there are still 135 Bitcoin nodes in operation in China according to data from Bitrawr, which measures nodes …

Decentralized exchange dYdX's native token DYDX surged by nearly 80% this week as traders assessed its potential against China's recent ban on crypto transactions. The DYDX price hit a new high of $26.50 on the FTX exchange after trading at around $13 a week ago. The China ban was an apparent boost for the dYdX decentralized exchange (DEX) that offers perpetuals, margin and spot trading, as well as lending and borrowing services to its users. Holding DYDX gives owners the right to propose and vote on changes to dYdX's layer 2 protocol. DYDX stakers receive rewards by depositing to the …

As global regulators continue to scrutinize the cryptocurrency industry, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has expressed support for crypto, calling it indestructible. “It is not possible to, I think, destroy crypto, but it is possible for governments to slow down its advancement,” Musk said at the Code Conference in California, CNBC reported Tuesday. According to the Tesla CEO, the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies may be a challenge for the Chinese government, which announced a new war on crypto last Friday. “I suppose cryptocurrency is fundamentally aimed at reducing the power of a centralized government,” Musk noted, adding, “They don’t like that.” …

BeePool, the fourth-largest Ether (ETH) mining pool, is closing amid China’s crypto crackdown. The China-based Ether mining pool announced on Tuesday it would suspend operations “in response to the latest regulatory policies.” Effective immediately, the registration of new users and the addition of sub-accounts for existing users will be discontinued, and all mining access servers are expected to have stopped operating by Oct. 15. The announcement comes just a day after news broke that SparkPool, the second-largest Ether mining pool, will have suspended operations by the end of the month for similar reasons. Between them, BeePool and SparkPool account for …

Technical analysis is a controversial topic, but higher lows are commonly interpreted as a sign of strength. On Sept. 28, Ether (ETH) might be 30% below its May 12 high of $4,380, but the current $3,050 price is 78% higher than the six-month low of $1,700. To understand whether this is a “glass half full” situation, one must analyze how retail and pro traders are positioned according to derivatives markets. On Sept. 24, Chinese authorities announced new measures to curb crypto adoption, causing the second-largest Ethereum mining pool (Sparkpool) to suspend operations on Sept. 27. According to Sparkpool, the measures …