Sotheby’s, one of the world’s oldest and biggest auction houses, has announced that it will be accepting major cryptocurrencies as a new payment method at an upcoming auction. Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart said that the company will debut Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) payments as part of its upcoming auction of Banksy’s "Love is in the Air." The new payment method will be facilitated in partnership with United States’ largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, noted Stewart in a Tuesday interview with CNBC's Squawk Box. “It’s something we have been thinking about for quite some time,” the CEO said, elaborating that Sotheby’s …

American rapper and cryptocurrency investor Nasir Jones, better known by his stage name Nas, has invited fans to join the cryptocurrency industry in a newly released track. Released last week, “Sorry Not Sorry” is a collaboration between DJ Khaled, Nas, Jay-Z and James Fauntleroy, with Nas rapping about Coinbase, the United States’ largest crypto exchange that went public on Nasdaq on April 14. “Winner in life, fuck a coin toss / I’m coin-based, basically cryptocurrency Scarface / Join us, there’s gotta be more of us,” Nas raps in the new collab. Released on YouTube last Friday, the official music video …

United States cryptocurrency giant Coinbase is acquiring institutional-grade blockchain data analytics platform Skew. Greg Tusar, vice president of institutional products at Coinbase, announced the news Friday, stating that the new acquisition will help customers make more informed trading decisions by using real-time data analytics. “We’re excited to integrate skew’s data analytics platform with Coinbase Prime, allowing our customers to track cryptocurrency spot and derivatives markets in real-time. With skew, we’ll arm professional traders with dynamic, aggregated market data, presented in a highly actionable format, all within our market leading prime brokerage,” Tusar noted. The acquisition is part of Coinbase’s broader …

Intercontinental Exchange, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange and the owner of Bakkt digital asset platform, has sold its 1.4% stake in the newly Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency firm Coinbase. Announcing the news Thursday on a financial-results call for the first quarter of 2021, ICE chief financial officer Scott Hill said that the company sold its Coinbase stake for $1.2 billion. The executive noted that the sale generated approximately $900 million net after taxes. Hill said that the proceeds were used to reduce ICE’s debt at the end of the first quarter. He noted that the company’s pro forma leverage, …

Coinbase users with PayPal accounts will now have another way to purchase crypto through the exchange. In an announcement from Coinbase today, the crypto exchange said it would be allowing its customers based in the U.S. to buy crypto using debit cards and bank accounts linked to their PayPal accounts. Coinbase said the move would let many users bypass automated clearing house and wire transfers — methods the exchange still offers — to fund crypto purchases. The integration will reportedly allow Coinbase users with PayPal accounts to “buy crypto instantly” without adding bank account information or credit card numbers directly …

Major cryptocurrency company Ripple has not given up on its plans to go public despite its ongoing legal battle with United States regulators, according to SBI Group’s CEO. Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of Japanese financial giant SBI Group, claimed that Ripple plans to become a public company after the firm settles a legal action brought against it by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaking on a Wednesday earnings presentation call, Kitao said that both Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen are planning to take Ripple public: “After the current lawsuit, Ripple will go public. The current …

A county in the state of New Jersey has announced the liquidation of cryptocurrency assets seized in 2018. On Monday, the prosecutor’s office in Monmouth County announced that the confiscated crypto —initially valued at $57,000 at the time it was seized — was liquidated on Coinbase for $198,237 at a quote “profit” of $141,000. Authorities captured the cryptocurrency during a 2018 drug bust in Long Branch. The assets were frozen on a United States-based crypto exchange once officials determined them as profits secured from illegal drug sales. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said that the county is the first state-level …

Binance’s attempts to bridge traditional markets with the cryptocurrency space in the form of fractionalized stock tokens has drawn the attention of Germany’s financial regulator. The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, otherwise known as BaFin, warned on Wednesday that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange could face heavy fines for launching security-tracking tokens without an accompanying investor prospectus. Binance launched fractionalized stock tokens for Apple, MicroStrategy and Microsoft on Monday, adding to tokens for Coinbase and Tesla, which launched earlier in the month. The exchange had employed German equity firm CM-Equity AG to hold its “depository portfolio of underlying securities,” which, Binance …

Time Magazine continues to warm up to crypto, naming Digital Currency Group and Coinbase in its 2021 Top 100 Most Influential Companies list. Published on Tuesday, the Top 100 emphasized the impact that the two crypto giants have made over the past 12 months. The list consisted of five different categories — Pioneers, Leaders, Innovators, Titans and Disrupters. Digital Currency Group was categorized as a Disrupter alongside other big names such as Tesla, Huawei, Shopify and Clubhouse. Time noted that the DCG is “demystifying crypto for investors” through its subsidiaries, asset manager Grayscale and crypto news website CoinDesk. As of …

New York cryptocurrency exchange Gemini announced on Tuesday the pending release of the Gemini Credit Card, which will allow cardholders to receive cashback rewards in the form of Bitcoin (BTC) or any other cryptocurrency available on the Gemini platform. The credit card will be released in conjunction with Mastercard and will be issued by online banking institution WebBank. It is expected to be released this coming summer and has reportedly received over 140,000 sign-ups from waiting customers already, according to the company’s press release. Gemini joins major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Coinbase in launching a crypto credit card. The …

The United States’ largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, is listing Tether (USDT) on its professional trading platform. According to a Thursday announcement, Coinbase Pro has enabled USDT deposits ahead of the trading launch scheduled for Monday. The company said that trading will begin if liquidity conditions are met, stressing that Coinbase only supports the ERC-20 version of USDT running on the Ethereum blockchain. “Once sufficient supply of USDT is established on the platform, trading on our BTC-USDT, ETH-USDT, USDT-EUR, USDT-GBP, USDT-USD and USDT-USDC, order books will launch in three phases, post-only, limit-only and full trading,” Coinbase wrote. Coinbase emphasized that USDT …

Thomas Farley, president of the New York Stock Exchange, said the world of finance was "past the point of no return" on crypto following Coinbase's public listing last week. In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday, Farley said he was excited to talk about developments in the crypto space such as Coinbase’s COIN listing on stock exchanges and decentralized finance, or DeFi. The New York Stock Exchange president said he had invested $10 million in the crypto exchange on behalf of the NYSE back in 2013. "I think the crypto space is amazing right now,” said Farley. “It's …