The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assessed a paper on crypto asset policy published by the fund and expressed its agreement with its proposed policy framework. The paper, titled “Elements of Effective Policies for Crypto Assets,” developed framework of nine policy principles that addressed macro-financial, legal and regulatory, and international coordination issues. The proposed principles were mainly quite broad, emphasizing analysis, monitoring and guarding. The paper explicitly said the proposals should be taken up by “the Directors.” The first principle did contain a concrete injunction. It read: “Safeguard monetary sovereignty and stability by strengthening monetary policy …

On Feb. 22, cryptocurrency exchange MEXC Global released its proof-of-reserves (PoR) snapshot after 45 days of testing. In a document seen by Cointelegraph, MEXC claimed its reserve ratios for Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH) were 120.70%, 240.18%, 116.50%, and 110.53%, respectively via the Merke Tree method. As of the date of snapshot on Feb. 10, MEXC held 232.4 million USDT, 33.0 million USDC, 1,869.0 BTC, and 12,472.0 ETH in custodied user assets. Meanwhile, the total assets held within MEXC wallets for the four coins were 280.6 USDT, 79.4 million USDC, 2177.5 BTC, and 13,785.6 ETH, …

Bitcoin's (BTC) 16% price gain between Feb. 13 and Feb. 16 practically extinguished the bears' expectation for a monthly options expiry below $21,500. As a result of the abrupt rally, these bearish bets are unlikely to pay off, especially since the expiry occurs on Feb. 24. However, bulls were not counting on the strong price rejection at $25,200 on Feb. 21 and this reduces their odds of securing a $480 million profit in this month’s BTC options expiry. Bitcoin investors' primary concern is a stricter monetary policy as the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) increases interest rates and reduces its $8 …

The price action of Optimism (OP) and Fantom (FTM) tokens have been quite identical since the last quarter of 2022. The difference is, volatility is slightly higher for OP, which surged 240% year-to-date, compared to the 180% gains seen in FTM. The Fantom Foundation has made several improvements since Q4 2022, which have catalyzed an uptrend in the token’s price. However, Fantom’s ecosystem remains primitive while its competitors expanded to support new use cases. On the other hand, Optimism has shown robust community and decentralized application (dApp) development thanks to the loyalty of Ethereum developers and the Optimism Foundation’s effective …

In a dispute that originated Feb. 22, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) Onchain Trade and Camelot terminated an agreement for the former's initial fair offering (IFO), with both firms alleging that the opposing counterparty acted in bad faith. An IFO, whilst still an emerging concept, typically involves promises made by developers consisting of no venture capitalist involvement, no whitelist, no presale, and vast majority of income going to token holders, on top of a traditional initial coin offering. As told by Onchain, developers began negotiations with Camelot for an IFO, for which the latter charged a fee of 2%, and both parties …

Teaching cryptocurrency to children can be a great way to introduce them to the world of finance and technology. Here are some interactive ways one can utilize to teach cryptocurrency to children: Start with the basics and use analogies Start by defining and describing the nature of money. Inform your kids about the various types of money and the function of banks. It is also important to teach them the origin of money and how it got involved, from paper money to digital money. Related: What is cryptocurrency? A beginner’s guide to digital currency Furthermore, analogies can be a powerful …

Galaxy Digital has invested $44 million into an institutional cryptocurrency custody platform to tap into its proprietary asset storage and management capabilities. Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment firm has completed the acquisition of GK8, which has developed its own patent cryptocurrency custody technology aimed at giving secure asset management for institutional users. The service specializes in providing cold vault technology that allows the execution of transactions without internet connectivity. Its in-house multi-party computation (MPC) vault provides the ability to automate transactions, and the service also provides access to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) networks, tokenization, NFT and trading. A statement from Novogratz highlighted …

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15-25% in 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported the Wall Street Journal. At a time when a significant chunk of industry-wide firms is laying off staff to mitigate their financial woes, Circle has gone against the tide to hire more people. 41% of all layoffs in 2023 came from the cryptocurrency industry. Major cryptocurrency firms that made significant employee cuts include Polygon, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Huobi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, Genesis, and Wyre. A major factor behind crypto companies reducing manpower was attributed to the prolonged crypto …

Blockchain Association’s chief legal officer says “it would be absurd” for a United States court to rule that digital assets on private blockchains are securities, following a federal judge's decision to allow a lawsuit against Dapper Labs's NBA Top Shots NFTs to play out. U.S. attorney Jake Chervinsky made the comment after federal judge Victor Marreo denied a motion to dismiss a 2021 lawsuit that accused Dapper Labs of selling nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as unregistered securities. Chervinsky was among a host of lawyers on Twitter to reiterate that the judge’s denial of the motion does not mean a ruling has …

Google's cloud computing arm has added another string to its Web3 bow, with a new partnership to see it becoming a network validator, or "corporate baker" to the Tezos blockchain. On Feb. 22, Tezos Foundation, a Swiss non-profit foundation supporting the Tezos blockchain announced it has teamed up with Google Cloud which will allow customers of the cloud computing business to deploy Tezos nodes and build Web3 applications on the blockchain. Tezos is a blockchain-based smart contract platform used to power decentralized applications, similar to Ethereum, Cardano and among others. Corporates that have used Tezos include gaming giant Ubisoft and …

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a notice on Feb. 22 describing new commitments it expects from crypto asset trading platforms (CTPs) seeking registration in Canada. The CTPs will enter into a new version of preregistration undertakings (PRUs), which are legally binding documents. Registered CTPs will be contacted by their principal regulators about compliance with the new expectations. The new commitments represent investor protections in light of the spate of CTP insolvencies that occurred in 2022, the CSA wrote. The new commitments touch on issues that include segregation of assets, leverage, determination of capital, transparency and others. The notice devoted …

According to a press release on Feb. 22, Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing branch of Chinese internet giant Tencent, announced that it had concluded multiple agreements with blockchain firms to support the active development of the Web 3.0 ecosystem. Firstly, Tencent Cloud signed a memorandum of cooperation with decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider Ankr to jointly develop a series of blockchain API services for remote procedure call nodes. The new service will be deployed on Tencent Cloud's infrastructure and will provide connections to mainstream blockchains building on Web 3.0 games and applications. Secondly, Tencent Cloud said that it reached strategic cooperation …