The value of MicroStrategy’s massive Bitcoin (BTC) holdings has surpassed what most S&P 500 companies hold in their cash treasuries. The Nasdaq-listed enterprise software firm purchased an additional 5,050 Bitcoin for about $242.9 million, raising the value of its 114,042 BTC holdings to nearly $5.3 billion. That comes out to be higher than what 80% of non-financial S&P 500 companies hold in their cash coffers, as per data compiled by Bloomberg. Cash spending up among corporations MicroStrategy made buying Bitcoin its official corporate strategy in 2020, with its celebrated CEO, Michael Saylor, calling the move a defense against the U.S. …

By his own admission, Lee Cooperman still does not understand Bitcoin (BTC), despite its being up more than 300% since early December 2017. Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, the billionaire investor alluded to people his age having a hard time understanding Bitcoin, adding: “I’d be very careful with Bitcoin; I don’t think it makes a great deal of sense and if you are nervous about the world, gold — to me — would be a better place to store value.” Cooperman’s statements on Thursday are in keeping with previous comments about Bitcoin. Back in December 2017 when BTC was on …

In Cointelegraph's latest video report, we discussed the systemic risks posed by stablecoins to the stability of both crypto and traditional markets. Stablecoins have become the backbone of the crypto ecosystem, as they play a crucial role in the functioning of crypto trading and decentralized finance. Their market capitalization has grown fourfold since the start of 2021. But the lack of transparency around the reserves backing stablecoins have left many wondering whether their growth is actually sustainable. Major stablecoins' recent disclosures showed that only a portion of their reserves is made up of cash, while a significant amount is kept …

Bitcoin (BTC) and spot gold hovered below their key psychological levels on Wednesday as a stronger United States dollar weighed on investors’ appetite for hedging assets. The BTC/USD exchange rate dropped 5.27% to its intraday low of $44,423 but recovered a portion of those losses after reclaiming the $45,000–46,000 range as support. The pair’s recovery also came as an extension to its ongoing rebound from $42,830, a level it reached on Tuesday after falling by more than 18% in the session. Bitcoin’s massive sell-off coincided with a strikingly similar but dwarfed decline in the rivaling gold market. In detail, the …

Despite the Russian state maintaining a mostly unfriendly stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), a major state-backed museum is benefiting from the industry by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The Russian State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum in the world, has finished its first auction on the NFT platform by Binance — the world's largest crypto exchange — selling five tokenized collectibles depicting masterpieces from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. The auction included five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks, including Wassily Kandinsky’s "Composition VI," Giorgione’s "Judith," Da Vinci’s "The Madonna …

Bitso, a major cryptocurrency exchange in Latin America, will be the core crypto service provider for El Salvador’s official Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, known as Chivo. In conjunction with Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador, Bitso announced on Tuesday that the firm would assist El Salvador in launching the state-supported BTC wallet alongside companies like Silvergate Bank, digital currency company Athena Bitcoin and blockchain firm Algorand. Silvergate Bank, a California state-chartered commercial bank and a United States Federal Reserve member, will work with Bitso to facilitate U.S. dollar transactions for the Chivo wallet. Athena Bitcoin will provide some front-end services …

Not Legal Advice... is a monthly column from Zachary Kelman, Cointelegraph’s general counsel. He is a New York-licensed attorney specializing in political, legal and regulatory issues surrounding Bitcoin, digital currencies and blockchain technology. For two decades, United States presidents kept the American military in Afghanistan to back the fragile local government, tasked with keeping the Taliban at bay. Earlier this month, the U.S. military left, and the Afghan government that the U.S. armed forces supported collapsed like a pitched tent whose pole had been removed. It was obvious to all observers that fundamental change in Afghanistan was always impossible, and …

Amid El Salvador preparing to officially enforce the country’s Bitcoin Law in early September, Salvadorans took to the streets to protest over the adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as an official currency. El Salvador’s anti-Bitcoiners have expressed discontent regarding the government’s plans to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, with hundreds of protesters marching through the capital, San Salvador, last Friday, Euronews TV network reported. The demonstrators — including retirees, veterans, disability pensioners and workers — voiced their concerns over Bitcoin’s unstable price. The crowd was worried that the government would start paying their pensions in Bitcoin instead of the United States …

Bitcoin (BTC) is replacing gold even as United States’ regulators attempt to disrupt its advance, said Mike McGlone of Bloomberg Intelligence on Monday. The senior commodity market strategist credited the “digitization of money and finance” behind the Bitcoin market’s superior growth against gold, noting that the same factors helped the U.S. dollar gain dominance “rapidly and organically” over the precious metal. McGlone’s comments appeared as takeaways from a recent three-day conference at New Hampshire’s Bretton Woods hotel, which was attended by economists, macro analysts and investors, including Fidelity Investment’s Jurrien Timmer and Morgan Stanley’s Amy Oldenburg, among others. Bretton Woods …

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) continues progressing with its central bank digital currency- (CBDC)-like initiative known as Bakong, disclosing several project milestones. NBC’s director general and the Bakong project lead Chea Serey said in a Wednesday interview with The Nikkei that Bakong’s electronic wallet reached 200,000 users in June, doubling from three months earlier. Based on blockchain technology, the Bakong payment and money transfer service was originally launched by the NBC in October 2020. The digital money project has amassed nearly six million users in the first half of 2021, including those reached indirectly through member bank mobile apps, …

A recent run-down in the United States Dollar Index (DXY) stopped midway as investors awaited U.S. job data for a guide on the viewpoint for interest rates. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) moved inversely to the greenback. The DXY rose to its intraday high of 92.195 on Wednesday, up 0.45% from its Friday low of 91.782. The move upside took the index back above its 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA; the pink tide in the chart below), at 92.001. The wave was instrumental in protecting the index from aggressive declines in June, serving as support. Meanwhile, a break above the 200-day …

Republican Senator and Bitcoin proponent Cynthia Lummis said that massive government spending is accelerating crypto adoption. Lummis made the comments while sharing an interview she did with “Varney & Co” on the Fox Business cable network on July 29, in which she called for a crypto regulatory sandbox and support to attract Bitcoin miners to set up in US states. On Twitter she stated that “big gov’t spenders are (accidentally) doing far more to accelerate the adoption of digital assets than I am,” and asserted that the debasement of the U.S. dollar is driving citizens to store value in digital …