The United States is divided politically these days into red states and blue states, and increasingly, it seems to be fracturing into cryptocurrency-friendly and crypto-wary locales, too. On Feb. 21, it was revealed that San Francisco-based Ripple Labs had registered as a Wyoming business. Wyoming is arguably the most blockchain and cryptocurrency-welcoming state in the United States. Meanwhile, several days later, New York State’s attorney general announced a settlement of the office’s long-standing investigation into crypto trading platform Bitfinex for illegal activities. As a result, Bitfinex and affiliated Tether must pay $18.5 million for damages to the state of New …

Major U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken is reportedly in talks for a new funding round that could double the company’s valuation to $10 billion, or more. The raise was reported by Bloomberg, who cited anonymous sources claiming Kraken is in discussions with top investors including, Fidelity, Tribe Capital, and General Atlantic. One of the sources estimated Kraken’s valuation could soar as high as $20B billion depending on demand. In 2019, Kraken used the crypto-friendly investment platform Bnk to the Future to raise $13.5 million from more than 2,000 participants at a $4 billion valuation. The news comes amid anticipation for Coinbase’s …

Kraken users are demanding compensation after violent flash crashes localized to the exchange resulted in leveraged trades being liquidated amid the sharp retracements recorded across the crypto markets on Feb. 22. Feb. 22 saw the single largest daily candle in the history of both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) by linear value, with BTC dropping around $9,500 from $57,500, while ETH plummeted by $400 from $1,940 within the span of 24 hours on Coinbase. However, it appears that a combination of weak buy support and cascading liquidations resulted in particularly heavy losses on Kraken — with BTC falling 22% to …

With Bitcoin rallying from $30,000 to $42,000 and back again during January, BTC’s annualized volatility rose to levels last seen in April 2020, according to a new report from U.S. crypto exchange Kraken. January was a roller-coaster ride for Bitcoin, with BTC rallying 46% to a new high of $41,989 before retracing 32% to below $29,000. This resulted in the annualized volatility spiking to over 100% — which was last seen 10 months ago during the infamous ‘Black Thursday’ price plummet. In early-March 2020, Bitcoin’s price dove more than 40% in a matter of days from $9,000 to $5,200 — …

January was a record month for Bitcoin’s price and network activity, with more than 22.3 million unique addresses actively sending or receiving BTC over 31 days. The milestone was spotted by crypto market data aggregator Glassnode, who tweeted that January had seen the highest monthly number of unique active addresses in Bitcoin’s history: #Bitcoin network activity at ATH. In January, more than 22.3 million unique addresses were active in the network sending or receiving $BTC – the highest monthly number in Bitcoin's history to date Chart: https://t.co/yPPOix0KFx pic.twitter.com/yjWwYbRC98 — glassnode (@glassnode) February 1, 2021 January’s spike in activity beats out …

Kraken has pledged $100,000 to Coin Center, a cryptocurrency advocacy group based in Washington D.C. In a blog from the crypto exchange today, Kraken said it had donated the funds to promote Coin Center’s work in educating regulators about digital assets an advancing the rights of crypto users. The exchange said that the advocacy group "has been a vanguard for challenging policies such as the proposed STABLE act as well as recent rushed Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rulemaking." "At a time when misinformation about this new technology remains high, we call on all industry leaders to join us in funding …

Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital-asset manager, has pledged $1 million to Coin Center, Washington, D.C.’s most influential cryptocurrency advocacy group — a move it believes will help broaden “foundational knowledge” of the industry. The million-dollar donation was announced Monday in a press release, which also revealed Grayscale’s plan to match contributions to Coin Center through the end of February. Over that period, Grayscale plans to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to an additional $1 million. Grayscale got the inspiration for the donate-and-match program from Kraken, the San Francisco-based exchange that managed to raise over $3 million for Coin Center in …

Bitcoin (BTC) saw its most successful recovery in history on Jan. 12 after testing $30,000 support, but market participants are already suspicious. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView followed Bitcoin as it swiftly bounced off lows of $30,250 late on Monday to seal 20% gains in just over 12 hours. Guggenheim sell advice under scrutiny Coming even more quickly than its prior fall over the weekend, the comeback marks Bitcoin’s best daily performance ever, both in U.S. dollar and percentage terms. The numbers will be confirmed once the daily candle closes, with press-time levels nearing a local top of $36,600. …

Major U.S crypto firms are rallying against FinCEN’s proposed regulations that would force businesses operating with crypto to gather information on the identities of non-customer counterparties. A Jan. 4 letter from Jack Dorsey, CEO of financial services firm Square takes aim at the proposal for seeking to impose reporting obligations that go “far beyond what is required for cash transactions,” and that Sqaure would be expected to collect “unreliable data about people who have not opted into our service or signed up as our customers.” “Counterparty name and address collection/reporting should not be required for [virtual currency] CTRs or recordkeeping, …

Kraken, a San Francisco-based digital currency exchange, has added a proven crypto industry leader to its executive team, underscoring the firm’s continued expansion this year. In an official blog post, Kraken announced Tuesday that Miha Grčar has joined the firm as head of business development. The post reads: “For the better part of the last decade, Miha has helped Bitstamp gain recognition as a licensed financial institution in Europe, experience that will prove integral as he helps Kraken build critical banking relationships and forge new partnerships with essential stakeholders.” Before joining Kraken, Grčar spent almost eight years at Bitstamp, where …

Major United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has announced on Wednesday that it will integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network in 2021. Kraken emphasized that the integration will drive significant improvements in speed and fees, claiming that Lightning allows Bitcoin (BTC) “to process millions of transactions per second." Speaking to Cointelegraph, Kraken’s lead Bitcoin strategist, Pierre Rochard, revealed that Lightning will first be integrated for withdrawals during the first half of 2021, bringing down transfer fees from roughly $10 per transaction to about one penny — just enough to prevent spam transactions — and allowing "instant" withdrawals. Rochard noted that deposit functionality …

Just four days after it launched its Eth2 staking service, customers of the popular U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken have deposited more than 100,000 Ether, worth north of $60 million. The milestone was surpassed on Dec. 8, with the exchange estimating that its staking service represents approximately 8% of all ETH staked for Ethereum 2.0 so far. Kraken estimates that its service will provide an APY of between 5% and 17%. Kraken’s vice president of product, Jeremy Welch, stated that the exchange has “long been a supporter of Ethereum,” noting that Kraken was one of the first exchanges to list Ether …