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 …

Bitcoin experienced the second-strongest January in its history — and the best since 2013 — rising nearly 40% amid wide reports that institutional investors were back on board. Zhong Yang Chan, head of research at CoinGecko, told Cointelegraph that there were “net institutional inflows into digital asset funds in January 2023, particularly in the last two weeks, with Bitcoin the largest beneficiary.” Meanwhile, a Jan. 30 CoinShares blog noted that the total assets under management in digital asset investment products — a good gauge of institutional participation — had risen to $28 billion, led by Bitcoin (BTC), which was up …

Key figures from the wider cryptocurrency space painted a picture of increased dialogue and collaboration at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology remained but a small part of the projects and initiatives discussed and workshopped at the annual WEF conference high in the Swiss Alps. However, an increased number of sessions focused on the sector suggests that the wider world is looking for synergies between traditional finance and decentralized finance. This theme emerged from a number of interviews conducted by Cointelegraph during January’s conference in Davos. Senior executives from XRP issuer Ripple and USD …

Financial services institutions and banks have increasingly engaged with Web3 since 2020. This is also true within institutional decentralized finance (DeFi), as several potential use cases have emerged that could trigger a new wave of innovation within these organizations. Institutional DeFi does not refer to growing institutional investments in DeFi protocols and decentralized applications (DApps) but rather to large institutions using DeFi protocols to tokenize real-world assets with regulatory compliance and institutional-level controls for consumer protection. A common question that comes up is: What benefits does DeFi offer on top of digital banking? Not long ago, banking was a physical …

The attempts of mainstream media to water down the frauds committed by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) did not fare well in convincing the crypto community and entrepreneurs. Instead, the misinformation campaign collided with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s drive to position Twitter as "the most accurate source of information." The world is yet to overcome the shock after witnessing the legal leniency awarded to SBF for misappropriating users’ funds and shady investment practices via trading firms Alameda Research and FTX. Will Manidis, the CEO of ScienceIO, a healthcare data platform, pointed out that SBF made the “highest ROI trade of …

When the world realized the fraud Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) committed to building his FTX empire, fellow entrepreneurs, investors and long-time believers unanimously acknowledged the damage caused to the credibility of the crypto ecosystem. On the other hand, mainstream media — that predominantly attacked crypto via negative speculations — has seemingly taken sides with SBF while paying no heed to the losses exceeding billions of dollars incurred by the general public. While SBF refuses to interact with Crypto Twitter, the same community he once called home, he featured in a New York Times (NYT) article on Nov. 14, trying to explain …

The co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), Vitalik Buterin, believes that the crypto ecosystem needs to mature and be in tune with the regulatory policies that allow crypto projects to operate internally freely. Sharing his opinion around crypto regulations, Buterin spoke against the regulations that have an impact on the inner workings of a crypto ecosystem. Considering the current circumstances, he believed it was better to have regulations that allow inner independence to crypto projects, even if it hampers mainstream adoption. Buterin opined: “I'm actually kinda happy a lot of the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are getting delayed. The ecosystem needs time to …

With crypto becoming more popular, mainstream outlets must get more educated on the space to ensure accurate reporting, according to a panel discussion during the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) Global event held at the Dubai World Trade Centre. At the TDeFi Pavillion, Cointelegraph’s editor-in-chief Kristina Cornèr participated in a panel discussion titled “Crypto and Media: The View, The Perspective and Chaos.” Moderated by Maria Vovchok, ambassador at Blockchain Association of Ukraine and Finoverse, the panel included Laura Inamedinova, the founder of LKI Consulting; Triska Hamid, editorial director at Wamda; and Walid Abou Zaki, the founder of Unlock Blockchain. While …

Despite USD bringing an onslaught to stocks, commodities and its rival currencies, BTC holds steady at the $19,000 to $20,000 mark, leaving mainstream media no choice but to put BTC into the headlines. American daily newspaper The New York Times highlighted BTC’s 6.5% increase in the last seven days and noted that this had caught the attention of crypto bulls and bears. Meanwhile, Fortune Magazine's crypto outlet has also compared Bitcoin's standout performance to other assets like the Japanese Yen, Chinese Yuan and gold, apart from the Euro and pound. With fiat currencies like the Euro and the Great British …

Institutional investment is pouring into the crypto world, notably the nonfungible token (NFT) scene. In a reaction to the influx, MetaMask Institutional announced another addition to its custodial services offerings for institutional-level clients. MetaMask’s partnership with NFT management and storage service Cobo aims to create a “one-stop platform” for large corporations dealing with digital assets. Although MetaMask is a non-custodial wallet at its average user level, the institutional branch of the wallet has been adopting custodial partnerships in various countries around the world. Tavia Wong, the director of marketing and business development for Cobo, told Cointelegraph that not only does …

If it wasn't devastating enough for investors to see cryptocurrencies lose nearly $2 trillion in value since the height of the 2021 rally, analysts have predicted that the most recent plunge isn't a traditional market pullback. Instead of distinguishing between a market pullback and a longer-term decline, the industry has already shown signs of the more dreaded "the crypto winter." For context, unlike last year's BTC plunge from $64,000 to $30,000, which occured in a matter of weeks, only to be followed by a stunning rebound to a new record of $68,700, the cooling prices evident in 2022 are making …

The spectacle that is the World Economic Forum (WEF) came to a close in Davos, Switzerland on Friday, May 27. Nearly 3,000 people from over 110 countries took planes, trains and helicopters to the highest town in Europe to lobby leaders and push and query the WEF agenda. And, while the war in Ukraine took center stage during the WEF, climate change played the hero and economic recovery was the damsel in distress. Meanwhile, blockchain and cryptocurrency featured as — at the very least — a supporting role. As Soramitsu CEO Makoto Takemiya described during a Global Blockchain Business Council …