The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (San Francisco Fed) is on the lookout for a software engineer who can help develop and implement example systems related to a central bank digital currency (CBDC). On Feb. 18, SF Fed posted a job opening for a “senior application developer - digital currency.” The candidate is expected to aid the Federal Reserve in designing and implementing systems critical to CBDC research. Revealing its intention, SF Fed’s post read: “Given the dollar’s important role, Federal Reserve System seeks to further understand the cost and benefits of the potential technologies for central bank digital …

The sudden failure of FTX has left many people questioning the impact this will have on the cryptocurrency ecosystem. For instance, it remains questionable whether or not crypto hotspots will continue to flourish or if there will be a decline in innovation. While it may be too soon to fully understand the impact of the FTX collapse, industry leaders within crypto-friendly geographies believe that the FTX failure will not hamper innovation. For example, Dubai — which has been dubbed as one of the most innovative regions for crypto and blockchain development — continues to see ecosystem activity. Most recently, The …

Amid Twitter beginning mass layoffs, the company employees are launching a class-action lawsuit against the new Twitter CEO, Elon Musk. According to multiple sources, Musk started massive layoffs at Twitter on Nov. 4, reducing the company’s workforce of 7,500 people. The CEO was speculated to cut as much as 50% of Twitter’s staff, or about 3,500 people, just a few days after acquiring Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27. In response to the layoffs, Twitter employees filed a class-action lawsuit against Musk in San Francisco federal court, Bloomberg reported. The suit argues that Twitter is violating federal and California …

Lonely hearts in Silicon Valley are reportedly falling prey to a wave of “pig slaughtering” crypto scams via dating applications. An investigator for cybersecurity company Sift found that one in 20 people who approached her on dating apps in San Francisco was working the scam. Pig slaughtering, or butchering, is a type of scam in which an individual/group puts in weeks or months of work to build a fake relationship with the victim, metaphorically fattening them up. The end goal is to get the victim to invest in crypto via either a duplicated version of a legitimate website or by …

Major United States-based payment processor PayPal will reportedly be closing its office in San Francisco, while the headquarters in nearby San Jose will remain available to employees. According to a Wednesday report from TechCrunch, the payments firm will be closing its offices in downtown San Francisco with its Xoom arm — the division responsible for international digital money transfer services. At the time of publication, PayPal has several job listings for San Francisco as well as 17 other locations across the United States and 32 international locations. A PayPal spokesperson reportedly hinted the closure was aimed at the company evaluating …

The Golden City is losing its shine as one of the largest United States-based cryptocurrency exchanges closes its San Francisco-based headquarters. Kraken CEO, Jesse Powell retweeted that Kraken will close its global headquarters on 548 Market Street, in the center of San Francisco. In the retweet shared by a San Francisco-based political commentator, Richie Greenberg, the decision cites that: “We shut down Kraken’s global headquarters on Market Street in San Francisco after numerous employees were attacked, harassed and robbed on their way to and from the office.” Cointelegraph reached out to the Kraken team for comment and will update if …

Cryptocurrency asset management firm Mudrex has announced the launch of its new Coin Sets investment vehicle. The new offering allows investors to diversify their asset portfolio across a range of high-performing decentralized finance, or DeFi, assets, as well as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The niche financial model fosters the distribution of risk exposure in what is often considered a volatile marketplace, allowing investors to bet on the value proposition of an entire sector, rather than the individual potential of a single asset. The basket of assets is also rebalanced on a monthly basis to recalculate the risk and opportunity for …

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is going completely remote and closing its head offices in San Francisco. Coinbase announced Wednesday that it will shut down its former headquarters in the Golden Gate City in 2022 as part of its commitment to “being remote first.” “We’ve committed to having no HQ, and it’s important to show our decentralized workforce that no one location is [more] important than the another,” Coinbase noted. According to the company, the upcoming closure will be an important step in ensuring that no office becomes an unofficial headquarters. “Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for …

Kevin Weil, the vice president of product at Facebook's digital wallet unit and one of the creators of the Libra token, now called Diem, will be leaving the social media giant. In a Twitter thread today, Weil said he would be leaving Facebook after almost three years to become the president of product and business at San Francisco-based space and analytics company, Planet Labs. He was one of the leaders of the social media firm’s digital wallet unit — once called Calibra, now Novi — in addition to being behind the Facebook-backed Libra token, now Diem. “Imagine instead if financial …

A one-off online conference has released a list of the top speakers who are on the agenda — including prominent regulators, politicians and crypto entrepreneurs. Unitize is being organized by BlockShow and San Francisco Blockchain Week, and it is scheduled to take place from July 6 through July 10. The conference’s goal is to celebrate the industry’s progress so far in 2020 and to foster further collaboration and engagement. Live broadcasts, virtual exhibitions and fireside chats will be offered throughout the week, and topics discussed will include the potential benefits that blockchain can offer for enterprises, as well as how …

Major United States cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin has announced that its current chairperson, Hong Fang, is taking over as CEO. Fang is a former Goldman Sachs banker, and early investor in OKCoin. She told Cointelegraph she will continue to be chief operating officer for parent company OK Group, in addition to her new duties as OKCoin CEO. Meanwhile the current OKCoin CEO, Tim Byun, is moving to a new role with OK Group as its chief global government relations officer. OKCoin secures licensing and fiat onramps Fang explained that OKCoin has spent the better part of the past year and a …

On Feb. 27 Noisebridge advocate and attendee John Backus woke up to see that approximately 17.513 Bitcoin (BTC) – equivalent to about $156,000 at the time – had been deposited into Noisebridge’s cryptocurrency wallet. The unexpected deposit came from U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. The exchange sent the Bitcoin as a donation in response to a tweet that Backus had put out the day before asking for funds to help keep Noisebridge running. Source Twitter In an interview with Cointelegraph on Feb. 27 at Noisebridge, Backus said that he was shocked to see that 17.5 Bitcoin had been deposited into …