COTI, a blockchain-powered fintech startup, has launched a new cryptocurrency index enabling traders to profit from the market volatility. The new Crypto Volatility Index, or CVI, brings the traditional “market fear index” to the crypto market, allowing users to deposit and open positions with Tether (UDST). Gibraltar-based COTI explained that the new index allows traders to open CVI positions for high and low volatility. “Users who expect volatility to increase can open a CVI position. If correct, they can take profit by selling their position once the index has risen,” COTI wrote. In contrast, traders who expect volatility to remain …

Robbers posing as cryptocurrency buyers have stolen about 3.5 million Hong Kong dollars ($450,000) from a woman in Hong Kong. According to a report by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, the Hong Kong police are currently conducting a manhunt for the gang. A spokesperson for the police revealed that the group operated by having one member complete multiple transactions with the victim, presumably to win the target’s trust. Indeed, an investigation into the matter showed three previous deals ranging between $77,000 and $90,000. On the day of the robbery, the other members of the gang rushed to the …

Popular stablecoin Tether (USDT) is the first token to go live on the Hermez layer-two network, the company announced on Monday. As part of the collaboration, batched USDT transactions will be possible once the Hermez network officially launches in early 2021. David Schwartz, project lead at Hermez, told Cointelegraph: “Hermez network is run by permissionless coordinators who will decide the transactions included in each batch, based on incentives (fees).” Back in December 2020, Delphi Digital published a report showing that layer-two rollups accounted for less than 1% of the entire daily decentralized exchange trading volume. For Hermez, the small proportion …

Paolo Ardoino, the outspoken chief technology officer of Bitfinex, took to Twitter this week to dispel concerns that Tether could be the next target of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In response to a tweet from CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, Ardoino said Tether adheres to strict Know Yor Customer/Anti-Money Laundering regulations set forth by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. In other words, people who say Tether is less regulated are just spreading “FUD”— or fear, uncertainty and doubt. Ju’s original tweet said: “If SEC's next target is Tether, it's going to be very, …

Bitcoin (BTC) has had a stellar 2020, but how are other top crypto assets faring? Let’s take a look at how some of the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization performed this . Bitcoin First, Bitcoin has seen a massive gain since Jan. 1, as its price soared from $7,195 to as high as $28,422. Within 12 months, the price of Bitcoin rose by 290%, outperforming all major stock indices and most stocks, apart from a select few including Tesla (TSLA). The main catalysts behind Bitcoin’s rally have been the increase in institutional demand, favorable financial conditions as a result of …

Tether (USDT), the largest cryptocurrency stablecoin, has passed a $20 billion market cap for the first time. According to data confirmed by the company on Dec. 18, Tether is now a $20 billion asset and the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Tether market cap doubles since September "Tether has just surpassed a $20B market capitalization!" an official Twitter update reads. "This fantastic milestone is another confirmation for Tether maintaining its number one spot as the most liquid, stable and trusted currency!" Tether's market cap has been increasing at an almost record pace throughout the past quarter, passing $10 billion just …

The Office of the New York Attorney General, or OAG, has requested a deadline extension for iFinex Inc — the parent company of both crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin issuer Tether — to produce the documents requested for their ongoing legal battle. On Dec. 9, 2020, the OAG wrote to Justice Joel Cohen to request the deadline be pushed back until Jan. 15, 2020 — presumably a typo and actually a request for the same date in 2021. The request followed a virtual hearing on Sep. 17, that concluded with the judge ordering a 90-day extension for iFinex to produce …

A number of TV shows have mentioned Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies over the years, including Big Bang Theory in 2017 and The Simpsons in 2020. One of the latest crypto mentions occurred during the premiere of the 11th season of Shameless, in an episode called “This is Chicago.” “It’s my crypto,” character Dash says, elaborating, “My Bitcoin. It’s down 30 and I was using it to leverage my Tether and my Ethereum.” Another character responded: “I have no idea what you just said.” Dash continued: “Oil futures gutted my portfolio last spring. So if there’s another two-point drop on …

The market cap of Tether (USDT), a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, has surged in recent weeks, potentially helping to fuel the recent Bitcoin (BTC) rally that drove prices to near all-time highs. Paolo Ardoino, who serves as dual CTO to Bitfinex and Tether, tweeted Thursday that the supply of USDT increased by 1 billion over nine days, marking the second-fastest expansion in its history. The record was set on Sept. 4, 2020 when, over eight days, USDT's circulating supply increased by 1 billion. At press time, Tether had a market cap of nearly $19 billion, meaning that there are roughly 19 …

An Ethereum-based decentralized finance platform known as Cheese Bank recently suffered a $3.3 million loss — the product of a hack in early November. The thieves utilized a somewhat newly found weakness in the DeFi sector that harnesses flashloans. The Cheese Bank thieves stole the cheddar via dollar-pegged stablecoins USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT) and Dai. A number of other platforms have also suffered similar fates in recent days. “In the string of attacks, we have seen malicious actors use flash loans to instantaneously borrow, swap, deposit and again borrow large numbers of tokens so they can artificially manipulate the …

Robert Bench, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s director of applied research, thinks privacy should be a focus during the creation of digital money, not an afterthought. “Privacy is a question that we have learned is critical from a technical perspective,” Bench said during a Chamber of Digital Commerce panel on Friday: “One of our learnings is that the questions of privacy and identity must be considered at the earliest stage of the architecture. Making privacy or identity an ad hoc process is suboptimal from both a privacy or identity perspective, and most importantly from a security perspective.” A largely …

Amid a year of significant growth for the decentralized finance space within the crypto industry, British Virgin Islands-based crypto exchange Bitfinex has unveiled its new lending service today, called Bitfinex Borrow. "Bitfinex Borrow is a borrowing platform," Bitfinex chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino told Cointelegraph. “This particular offering isn’t about lending out your crypto and obtaining a rate of return on it," he said. “The crypto loan is obtained via Bitfinex’s peer-to-peer lending platform, though it may consist of a pool of available credit," he explained. So essentially, crypto borrowing and loans are not directly tied to a direct and …