Binance Labs – the investment side of the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchange – has placed $5 million into the new Curve DAO token that powers the Curve blockchain network.
Binance Puts a Lot of Dough into Curve
At the time of writing, Curve is valued at roughly $2.4 billion and witnesses a daily trading volume of more than $215 million on its investment platform, which seeks to help fans of decentralized finance (defi) trade assets for the lowest fees possible. DAO also helps Curve stay in business by supporting its many ERC-20 tokens. It also empowers the network’s staking, boosting, and governance voting protocols.
Yi He – the co-founder of Binance and the head of Binance Labs – commented in an interview:
Curve’s significant

A woman in Somerset in the U.K. has fallen victim to a scam after investing in BTC. The scam cost her nearly 40,000 pounds. Going by the name “Lisa,” the victim was led to believe the crypto platform she was pumping her money into was backed by Martin Lewis, an alleged Money Saving Expert in her area.
A Woman Named Lisa Loses Money After BTC Investments
Instead, she claims she was “groomed” by online scammers who ultimately filed for several loans in her name. In an interview, Janet Quinn – the scams lead officer for Heart of the Southwest Trading Standards – said crypto fraud is becoming quite common. Commenting on the situation, she said:
Cryptocurrency, bitcoin, [and] any type of investment scam is big at the moment. People are trying to find a way to make

Not long ago, Bittrex – a popular digital currency exchange – settled the lawsuit that had been filed against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The financial agency has had it in for the firm (like it has with many others), and the company is now looking to get things done quickly and silently so it can continue its operations without interruption, but a former special trial counsel is saying that the same easy route to ending things likely won’t appear for Binance, the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchange.
Binance Won’t Have It Easy
The SEC presently has a lawsuit against Binance. The financial agency says the exchange has been breaking securities rules since day one. It also says the company has commingled customer

Nassim Nicholas Taleb – the author of “Back Swan” and one of the world’s biggest crypto skeptics – commented on social media that the volume chart for BTC, the world’s number one digital currency, has been in a downward spiral since late 2020.
Nicholas Taleb on How BTC is Easy to Manipulate
In other words, while the price has shown signs of recovery, the volume of BTC hasn’t, which could make the currency easier to manipulate and lead to other problems. Taleb stated:
When I said people lost interest in bitcoin, it was based on this. BTC volume is slowly disappearing, down >85 percent from the peak. This is how open Ponzis implode.
What he’s implying is that crypto manipulators and illicit actors will step into the industry and try to engage in rotten behavior

Binance – the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchange – may not remain in Europe, according to various analysts.
What Will Happen with Binance in Europe?
Right now, Binance is being hit from both sides. In the U.S., for example, regulations are coming down hard. The company is the victim of a lawsuit filed against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it has stated that it may shut down its America-based unit as a means of saving the greater company.
In Europe, the EU has implemented what’s known as MiCA, which are a new string of crypto regulations that suggest the enterprise’s operations could become limited throughout the continent. If Binance were to remain in Europe, it would likely only stay in a few countries and wind

Bitcoin provider Azteco recently garnered as much as $6 million through a new funding round led by Jack Dorsey, the man behind both Block and (formerly) Twitter. The money will go towards introducing bitcoin gift cards to ensure everyone has crypto’s spending power at their fingers.
Azteco Gets a Lot of Money
In an interview, Dorsey said:
My contribution to Azteco comes out of a deep respect for their mission. The unbanked population is immense. We have the technology and resources to close this gap, but until now, no one has taken that important next step. Azteco [provides] so much more than just access to a secure financial system. It is building an ecosystem of financial self-determination that is secure and supported by local communities. I am honored to

President Donald Trump holds crypto. According to a financial disclosure released in July, Trump holds anywhere between $250K and $500K in Ethereum-based assets in a crypto wallet.
Donald Trump is a Crypto Holder, Allegedly
The news is interesting because many people likely remember in 2019 when Trump openly spoke ill of digital currencies like bitcoin. During that period, he stated:
I am not a fan of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.
The assets stem from a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that he sold in December of 2022. Approximately 44,000 tokens were available for

Crypto firm Matrix Port has stated that it’s Bitcoin Greed & Fear Index is up, suggesting another bull run for the world’s number one digital currency by market cap may be right around the corner.
Matrix Port: Bitcoin May Be Heading Up
The Index has a long track record of marking trend reversals. As of late, bitcoin has been somewhat stuck in the doldrums, though 2023 has been a year of recovery when compared with the trends of 2022. During that time, bitcoin experienced its worst months on record. The asset lost more than 70 percent of its value over the course of a single year.
In November of 2021, for example, the asset was trading at a new high of about $68,000 per unit, though roughly 12 months later, the asset had crashed into the mid-$15K region, largely

Sam Bankman-Fried – the now disgraced former executive of the fallen crypto exchange FTX – is heading to jail. The judge overseeing his case has stated he is guilty of violating the terms of his bail too often. It’s also believed that Bankman-Fried has attempted to tamper with witnesses while away from prison.
It’s Jail Time for Sam Bankman-Fried
The judge in question is District Judge Lewis Kaplan. At a hearing in New York, he commented that Sam Bankman-Fried has too frequently pushed the limits of his bail. He stated:
There is probable cause to believe that the defendant has attempted to tamper with witnesses at least twice.
Lawyers for the former crypto head have requested a motion that would allow him to spend time at their offices later in the year to

Internet influencer Lil Tay was announced as dead in an Instagram post that later turned out to be false. This has only deepened the crypto mystery that now surrounds the hoax.
Lil Tay and Crypto… A Web of Oddities?
In mid-August, a post on the Instagram page of Lil Tay said the 14-year-old and her brother had passed away. However, Lil Tay eventually went onto her page and commented that her account had been hacked, and that she and her family member were still alive and doing well.
At first glance, it appears this is simply a case of social media getting compromised, which seems to happen all the time. You’re always witnessing celebrities and stars of every shape and size having their accounts (i.e., on Twitter) overtaken by outside parties that spew false

Not long ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set to decide on a new bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) application that was submitted by ARK Invest and its chief executive Cathie Wood. The decision date was coming up soon, but unfortunately, the SEC had the opportunity to delay its decision, and now it appears it has taken that route.
The SEC is at It Again
The delay could give the SEC as much as 240 more days to decide on the application. This means players likely won’t see a final choice made until well into 2024. The situation is upsetting because it’s giving a lot of crypto fans concerns that perhaps the SEC is falling into the same patterns and behaviors it’s exhibited for so many years, now.
The SEC has always been the big lion

The BlackRock bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) application is the big topic in the crypto industry as of late. Everyone’s talking about it, including Austin Arold of Altcoin Daily. In a recent video, he went so far as to say he’ll be very surprised if the application isn’t approved, and he thinks BlackRock is paving the way for all sorts of change in the crypto sphere.
The BlackRock ETF Could Easily Get a Greenlight
BlackRock is the ultimate business when it comes to standard finance. That’s why everyone was so shocked when it announced it was going to submit a bitcoin ETF application. No such document has ever been approved by the SEC in the past, though to be fair, BlackRock has a relatively solid reputation and standing with the agency, as it’s

British Columbia, Canada has been a hotspot for crypto crime as of late. One of the big things that’s happening is crypto is being used to launder illicitly funds garnered by organized crime rings.
British Columbia: The Biggest Crypto Crime Spot?
In a recent interview, Hilary Morden – an expert on gangs in British Columbia – shared the information she had on the topic. She has spoken with more than 100 individual gang members, mostly in 2016 and 2017 through a research program at Simon Fraser University, and she has taught classes on forensic psychology and criminology. She stated:
Over a two-year period, I got maybe one or two interviews a week. Then at my peak, I was doing about two or three a day. (They) want to unburden their souls. That’s why (I think)

Poof Payments Inc. – a platform that has become a leader in the world of web3 crypto payment solutions – has recently unveiled its new “Pay with Anything” feature. This allows users to pay or process invoices through a wide array of digital currencies such as Cardano, Avalanche, Ethereum, and practically any other asset they can think of.
Poof Payments Allows Altcoin Payments
The move is pushing the goals of bitcoin and its digital counterparts closer to being achieved. What many people likely forget is that while bitcoin and many of its crypto cousins have taken on either speculative or even hedge-like statuses in recent years, many of them were initially designed to serve as payment tools. They were built to push checks, credit cards, and fiat currencies to

According to a recent report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 3.2 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) occurred last July. This is a primary metric when tracking inflation, and the number suggests inflation has jumped for the first time in more than a year.
Inflation is Going Up
This means one of several things, a big one being that we’re still not out of the woods yet when it comes to economic issues. Prices are still going up, and everyday shoppers are feeling the heat everywhere they go, from grocery stores to gas stations. Inflation hasn’t left us, and it’s not likely to vanish completely for some time.
However, it also means that bitcoin could still be the big “safe haven” it’s been promoted as over the past several months. The

A woman nearly lost $16,000 after falling victim to a crypto scam. The money likely would have been gone forever if it wasn’t for the police force at Stevens Point, as well as the firefighters of the region and UPS.
Woman Nearly Loses Money to Crypto Thieves
The woman, who remains unnamed at the time of writing, is 79 years of age. Many crypto scammers are under the impression that they can victimize people who are elderly given they’re less likely to understand the technology behind crypto and computers. The woman received an email claiming there was some sort of bogus charge on her PayPal account. Through a little coaxing, they told her to go to her nearest bank, withdraw a certain amount of money (which later turned out to be $16K), and convert it to BTC at

Bit Deer Technologies Group is opening a new crypto mining facility in the Asian country of Bhutan.
Bit Deer Sets Its Sights on Asia
Bit Deer is a crypto mining firm based in Singapore. Founded by Chinese billionaire Jihan Wu, the company stated that it has recently finished power testing the facility and it will open its doors for BTC extraction purposes. Linghui Kong – the CEO of Bit Deer – said in a recent statement:
Our Gedu data center, nestled in the serene landscapes of Bhutan, welcomed an impressive shipment of around 15,000 new mining machines this past July. I’m thrilled to share that, as of today, a whopping 11,000 of these high-tech miners are already up and running, showcasing unparalleled stability and efficiency.
The company has already garnered

The topic of bitcoin ETFs is getting a lot stronger now that companies like BlackRock have submitted applications. Not long ago, Rob Nelson – the anchor of Roundtable – and Jordan Fried, the CEO of Immutable Holdings, held a discussion regarding how strong bitcoin ETFs will be in the coming future and what traders and investors can potentially look forward to.
Rob Nelson on Bitcoin ETFs
Nelson opened the conversation up by stating:
Everybody knows that the bitcoin ETFs are going to lead to a whole lot more on-ramping of crypto and assuming they get approved, it’s a big deal. Major financial players like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab stepping into this space is meaningful, but maybe we’re not seeing everything.
Responding, Jordan Fried said:
One thing

Brandon Mintz is the CEO of Bitcoin Depot, one of the largest crypto ATM firms in the world. He bought his first bitcoin in 2013, and he says a lot’s changed since then.
Brandon Mintz on the World of Bitcoin ATMs
At 29 years of age, Mintz wanted to see bitcoin help the “little guys” that were being cut out by the arena of mainstream finance. Right now, the company has grown to include a web of more than 6,000 machines, though he says competition is getting fierce. He commented in a recent interview:
Before COVID… there were a lot of new entrants into the bitcoin ATM industry, a lot of small operators. If you had everything in place to operate a bitcoin ATM, you could put one on a busy street corner in a big city, and it was almost like a guarantee that you

Is bitcoin – the world’s number one digital currency by market cap – finally gaining mainstream traction and attention? According to two crypto analysts (Alex Mann of Time Chain and Alyse Killeen at Still Mark), the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Mann and Killeen: BTC is Getting More Known
In a recent interview, Mann said he thinks bitcoin is no different from any other product or service, and it’s only a matter of time before the world realizes this. He stated:
Fundamentally, all bitcoin companies are doing is providing goods and services to customers that their customers [need] to pay for as they would with any other supplier. Bitcoin is a technology layer, just like the internet, and bitcoin companies use bitcoin the way Amazon uses the internet.
Killeen also

Mike Novogratz – the billionaire hedge fund manager of Galaxy Digital and one of the biggest BTC bulls the world has ever known – believes that a bitcoin spot ETF will be approved somewhere within the next six months.
A Bitcoin ETF is Almost Here, Novogratz Says
In an interview, he commented:
It’s a big deal, because both our contacts from the Invesco side and from the BlackRock side get you to think that this is a question of when, not if, that the outside window is probably six months.
A bitcoin spot ETF would bring the industry into a whole new plane of legitimacy and mainstream attention. The fact is that for the last several years, there have been many companies – from Bitwise to VanEck to WisdomTree – that have tried desperately to get such ETF

A $9 million crypto case has been thrown out of court. Mark Shin was recently charged with theft, cybercrime theft, and money laundering after prosecutors accused him of using a software update to his advantage and to create his own digital currency.
Mark Shin is Breathing a Sigh of Relief
While the evidence appeared damning at the time, the judge overseeing the case had decided there isn’t much there. John Kellner – the 18th Judicial District attorney – explained in a final motion:
Further prosecution of the above-captioned case is no longer necessary in that the people feel that the ends of justice would not be further served by continued prosecution of the defendant because it is in the best interests of justice.
Shin was trialed all throughout the month of

David Rubenstein is a billionaire that’s suddenly seeing bitcoin in a whole new light. He commented in a recent interview that bitcoin is here to stay, and that it’s likely to make huge waves throughout the financial arena.
David Rubenstein is a BTC Fan
The big thing that’s caused him to change his mind is the fact that BlackRock – one of the biggest standard monetary institutions in the world – has decided to enter the bitcoin industry through a new ETF application it’s submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Up to this point, bitcoin and crypto have been part of a largely unregulated space, and the idea that BlackRock is willing to take a risk and try to enter its shaky borders is an interesting notion.
Rubenstein believes that BlackRock’s

Microsoft has teamed up with layer-1 blockchain firm Aptos Labs to further establish its presence in both the web3 and artificial intelligence (AI) arenas.
Microsoft and Aptos Have Joined Hands
Mo Shaikh, the co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs, commented in an interview:
The primary focus for both of us is solving our respective industries’ problems.
Aptos will run validator nodes on the Azure Cloud hosted by Microsoft, a move slated to bring higher degrees of security and reliability to the enterprise. Daniel An – global director of business development for AI and web3 at Microsoft – explained in an emailed note:
We predict that AI will be infused into web3 solutions at greater scale in the coming months and years… For example, how do we know that LLM-generated

Binance and El Salvador are joining hands to boost the nation’s long-running bitcoin agenda. The digital currency exchange – the biggest and most popular in the world – is garnering two separate licenses to operate in the Central American nation, thus bringing its total world licenses to 18.
Binance Gains Ground in El Salvador
The documentation was provided by the Central Bank of El Salvador, which is now permitting Binance to serve as a bitcoin services provider (BSP) within the country’s borders. In addition, the Salvadoran National Commission of Digital Assets has given a non-provisional digital assets services providers license to the company. Daniel Acosta – the general manager for Columbia, Central America, and the Caribbean at Binance – stated in an

PayPal recently shocked the world by announcing it would be creating its own stable currency atop the Ethereum network. As a result, several digital currencies are beginning to show signs of life, and price jumps have occurred for major assets over a 24-hour period. Also, crypto investor Charlie Shrem says that the news is going to help launch bitcoin into a new stratosphere and boost Ethereum’s timetable.
Charlie Shrem is Proud of PayPal
Shrem stated on social media:
PayPal launching a stablecoin will skyrocket bitcoin to at least $250,000 faster than it was supposed to, and Ethereum likely will ten times on a faster timetable. Very exciting.
The idea that bitcoin will suddenly jump to $250K is a unique one. This means that the world’s number one digital

Blockchain infrastructure company Puffer Finance has recently garnered more than $5.5 million through a seed round that was co-led by Lightspeed Faction and Lemniscap. Other participants included DACM, LBK, SNZ, and Canonical Crypto.
Puffer Finance Brings in a Lot of Money
The funding is set to boost the company’s development of its new open-source Secure-Signer solution and to establish a permission-less staking pool. Jason Vranek and Amir Forouzani – the founders of Puffer Finance – commented in an interview:
The rapid advancements in infrastructure and user experience have primed Ethereum for mass adoption. As this era ushers in new centralization pressures, preserving Ethereum’s core values becomes increasingly essential. We hope the Puffer Protocol will

Crypto scams are more prevalent today than ever. Not long ago, two residents of Southborough were scammed out of more than $31,000 in bitcoin by individuals posing as federal authorities.
Crypto Scams Keep Happening
One individual lost $30,000 in crypto, while the other lost $1,800. Police lieutenant Sean McCarthy, who oversaw the investigation of the incidents, commented in a recent interview:
We’re working with local and state authorities, as well as forensic accountants, to see what can be done for these people.
While both incidents occurred on the 24th of July this year, neither of the victims know each other, nor do they share any personal connections, and McCarthy cites the date as a coincidence. He said:
The ruse they (the scammers) used this time

Kaiko Research recently put out a new report suggesting the bitcoin halving set to occur in 2024 isn’t going to aid the world’s number one digital currency.
Kaiko Research on the Upcoming BTC Halving
There have been many BTC halving events over the years. 2016 and 2020 were big ones, and each time, without fail, they have helped bitcoin along its journey in reaching new price highs. During each of those years, bitcoin reached new price pinnacles that had investors and traders salivating, but according to Kaiko Research, this time around will be different, and fans shouldn’t expect bitcoin to strike gold like it has during previous halvings.
Researchers state that while price jumps have occurred with each event, they’ve gradually diminished over time, and thus

Binance – the largest and most popular digital currency exchange in the world – has hired a new deputy chief compliance officer (CCO) and global money laundering reporting officer. The positions will be taken over by Kristen Hecht, who according to a recent blog post, has more than 17 years of experience fighting both financial terrorism and illicit monetary activity.
Binance Now Has Kristen Hecht Aboard
Hecht expressed her excitement about the job in a recent interview and said:
Before joining the industry, I saw that blockchain technology had opened an entirely new way to transfer assets in an open and transparent manner, which continues to propel technological advances making it easier to provide access to individuals and businesses currently excluded from