Bitcoin

Bitcoin
Bitcoin-as-Currency Experiment Costs El Salvador 1% of Its GDP, IMF Reports
February 04, 2022

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is still on the offensive when it comes to El Salvador’s use of bitcoin as a legal tender, estimating the cost of implementing the program at 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). And that’s not counting the cost...

Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s 10-Minute Block Time Batches and Fluctuating Transaction Fees Give RTP a Leg Up
February 04, 2022

ACH transactions get a lot of criticism for batching transactions into a few bundles a day, slowing down the time it takes for transactions to be settled, and making it more difficult to enable instant or near-instant payments. That’s one of the reasons real-time payments...

Bitcoin
IMF’s Silence Signals El Salvador Needs to Abandon Bitcoin to Secure $1.3B Loan
January 28, 2022

El Salvador is still asking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $1.3 billion loan, and the IMF is still asking El Salvador to drop bitcoin as legal tender. That’s one fairly obvious takeaway from the Tuesday (Jan. 25) statement the IMF released on its...

Bitcoin
El Salvador Turns to DeFi, Uses Bitcoin-Backed Microloans to Fight Loan Sharks
January 21, 2022

Saying more than half of El Salvador’s businesses are funded by loan sharks, the government of El Salvador plans to offer $10 million in bitcoin-backed loans. President Nayin Bukele’s strategy of making bitcoin a legal tender in the country and buying tens of millions of...

Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s Slide Casts Doubt on Its Usefulness for Payments
January 21, 2022

Bitcoin has transformed from a cryptocurrency into a store of value on par with gold as an inflation hedge. So said Wall Street and institutional investors diving into BTC and the broader crypto market in 2021 — Gold 2.0. It’s a narrative many in the...

Bitcoin
Bitcoin Miner Rhodium’s S-1 Cites Halving as Bitcoin’s Biggest Systemic Risk
January 18, 2022

As more bitcoin mining moves to the U.S., Texas-based Rhodium Enterprises is asking cryptocurrency supporters to bet $1.7 billion on a liquid-cooled, solar- and wind-powered operation that will mine more BTC while creating less pollution. In an S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission...

Bitcoin
Fresh Volatility Could Signal Rocky Year for Bitcoin
January 11, 2022

Bitcoin is off to a rocky 2022, with prices tumbling below $40,000 for the first time since September, tracking to hit its worst start to a new year since 2012 and perhaps since its inception, Bloomberg reported. The world’s first cryptocurrency lost about 14% in...

Bitcoin
El Salvador: Regulatory Regime for Bitcoin ‘Volcano’ Bonds As Soon As February
January 09, 2022

El Salvador is apparently readying a new Bitcoin law. Samson Mow, Chief Strategy Officer of Blockstream — the crypto asset firm overseeing El Salvador’s forthcoming, billion-dollar Bitcoin bond issuance — announced it in an English-language tweet on Jan. 3, according to El Salvador.com. The new...

Bitcoin
CSI, NYDIG Want to Bring Bitcoin to Community Banks
January 06, 2022

The FinTech and RegTech solutions provider Computer Services Inc. has joined forces with the bitcoin company NYDIG to offer bitcoin services to community financial institutions. “Powered by NYDIG, the new offering allows banking customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin directly within CSI’s digital banking...