Jian Wen attempted to purchase a house worth $30 million using Bitcoin from an alleged fraudster. Authorities reportedly confiscated Bitcoin (BTC) worth $1.7 billion after a former restaurant worker attempted to buy a mansion worth about $30 million in London. On Jan. 30, Sky News reported that Jian Wen, a Chinese national who became a...Continue Reading

The 2024 outlook highlights plans to increase active validators from 40 to 100 and merge Beacon Chain (BC) to enhance blockchain efficiency and speed up decentralization. The community-driven blockchain ecosystem, BNB Chain, has shared that its plans for the year 2024 involve optimizing performance, introducing opBNB Connect for scalability, and targeting specific decentralized applications (DApps) for mass...Continue Reading

Bitcoin, CBDCs and stablecoins could coexist in Lugano as they can potentially serve different purposes for users, the city’s CFO believes. A future where Bitcoin (BTC), stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) could coexist in the Swiss city of Lugano is “quite possible,” according to a local financial official. Paolo Bortolin, deputy chief financial...Continue Reading

The Dencun upgrade was activated on the second of three Ethereum testnets as proto-danksharding inches closer to mainnet. The gradual roll-out of the Dencun upgrade continued within the Ethereum ecosystem, this time with no hiccups as the EIP-laden upgrade activated on the Sepolia testnet. As previously reported, the Dencun network upgrade was activated on the...Continue Reading

The state-owned Center of Bank Technologies began building the CBDC platform in January and is now actively hiring developers. Belarus proceeds to develop a blockchain platform for its central bank digital currency (CBDC). The country is under international sanctions, but Belarus hopes to use its digital ruble (Belarusian ruble) for cross-border transactions.  According to the...Continue Reading

Stablecoin purchasing power is back in what has been a net positive for Bitcoin price performance. Bitcoin (BTC) is benefiting from a surge in stablecoin “buying power” as their supply trends higher. Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows an ongoing drop in the stablecoin supply ratio (SSR) oscillator. Bitcoin headed to two-year highs this...Continue Reading

The approval of Bitcoin ETFs serves as a form of mainstream validation, but longtime Bitcoiner Paul Sztorc says the ecosystem still needs to think carefully about scaling. Bitcoin Drivechain proponent Paul Sztorc believes the growing mainstream acceptance of BTC will drive a need for greater scalability and functionality of its infrastructure. In a wide-ranging interview...Continue Reading

China imposed a blanket ban on crypto use in 2021, but due to technological advancements and the decentralized nature of crypto, mainland users have found a way to access the crypto market. China is set to make a major amendment to its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations to include cryptocurrency-related transactions amid calls for greater scrutiny...Continue Reading

“I decided to simplify communication with girls via GPT,” said Moscow-based AI developer Alexander Zhadan. A developer from Moscow has found his “happily ever after” after a self-reported year-long experiment using ChatGPT and other AI tools to date more than 5,000 women on Tinder. In a Jan. 30 thread on X, TenChat product manager Alexander...Continue Reading

Settlements are the “most common” way the SEC resolves enforcement actions, but this stops defendants from speaking out, says Hester Peirce. A United States Securities and Exchange Commission rule forbidding defendants from criticizing the agency’s claims when settling enforcement actions “undermines regulatory integrity” and free speech, says one of its commissioners. In a Jan. 30...Continue Reading