United States-based traders can still purportedly access Bitfinex’s cryptocurrency trading services, despite recent claims that the firm is not active in the state. An anonymous source told blockchain and crypto news agency The Block that they were able to access Bitfinex from within the borders of the state of New York, according to a July 26 report. Per The Block, the unnamed trader created an account with the tongue-in-cheek username “ImaNYresident”, and subsequently gained access to the platform by simply selecting a query stating that they are not a U.S. resident. Bitfinex discontinued services for U.S.-based customers in August 2017 …

Lawyers for Bitfinex and Tether, in the course of an ongoing case against the New York Attorney General (NYAG), submitted multiple fillings on July 22 alleging that the companies never served customers within New York. In one filing, attorney Stuart Hoegner noted the provision in Bitfinex’s terms of service that require that customers that transact be foreign entities: “Under Bitfinex’s and Tether’s Terms of Service, Eligible Contract Participants (‘ECPs’) that transact with Bitfinex or Tether must be foreign entities. Although those foreign entities may have shareholders or personnel who reside in, or otherwise have contact with, the United States or …

Are Bitfinex and Tether in trouble? Maybe, but the thing is, we don't know just how much trouble, because the stablecoin issuer has challenged the New York State Office of the Attorney General's (OAG) case against them. In claims filed in April, Attorney General Letitia James asserted that Bitfinex defrauded its customers, having lost $850 million in client and corporate funds, and then having attempted to cover up this loss by secretly helping itself to around $900 million of Tether's cash reserves. Serious charges, but they're denied by Bitfinex and Tether’s parent company, iFinex, which responded in April that the …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Trump tweets opposition to crypto, specifically Libra and Bitcoin Shrinking violet Donald Trump doesn’t often share his views, so it was refreshing to see him share an opinion for once on Twitter. The United States president declared that he isn’t a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — telling his 61.9 million followers they …

Stablecoin operator Tether accidentally minted and subsequently burned 5 billion USDT tokens, Whale Alert tweeted on July 13. Whale Alert — a Twitter account dedicated to reporting large cryptocurrency transactions — noted that 50 million USDT tokens were transferred from cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex to the Tether Treasury via the Omni protocol on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. The account subsequently reported that Tether Treasury minted 5 billion USDT tokens on the Tron blockchain, after which it burned them. Then, Tether minted another 50 million USDT on the same chain, burned another 4.5 billion USDT, and finally transferred 50 million Tron-based USDT …

New York-based Metropolitan Commercial Bank has shut down accounts associated with stablecoin issuer Tether, Coindesk reported on July 10. Tether and its affiliated companies reportedly had accounts with Metropolitan Commercial Bank for almost half a year, and now the financial institution has reportedly closed those accounts following a request in 2018. A bank spokesperson told Coindesk that Tether has not shown much activity with the accounts since their establishment: “Metropolitan Commercial Bank had limited, corporate operating accounts with Tether Holdings LTD, iFinex Inc, and Digfinex Inc, all with negligible activity, and requested the accounts to be closed after less than …

The office of the New York Attorney General (OAG) has claimed that crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin firm Tether have been operating in New York into 2019, according to official documents filed in the New York State Courts on June 8. The OAG has submitted these documents to fight Bitfinex and Tether’s motion to dismiss the case, a motion filed in May. The defendants argued that the case should be thrown out because they were not operating their businesses in New York. They noted that the OAG had appealed to the Martin Act in bringing their case against the defendants, …

Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange announced that it will spend 27% of past and future Tokinex revenue on burning LEO tokens, according to an official blog post on July 8. Bitfinex unveiled LEO in May as the native utility token for its initial exchange offering (IEO) platform Tokinex. Parent company iFinex committed to burning LEO tokens, until commercial circulation runs dry, in the LEO token whitepaper: “On a monthly basis, iFinex and its affiliates will buy back LEO from the market equal to a minimum of 27% of the consolidated gross revenues of iFinex (exclusive of Ethfinex) from the previous month, until …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex announced that it repaid $100 million of outstanding loan facility to stablecoin operator Tether in a post on its official blog on July 2. Per the announcement, Bitfinex made the repayment via wire transfer to Tether’s bank account and the amount was not yet due to be paid to the operator under the facility. Still, the exchange reportedly made the decision to complete the prepayment based on its financial position at the end of the second quarter of 2019. The post concludes: “Also on July 1st, Bitfinex fully prepaid all interest accrued under the loan facility to …

One of the most prominent crypto cybercrimes in recent years took a dramatic turn on June 23, when two Israeli brothers were arrested in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack and other crypto-related phishing attacks. Just shy of 120,000 Bitcoin (BTC) were stolen in the attack back in 2016, an amount initially worth $72 million, though after Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in the summer of 2019, the value of the stolen funds now amount to around $1.4 billion. Speaking to Finance Magnates, an Israeli police spokesperson said that Eli and Assaf Gigi bagged tens of millions of dollars from their activities. …

Cryptocurrency investment firm Maple Leaf Capital called ampleforth (AMPL), the token recently released in the first Bitfinex’s Initial Exchange Offering, “anything but stable” in a series of tweets published on June 27. While Ampleforth reportedly raised $4.9 million in 11 seconds in a Tokenex earlier in June, Maple Leaf Capital has said that the AMPL token’s mechanics do not grant it stability, and its low volume makes it easily to manipulate. The firm went on to explain that the token in question is not pegged. The firm elaborated: “So even if price is stable, as long as it’s higher than …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino hinted at the maximum leverage for the exchange’s upcoming derivatives trading, in a tweet published on June 24. In the tweet, Ardoino purportedly indicated the maximum leverage for Bitfinex’ forthcoming derivatives trading, which resulted in a heated discussion between community members. In response to the answer whether it will be an isolated leverage, Ardoino said that it will be isolated at the beginning, adding that it is better for risk management. Ardoino also revealed that instruments with high leverage will be used separately from the main margin market limited to 3.3x. He stated: “We …