Once the Bitcoin rewards halving goes through on May 12, the annual inflation rate of the cryptocurrency will be about half of the global average. As crypto analyst Mati Greenspan noted on Twitter on April 26, the annual inflation of Bitcoin (BTC) will fall from 3.65% at the time of press to 1.8% once the halving happens in 15 days. The global annual inflation rate for 2019 was 3.41%, and is approximately 3.56% so far for 2020. In just 15 days, the annual inflation of #bitcoin will go from 3.65% to just 1.8%... approximately half of the global annual inflation …

After predicting a possible Bitcoin price drop to the $3,000s, Silk Road founder and federal inmate Ross Ulbricht sees long-term bullish possibilities for the cryptocurrency price staying well above $20,000. Posting to his personal Medium account on April 24 from the United States Penitentiary Tucson, Ulbricht expanded upon his comments earlier this month in which he saw a Bitcoin (BTC) bear run to $3,200 as a distinct possibility. While admitting his prediction was a likely scenario for the second wave, the Silk Road founder wants the crypto community to know he is “still bullish long-term.” Source: Medium “If wave II …

Major crypto exchange, Bitfinex, continues to drive decentralized finance, or DeFI, adoption by announcing support for a new cross-chain DeFi solution. Bitfinex exchange plans to list pTokens (pBTC) — a new token that aims to unlock cross-chain DeFi liquidity by connecting Bitcoin (BTC) to any blockchain. The token is pegged 1:1 to Bitcoin and is compatible with the Ethereum (ETH) and EOS DeFi ecosystems to date. Bitfinex to streamline liquidity flows between centralized and decentralized exchanges Bitfinex CTO, Paolo Ardoino, told Cointelegraph that the platform expects to add support for pBTC deposits and withdrawals by the end of May 2020. …

Philip Coggan, a British business journalist and news correspondent who writes for The Economist, once mentioned, “Modern money is debt and debt is money.” Few would disagree with this claim. Yes, the vast majority of money circulating today — so-called broad money — represents a specific type of credit–debt relationship. This relationship is at the heart of today’s sovereign monetary authorities, the central banks under which almost all economic activity takes place. But the modern economic reality we have internalized is a breeding ground of confusion for innovators in the decentralized finance and broader crypto communities because it combines the …

Alex Mashinsky, chief executive officer (CEO) of cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network, thinks Bitcoin (BTC) hasn’t become enough of a non-correlated asset for investors to turn to it in the current financial crisis. In an April 22 interview on the David Pakman Show, Mashinsky said the cryptocurrency didn’t see a significant surge at the start of the pandemic because “if you take any snippet over the last year, you would see very high correlation [between BTC and] the stock market.” This correlation combined with the current crisis may be enough to deter many investors from Bitcoin. While Cointelegraph has reported …

Okung Ventures, the venture startup founded by NFL star Russell Okung, is backing Bitcoin (BTC) loyalty outfit Fold to help crypto holders earn BTC as well as spend it. The Carolina Panthers player invested in, and has been promoting Fold, an app which offers users the ability to spend Bitcoin or fiat currency at major retailers such as Amazon, Uber and Starbucks. Similar to cashback rewards from major credit cards: the more you spend, the more Bitcoin rewards you earn. Okung told Forbes he believes “finding more ways to EARN bitcoin is just as important as getting more people interested …

The Japan Security Token Offering Association (JSTOA) has just released self-regulatory guidelines on how to separate customer assets and electronic record transfer rights. Available on the JSTOA website on April 20, the association attributes the guidelines to the revisions of the country’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), passed by the Japanese House of Representatives and set to be enforced starting May 1. At a meeting including employees and the Board of Directors, the association laid out the rules for electronic record transfer rights and management of customer assets, among others. The JSTOA will check the management of separately held …

According to a quarterly report, online engagement towards XRP on Twitter fell in Q1 2020, while Ripple was forced to liquidate many of its holdings to stay cash flow positive. The report, by social trading and investing platform eToro in partnership with analytics and finance management startup The Tie, indicates that the number of Twitter users discussing XRP fell by 16% in the first quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, the number of users in the “XRP Army” — supporters of the cryptocurrency — has declined 82% since January 2018. XRP losing support and value? This is not the first trouble XRP …

Crypto trader Scott Melker says that while stocks and Bitcoin (BTC) have appeared to move in tandem since Black Thursday: “They are not correlated assets”. In a Twitter thread for his 84,000 followers, “The Wolf Of All Streets” outlined his theory about why Bitcoin will tread its own path during the financial crisis. Melker looked at the price of BTC since its creation in 2009 and compared it to assets in legacy markets like stocks. According to Melker, the cryptocurrency has only been moderately correlated with traditional markets for a brief period. History tells the story As Melker explained in …

As part of a recent lengthy position paper on crypto, a South African regulatory body called the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group, or IFWG, mentioned crypto as a possible but unlikely risk to the country's monetary system at present. In its April 16 paper, under a section titled "the risks of crypto assets," the IFWG said: "The risk of a parallel, fragmented, non-sovereign monetary system: The risk with potentially the widest-ranging implications is the threat to the existing financial system, in which central banks ensure an efficient monetary system through the execution of monetary policy and influence the supply of money …

Ant Financial — the Chinese fintech company formerly known as Alipay— has launched a new consortium blockchain platform called OpenChain. According to an announcement on April 16, the platform would allow developers and small and micro enterprises to utilize innovative blockchain tools. They can now explore the technology further and develop better applications and smart contracts on the blockchain. Ant Financial’s General Manager, Jin Ge, claims that the launch of OpenChain will boost the efforts of almost one million SMEs and developers over the next three years. Pushing blockchain beyond tech and financial giants According to the release, SMEs and …

Financial institutions all over the world are increasingly experimenting with emerging technologies like blockchain to streamline payment systems and achieve financial inclusion. In a new study, the World Bank has once again emphasized blockchain’s potential for financial inclusion. Issued by the Bank for International Settlements on April 14,the new report from the World Bank Group on “Payment aspects of financial inclusion in the fintech era” outlines a wide number of crypto and blockchain-related concepts like stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDC). In the 70-page report, the bank provided a detailed overview of selected advances in technology that are considered …