Riccardo Spagni, the former maintainer of the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency, was arrested last month in Nashville, Tennessee on fraud charges tied to alleged offenses in South Africa between 2009 and 2011. Spagni was on board a private jet scheduled to fly to Los Cabos, Mexico when he was apprehended in Nashville during a scheduled refueling stop, according to court documents. His journey originally began just outside of New York City. The court documents state he is currently in the custody of the U.S. Attorney General. The arrest was made at the request of the South African government, which is seeking …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) 43% rally from $29,482.61 on July 21 to $42,316.71 on July 30 has invigorated the bulls, who had been sitting on the sidelines. After the sharp rise, some analysts are debating whether Bitcoin could repeat its sharp bull runs of 2013 and 2017. Vailshire Capital founder and CEO Jeff Ross highlighted that Bitcoin had rallied tenfold in the second half of 2013 after facing three months of negative news. Ross said: "I still contend that 2021 will behave in similar fashion." PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow price model, said Bitcoin’s comeback in July was “like clockwork.” He …

Developers of privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) have identified a bug that could potentially impact users’ transaction privacy. On Monday, the official Monero Twitter account warned users of a “rather significant bug” that has been spotted in Monero’s decoy selection algorithm, a system designed to hide real output transactions among 10 decoys in a ring. First identified by software developer Justin Berman, the bug causes a sufficient probability that users’ output transactions can be identified as the true spend among decoys if users spend funds immediately following lock time in the first two blocks, or 20 minutes after receiving funds. The …

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s plans to advance its timeline for rate hikes to 2023 has led to profit-booking in the U.S. stock market, gold, and Bitcoin (BTC). The markets received a second jolt on June 18 after James Bullard, the president of the United States Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, warned th the first rate hike could come as soon as 2022. Now crypto analysts are divided on the next move from Bitcoin. Josh Rager believes Bitcoin may have hit its cycle top at $64,500 and Robert Kiyosaki, author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad," believes Bitcoin can plummet to …

Bitcoin (BTC) is struggling to sustain any price level during the current pullback, indicating a lack of demand at higher levels. Does this mean that the bull trend is over and the institutional investors are abandoning the crypto markets? No! It is the other way around. Glassnode’s weekly newsletter pointed out that the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) premium is rising, suggesting that institutional investors are accumulating at lower levels. GBTC is not alone, another popular vehicle for institutional investors, the Canadian Purpose Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has also witnessed strong capital inflows. According to analysts at Glassnode, this shows “early signs …

Coinciding with news that United States President Joe Biden’s proposed tax plan would require tax reporting on business transactions exceeding $10,000, the value of privacy coin Monero (XMR) climbed 31% on Friday. Biden’s American Families tax plan would require exchanges and custodians to implement tighter reporting measures to help detect tax evasion and money laundering. Banks and financial institutions would also be required to report account inflow/outflow information to the Internal Revenue Service to help uncover unreported income. The Treasury Department’s agenda, which was published on Thursday, stated that cryptocurrency business activity remained relatively small but was expected to increase …

Corrections in a bull phase are usually a bullish sign as they reduce the frothy excitement and allow stronger hands to enter the markets. However, the recent correction in Bitcoin (BTC) from its all-time high at $64,849.27 does not seem to have scared novice traders. Data from DappRadar shows that decentralized exchange volumes have picked up in the last week as traders may have exited profitable Bitcoin positions to buy altcoins at their current rock bottom prices. Another sign of interest in altcoins is the sustained high volumes in Dogecoin (DOGE), which remains the fourth most traded cryptocurrency by volume, …

As the 2021 bull market cycle unfolds with decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, being two of the biggest driving forces for growth, old-school cryptocurrency projects have quietly been climbing higher as their established track records begin to attract traders who value a longer history of success. One such project that has been gaining traction in recent weeks is Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused project that recently celebrated its seven-year anniversary and is now looking to take out its 2017 all-time high of $470. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that since reaching a low of $134 on Feb. …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) hesitation near the all-time high suggests that the bulls and the bears are waiting for a trigger to start the next trending move. The bulls are searching for a positive catalyst to thrust the price above the overhead resistance. On the contrary, the bears may be standing by in anticipation of any signs of weakness that could confirm a short-term top. The event that may act as a trigger is the Nasdaq listing for Coinbase's COIN stock on April 14. A successful listing is likely to be cheered by the crypto bulls because that could signal increased crypto …

Bitcoin (BTC) has risen more than 1,000% since March 2020 and this shows that the digital asset has outperformed traditional asset classes like equities, commodities and bonds by a massive margin. The resilience of Bitcoin even after the sharp rally continues to attract buyers. Jarvis Labs analyst Ben Lilly said the whales who hold between 100 to 1,000 Bitcoin have added about 63,000 Bitcoin in their combined holdings since Feb. 28. The activities of this group of whales are worth monitoring because Lilly said “this class of wallets were the ones that timed the 2017 rally the best.” In addition …

Cryptocurrencies are typically pseudonymous, but not necessarily private. Bitcoin (BTC) and other assets run on blockchains, with each transaction posted publicly online. During a transaction between two or more parties, assets move to different wallets, each represented by a string of characters. With these addresses and transactions visible to all, however, a certain level of trackability exists, especially if a wallet transfers funds to an exchange requiring Know Your Customer verification. Certain crypto assets, which are often referred to as privacy coins, private coins or anonymous coins, attempt to hide information about transactions, giving users more privacy. Why might someone …

The strength of the cryptocurrency market appears to be spreading to privacy-focused coins. The calm price action of Bitcoin (BTC) often sets up an intense period for altcoins to rally, where several groups of coins can start becoming bullish. One of those segments is privacy coins. For example, Monero (XMR) rallied by more than 50% last week. Meanwhile, Dash has more than doubled, with a 125% gain, while Zcash (ZEC) rallied by 70% during the same period. Monero breaks out of USD downtrend Prior to the rally, XMR was lagging behind Ether (ETH), as the construction is quite similar between …