Monthly Archives: February 2019

United States-based payment platform Square reported $166 million in annual Bitcoin (BTC) revenue for 2018, data from its annual earnings report published Feb. 27 confirms.Square, which shares its CEO Jack Dorsey with Twitter, achieved just over $52 million in Bitcoin sales for Q4, surpassing Q3 by $9 million and Q2 by more than $15 million.Clear…

Big Four audit and consultancy firm PwC Hong Kong has published guidance for financially distressed or insolvent businesses in the crypto sector. The document, released February 2019, tackles the complexities specific to the nascent industry, in particular in regard to asset valuation and multi-jurisdictional operations.PwC notes that the two parameters used to determine a company’s…

Hacked New Zealand cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia will reopen for business on Monday next week, officials confirmed on social media on Feb. 26.In a series of updates, Cryptopia revealed its two founders would be returning to the company to help spearhead operations following an overhaul of its structure.Police formally granted permission for trading to resume in…

A blockchain-based home equity loan platform, Figure, has raised $65 million from various major financial and venture capital firms, tech news site TechCrunch reports on Feb. 27.The firm, which was founded by SoFi founder and former CEO Mike Cagney, reportedly raised the funds from such majors as Morgan Creek, DST Global, DCM, Ribbit Capital and…

Switzerland will host the Swiss Blockchain Hackathon later this year in a bid to help companies find real-life applications of blockchain technology, according to an announcement published on Feb. 27.The three-day event is reportedly organized by Switzerland’s six leading blockchain and IT organizations — Trust Square, Bitcoin Association Switzerland, CV Labs, Crypto Valley Association (CVA),…

The chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) — the European Union-level financial markets supervisor — has said that he supports further regulations on digital assets, political news outlet Roll Call reported on Feb. 27.Delivering his speech at the FinTech Conference 2019 earlier this week in Brussels, Belgium, ESMA Chairman Steven Maijoor reportedly…

Cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive is shutting down, as the project has reportedly become economically inviable. The team behind Coinhive announced the news in a blog post on Feb. 26.Per the announcement, the mining service will stop its operations on March 8, 2019, while users’ dashboards will be accessible until April 30, 2019. Among the reasons…

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged a New York-based operator of a purported cryptocurrency payment services firm with a wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions. The DoJ announced the allegations in a press release on Feb. 27.According to the release, New York citizen Randall Crater founded and managed My Big Coin Pay…

Coinomi Wallet denied recent claims that its software sends wallet recovery seed phrases to Google’s remote spell checker servers in plain (unencrypted) text. The company refuted the claims in an official statement published on Feb. 27.In the statement, Coinomi claims that, unlike what was reported, the seed phrase transmission was encrypted via SSL (HTTPS), with…