After nearly two decades of Wild West-like freedom, the Senate is coming for the cryptocurrency market. This isn't the first time legislators have tried to tame the crypto market. The latest effort is led by Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Boozman (R-AR), the two senators who lead the Senate Agriculture Committee. The bill would allow cryptocurrencies to avoid regulation by the SEC and instead fall under the authority of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The crypto industry desperately wants to avoid oversight by the SEC, and would likely consider regulation by the CFTC … [Read more...]

Has the long-foretold cryptocosm arrived? It's hard to say given the stop/start tendencies of the recent crypto-collapse, but one scary thing is for certain, many crypto lenders are blocking access to customer assets. Kyle Barr reports at Gizmodo: The number of crypto lending platforms that actually let users take their crypto home with them is getting progressively smaller. One company even reported its users were draining their accounts of close to $198 million in total over the past three weeks. CoinLoan announced Monday it was putting a big hold on users’ abilities to withdraw most of … [Read more...]

You know that crypto speculators have been suffering. Big drops in the value of cryptocurrencies have exposed some of the firms that were swimming naked when the tide went out. Now, the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, a mega-crypto owner, says that there are certain crypto exchanges that are already operating in insolvency. Forbes's Steven Ehrlich reports: The question on everybody’s mind in the crypto world is whether we’ve reached the market bottom. Nearly $2 trillion in crypto market value has evaporated since November. Two bellwether digital assets Luna, a $40 billion crypto asset … [Read more...]

Many cryptocurrency speculators are just now waking up to the extreme levels of risk they assumed when buying their crypto assets. Prices for cryptocurrencies across the board have fallen dramatically, as can be seen in bitcoin's fall of -51.25% year-to-date, and -66.6% since its peak in November 2021, only eight months ago. Now crypto speculators have to calculate how much it will take to get them back to even. It's not a small amount. Even the volatility of crypto might not be enough to get them there soon. A 70% loss in crypto, which for peak investors is only a hair's breadth … [Read more...]

Bitcoin prices dipped again last night as speculators continued to flee cryptocurrencies. The drop is causing trouble for some hedge funds, which apparently weren't hedged enough. The Wall Street Journal reports: Cryptocurrencies extended their slide Wednesday, with bitcoin on the verge of falling below $20,000 for the first time since December 2020. Bitcoin’s price fell to around $20,526.57 in early U.S. trading. That marks a 6.7% drop from Tuesday’s 5 p.m. ET price and a 70% plunge from a high of $68,990.90 reached in November 2021, according to CoinDesk. The rout in cryptocurrencies … [Read more...]

No shock this house of cards is under pressure again. Teachers, police officers, and firemen are in the fray thanks to bad decisions by so-called experts. Innocent investors shouldn't have to suffer like this. Celsius, one of the world's largest crypto-lenders has informed its users that it is pausing all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers due to "extreme market conditions." Vicky Ge Huang reports for The Wall Street Journal: “We are taking this necessary action for the benefit of our entire community in order to stabilize liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect … [Read more...]

In The Wall Street Journal, Peter Santilli and Corrie Driebusch write that "Last year cryptocurrencies were on fire and appeared to gain more legitimacy after years of being considered a fringe, speculative product." In the last six months, crypto has lost $1 trillion in market value. It's fair to ask, has the fire gone out? Santilli and Driebusch write: In November, bitcoin and ethereum, two of the most popular cryptocurrencies, reached all-time highs. Bitcoin’s value at 5 p.m. on Nov. 9 was $67,802.30; ethereum was worth $4,800. They are now down 58% and 60%, respectively, from those … [Read more...]

A selloff is currently hitting cryptocurrencies, and one, in particular, is beginning to look like an emperor with no clothes. TerraUSD, a so-called "stablecoin," because of its purported peg to the dollar at 1 to 1, has lost around half its value overnight. The loss was so great, according to industry analysts, that it could even enter what's known as a "death spiral." According to The Wall Street Journal, TerraUSD uses " financial engineering to maintain its link to the dollar." Does that sound very "stable," to you? Caitlin Ostroff and Elaine Yu explain the breakdown, writing: The … [Read more...]

Your Survival Guy is not in the predictions business. Trying to calculate what someone else will pay for an asset at a future date is something best left to oracles and seers. Buying something and hoping someone else will buy it at a higher price is speculation, not investing. But you're asking me about Bitcoin, so I'm watching it, though not with the intention of buying. I like the blockchain technology that underlies cryptocurrencies, but am wary of the currencies themselves. Here's what Patricia Kowsmann wrote about the recent plunge in bitcoin prices in The Wall Street Journal: Bitcoin … [Read more...]