CoinDesk Crypto

Crypto exchange Huobi is prohibiting customers in 10 countries or regions from trading derivatives, including mainland China and retail investors in the U.K., according to an updated User Agreement. 

The list came more than a month after the exchange said it would ban futures contracts and some leveraged investment products in “a few specified countries and regions,” as CoinDesk first reported. 

The exchange has already barred people in another 11 countries from crypto transactions and provision of related services, according to the new agreement. These countries or regions include the U.S., Canada, Japan, Iran, North Korea and Crimea. 

Related: Is China Opting Out of Crypto? Feat. Dovey Wan

The full list includes the following:

Anyone from mainland China, Taiwan, Israel, Iraq, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan, Sevastopol and the U.K. (in the U.K., retail investors only) is prohibited from using the derivatives trading services provided by Huobi’s website. 

Use of the transaction of digital assets and provision of related services by persons located in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Crimea is prohibited.  

The company declined to comment on the user agreement. 

Related: China’s Longest-Running Crypto Exchange Closes Bitcoin Business Following Crackdowns

Huobi is the latest exchange to scale back trading services amid an intensifying crackdown on crypto trading on exchanges or over-the-counter (OTC) desks in China. 

The Chinese government’s notices cited money laundering and excessive speculation in the crypto market as two of the reasons for this wave of crackdowns. 

The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, summoned major commercial banks to reiterate a longstanding ban on dealings with crypto trading platforms on June 21, and singled out OTC trading as one of the services that most needed to be supervised and regulated. 

The first official warning this year against crypto trading from China was issued by three financial industry associations on May 18. Another notice by the State Council of China, which is one of the highest central government agencies, escalated the crackdown and triggered Huobi to reduce its trading and mining services. 

More telecom fraudsters are turning to crypto to launder their proceeds, according to the Chinese police, while leveraged trading is one of the most risky investments in digital assets. Small price drops could prompt large-scale liquidations, which lead to further decreases in price, Jason Wu, CEO of crypto lending platform DeFiner, said in a previous interview. 

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Canadian crypto mining company Hut 8 said it holds “approximately 3,806” bitcoin on its balance sheet, compared with 3,271 at the end of March.

• In a corporate update published Monday, the Toronto-based firm said it expects the figure to grow to around 5,000 by the end of the year.
• “We now have 1.2 Exahash in production and ongoing installation of new equipment puts us on a near-term trajectory to produce an additional [two to three] bitcoin per day by the end of August, on top of our current production rate of 6.2-7.3 bitcoin per day,” CEO Jaime Leverton said.
• In its first-quarter results, Hut 8 reported holding 3,271 as of March 31. Monday’s report represents an increase of 535 BTC in less than three months.
• Miners accumulating coins can be seen a bullish sign for the market as it points to them holding coins in anticipation of a price rally.

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Investors are exiting digital asset investment products, including funds focused on bitcoin and ethereum, as a wave of negative sentiment weighs on cryptocurrencies.

Net outflows from cryptocurrency funds totaled $44 million for the week ending June 25, marking the fourth consecutive week of redemptions.

Ethereum products suffered net outflows of $50 million last week, the largest on record since 2015, according to a report by CoinShares published Monday. The movement marks a reversal from the trend so far in 2021, with Ethereum-focused products having garnered a net of $943 million for the year to date as investors diversified away from bitcoin.

• “Since mid-May, as negative sentiment has remained prevalent, net weekly outflows now total $313 million,” representing 0.8% of total assets under management (AUM), according to CoinShares.
• On a relative basis, the total outflows of digital asset funds last week “remains small in comparison to the negative sentiment in early 2018, where outflows as a percentage of AUM totaled 4.9%.”
• Multi-asset digital investment products saw inflows of $6 million last week, suggesting that investors are seeking diversification across cryptocurrencies, beyond bitcoin and ethereum.

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Coinbase has received a crypto custody license from Germany’s Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), allowing Coinbase to continue serving the German market. BaFin announced the news Monday.

Coinbase is the first company to receive the license, BaFin said in a press release.

In November 2019, Germany’s parliament – the Bundestag – passed a law that required firms custodying crypto for Germans to apply for a crypto custody license or leave Germany. Companies that were already operating in the country on Jan. 1, 2020, were required to announce their intent to apply by March 31 of that year and apply by Nov. 30. 

Related: A Reckoning for Binance and Other ‘Global’ Exchanges

The approval comes at a time in which Coinbase is trying to prove itself to be an exchange that embraces regulation after having gone public in the U.S. via a direct listing in April.

At the same time, Coinbase rival Binance has been warned by regulators to stop operating in the U.K. and Japan, and has pulled out of Canada’s Ontario province to avoid scrutiny from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has teamed up with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and others to launch a competition where entrants must tackle 12 unresolved challenges posed by central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). 

• “Can a retail CBDC system be embedded with additional functionalities beyond a basic transfer of value without requiring users to use smartphones?” the first challenge asks.
• The competition will be supported by Amazon Web Services, Mastercard, payments platform Partior, blockchain software developer R3 and blockchain project Hyperledger.
• MAS said Monday the effort is also backed by the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Capital Development Fund and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• It is estimated 80% of central banks are actively exploring use cases around CBDCs and many are being confronted with challenges around policy, privacy and technology.
• Finalists will have the chance to pitch their ideas during a demo day to be held at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival in November. 
• MAS says up to three winners will be chosen, with each receiving S$50,000 (US$37,193) in prize money; up to 15 finalists will go on to receive mentorship and access to the APIX Digital Currency Sandbox.
• Those looking to participate can apply here.

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In 1988, when fans turned against the second character to wear the costume of Batman’s sidekick, Robin, a character named Jason Todd, D.C. Comics set up a telephone poll system to decide whether Todd should live.

Fans voted for that Robin to die, and so the Joker killed him off in Batman #428.

In those halcyon days, there were other analog ways for fans to interact with the comic books they loved, most notably the letter columns printed in the backs of the books. Today, comic publishers have dropped such forums into the oubliette. 

Related: Why Surrealist Philip Colbert Is Tapping ’80s Band Devo to Bring Lobsters to the Metaverse

Now a new crypto-powered entertainment company aims to bring interactivity back to comics. 

Called InterPop, members of its creative team promised there will be similarly crucial decisions for fans to make in its storylines as its lines of comics roll out this year.

InterPop will start off by introducing a bunch of characters in its Emergents universe, starting with a book called The Nine, issue #0 of which will come out July 17.

“Characters are going to die over the course of this run of comics. And it will be fan decisions that will dictate who those characters are and what shoes they will be wearing,” Brian David-Marshall, InterPop’s president, said in an interview.

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Rachel Gluckstern, the editor of the comics, is a veteran of the big comics publishing houses. She sees fan voting as a slightly more humane way to get feedback “that doesn’t go by sales information,” she said. It’s an internet-era approach that evokes those old days of comic book letter columns. “This is a way for us to really understand what fans are thinking,” she said.

The characters arose from a digital trading card game (TCG) that’s been in the works to run on the Tezos blockchain for some time. Emergents, once housed in Coase, a company founded by Tezos co-founder Kathleen Breitman, transferred the Emergents game’s intellectual property assets to InterPop, a subsidiary of Tezos TQ.

Tezos is a top-50 blockchain, with a $2 billion market cap. It ran one of the most successful initial coin offerings in 2017, promising a model of governance that would keep it up to date forever. It went live in late 2018. 

InterPop will create digital comics, collectibles and eventually in-game assets when Emergents goes live. All the comics will be available for free, but to take part in decisions about the books, fans will need to own actual issues by buying non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that represent particular issues.

The Nine #0 will release with multiple alternative digital covers, including those by well-known artists such as Madman’s Mike Allred and The New Mutants’ Bill Sienkiewicz.

All of the Interpop comics will be released on its dedicated e-reader web app for free. Those who’d like to get early access should visit the Interpop website and sign up for an online event on July 17. All attendees will get a free comic NFT and a free in-game NFT that will be playable once Emergents launches.

The comics, the cards and other collectibles will also be available on a secondary market called Minterpop. While direct purchases in the game and the comics can all be done with fiat currency using traditional payments, transactions on Minterpop will all be done using Tezos’ native token, XTZ.

All crypto will lean on the Kukai wallet technology, which the Interpop team said has made great strides in stripping away cryptocurrency’s complexity for new users.

The team expects the various Emergents properties will generate a large number of transactions on Tezos, especially if trading for in-game items on the secondary market on Emergents, where it will be encouraged, looks anything like it does in traditional video games, where it’s generally discouraged.

The secondary market for in-game assets is an extremely gray one now (if not even a little black), so one can only guess at the estimate, but it’s almost certainly in the billions of dollars.

CoinDesk previously reported on Emergents as a game that will use blockchain technology to give users much more control over their card decks and collections and focus less on manipulating players into buying cards they don’t want or need. The core ideas are unchanged, but the team behind Emergents says it is now better resourced to deliver the sort of experience that will be competitive with the most popular TCGs.

Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone is the leader in the digital space, but the company that invented the underlying concept, Wizards of the Coast, released a mobile version of the classic analog game in March of this year (this reporter may or may not have burnt a considerable amount of time on it since then).

Emergents should be released in the fourth quarter, according to the InterPop team.

Until then, curious players can start getting familiar with the universe by checking out the early comics.

“We’re not really going into this superhero universe on an origin-by-origin issue. We’re kind of plopping people down in the middle of it,” David-Marshall said.

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British artist and designer Philip Colbert is about to make a splash, or rather a “pop,” in Decentraland, virtual-reality platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Colbert, the “neo-pop surrealist” best known for his colorful odes to lobsters, is launching his “Lobsteropolis City” and “Lobster Land Museum” in Decentraland, seeing the metaverse as a home for non-fungible token (NFT) exhibitions, among other things.

These other things include a musical performance in collaboration with legendary American art rockers Devo, titled “LOBSTER DE-VO.” The performance will serve as a launch for Colbert’s “Lobster Land” on Decentraland on Wednesday. It will feature a DJ set by Devo (a band that probably suits being cast as digital avatars better than any other on the planet). 

Related: NFT-Powered Digital Comic Book to Let Fans Decide Heroes’ Fates

Devo co-founder Gerald Casale provided the following quote in a press release:

“‘LOB-STER-DE-VO’ Clawing our way into the future. Breaking free. Looking for new traditions. Deevolution is real!” 

Doors will open on the Lobster Record store (Colbert plans more musical collaborations; think “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s), and an NFT auction in association with SuperRare, a digital art market, and dealer Simon de Pury will run in conjunction with Decentraland Art Week starting July 8. 

Colbert told CoinDesk he began looking at virtual world-building a few years ago, initially with the idea of using VR headsets and the like. 

Related: Jay-Z to Auction ‘Reasonable Doubt’ NFT at Sotheby’s

“As the creator, it felt insane to be actually in one’s own painting in a way,” Colbert said. “This heightened sense of experience just felt like a very profound, new way of making things and exploring creativity.”

The onset of the global pandemic gave things more of an other-worldly twist, as public spaces such as galleries were shut down. In response, Colbert held a show at London’s Saatchi Gallery using “telepresence robots” that could view the exhibition remotely for the public via a mobile phone.

The rise of NFTs early this year prompted Colbert to dive into Decentraland, which now operates as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governed by token holders. He was put in touch with James Ashton, CEO of Vegas City, one of the largest districts in the Decentraland metaverse, which is hosting Lobsteropolis across its 57 parcels of virtual land.

“I just started translating my world into the Decentraland model,” said Colbert, who has experience in 3D modelling and digital rendering, and who enlisted help from the team at Vegas City in coding everything up. He added:

“Digital art is a great medium, but it’s not doing anything conceptually to further reinvent and recontextualize the possibility of that art. Rather than doing another virtual gallery show, I wanted to make this the experience of going into my actual world.”

“Lobsters have an iconic, historical lineage in art,” Colbert said, “from occupying a central position in Dutch still life painting, to later becoming a symbolic protagonist of surrealism.”

Now the colorful crustacean may also find its footing in the metaverse.

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Crypto.com is introducing a way for clients to use fiat currency to buy crypto on its platform in partnership with Circle, the developer of the USDC stablecoin.

• Users will be able to wire transfer their funds to Circle and receive USDC at a 1:1 conversion rate in their Crypto.com app.
• The function, which will be available in 30 countries, is the only way for clients to use fiat to buy crypto on the exchange.
• The process will take around three business days to complete, an announcement Monday said.
• The partnership is designed to address some of the barriers to transferring fiat into and out of crypto platforms.
• The ability to withdraw USDC and receive cash back in bank accounts will be available in the future.

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Bitcoin (BTC) is trading lower after a brief 5% bounce on Sunday. The cryptocurrency stalled at around $35,000 resistance and could find support at $30,000, which is the bottom of a monthlong trading range.

• The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart is declining near overbought territory. That is similar to last week, which preceded a nearly 15% price drop.
• Buyers were able to defend $30,000 support last week, registering a higher low from the June 22 shakeout. This means sideways trading could persist until a decisive breakout above $40,000 or breakdown below $30,000 occurs.
• Bitcoin is still in relief mode following the May sell-off and is up about 7% over the past week, although upside appears to be limited below $40,000 given the intermediate-term downtrend.

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Indians’ investments in the crypto market have surged to $40 billion, data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reveals. The figure compares with last year’s $200 million, Bloomberg reported Monday.

It’s a considerable jump, demonstrating a shift in thinking among the country’s youngest investors away from the precious metals that older generations in the country typically favor.

“I’d rather put my money in crypto than gold,” said entrepreneur Rishi Sood, who was cited in the report. “Crypto is more transparent than gold or property and returns are more in a short period of time.”

Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for June 28, 2021

More than 15 million Indians are now trading crypto, roughly 8 million fewer than in the U.S. and many more than the U.K.’s 2.3 million, according to the report.

Despite the regulatory roller coaster Indians have faced from the country’s central bank, courts, and political corridors, crypto is beginning to take root in the country of 1.33 billion.

Meanwhile, India’s financial regulators are considering classifying bitcoin as an asset class under a bill that could be presented as soon as next month.

See also: Major Crypto Exchanges Seek India Entry Despite Regulatory Uncertainty: Report

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Indian’s share of the crypto market has surged to $40 billion in total, data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reveals. The figure compares with last year’s $200 million, Bloomberg reported Monday.

It’s a considerable jump, demonstrating a shift in thinking among the country’s youngest investors away from the precious metals that have typically been primary asset choices among older generations within the country.

“I’d rather put my money in crypto than gold,” said entrepreneur Richi Sood, cited in the report. “Crypto is more transparent than gold or property and returns are more in a short period of time.”

Related: Bitcoin Meets Resistance at $35K; Support at $30K

More than 15 million Indians are now trading crypto, roughly 8 million fewer than in the U.S. and a considerably larger number than the U.K.’s 2.3 million, according to the report.

Despite the regulatory rollercoaster Indian’s have faced from the country’s central bank, courts, and political corridors, cryptos are beginning to take root in a population of 1.33 billion.

With all that attention, thinking among the country’s financial regulators is also beginning to shift. They are now considering classifying bitcoin as an asset class in a bill that could be presented as soon as next month.

See also: Major Crypto Exchanges Seek India Entry Despite Regulatory Uncertainty: Report

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Elon Musk’s tweeted support for a proposal to change dogecoin’s fee structure was followed by an uptick in the price of the meme-based crypto.

• The Tesla founder said it was important to support a reduction in DOGE transaction fees.
• His tweet was in response to a proposal by dogecoin developer Patrick Lodder to reduce fees to 0.01 DOGE in order for the crypto to remain competitive.
• The current recommended fee of 1 DOGE has “become steep for the perceived value of transacting dogecoin,” and is “disincentivizing on-chain transactions unnecessarily,” according to Lodder.
• Lodder argues that where transacting in DOGE used to be 10 times cheaper than litecoin, it is now nearly five times more expensive.
• DOGE’s price subsequently rallied to above $0.26. It has since pulled back, sitting at $0.256 at press time.

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SafeDollar, a decentralized finance (DeFi) stablecoin that is based on the Polygon blockchain, has been hit by an cyberattack, according a statement on its Telegram channel.

• All activities on SafeDollar have been paused and investigations are underway, it said.
• “IMPORTANT: PLEASE STOP ALL TRADING RELATED TO $SDO,” it added.
• The value of SafeDollar has dropped to $0, according to the protocol’s website.
• The cyberattack used tether and USD coin, beincrypto.com reported, citing a tweet by DeFi analytics site Rugdoc.io Monday.
• The contract address shows SafeDollar, USDC and USDT were siphoned off.

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Polygon-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol SafeDollar has been hit by an exploit, according a statement on its Telegram channel.

• All activities on SafeDollar are paused and investigations were underway, it said.
• “IMPORTANT: PLEASE STOP ALL TRADING RELATED TO $SDO,” it added.
• The value of SafeDollar has dropped to $0, according to the protocol’s website.
• The exploit used tether and USD coin, beincrypto.com reported, citing a tweet by DeFi analytics site Rugdoc.io Monday.
• The contract address shows SafeDollar, USDC and and USDT were siphoned off.

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Bitcoin climbed more than 15% over the weekend as prices bounced from four-day lows after a sharp sell-off last week.

Prices Monday were slightly higher, with one bitcoin fetching around $35,000 at press time, CoinDesk 20 data show. One expert said more is needed to continue driving gains in the current climate of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

On Friday, the world’s first cryptocurrency fell more than 8% despite rallying 5% during the Asian trading session, bolstered by news of El Salvador’s confirmed date of its bitcoin law and a $30 bitcoin e-wallet airdrop.

Related: Is China Opting Out of Crypto? Feat. Dovey Wan

“An unprecedented stream of FUD has resulted in bitcoin struggling to keep above water,” Jehan Chu, managing partner at Hong Kong-based crypto-investment firm Kenetic Capital told CoinDesk via Whatsapp on Monday.

Chu also said the short-term outlook remains “choppy and uncertain,” despite the recent bounce back above $34,000. “With retail investors on the sidelines licking their wounds, volumes will struggle until the next price catalyst.”

Indeed, daily trading volume for bitcoin has remained low, particularly during the weekend. That’s been the trend for most of the month.

The absence of strong trading volumes points to a lack of institutional and retail interest, Chu said, citing undisclosed trading teams he has had conversations with.

Related: Billionaire Salinas Says He’s Working for His Bank to Be First in Mexico to Take Bitcoin

Meanwhile, other notable cryptos are coasting in bitcoin’s slipstream, with ether and internet computer both advancing over a 24-hour period.

In traditional markets, Asian equities were posting mainly green, with the exception of Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and the Australian All Ordinaries Index, down by less than half a percent.

See also: How One Fund Used the Carry Trade to Beat Bitcoin

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London-based technology firm Nivaura is working with Singapore’s DBS Bank on a blockchain-based bond platform with the power to deliver “one-click issuance,” the companies said Monday.

It’s a good match: Nivaura has gone deep when it comes to tokenizing securities, working closely with partners like the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). DBS, with the support of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), is a leader when it comes to institutional involvement in cryptocurrency and digital assets.

In the early days of blockchain explorations, evangelists for the tech questioned the need for infrastructure such as central securities depositories (CSDs) as a decentralized future came into focus. 

Related: Citi Launches ‘Digital Assets Group’ Within Wealth Management Division

Nivaura has since taken the view that it’s not about replacing things like CSDs, but rather about how to automate securitization work flows, with the option to plug into any clearing system – that could be Clearstream or Ethereum.

“The problem that we’re solving for is not blockchain, it’s a transaction orchestration problem,” Nivaura founder Avtar Sehra said in an interview, adding:

“You could have a Santander platform interacting with JPMorgan or Citibank or DBS, etc. How do we make sure all the parties can communicate and take the workflow to the next level and create a tokenized asset?”

Traditional marketplaces, where everybody is on the same platform, communicating and 

Related: This NYDIG Partnership Could Bring Bitcoin to Your Local Credit Union

executing, means all participants are tied to a central counperparty’s processes and rules, said Sehra.

Another approach is where every bank or dealer connects via APIs to everyone else, but this can be inefficient and costly. Nivaura’s third way is a hybrid of a hub-and-spoke and an API approach. 

“You do a single API connection into a decentralized network like Ethereum, a public network. In that single API connection, you can share a smart contract with anyone, essentially like DeFi,” said Sehra.

While Ethereum has been the home of much of Nivaura’s work thus far, Sehra said other blockchains have piqued his interest, such as Polkadot and Diem (formerly Libra). 

Nivaura has worked with a group of global law firms to create the General Legal Mark-Up Language (GLML) so lawyers with zero software programming experience can set up documents for digitization and automation. 

In addition to its work with DBS, the London-based fintech firm is launching the open source GLML Foundation to mature the template for automating tokenized securities.

“The time is ripe for traditional ways of bond origination to make way for a more digital approach, to do what has been aspired for so long – by taking the first step towards the creation of an independent platform that allows bond issuers efficient and effective direct access to the market place and bond investors,” DBS Global Head of Fixed Income Clifford Lee said in a statement.

(June 28, 09.28 UTC: updates DBS quote)

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One of China’s longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges has shut its bitcoin business as it jumps in line with the country’s latest anti-crypto crackdowns.

BTCChina, which was founded by Huang Xiaoyu and Yang Linke in 2011, said Thursday it had completely exited from business relating to bitcoin, the South China Morning Post reported.

The company’s stake in Singapore-registered bitcoin exchange ZG.com was sold to a foundation in Dubai a little over a year ago, the report revealed.

Related: Is China Opting Out of Crypto? Feat. Dovey Wan

In 2018, the exchange side of BTCC was acquired by an unidentified Hong Kong-based blockchain investment fund, but continued to operate as normal for investors outside of China’s great firewall. The closure represents the final nail in the coffin for the crypto trading side of BTCC’s operations.

The company will pivot to blockchain uses outside of trading.

The move comes as China ratchets up pressure against anything related to cryptocurrencies, including mining and trading, which it views as a threat to its sovereignty.

While this is not the first time the exchange has had to deal with crypto-trading bans on the mainland, the renewed vigor from Beijing against those dealing with crypto is a vastly more concerning prospect this time around.

Related: China Bets on the Blockchain: A Special Report

Many argue the latest departure by crypto miners and their operations hints at a more sinister effect on the markets, at least in the short-term, with those either forced to leave or toe the line of the country’s latest anti-crypto narrative.

See also: China’s Anti-Crypto Crackdown Is Different This Time

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In spite of a blanket ban resulting from power shortages caused by a lack of rain, Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade has exempted a number of crypto mining farms across the country.

According to a report by the Financial Tribune on Wednesday, the ministry has granted permission for 30 crypto mining farms to operate after issuing licenses.

Six licenses have been doled out in the Semnan province while the province of Alborz, which sits just outside the country’s capital, received four. Also receiving four licenses were the provinces of Mazandaran, East Azarbaijan and Zanjan.

Related: Prices of GPUs Fall, Supply Increases as China Cracks Down on Crypto Mining

Tehran province, which houses the country’s capital and center of political power, has received only one license for a mining operation there.

In May, the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said crypto mining operations had to cease until Sept. 22 resulting from the load they place on the national power grid because of an exceptionally hot summer.

Also in May, the Central Bank of Iran moved to ban the trading of certain crypto considered mined outside the country attempting to stymie capital flight outside of its borders.

See also: Iranian President Wants to Regulate Crypto ‘as Soon as Possible’

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Ricardo Salinas Pliego, noted bitcoin bull and the 166th richest person in the world, said he is working to make his bank the first in Mexico to accept the largest cryptocurrency.

• In a tweet responding to fellow bitcoin enthusiast and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, the Mexican billionaire said “me and my bank (Banco Azteca) are working to be the first bank in Mexico to accept #Bitcoin.”
• Saylor was commenting on a video featuring Salinas that was shared on Twitter by noted investor and bitcoin advocate Anthony Pompliano.
• In the video, Salinas explained how his witnessing hyper-inflation first-hand informed his rationale for investing in bitcoin and why he thinks “fiat is a fraud.” He also explains why he would take the cryptocurrency over any other asset.

• Salinas is the founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a collection of companies with stakes in telecommunications, media, financial services, and retail stores, per Wikipedia. Forbes puts his net worth at $15.8 billion.

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The five-year prison term for Russian Alexander Vinnik, convicted in France on money laundry charges, was upheld by the Court of Appeal of Paris on Thursday, according to a report by TASS.

• Vinnik, an alleged operator of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was sentenced last December on the charge of money-laundering. Other charges, including “extortion, conspiracy and harming automatic data-processing systems,” were dropped at the time of sentencing.
• The U.S. Department of Justice named him as a mastermind behind one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges, BTC-e, and indicted him on allegations of “computer intrusions and hacking incidents, ransomware scams, identity theft schemes, corrupt public officials and narcotics distribution rings.” 
• Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 at the behest of the U.S., prompting a three-way battle amongst France, Russia and the U.S. for his extradition with France ultimately winning.
• According to TASS, Vinnik was successful in one aspect this week: The court exempted him from a fine of 100,000 euros (USD $119.4 million). Prosecutors had sought a reduction of the amount due to concerns that Vinnik could not pay it.

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