The Guardian - Cryptocurrency News Sites

‘Teacher Li’ is among the most prolific sources of unfiltered information from behind China’s Great Firewall. But an attempt to monetise it has proven controversialOn Monday, two parallel visions of Chinese activism appeared on X. One was a video showing a small protest outside a school in western Sichuan province. The other, from a related account, was a post promoting a memecoin and something it called the “$Li vision”, adding that “some of the greatest coins had a rocky start”.The man behind both accounts is Li Ying, a Chinese art student turned activist based in Milan. His original X account, “Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher”, is one of the most prominent news feeds in the Chinese diaspora. To his nearly 2m followers, Li shares pictures and videos of happenings in China which would be censored inside the country. Continue reading...

Ball artworks were worth about $278 in 2022, falling steeply to as low as $25 on NFT exchange OpenSeaFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastNearly 10,000 images of balls have plunged up to 90% in value after Tennis Australia appears to have walked away from its non-fungible token (NFT) program three years after it began selling the artworks to punters.Launched at the peak of hype around NFTs, the Australian Open’s Artball program allowed keen fanatics to buy 6,776 ball artworks sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are linked to 19cm x 19cm plots on the court at Melbourne Park. In 2023, the Open had an additional 2,454 NFTs on offer. Continue reading...

His easing of regulations could leave many unprotected from financial manipulation, misconduct and bursting bubblesAs the United States prepares for Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, all eyes are on the cryptocurrency markets. After Bitcoin’s price reached $100,000 (£81,917) for the first time in history in December 2024, the cryptocurrency community is eagerly anticipating Trump’s fulfilment of his campaign promise to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”. Some analysts predict that Bitcoin’s price could range between $78,000 and $250,000 in 2025.Blockchain technology has numerous applications beyond crypto payments – for example, in supply chain and logistics. But it is the price surges of Bitcoin, Ethereum and “meme coins” that capture the majority of public attention. Speculative demand and the potential for abnormal returns, which are rarely found in other financial markets, remain key drivers of their prices.Larisa Yarovaya is an associate professor of finance and director of the Centre for Digital Finance at Southampton Business SchoolDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

With the online deadline just days away, here is how to avoid the pitfalls and make the most of what you can claimThere are fewer than three weeks to go before the deadline to file self-assessment tax returns for the 2023-24 tax year, but millions of people still haven’t knuckled down and done theirs.This week HM Revenue & Customs said 5.4 million people had yet to file. Continue reading...

James Howells, 39, took council to court to try to force it to let him search site for hard drive thrown away by accidentA computer expert’s decade-long battle to recover a £600m bitcoin fortune he says has been lost in a council dump has been halted by a judge.James Howells, 39, launched a legal case to force Newport city council to allow him to search the site to retrieve a lost hard drive containing the bitcoins. Continue reading...

Good for equities, good for the US, and good for crypto but the year spawned mixed blessings for the UK, China and EuropeGlobal stock markets climbed in 2024, helped by falling inflation and the US economy’s success in avoiding a hangover from a strong post-pandemic recovery.While Europe and the UK struggled to make headway, the US maintained pole position at the top of the rich nations’ growth league, pushing shares in New York to new record highs. Continue reading...

Company’s share price has risen twentyfold after it changed its strategy to become first ‘bitcoin treasury company’In the summer of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic upended economies around the world, an obscure US software firm decided to diversify. MicroStrategy, whose head office is situated next to a shopping mall and metro station in Tysons Corner, Virginia, had decided the steady business of “software as a service” was not racy enough.Instead, it would branch out by investing up to $250m in alternative assets – “stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold, digital assets such as bitcoin or other asset types”. Continue reading...

Today, we’re looking at a few themes that will influence the online and offline worlds in 2025Last week, we looked back at how 2024 made Elon Musk the world’s most powerful man. Today, we’re looking at a few other important themes that will influence the online and offline worlds in 2025. Continue reading...

As soon as people decide that crypto is valueless, it will be – but in the next few years, exposure of traditional institutions will likely run into the hundreds of billionsAs a principal adviser to the then treasurer Wayne Swan, Jim Chalmers had a ringside seat to observe the impact of the global financial crisis on the Australian economy and financial system. We were spared the initial impact of the GFC largely because, still bearing the scars of financial disasters in the 1980s and early 1990s, Australian financial institutions had been slow to embrace the exotic derivatives that brought down their counterparts in the US and UK. That delay allowed time for vigorous fiscal stimulus (here and in China, our main export market) to stave off the long and deep recessions seen elsewhere.But a few days ago, Jim Chalmers made comments suggesting that Australia’s financial system will not be insulated from a crisis that seems all too likely to emerge in the next few years. When Donald Trump assumes his role as the US president, it will bring an end to policies that have maintained a wall of separation between the traditional financial system and the crypto sector. Chalmers, citing Trump’s moves, has suggested that Australia will follow suit.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...