Cryptocurrency & Mining
The latest and most important Cryptocurrency & Mining news.
Man who lost nearly $1 billion worth of Bitcoin now wants to buy the landfill
James Howells has been on a quest to recover his lost Bitcoin, which he claims is missing within a landfill site in Newport, Wales.
Howells' quest to recover the lost hard drive, which he says contains approximately 7,500 Bitcoins, worth approximately £586 million ($728 million USD) at the current time of reporting, has now resulted in the man offering to purchase the landfill site from the city council. The escape of events doesn't start there, though, as Howell has been trying to convince the Newport City Council to give him access to the landfill so he can begin sifting through the trash to look for the hard drive.
According to Howell, the hard drive's location has been pinpointed down to 100,000 tonnes of waste, which may sound large, but it's not as large as the landfills' approximate total capacity of 1.4 million metric tonnes. Howell has already been rejected by the city council for gaining access to the landfill, despite his promise to share 10% of the recovered Bitcoin with the city council if the drive is found. In response to the rejection, Howell filed a lawsuit against the Newport City Council, which was dismissed early last month as the judge ruled Howell had no reasonable grounds along with no realistic prospect of success at the trial.
Man who says he invented bitcoin faces prison, after filing an insane $1.2 TRILLION lawsuit
Australian computer scientist Craig Wright falsely claimed he invented bitcoin and has been sentenced for contempt of court on Thursday for his 911 billion-pound ($1.2 trillion USD) lawsuit against Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments company, Block, in Britain.
Reuters reports that Wright has long claimed to be the author of a 2008 white paper which was the foundational text for Bitcoin, published under the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto". A judge at London's High Court found that back in May 2024, Wright had repeatedly lied and forged documents to support his claim, after the trial of a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to stop Wright suing bitcoin developers.
COPA said that Wright's recent lawsuit against Block and others breached an injunction preventing Wright from bringing litigation on the basis of his claim to be the creator of bitcoin, or that he owned intellectual property (IP) rights over bitcoin. The group's lawyer Jonathan Hough told the court that Wright's latest lawsuit was "a desperate publicity stunt to keep his cultish supports engaged".
Bitcoin hits record peak of $100,000 per coin, marking a 126% increase since January
Bitcoin has finally officially reached the $100,000 mark, a celebratory milestone for all those who have been following the journey of the world's most valuable cryptocurrency.
The US$100,000 mark was hit on December 5, which is only a few weeks after Bitcoin smashed through the $90,000 psychology ceiling, spurring speculation that $100,000 was inbound - it appears that speculation was correct. At 3:08 am UTC, Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $104,000, which means it gained 125% since January and $31 billion in net inflows across spot exchange-traded funds in the US.
The increase can be attributed to Donald Trump's US presidential election victory, as speculation circulated that Trump will adopt BTC into the US national reserve, along with assisting in further integrating and legitimizing Bitcoin in the corporate space. Moreover, Trump recently appointed cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, which sparked speculation that regulatory hurdles preventing the further adoption of cryptocurrencies will solved.
Bitcoin smashes through it's all-time high record after shocking 24-hour rise
Bitcoin, the world's most valuable cryptocurrency, has surpassed its previous all-time high and is now closing in on the $100,000 mark.
The latest milestone of the world's most valuable digital currency was achieved after a 24-hour price rally that took the price of a single Bitcoin from $80,000 to $90,000. The price of Bitcoin broke through the $90,000 ceiling and quickly re-corrected back down to $87,000, where it's currently sitting at the time of writing. The rise of the price of Bitcoin has been occurring since President Trump was elected into office on November 5, gaining as much as 30% since the announcement was made.
According to reports, analysts are predicting the price of Bitcoin could reach as high as $100,000, but given the meteoric rise since Trump was elected, it appears the $100,000 mark will be exceeded. Additionally, the price of Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency-related thing rising in value, as shares of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase increased by approximately 75% to what is nearly a three-year high for the company.
Bitcoin explodes to a new all-time high of over $88,000 after President Trump wins US elections
Bitcoin has smashed through a new all-time record high price of $88,000+ after Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential elections, after his administration saying they'll be pro-crypto.
The world's biggest cryptocurrency has pumped over 25% in value since the November 5 elections, with Reuters also pointing out that Elon Musk's automotive side Tesla has seen its shares skyrocket by 40% after the elections, as Musk is joining the Trump administration and its DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).
Nick Twidale, chief market analyst at ATFX Global in Sydney said: "Obviously (it's) a clear Trump trade as he is so supportive of the industry, and this can only mean more demand both for crypto stocks as well as the currencies themselves. The fact that bitcoin was trading near all-time highs when the election result came through meant that it had clean sky above".
Hacker mysteriously gives $20 million in stolen funds back to the US government
Blockchain analysts flagged mysterious transactions that happened between Thursday and Friday last week after a hacker broke into a cryptocurrency wallet owned by the US government, stole funds, and then promptly returned them the next day.
The strange string of events has got cryptocurrency analysts and undoubtedly the departments at the US government scratching their heads, especially considering how high profile this theft was. It began on Thursday when pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZachXBT highlighted transactions showing millions of dollars being moved out of US government-owned cryptocurrency wallets. In total, about $19.3 million worth of funds were returned to the wallet last Friday, which was in the form of Ethereum (ETH) and the stablecoin USDC.
Where did the funds come from? Reports indicate the US government seized millions of dollars in cryptocurrency two years ago following the infamous Bitfinex hack in 2016. Only an hour after the wallet received its funds back did more transactions start occurring, but this time in smaller quantities. According to reports, funds started being moved to a wallet address beginning with "0x0Ca." After a small amount of Ethereum was sent to this wallet, $6.1 million of ETH was transferred, which was then followed by another $11.6 million worth of aUSDC, a version of the stablecoin that includes interest.
Cryptocurrency scam sends former bank CEO to prison for detonating a bank
Scams come in all different shapes and sizes, but one technique is particularly frightening and that's called "pig butchering," which involves an individual spending a long time developing a relationship with their victim only to eventually present them with a "business" opportunity that ruins them financially.
It's perhaps one of the cruellest forms of scamming someone as it involves developing trust with a person through a perceived genuine relationship. Unbeknownst to the victim, that trust is then shattered after the scammer runs away with their money. 53-year-old Shan Hanes, former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kanas fell for this type of scam and has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for illegally wiring $47.1 million that led to the collapse of the bank.
The eleven transactions that Hanes made between May and July 2023 resulted in investors of the bank losing $9 million, which forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to absorb the $47 million loss and seize the bank. Some customers of the bank lost nearly all of their retirement funds, which funnily enough was also Hanes, who lost all of his embezzlement money.
Cryptominers rented an Airbnb, consumed $1500 in electricity: but made $100K in 3 weeks
An Airbnb host has been forced to change the rules of her property, after guests stayed for a few weeks and set up their crypto-mining rigs where they reportedly made $100,000+ while racking up a $1500 electricity bill for the Airbnb host.
Ashley, the Airbnb host, posted a video to her personal TikTok (above) to explain "the weirdest Airbnb rule I had to implement as a host". The guests rolled in their crypto-mining equipment into the house, set it all up, racked up a $1500 electricity bill, but left the house "perfectly clean" and a 5-star review after their 3-week stay.
Once Ashley received the $1500 electricity bill, she checked the external security cameras she has setup around her property, seeing multiple people taking at least 10 computers with them as they were leaving the Airbnb. Ashley said that the crypto-miners made over $100,000 mining cryptocurrency, but personally, I don't see how only 10 systems and $1500 of electricity usage would see the miners making $100,000. That seems absurd.
US government moves its $2 billion worth of Bitcoin seized from Silk Road
New on-chain data indicates the United States government has moved more than $2 billion worth of Bitcoin to an unidentified wallet.
The new on-chain data was shared by Arkham Intelligence and comes only a few days after former US President Donald Trump spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennesse, where he said that if he was reelected, the US government would not sell any of its currently held Bitcoin, which amounts to as much as $15 billion worth, or approximately 203,000 Bitcoins.
Additionally, Trump said that he was going to make the US the "crypto capital of the world" by implementing several policies that support cryptocurrency. Furthermore, Senator Cynthia Lummis announced the introduction of new legislation that proposes that the US government purchase 5% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin to hold it as a strategic asset. The proposal was compared to the 1803 purchase from the French for $15 million for the American Midwest by the US government.
FTX says it has billions of dollars more than it needs to fully repay customers
Defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which was headed by the now-convicted Sam Bankman-Fried, has said that it will have more than enough money to pay back all of its customers.
In March 2024, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the co-founder of FTX, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding customers and investors with the investment firm. FTX entered into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan after the firm collapsed in November 2022. The result was SBF being arrested and John J. Ray III, an attorney who specializes in recovering funds from failed corporations, being brought on as chief executive of FTX.
Ray has since said that he is pleased the company is now in a position to "propose a Chapter 11 plan that contemplates the return of 100% of bankruptcy claim amounts plus interest for non-governmental creditors". Notably, the plan will still have to be approved by a US bankruptcy court, and FTX is currently still in the process of recovering all lost funds with no date on completion being mentioned in reports.