Anatoly Legkodymov, founder of the dark web-tied crypto exchange Bitzlato, has pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in a New York court. 

The Department of Justice originally filed charges against the Hong Kong-based exchange’s majority owner last January. 

Bitzlato “sold itself to criminals as a no-questions-asked cryptocurrency exchange, and reaped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deposits as a result,” US attorney Breon Peace said in a statement at the time.

According to the DOJ, Legkodymov will dissolve Bitzlato and “release any claim over approximately $23 million in seized assets of Bitzlato” as part of the plea agreement. A…

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Sotheby’s digital art arm announced that it would be auctioning off pieces from BitcoinShrooms, a Bitcoin Ordinals project designed by artist Shroomtoshi.

The BitcoinShrooms collection was originally minted on-chain back on Oct. 22. Both the BitcoinShroom website and X account claim that it’s the “first ever Ordinals collection.” 

“Within the BitcoinShrooms collection lies a trove of references — from iconic Bitcoin memes to advanced technical concepts— a visual symphony that captures Bitcoin’s essence from the perspective of someone there since the early days,” Sotheby’s wrote. 

The auction will go from Dec. 6 to Dec. 13, and three pieces are currently available…

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Brett Harrison, the ex-president of FTX US and a former colleague of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) at the quantitative trading firm, Jane Street, forsees Bitcoin BTC/USD reaching a range of $50,000 to $55,000 in Q1 of 2024. 

What Happened: Harrison says that hinges on a spot Bitcoin ETF approval in Q1 of 2024, Cointelegraph reports. He added that he does not see any six-figure numbers until “toward the end of 2024 or early 2025 at the earliest.”

Harrison said that if an ETF gets approved in Q1, BTC prices reaching between $50,000 and $55,000 seem “feels pretty probable.”

Also Read: Bitcoin Bull Frenzy Hits $44K As Futures Market Expects 10-12% Rise Into 2024

“If you remember the day…

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Bitcoin rose above $44,000 on Tuesday before dipping below that level early Wednesday and subsequently straddling the price. Analysts expect it could inch higher by the end of the year and benefit from several tailwinds in 2024.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to as low as about $16,000 amid the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November 2022 — a year after bitcoin reached its all-time high of roughly $69,000. 

The asset’s price was at $43,780 at 4 pm ET Wednesday, up 25% in the last 30 days and 16% higher than seven days ago, CoinGecko data shows. 

Analysts have attributed the recent bitcoin price surge to optimism around the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, Binance’s settlement with the…

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November strengthened venture capitalists’ confidence in crypto and Web3 projects, with major funding rounds returning to the charts alongside seed capital for early-stage firms. 

Cross-chain protocol Wormhole, for instance, secured a $225-million investment at a valuation of $2.5 billion. The round was led by Brevan Howard, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Jump Trading, ParaFi, Dialectic, Borderless Capital and Arrington Capital.

Another example of capital flocking to Web3 is Rokid. Backed by Temasek Holdings, the startup secured $112 million at a valuation of $1 billion for international expansion, targeting the next generation of virtual reality hardware solutions.

Additionally,…

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If it were up to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the crypto industry would be “closed down,” he told US senators Wednesday during the Financial Services Committee’s annual banking oversight hearing. 

CEOs from the world’s top banks, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and BNY Mellon, among others, joined Dimon Wednesday to answer lawmakers’ questions about how effectively the banking industry is serving Americans. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a vocal critic of the banking industry, found a rare moment of agreement with Dimon when she shifted the topic of conversation from Basel III — the international agreement spurred by the 2008 financial crisis — to…

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Bitbuy and Coinsquare, two of the largest crypto exchanges domiciled in Canada, have surpassed $1 billion CAD in assets ($736 million) under management.

According to the Dec. 6 announcement by parent company WonderFi, the two entities currently hold $1 billion CAD in clients’ cash and digital asset deposits, up from $695 million ($512 million) the third quarter. 

“During the month of November, the platforms experienced a combined 16% increase in monthly active users as compared to the monthly active user count in October. The platforms also recorded a 54% increase in total trading volume,” the company wrote.

In July 2023, Bitbuy and Coinsquare merged with the decentralized finance (DeFi)…

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JPMorgan Chase chair and CEO Jamie Dimon told several United States lawmakers that if he had the authority in government, he would try to shut down crypto.

In a Dec. 6 hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on oversight of Wall Street Firms, Dimon responded to questioning from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who claimed North Korea had funded much of its missile program using “proceeds of crypto crime” in addition to funding Hamas. The JPMorgan Chase CEO said he had “always been deeply opposed to crypto” and associated digital assets with “criminals” and “drug traffickers” in addition to tax avoidance.

“If I was the government, I’d close it down,” said… Read more on Cointelegraph