Monthly Archives: September 2023

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In a development that raises concerns about the health of the cryptocurrency market, trading volumes have plummeted to their lowest levels since 2019. Data compiled by CCData reveals that the combined monthly volume of spot and derivatives trading fell by 11.5% to $2.09 trillion in August, marking the second-lowest monthly total since October 2020. The Read more

In a development that raises concerns about the health of the cryptocurrency market, trading volumes have plummeted to their lowest levels since 2019. Data compiled by CCData reveals that the combined monthly volume of spot and derivatives trading fell by 11.5% to $2.09 trillion in August, marking the second-lowest monthly total since October 2020. The decline in trading activity has been consistent since April of this year, resembling the stagnant trading volumes witnessed during the bear market of 2019.

Spot trading volume on centralized exchanges dropped for the second consecutive month, falling 7.78% to $475 billion. This is the lowest monthly spot-trading volume recorded since March 2019. Derivatives trading volume fell 12.3% to $1.62 trillion, the second lowest since December 2020.

Binance, which remains the largest exchange for crypto spot trading, saw its market share shrink for the sixth straight month, settling at 38.5%, the lowest since August 2022. According to CCData, Huobis share in the global spot market activity has increased by 2.26%, making it the second-largest centralized spot exchange by volume. Huobi also accounts for 6.09% of the total spot market volume.

Source: CCData

The decline in trading volumes has created a challenging environment for exchanges and market makers. The collapse of Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX exchange last November severely dented investor confidence in centralized exchanges and significantly reduced market depth. Market makers profit margin has dropped by 30% after FTXs collapse, according to Bloomberg.

The tepid interest in cryptocurrency trading seems to be carrying into September, with Bitcoin, which accounts for about half of cryptos $1 trillion market capitalization, remaining largely unchanged at around $25,800. The leading cryptocurrency had almost reached $69,000 in November 2021, highlighting the drastic change in investor sentiment. The decline in trading volumes is particularly concerning given that even significant events, such as Grayscale Investments court victory over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, failed to stir traders from their torpor.

In summary, the cryptocurrency market is currently witnessing a significant decline in trading volumes, reaching levels not seen since the bear market of 2019. The drop in activity has had a cascading effect on exchanges and market makers, who are already grappling with reduced profit margins and waning investor interest. While some fluctuations in trading volumes are to be expected in any financial market, the consistent decline over several months raises questions about the long-term health and investor interest in the cryptocurrency space.

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Cryptocurrency trading hits lowest volume in August: Report ... - Cryptopolitan

DUBLIN, Sept. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The"Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform Market - Global Outlook & Forecast 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The globalcryptocurrency exchange platform market is on track to achieve significant growth to reach $110.12 billion in 2028 from $45 billion in 2023 with a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.08% from 2022 to 2028. This growth is primarily driven by the rising demand for cryptocurrency exchange platforms within the crypto gaming sector and the increasing adoption of blockchain technology.

Rising Demand for Cryptocurrency Exchange Platforms in Crypto Game Sectors

In 2023, the online gaming industry is experiencing a surge in popularity, with digital currencies or cryptocurrencies playing an increasingly prominent role. Many games are now integrating cryptocurrency directly into their in-game economies, and PlayToEarn (P2E) games are rewarding players with digital tokens or cryptocurrency based on their in-game achievements. This fusion of gaming and cryptocurrency is driving demand for cryptocurrency exchange platforms, as players seek to convert their digital assets into fiat currency or trade them online.

Blockchain Technology and its Influence

Blockchain technology is gaining widespread recognition for its security features and transparency. Blockchain serves as a distributed ledger shared among network nodes, offering not only secure and decentralized transaction recording for cryptocurrencies but also a range of other applications. These include non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and smart contracts. The versatility of blockchain technology presents opportunities for trade digitalization and mitigating the socioeconomic impacts of crises.

Gaming's Role in Cryptocurrency Mass Adoption

The concept of GameFi, or game finance, is gaining traction, combining traditional gaming with decentralized finance (DeFi) through blockchain technology. GameFi creates decentralized gaming markets that offer players financial opportunities and incentives through blockchain-based play-to-earn games. Players can earn cryptocurrency by participating in various in-game activities. The GameFi trend is expected to drive mass adoption of cryptocurrency, particularly among gamers.

Regulatory Challenges

Despite the rapid growth of the cryptocurrency sector, regulatory challenges persist. Governments, central banks, and regulatory agencies worldwide are working to understand the implications of virtual currencies. Investors and traders in cryptocurrencies face legal risks due to the evolving regulatory landscape.

Market Dynamics

Opportunities & Trends

Growth Enablers

Restraints

Segmentation Insights

Geographical Analysis

Vendor Landscape

The cryptocurrency exchange platform market is highly competitive, with both private and public companies. Key players include Binance, OKX, Kraken, Bybit, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and others. The emphasis on security and decentralized networks aligns with the growth of blockchain technology.

Key Questions Answered:

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9kb9rw

About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

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Mass Adoption of Cryptocurrencies Propelled by GameFi Trends ... - PR Newswire

In the volatile world of cryptocurrency markets, September has brought with it a surge in bearish sentiment, amplified by the ever-present fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). While this might sound concerning to some, history has shown that such periods of pessimism often pave the way for significant opportunities, particularly for patient traders.

Cryptocurrencies have always been subject to wild price swings, largely driven by sentiment and speculative trading. When the majority of the market turns bearish, it tends to create an environment where asset prices become undervalued relative to their long-term potential. This discrepancy between short-term sentiment and long-term fundamentals can be a goldmine for those who can see beyond the noise.

When fear and doubt dominate the discourse, it can lead to panic selling, pushing prices to levels that do not reflect the underlying technology or the projects potential for adoption. For patient traders, this presents an opportunity to accumulate assets at a discount.

Moreover, the probability of a price bounce or recovery tends to rise as FUD becomes the majority sentiment. This is because markets often experience sharp reversals when sentiment reaches extremes. Savvy investors recognize this pattern and position themselves accordingly, taking advantage of oversold conditions.

However, its essential to exercise caution and conduct thorough research during such periods. Not all projects will recover, and not all bearish sentiments are unwarranted. Distinguishing between legitimate concerns and baseless FUD is crucial for making informed investment decisions.

Finally, while the unpredictability of cryptocurrency markets can be unnerving, its important to remember that opportunities often arise when fear and doubt are prevalent. Patient traders who can weather the storm, identify undervalued assets, and separate genuine concerns from FUD may find themselves well-positioned to capitalize on market rebounds. As always, risk management and due diligence remain key to navigating the volatile crypto landscape successfully.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any service.

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Navigating Cryptocurrency Volatility: Finding Opportunity Amidst ... - The VR Soldier

WASHINGTONUnited States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees and Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today joined The Big Money Show on Fox Business to discuss the upcoming G20 Summit and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)s overregulation creating uncertainty in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries.

Partial Transcript

Hagerty on the upcoming G20 Summit: I think we have a real opportunity here, and I can speak from some experience, Lydia. Back in 2019, when the G20 was held in Osaka, I was serving as the United States Ambassador to Japan. [I] actually took the Presidents seat for one of the four rounds because he was meeting with Xi Jinping at that time. What our G20 allies would be looking for is American leadership. [President] Joe Biden has that opportunity to deliver that, but it needs to be American leadership that encourages more investment between our nations, more trade, more national security opportunities that we can pursue. We need to be encouraging our NATO allies to step up to their defense commitments. What Im worried about is something along the lines of what happened when we saw the Three Amigos conference take place down in Mexico when Joe Biden met with our [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement] partners from Mexico and Canada, [PresidentAndrs Manuel Lpez Obrador] AMLO and [Prime Minister Justin]Trudeau. Instead of taking advantage of the great economic opportunity, the major points that came out of that were on DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] and climate, and if thats what happens, the biggest winners from the G20 will be those that are not there: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

Hagerty on the SEC pushing cryptocurrency offshore: Theyre using the [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] and the Federal Reserve supervisors to essentially execute Operation Choke Point 2.0. This time, the targeted industry is the cryptocurrency industry. Theyre creating all types of uncertainty. You know, [SEC Chair Gary] Gensler is using the opportunity to enforce via litigation, to regulate via enforcement, and this is creating tremendous uncertainty. What theyre going to do, and this may be their aim, is to push all of the innovation associated with cryptocurrency and the blockchain offshore. Theyre paving the way for a Central Bank Digital Currency, and you have to look no further than Communist China to see what theyre doing with the digital Yuan. To see the danger in this: Communist China can use the digital Yuan to determine what you can buy [and] what you cant buy, where your currency is good, where you cant spend it, where you can, and theyre pushing that out on an international basis right now. We need to be very concerned about these developments.

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ICYMIHagerty Joins The Big Money Show on Fox Business to ... - Senator Bill Hagerty

BOSTON, Sept. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With cryptocurrencies here to stay, mainstream wealth management firms are adding or considering adding cryptos to their portfolios and platforms. To date though, little consideration has been given to how well these assets fit into a traditional investment portfolio in terms of risk, diversification and returns. To create a framework to consider this issue, FinMason President and Chief Analytics Officer Philip Taylor, CFA, used FinMason's cloud-based calculation engine to show how to analyze a traditional investment portfolio with the addition of cryptocurrency. FinMason is a leading investment dataand analytics firm.

Taylor used one of the largest "Moderate Allocation" ETFs as a proxy for a well-diversified traditional portfolio, used Bitcoin as a proxy for cryptocurrencies and used a large S&P500 index ETF as a proxy for U.S. Equities.

With these inputs, Taylor used FinMason's calculation engine to review a variety of allocation, risk and return scenarios.

For instance, a portfolio of 59% Moderate ETF and 41% Bitcoin had the highest 10-year Sharpe Ratio of 1.06, but is a highly risky portfolio, with an annual 10-year volatility of 32.0%. This is more than double the amount of risk as the S&P 500 index, which had a 10-year volatility of 14.9%. On the other hand, a portfolio of 15% Bitcoin and 85% of the moderate allocation ETF produced a Sharp Ratio of 1.02, with the same risk as the S&P 500. Not only does it have the same risk as the S&P 500, but it had a far smaller "drawdown" of -27.3% vs -50.9% for the S&P 500.

"Whenever investment opportunities arise and enter the mainstream, it's important for investment professionals to assess their fitness for inclusion in their portfolios," said Taylor. "FinMason offers those tools via our easy-to-use, scalable and efficient solutions for all types of financial firms."

To read the full report, please click here https://www.finmason.com/media/news/2023/09/05/cryptocurrency-allocations-and-risk-how-much-is-enough-.

About FinMason

FinMasonwas founded by experienced industry insiders and leading technologists who have managed institutional portfolios, built and managed performance, risk, and analytics systems for large institutions, and built and sold large technology companies. FinMason solves the two largest hurdles in investment analysis wrangling market data and calculating analytics at scale. Via FinMason's cloud-native API the company provides a lightning-fast, customizable, calculation engine to accelerate any wealth technology build out. For more information about FinMason, visit http://www.finmason.com or email [emailprotected].

Media Contact Mark Scott Mark Scott PR 404-771-8658 [emailprotected]

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Cryptocurrency Allocations and Risk: How Much is Enough? - A ... - PR Newswire

Attackers with IP addresses based in France, Luxembourg and Germany have been using Advanced Installer, a legitimate Windows tool, for creating software packages to drop cryptocurrency mining malware on computers across several sectors.

In a blog post Sept. 7, Cisco Talos researchers said the payloads included the M3_Mini_RAT client stub. Such a remote access trojan would let the attackers establish a backdoor and download and execute additional threats, such as the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining malware PhoenixMiner, and IOIMiner, a multi-coin mining threat.

The Cisco Talos researchers said the campaign targets verticals that are heavy users of 3D modeling and graphic design because they use computers with high GPU specifications and powerful graphics cards useful for generating cryptocurrency. The researchers said the attackers used Advanced Installer to package other legitimate software installers such as Adobe Illustrator and Autodesk 3ds Max with malicious scripts. They then leverage the Custom Action feature in the Windows tool to make the software installers execute the malicious scripts on computers in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing and engineering sectors.

These attacks predominantly target users in France and Switzerland, the researchers said, with a few infections in other areas, including the United States, Canada, Algeria, Sweden, Germany, Tunisia, Madagascar, Singapore, and Vietnam. Most of the software installers used in this campaign are written in French, which supports the observation by Cisco Talos that the campaign primarily targets French-speaking users.

Long-running, persistent campaigns like this are subtle and difficult to detect, but can have a lasting impact on organizations, explained Shawn Surber, senior director of technical account management at Tanium. Surber said once an attacker gets this deep inside a network, they are often doing a lot more than just hijacking GPU cycles: they can gather and exfiltrate confidential data and plant logic bombs that could turn their stealth attack into a loud ransomware boom.

Even if they don't, the draw on these powerful GPU systems can have a significant financial and operational effect by slowing work output, shortening the lifespan of expensive hardware, and significantly increasing power usage, Surber said.

Such attacks are good examples of why operations and security teams need to work together across their traditional silos, he continued. "Once inside, this type of attack is virtually invisible to traditional security tools, so it's important that operational tools, like performance monitoring, be tuned to observe and alert on anomalous behavior like this.

Callie Guenther, cyber threat research senior manager at Critical Start, added that threat actors have numerous motivations and methods for choosing their targets. Based on this blog, Guenther said the threat actors have chosen a rather indirect method to generate revenue via cryptomining by targeting users of specific software installers, especially those for 3D modeling and graphic design.

Generally, banks by nature have some of the most robust cybersecurity defenses in place, said Guenther. Breaking directly into a bank's systems is a challenging endeavor that carries a high risk of detection. It requires specialized tools and methods, and the potential legal repercussions are significant.

By contrast, Guenther said individual users or businesses, especially those in fields like 3D modeling or graphic design, might not always have stringent cybersecurity measures. Such machines are often equipped with powerful GPU resources vital for design work, but equally valuable for cryptomining operations.

Cryptocurrency mining, especially on machines with high-end GPUs, can be lucrative, and the malware can often run stealthily in the background, consuming just a fraction of available resources, said Guenther. This lets the malicious activity persist longer, potentially going unnoticed by the users. Moreover, trojanizing popular software installers offers threat actors an easier distribution method. Leveraging tactics like search engine optimization poisoning can lead to a higher rate of downloads and subsequent infections. This method is less complex than the multifaceted techniques required to infiltrate a bank's defenses.

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Attackers leverage Windows Advanced Installer to drop ... - SC Media

A mother who had $10 million wrongly deposited into her account after a mistake by a cryptocurrency website had initially aspired to bring her children to Australia through sheer hard work.

Thevamangari Manivel moved to Australia in 2015 with the goal of providing for her family and bringing her three children out to join her.

She worked hard physical jobs including in irrigation on a cotton farm and cleaning motels before training as a disability support and aged care worker.

When her then-boyfriend Jatinder Singh told her he had won $10 million and it was deposited into her bank, she transferred it into a joint account.

The windfall was too good to be true.

In reality, Singh had placed a $100 deposit with website Crypto.com which was refunded because of a discrepancy in account names.

Then, in what was described by Victorian County Court Judge Martine Marich as the most extraordinary of circumstances, the staff member issuing the refund mistakenly typed an account number into the funds box - transferring more than $10.4 million to Manivel.

Prosecutors conceded they could not prove the now-41-year-old did anything wrong until January last year when she was contacted by the bank and asked to return he funds.

In response, Manivel made two separate transfers of $2 million to a bank account in Malaysia.

Several more online messages came from her bank, requesting return of the funds but Manivel told police she thought it was a scam, and when she spoke to a bank staffer they had agreed.

She was arrested in March 2022 at Melbourne airport, attempting to board a flight to Malaysia - with a one-way ticket and $11,750 cash.

Manivel was sentenced to 209 days in prison on Friday - reflecting the time she served before being granted bail last October.

Judge Marich also ordered she complete 200 hours of community work and be subjected to a curfew between 10pm and 6am over the next six months.

Manivel's criminal actions were a "shortcut to the financial goal you had previously endeavoured to pursue through your sheer hard work", she said.

She said uncertainty over Manivel's visa status acted as additional punishment for her crime but Mercy Health has offered to support her application for permanent residency because of her employment in the aged care sector.

Manivel was also placed on an 18-month good behaviour bond over the cash she was arrested with at the airport, which she admitted was known proceeds of crime.

Singh is due to face a pre-sentence hearing next month for his part in the offending.

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Cryptocurrency Bitcoin: Mum cashed in on $10.4m crypto windfall - 9News