Once seen by the mainstream zeitgeist as a fringe technology destined to languish on the outskirts of society, cryptocurrency today is alluring many leaders of the fintech sector by offering companies the prospect of being at the forefront of the largest financial revolution of the past century. With mainstream society increasingly accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as a means of payment, financial firms are increasingly seeking to offer a frictionless and convenient means for consumers to make payments using crypto. Square introduces BTC deposits On June 26, San Francisco-based mobile payments provider Square announced that users of the company’s Cash App can …

This interview has been edited and condensed. I don’t normally write the stories here at Cointelegraph — I edit them. But when I got an email from a publicist asking if I was interested in speaking with Ben Mezrich, author of “Bitcoin Billionaires,” and oh, did I want the Winklevoss twins to jump in on the interview? I couldn’t say no. Ben had the lucky chance — as he calls it — to already have an in with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, as they had been portrayed as the Men of Harvard, slightly “bad” guys in his book that ended …

Institutional cryptocurrency platform Bakkt will begin testing its first product, physically-delivered bitcoin (BTC) futures on July 22, the company announced in a blog post on June 13. Bakkt, which has seen multiple delays over regulatory compliance since its original announcement in August 2018, will offer futures as the first in a series of offerings, full details of which remain unclear. “On July 22, two days after Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, Bakkt will initiate user acceptance testing for its bitcoin futures listed and traded at ICE Futures U.S. and cleared at ICE Clear US,” chief operating officer Adam White wrote in …

Cryptocurrencies have gone a long way since the day when, nine years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz had paid 10,000 bitcoins for two large Papa John’s pizzas, marking the first purchase of tangible goods for digital money. Although bitcoin is still far from being universally accepted by retailers, thousands of merchants around the world are taking crypto in exchange for goods — and their ranks grow daily. The latest of the big developments in this vein came up at this year’s Consensus conference, as blockchain startup Flexa made public its partnership with a number of major U.S. retailers. Flexa’s payments app, Spedn, …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Bitstamp Starts Investigation After Large BTC Sell Leads to $250 Million Liquidated on BitMEX Major crypto exchange Bitstamp launched an investigation this week after a large bitcoin (BTC) sell order heavily impacted its order book. Bitstamp reported on the execution of the large bitcoin sell order from BTC to United States dollars, without specifying …

Bakkt plans to roll out testing for bitcoin futures trading in early July 2019, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler announced in a Medium post on May 13. First announced in August 2018, institutional crypto exchange Bakkt now announced that it will soon introduce bitcoin futures trading testing on a federally regulated futures exchange in collaboration with its parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Specifically, Bakkt is working with both ICE Futures U.S. exchange and ICE Clear U.S. clearinghouse to prepare the first testing of bitcoin futures trading and custody. Loeffler wrote: “In conjunction with our exchange and clearing partners at ICE, we’ll …

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is reportedly taking steps to ensure approval from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for its bitcoin futures contracts platform — Bakkt. ICE, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), recently acquired a cryptocurrency custodial service and are mulling plans to register Bakkt as a licensed trust in the state of New York. If successful, these latest moves would see Bakkt become a registered bitcoin (BTC) custody platform. Recent reports also indicate that the company is in partnership with Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon for the storage of cryptocurrency security keys. …

The United States coffeehouse chain Starbucks is one of the most mainstream companies to look into crypto, and its intentions have finally been confirmed this week: The company has teamed up with Microsoft to track its beans with a blockchain. Moreover, reports say that the coffee giant might start accepting bitcoin (BTC) payments in its U.S. branches later this year. So, is the long-awaited mainstream adoption finally coming to the crypto market? As many mainstream companies, Starbucks leans toward the “blockchain before bitcoin” approach Starbucks’ relationship with crypto could be traced back to January 2018, when its executive chairman and …

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange ErisX recently announced the public launch of its spot market trading, a move that takes the company a step closer to its goal of being a one-stop shop for the trading of spot and futures contracts in a regulated environment. Per the information on its product page, ErisX will support dollar trading pair with bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin — in addition to bitcoin trading pairs with the other three cryptocurrencies. What’s ErisX’s plan in the crypto space? Since 2017, ErisX has been building a trusted market infrastructure to support the institutional adoption of cryptocurrency. …

Top Stories This Week Fractional Reserve Stablecoin Tether Only 74% Backed by Fiat Currency, Say Lawyers According to documents released by USD stablecoin tether’s (USDT) lawyers, the company behind the stablecoin only has enough fiat reserves to back a little less than three-quarters of its existing supply — 74%. Tether executives had previously publicly promised that each tether was backed one-to-one to the USD, a claim that has been disproven by the lawyers’ document release. The need to release the figures comes from the recent claims by the U.S. attorney general in New York that cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, which shares …

Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) purportedly took advantage of the “crypto winter” to purchase crypto assets at a discount for its institutional cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt, Reuters reported on May 2. ICE’s chief executive officer Jeffrey Sprecher reportedly told Reuters that “It’s really been helpful that the cryptocurrency industry sort of went into what they call a winter.” 2018 was a bear year for digital currencies; in mid-November crypto markets suffered sharp double-digit losses, bringing bitcoin (BTC) below $5,600 for the first time that year. Bakkt — which was originally set to roll out in January 2019 — subsequently delayed the …

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)-lead institutional cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt has аcquired a crypto custodian service, the firm announced on April 29. In a blog post, Bakkt announced a number of new measures in its apparent effort to stimulate regulatory feedback, including the acquisition of Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC). While DACC’s native support of 13 blockchains and 100+ assets is designed to “serve as an important accelerator,” the entire DACC team will also be joining Bakkt, as former Coinbase exec and new Bakkt COO Adam White wrote in the blog post on Monday. In the same announcement, White revealed that Bakkt …