Huobi’s charity arm has announced an initiative to distribute aid to assist Indonesia’s fight against COVID-19. Huobi Charity will distribute aid in partnership with the Indonesia-China Association of Economic, Social and Cultural Cooperation (ICAESCC) to make monetary contributions, donate medical supplies, and leverage blockchain technology to assist healthcare organizations. Huobi launches coronavirus charity initiative in Indonesia To provide immediate relief, Huobi Charity will donate roughly $50,000 in Huobi Token (HT) to ICAESCC for the purchase of medical supplies for hospitals. Ciara Sun, Huobi Group’s vice president of global business, emphasized that the coronavirus pandemic is impacting “everyone in every corner …

Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen has made a full recovery from COVID-19. In a tweet on April 2, he thanked those working on the frontline against the virus, and also called for recovered patients to donate blood for use in antibody transplants. Larsen had not publicly shared the fact that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. The majority of the crypto-community only discovered the truth when he posted his tweet, accompanied by a picture of himself wearing a facemask giving a thumbs-up gesture. Recovered patients can still help the sick Despite his recent recovery from the illness, Larsen …

Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and Venezuela’s sitting president, has announced a campaign to support his country’s medical staff amid the coronavirus pandemic by airdropping one Petro to each doctor. The ‘Doctors of the Homeland’ initiative will see each Venezuelan doctor air-dropped one of the administration’s oil-backed Petro cryptocurrency tokens, as per an April 2 tweet published by a government official. Venezuela to issue Petro bonus to doctors The tokens will be distributed using Venezuela’s ‘Patria System’ — a platform launched by the government to bypass the nation’s failing banking system and issue bonuses and subsidies using the cryptographic …

As the world continues to battle with the deadly coronavirus pandemic, immoral cybercriminals are once again on the prowl. This time, they are using the chaos and fear through phishing techniques and sophisticated malware hacks to access people’s crypto holdings. On March 27, residents in the United Kingdom received warnings from their local councils “to be on their guard against a series of scams attempting to take advantage of the coronavirus outbreak.” Scammers have been using other tricks to lure victims, including the use of false Bitcoin (BTC) donation channels, fake maps of the coronavirus’s spread that steal private data …

Futurist and author, Daniel Jeffries, shared with Cointelegraph his view on the future scenarios awaiting Bitcoin in the aftermath of COVID-19. Two possible outcomes In one particularly dark scenario, the global economy will plunge into a severe recession and countries will turn to authoritarianism in order to survive. In such a scenario, world governments will impose capital control measures, curbing citizens’ financial freedoms. Authorities will then crack down on cryptocurrency to prevent people from circumventing their restrictions. Jeffries does not believe that Bitcoin would be able to survive in such a scenario. He stated: “Governments will swiftly move to destroy …

People are going to buy Bitcoin (BTC) in droves — because there will be no gold for sale due to coronavirus, Max Keiser predicts. In a recent edition of his Keiser Report news program on March 31, Keiser said that the coronavirus pandemic will push billionaires into gold as a safe haven. Keiser: people will “flock en masse” to BTC Once supplies are bought up and stockpiled, the only alternative left is Bitcoin. He summarized: “I predict — and this is not only the ultimate use case but the ultimate irony — that once people realize that they cannot get …

Leading blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis has found that the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic contraction is affecting Bitcoin (BTC) consumer habits in surprising ways. In a new report published on March 30, Chainalysis details how Bitcoin spending trends in three areas — merchant services, gambling and darknet marketplaces — have changed, or even reversed. Weakening correlation could be a boon for Bitcoin merchant services, says report Chainalysis reported that one such change in trend shows resilience among Bitcoin merchant services in the current economic crisis. For example, the firm’s data for Bitcoin spending using merchant services from July 2019 until …

The $2 trillion economic stimulus package the United States Congress passed on March 26 might not cause the Bitcoin (BTC) market to skyrocket just yet, but investors could see modest, gradual improvements starting in 2020. Wayne Chen, CEO of Interlapse and founder of virtual currency platform Coincurve, spoke to Cointelegraph on Wednesday regarding the outlook of Bitcoin following measures to help the U.S. economy recover. Stimulus package targeted at those without disposable income Even in the midst of a global pandemic, many crypto traders are expecting Bitcoin to reach all-time highs before 2021. Online searches for cryptocurrencies have increased as …

The founder of education platform Khan Academy has put out an urgent call for donations following a 250% surge in users due to the coronavirus crisis. CEO Sal Khan asked users to donate fiat — or they can donate Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) via their Brave browsers — to help the platform stay open during the pandemic. Khan said the surge was due to record numbers of students forced to stay home during lockdowns and social distancing requirements. A billion schoolkids are staying home because of COVID-19 Khan Academy is a non-profit organization that aims to provide a free, world-class …

Amid global coronavirus fears and plunging mainstream markets, Bitcoin (BTC) trading has remained largely unchanged, according to CMT Digital head of trading and business development, Brad Koeppen. “Bitcoin trading has not been that different,” Koeppen told Cointelegraph in a March 31 email. “Volatility and volumes saw an uptick as BTC sold off with the traditional markets but high volatility is nothing new in Bitcoin.” Koeppen also referenced the problems seen on exchanges around the time of Bitcoin’s massive drop between March 11 and 13, noting that this is “nothing new” in the crypto space. Has Bitcoin decoupled from traditional markets? …

Bitcoin Depot, the largest Bitcoin ATM operator in the world, has begun powering down some of its machines in an effort to halt further spread of COVID-19. As much of the world sits in quarantine, Bitcoin Depot has chosen to temporarily shut off crypto ATMs which specifically reside in high traffic areas. The company is undertaking this push as a way to encourage social distancing. “As we monitor the ongoing situation, the number of locations temporarily taken offline will likely increase,” Bitcoin Depot’s director of product, Alona Lubovnaya, told Cointelegraph in an email, adding: “We are continuing to monitor for …

Online purchases using Bitcoin (BTC), Visa, and some retail apps are down for the first quarter of 2020, spanning cryptocurrency and fiat currency transactions. With many around the world self-quarantining or otherwise recommended to stay inside to prevent the spread of COVID-19, one might assume there would be an increase in online purchases and deliveries. Yet with unemployment on the rise and an uncertain economic future, it seems consumers want to save their money rather than spend it. Bitcoin transactions rivaling those during crypto winter The crypto market is not exempt from this dearth of purchases. The number of daily …