PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, has warned that the Chinese central government may be supporting Bitcoin as a means to undermine the foreign and monetary policy of the United States. But, he added, it has tried to use the Euro the same way. Speaking at a virtual event hosted by conservative non-profit, the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel was commenting on whether China’s central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, could threaten the U.S. dollar’s status as a global reserve currency. While Thiel, who is known to be pro-Bitcoin, suggested an “internal stablecoin in China” will amount to little more …

Robert Valentine, chairman of the Libertarian Party in the Netherlands, has erected a number of pro-crypto billboards in advance of an election later this week. In an image shared on Valentine’s Twitter account, the Libertarian Party leader appears with laser eyes atop a message that states, “Bitcoin is the future.” The party is one of 37 vying for seats in the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, which is scheduled to hold a general election on Wednesday. Je zou toch maar met je hoofd op een paar billboards staan van 13 bij 10 meter. #Verkiezingen2021 #TK2021 #bitcoin #stemLP pic.twitter.com/GQcqa8Uy1e — …

Russian punk feminist group Pussy Riot has released a new music video and is auctioning a series of four, non-fungible-tokens to accompany its release and raise funds for their art projects and local activism. The group first rose to prominence in 2012 after staging a guerilla performance of an iconoclastic feminist punk song in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral in protest against the Orthodox Church's complicity with Vladimir Putin's regime. Shortly after, the group's members were arrested for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and later sentenced to two years in a penal colony. The music video for the group's latest …

Andrew Yang, the Democratic Party front-runner in the race to be New York’s next mayor said he would transform New York City into “a hub for BTC and other cryptocurrencies” noting the city to be “the world’s financial capital.” The former presidential candidate made the comment in a tweet earlier today which drew a flurry of mixed reactions, with some proclaiming it to be a campaign-selling maneuver and others equating it to political suicide. The most unifying reaction, however, was the demand that Yang use his powers, if elected, to end the BitLicense, enacted by the New York Department of …

The crypto lobby is growing as more firms join the effort to fight rules that attack financial privacy. The Blockchain Association today announced the addition of five new members, with membership now totaling 30 firms. The new members are Uniswap, Blockfi, Fireblocks, CMT Digital and Blockchain Capital. In its tweet announcing the news, the Blockchain Association attributed the rise in membership to its work in presenting an industry response to rules from the United States Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, at the tail end of the Donald Trump administration. The association wrote, "Battling back the FinCEN process …

Early Bitcoin investor and industry proponent Chamath Palihapitiya has signaled a potential run for the position of California governor. The CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya, appeared to announce his intentions in a Tweet on January 26. The post linked to his new website with a number of promises for the U.S. state including massive tax cuts, an increase for teacher’s salaries, the end of student loans, and a handout for new births. Palihapitiya appears to be gearing up for the 2022 Gubernatorial race or potentially for a special election, though no specifics were provided beyond his …

The World Economic Forum’s upcoming Davos Agenda will feature two separate sessions on cryptocurrency, offering another compelling sign that digital assets have permeated mainstream consciousness. The sessions, titled Resetting Digital Currencies, will be held on Monday and Thursday. The first session will feature five public speakers, including Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and Hikmet Ersek, president and CEO of Western Union. Thursday’s group features four speakers, including Tharman Shanmugaratnam, a senior minister for the government of Singapore, and Zhu Min, chairman of the Beijing-based National Institute of Financial Research. “COVID-19 has accelerated the long-term shift from cash,” reads the …

On Tuesday, Ether (ETH) underwent a bullish breakout which propelled the price to a new all-time high at $1,428. While the move may have been technical, the fundamentals for Etheruem continue to improve as less than one month after launch there is now $3.8 billion worth of ETH locked on the Eth2 blockchain. The rapid rise in price has clearly attracted the attention of pro traders but Cointelegraph analyst Marcel Pechman warns that Ether’s rise to a new high was also accompanied by a large increase in short positions. Ether’s break to a new high had little effect on Bitcoin …

President-elect Biden’s team recently unveiled additional folks it plans on nominating for various positions after the inauguration on Wednesday. One key pick is Gary Gensler as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, according to a statement from Biden’s transition team on Monday. On Jan. 12, Reuters reported on anonymous sourcing forecasting Gensler as Biden’s choice. Today’s statement from the Biden team confirms the President-elect’s expected choice. “Gary Gensler served as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2014,” the statement said. Coming immediately after the financial crisis, Gensler's term at the CFTC saw …

DLive, the decentralized streaming platform that Justin Sun purchased and migrated to Tron in December 2019, was used by several far-right extremists to livestream their insurrection in the United States Capitol building on Wednesday. The extremists were also able to raise donations during the broadcast, and the platform has been accused of allowing extremists to raise “hundreds of thousands” of dollars, mostly in cryptocurrency, since it was founded. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog, at least five DLive accounts livestreamed Wednesday’s shocking protest: “Murder the Media,” “Loulz,” “Woozuh,” “Gloomtube” and “ Baked Alaska.” However, the organization could …

Senator Kelly Loeffler, formerly the CEO of Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchange Bakkt, will not be returning to Washington, at least not as a legislator. According to AP News on Jan. 6, Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock has won one of the tightly contested runoff elections for the United States Senate in the Southern state of Georgia. The runoff elections have been closely watched in the United States, as they will determine which party controls a majority in the Senate, which will set the timbre for President-elect Biden's legislative approach when he assumes office on Jan. 20. The race is still too …

The U.K. Tory Party's nemesis, Nigel Farage, has gone “full crypto.” Last Friday, Farage sat down for a video interview to discuss all things crypto with Sam Volkering, editor of Southbank Investment Research — which is, notably, the publisher of Farage's recently launched investor newsletter "Fortune & Freedom." In the interview, Farage derided the government's “funny money,” which it continues to print throughout the pandemic at warp speed, and concluded that it's therefore “crucially important” to get one's head around crypto. He has elsewhere called Bitcoin “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment” — pointedly on-brand for his newly launched Reform UK party. …