May 15 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Wednesday revealed it indicted two brothers in their twenties for a series of alleged crimes for manipulating the cryptocurrency market to steal $25 million in crypto in a 12-second period, according to reports.

Anton Peraire-Bueno, 24, of Boston, Mass., and his brother James Peraire-Bueno, 28, of New York were arrested Monday in their respective cities and are being charged for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering,

“This alleged scheme was novel and has never before been charged,” Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for New York’s Southern District, said in a news release.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/05/15/Anton-James-Peraire-Bueno-justice-department-cryptocurrency-ethereum/7141715794451/

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The post Bitcoin ETF approval opens $1.7 trillion crypto door for Wall Street first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

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Source: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/06/05/binance-endures-69m-in-net-outflows-within-an-hour-amid-sec-charge-nansen/

The post Binance Withdrawal Surges, Sees $231M in Net Outflows Amid SEC Charges first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

This groundbreaking currency transacts in any legal tender settlement currency and functions like a CBDC, enforcing banking regulations and safeguarding the financial integrity of the international banking system. It adopts a central banking monetary policy framework to ensure continuous purchasing demand, minimal price volatility, and annual asset pricing targets.

But that’s not all: banks can utilize Unicoin by attaching SWIFT Codes and bank accounts to a UMU digital currency wallet. This allows them to conduct SWIFT-like cross-border payments entirely over digital currency rails, accessing the best-priced wholesale FX rates and achieving instantaneous, real-time settlement while bypassing the correspondent banking system.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unicoin-revolutionary-new-legal-tender

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The post Unicoin: The Revolutionary New Legal Tender CBDC Unveiled at the IMF Spring Meetings 2023 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Earlier this year, YouTuber Oscar Ramos discovered a deal that seemed too good to be true: Gemini Earn, an interest-bearing program run by crypto exchange Gemini, said that its users could generate annual returns of 8% on ApeCoin, the native cryptocurrency issued by Bored Ape Yacht Club in March.

Ramos agreed to let Gemini Earn lend out his monkey-themed coins, which he’d bought with the intent of buying a Bored Ape NFT. “I created my account and it was fabulous. I really liked Gemini because it was so easy,” he says.

Now, Ramos’ funds–a few thousand dollars–are part of the $900 million that Gemini Earn’s customers are owed, as the Financial Times reported on Saturday (and as a source familiar with the matter confirmed to Forbes.)

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2022/12/06/customers-of-crypto-billionaires-winklevoss-gemini-plead-for-lost-funds/?sh=10128f6e7653

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The post Customers Of Crypto Billionaires Winklevoss’ Gemini Plead For Lost Funds first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A respected Russian financier based in Monaco who died in a mystery helicopter crash in France had links to Moscow’s foreign intelligence, according to Ukrainian claims.

Vyacheslav Taran, 53, founder of Forex Club and Libertex, died in Villefranche-sur-Mer, confirmed the Russian embassy in Paris.

He was flying from Lausanne in Switzerland with an experienced pilot in a Monacair H130 helicopter when the crash occurred.

The pilot, aged in his 30s, was also killed, say reports. No cause has been so far established.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-crypto-billionaire-dies-freak-28610220

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The post Russian crypto billionaire dies in ‘freak’ helicopter crash as ‘other passenger cancels’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It seems we may have been a little optimistic. Is it really possible that half of the people in the United States are bought in to all the foolishness? Are we to believe that the constant brainwashing has worked on the general population?  

Our blessings have become political issues. We’re supposed to banish God’s blessings on account of some prognosticators who’ve been wrong about nearly everything for all these years? Maybe if world leaders attend more conferences they can coordinate the destruction of God’s blessings. Government has stuck its nose where it has no business.  It’s a global movement with no front man. There’s no one to question. It’s a consensus!  

It’s all UN commissions and university findings, sometimes financed by large grants. The system seems compromised. What are they supposed to do? Tell their benefactors that their theory holds no water? Even if it did, the premise that man or government is going to control the weather is preposterous. Don’t these people believe in God?

If we thought a big change was in the offing, we still don’t know. Watching the supervisor explain wasn’t very satisfying. The “goalposts might move?” We just want to know which direction the country is going. Is that too much to ask? Arizona and Nevada must be embarrassed to have every other state in the union wrapped up and they’re still working on it? Is it just a perception, or does the delayed outcome provide more opportunity for shenanigans? We may be in limbo as to the future direction of our governance, but it doesn’t look good.  

Meanwhile, Europe isn’t doing so well. They’re well ahead of the United States in attempting to go green. Now they’re in recession and facing what might turn out to be a brutal Winter. You’ve probably heard, the crypto currencies just lost big. It’s amazing how much wealth has just evaporated out of the market. We hope your money wasn’t in crypto.

All the threats the world is facing are real. The international powers know there will probably never be a better time to take what they want. It is our fervent hope that the United States doesn’t stumble into a destructive war. But you have to wonder if that’s not what’s going to happen with these geniuses at the helm. They clearly don’t represent people who believe in God. 

Mark

P. S.  Please remember Mr. Terry Gooch of Springfield, Missouri in your prayers.

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – November 11, 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Facebook’s digital currency Libra, may herald the future of payment systems, or even how we will exchange value over the Internet in the years to come. But for citizens across the planet and financial supervisors, these digital assets that have flourished over the past decade, are promising technologies but are, at best, difficult to grasp.

At worst, they have become synonymous with highly volatile assets that could put at risk the financial stability of the planet, and even the monetary sovereignty of nations, like many fear Libra could bring about.

The European Commission will unveil this autumn its long-awaited proposal on cryptocurrencies in order to seize the opportunities brought by these tokens powered by networks of computers: these include lower fees and almost instant transactions. Europe will become the first major jurisdiction to regulate these new means of payment.

“I believe that Europe is in a position to lead the way on regulation,” Commission executive vice-president for financial services, Valdis Dombrovskis, said in June.

In the EU executive’s thinking, new rules won’t scare developers and investors away, but rather the opposite.

The lack of legal certainty is often cited as the main barrier to developing a sound crypto-asset market in the EU, Dombrovskis recalled.

By becoming the first region to put its house in order, the EU expects to attract a market worth almost $350 billion spread over more than 6,700 digital currencies.

The Commission expects to achieve the holy grail of rule makers: to come up with legislation that will not only protect customers but will also spur innovation by designing a clear framework.

But before seeing what rules would be needed to rein in this fast evolving cutting-edge field, we need to take a deep dive into the past.

The ‘Tulipmania’

In February 1637, the Dutch were caught up in ‘tulipmania’. Tulip prices skyrocketed from December 1636 to February 1637, with some of the most prized bulbs seeing a 12-fold price jump. Tulips were not only exotic flowers but a speculative investment, with some wealthy individuals paying for bulbs what they would pay for a comfortable house.

The wild rush suddenly ended in February 1637, leaving some investors penniless in what is considered the first bubble-and-burst episode in investment history.

For some, the irrational fever that struck the Netherlands is a cautionary tale for the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies, as the story of Bitcoin reveals.

The obscure payment method became a primary target for speculators. The price of one Bitcoin skyrocketed almost 10-fold in the second half of 2017, reaching nearly 20,000 dollars (16,960 euro) at the end of that year. In December 2018, one Bitcoin was worth around 3,300 dollars (2,800 euro), around 75% less compared with the all-time high.

Since then, Bitcoin prices recovered some of the lost ground (price as of early September is just below €9,000), but doubts around crypto-assets persist.

Created in 2009 after the housing market crash by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), Bitcoin brought lower fees for online payments and a decentralized authority, aligned with the libertarian spirit firing the digital world.

Bitcoin balances are kept on a public ledger, supported by a network of computers that everyone on the network can see. This is the blockchain technology that powers every cryptocurrency.

For some, blockchain is the greatest technological breakthrough since the Internet. Author and consultant Don Tapscott told top EU analysts back in 2015 about its potential, when the technology was still nascent. While the first generation of the Internet enabled us to communicate information only, the second generation, based on blockchain technology, allows users to communicate value and money in a peer-to-peer way, he said.

Bitcoin’s rollercoaster ride in the markets eclipsed the potential of blockchain. But regulators across the world are not only concerned about the volatility of these digital tokens and the impact that the Bitcoin frenzy could have on users. They are also wary of some of its beneficiaries, as the anonymity provided by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies made them an optimal payment method for drug dealers and other illegal activities.

The slow progress of authorities in Europe and elsewhere to regulate it and the struggle to fully understand and legislate without killing it, significantly changed in the summer 2019.

Libra’s earthquake

That June, Facebook announced that it would launch in 2020 a ‘stablecoin’, a digital currency backed by the “best performing independent currencies”, to offer cheap and fast means of payment to users.

The announcement provoked an immediate backlash from governments and central bankers. Users were also uneasy with the social network’s intentions to build an alternative global system for instant payments, in light of its poor record respecting their private data.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the US House Committee on Financial Services in Washington, October, 2019. National authorities fear that their cryptocurrency project, “Libra” could destabilize the global economy, given the substantial reach by the social media giant.

The irruption of the social network pushed cryptocurrencies to the top of the priority lists for regulators across the world, concerned not only about their price instability and dodgy users, but also the implications for the global economy as a whole.

The reason is that Libra is a “stablecoin”, a type of cryptocurrency backed by a reserve asset, in this case a basket of sovereign currencies.

By being tied to national currencies, Libra wants to address the high volatility of cryptocurrencies. But national authorities fear that it could destabilize the global economy, especially when you can reach potentially 2.7 billion users around the world.

“We will not accept that Libra is transformed into a sovereign currency that can endanger financial stability,” French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, told us in an interview in July 2019, on the eve of the G7 finance ministers meeting, where France sent a strong warning to Facebook.

Dante Disparte, deputy chair of the Libra project, said in December last year that “we have always said that the project would seek to be regulated.”

But he asked for the “same risks, same rules” principle that regulators defend in Europe.

“Don’t push Fintech innovations of any size offshore from the European market because, in the long run, it is going to be bad for the economic competitiveness of the region,” he stressed.

The concerns erupted across the world, and the withdrawal of some initial partners from the Libra project, including Visa and Mastercard, led the Libra Association this spring to lower its ambitions, by offering primarily stablecoins backed by only one sovereign currency, becoming in practice digital versions of national money.

By scaling down their plans, Facebook intends to convince financial supervisors of their reasonableness in order to win their approval when it is finally launched in the EU. But it won’t be easy.

While US authorities apply existing rules on cryptocurrencies, the Commission drafted new legislation (announced for autumn 2020) to rein in these digital assets.

The rules will come after more than two years of slow but steady progress to regulate cryptocurrencies, a Commission official told The Brussels Times magazine. “Libra was a ‘wake-up call’ to take seriously these developments.”

The EU executive was wary from the outset of the risks of over-regulating because of Libra, as Europe could strangle the innovation brought by smaller Fintech firms.

As a result, the Commission designed a set of rules that will be proportionate to the level of risks. Less risky cryptocurrencies will face lighter legislation, while for global cryptocurrencies such as Libra, rules would be stronger, given that they are likely to raise challenges in terms of financial stability and monetary policy, warned Dombrovskis before the summer break.

The new European framework will substitute the national rules that are starting to emerge in a few member states, including France, Germany and Malta. Once the cryptocurrencies win regulatory approval at EU level (by following a series of requirements, depending on their risks), they would obtain a EU-wide ‘passport’ to operate in the bloc.

Our central bank’s account

Libra also became a ‘wake-up’ call for central bankers. A recent survey among 66 central banks by the Bank for International Settlements showed that more than 80% are working on central bank digital currencies, including the ECB.

Yves Mersch, member of the executive board of the ECB said last May that Frankfurt wants to be ready “to embrace financial technological innovation, which has the potential to transform payments and money faster”.

Although most of the money issued by central banks is in fact already digital, it is accessible only for banks. Their new digital currencies could make their balance sheets accessible to citizens, a true game-changer. In other words, we could have a deposit account in our central bank.

This scenario would have major consequences for the banking industry, as savers would prefer to have their money in the safe hands of the ECB or the Federal Reserve, given the long history of banking crises.

For that reason, central bankers are thinking twice about how to design their digital currencies without provoking a financial earthquake.

The journey won’t be either short or easy, as every step forward in the crypto-world has brought new challenges. While ‘stablecoins’ addressed the volatility of Bitcoin and the first cryptocurrencies, Libra still does not meet the standards of commercial bank money.

Meanwhile, central bank solutions still raise “profound questions about the shape of the financial system and the implications for monetary and financial stability”, and their own role in the system, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said on 3 September.

Like every new technology, cryptocurrencies must overcome numerous obstacles and address many outstanding risks. But the sense of direction is clear. The future of money is already here.

By Jorge Valero

Source: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/business/135175/the-cryptocurrency-revolution-how-europe-could-take-the-lead-in-the-money-of-the-future/

The post The cryptocurrency revolution: How Europe could take the lead in the ‘money of the future’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz stated that policymakers cannot accept parallel currencies such as Facebook’s proposed Libra stablecoin.

Prevent stablecoins from becoming alternative currencies

As reported by Reuters, on Sept. 17, German Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said during a panel discussion in Berlin that Facebook’s planned crypto coin Libra will be clearly rejected. He said:

According to a document seen by Reuters, German regulators are working closely with their European and international allies to make sure stablecoins will not become alternatives to traditional currencies. The document reportedly read:

“The Federal Government will work at European and international level to ensure that stablecoins will not become an alternative to official currencies”

The German government has spoken out against Facebook’s Libra project before. On Sept. 13, German parliamentarian Thomas Heilmann stated that the government will block projects like Libra, claiming that the authorities are not planning to allow any market-relevant private stablecoins, following in France’s footsteps.

Libra is no threat to the global financial system

Meanwhile, David Marcus, head of Calibra, was attempting to defuse Libra’s perceived threat to the global financial system yesterday.

Marcus pointed out during a meeting between Libra founders and 26 global central banks in Basel that Libra’s cryptocurrency project does not intend to form a new currency but rather build a “better payment network and system running on top of existing currencies” to deliver meaningful value to users over the globe. He emphasized that there is no new money creation, which will “strictly remain the province of sovereign Nations.”

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/german-finance-minister-says-govt-must-reject-facebooks-libra-coin

The post German Finance Minister Says Gov’t Must Reject Facebook’s Libra Coin first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ordered the country’s leading bank, Banco de Venezuela, to accept the nation’s cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR) at all of its branches, the country’s Finance Ministry tweeted on July 4.

According to the tweet, Maduro gave “the express order to open Petro desks in all the branches of the Bank of Venezuela.” The announcement apparently came during an event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the nationalization of the bank in question.

On June 19, Maduro announced that 924 million bolivars (over $92.5 million) were allocated to the Digital Bank of Youth and Students to open one million Petro wallet accounts for the country’s youth. José Angel Alvarez, president of the country’s National Cryptocurrency Association, commented to cryptocurrency news outlet CCN:

“It is a bold and correct decision to move forward towards a hybrid economy where the fiduciary currency of a country competes face to face with cryptocurrency.”

As Cointelegraph reported in January, Venezuela has taken issue with United States sanctions, including those levied specifically against transactions in the country’s national digital currency, the Petro. In March, President Trump banned US citizens from buying Petro.

In May, news broke that Venezuela is considering closing mutual trade settlements with Russia using the ruble.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/president-maduro-orders-the-bank-of-venezuela-to-accept-petro-crypto

The post President Maduro Orders The Bank of Venezuela to Accept Petro Crypto first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.