[Hong Kong's securities regulator approved the first spot bitcoin and ethereum exchange traded funds (ETFs) on Monday]

I just saw this news recently and this is the cause why we see some recovery from where Bitcoin has been this weekend. Alongside this Bitcoin ETF approval, ETH ETF was also approved by the Hong Kong regulators.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -- Hong Kong's securities regulator approved the first spot bitcoin and ethereum exchange traded funds (ETFs) on Monday, a milestone on the way to becoming Asia's first city to accept the popular cryptocurrencies as a mainstream investment tool.

In separate statements, the Hong Kong unit of Bosera Asset Management and China Asset Management said they had received regulatory approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to launch the ETFs.
[..]

PS: I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread so since it includes ETH, mods kindly move where it's appropriate. Thanks!

[The US government transferred some of its bitcoin stash to Coinbase this week.]

I was looking if someone has posted this news already but I'd share it here. The title speaks for itself but I'll just highlight the bullets from the article.

• The US government transferred some of its bitcoin stash to Coinbase this week.
• The government owns about $2 billion worth of bitcoin in a wallet seized from the dark web's Silk Road.
• About 2,000 bitcoin were transferred to Coinbase, worth about $130 million.

On Tuesday, the US government transferred $65 worth of bitcoin to a wallet address held at Coinbase, according to Arkham Intelligence. The first transfer was seen as a test to ensure proper connection to the prime account at Coinbase.

From there, the US government followed through with a 2,000 bitcoin transfer worth about $131 million to the same Coinbase wallet. Earlier this year, the US government indicated plans to sell about $13 million worth of bitcoin following approval from the US District Court of Maryland.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/the-feds-are-transferring-bitcoin-to-coinbase-from-a-2-billion-crypto-wallet-seized-from-silk-road/articleshow/109043283.cms

Looks like they're preparing for a massive dump and not just that, based on that article the feds are holding more Bitcoin as well from the recovered wallets from hackers and they're about 94,600 Bitcoins.

[Now the part that I've like to share is their negligence of one of the main reason why they fell is because its owners have lost the control to their keys. Yes, you've heard that right, they've lost the seed phrase of their wallet.]

So, this news was a few weeks ago and I haven't seen someone posted it yet. Just a quick background of what Prime Trust is, it's a fintech company that manages assets of its customers, yeah a custodial service. See the reference:

Prime Trust is a financial technology company. It provides trust and custody services to cryptocurrency and digital asset businesses. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. In August 2023, Prime Trust filed for bankruptcy.

Going on, they've filed for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) and if we're going to search for some reasons behind that. Mostly, it's all about the mismanagement, liquidity issue and misuse of its customers funds, etc. which is written all over several articles:

• Crypto Custodian Prime Trust Files for Bankruptcy
• Crypto custodian Prime Trust files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• Crypto Custodian Prime Trust Files for Bankruptcy Protection

and many more...

Now the part that I've like to share is their negligence of one of the main reason why they fell is because its owners have lost the control to their keys. Yes, you've heard that right, they've lost the seed phrase of their wallet.

• Crypto Startup Bankrupt After Losing Password To $38.9 Million Physical Crypto Wallet

They've got tons of customers and money on their custody and they just lost it. Maybe a planned exit? or just truly negligence of its owners.

This is the reason why we shouldn't keep funds into these centralized/custodial services and exchanges.

I am not sure if this was posted already and I know that many will raise their eyebrows on this one. Because we've got a lot of experts here that are technically knowledgeable and adept about the Bitcoin network itself and not just for it but also for other chains.

But out of boredom and trying to search for something related to this, I've stumbled upon this certification of being a "Certified Bitcoin Professional" (CBP) by C4(cryptoconsortium) so I think that I have to share this one. As we know that this is still an industry that doesn't have standards for being a professional and most likely it's just all about being a programmer/developer, project manager, trader, investor and etc. Here is this organization that has set an industry standard for everyone. Looking at the people behind this includes Andreas Antonopoulos as one of their board of directors. The rest of the team members, I don't know them. So they have a course just like any other in able to pass and get certified.

I don't know the credibility yet of this but searching a bit of its info, it seems that their certification is recognized based on the google results that came out to me. Going with the exam it will cost you $99.99 as per its website and then the certification fee is $39.99. They also have other courses like Certified Ethereum Professional, the rest is on their website.

My take on this one is that if you've got a lot of spare money and you want to get into this, it's just all about satisfaction and getting the certificate unless you want to apply for jobs related to Bitcoin and related to blockchain technology. Anyway, it's still best to have the knowledge when you're applying even without the certification as that's going to be more honored by a company you are applying for.

But if you're for the knowledge, the forum is more than enough for what you can learn from there and it's for free and that's why we're all grateful that we're part of this great community. Probably most of those people that are behind these orgs have been here as well.

There is also another organization that has this certification aside from C4 and that's blockchain council's - Certified Bitcoin Expert. And they've got more courses aside from this specific certification while for them, their certification is lifetime and for the C4, you have to renew it.

PS: I am not related to them and just thought of sharing this and thanks for reading everyone. 

[#StopTheScammersONGOING PHISHING CAMPAIGNS]

I saw this fake Ledger Pre-IPO on Facebook. We're all aware that Ledger don't have this but for the sake of those that might end up seeing this type of ad from a fake claimant and page. The name of the page is Mmprotrust and they've got 10 followers only and there's no engagement yet on that page but I guess that there will be a few people that might be victimized by this fraud, still hopeful that it will be zero.



Everyone please remember that Ledger official is warning people to take note of these scam and phishing websites. They've always reminded to be careful of such. I've checked Ledger's official website and there's no such as pre IPO by them. The link that was attached on that ad and it was just to send them a message and no website. I can't see the ad on their page but this has appeared on my wall as sponsored ad and took a quick screenshot. And please, don't join any fishy white listing. I'm doing my action of reporting this.

Please also be mindful about Ledger's campaign against these fraudsters.

#StopTheScammers

ONGOING PHISHING CAMPAIGNS

[The unfortunate soul used the KyberSwap aggregation router to dump a large clip of 3CRV (DAI/USDC/USDT) LP token into USDT.]

This is a sad story of how someone panicked due to the news about SVB a couple of days ago.

A twitter account named BowTiedPickle.Eth posted a tweet about this guy that had made a mistake. Every detail is on the link that I'll provide at the bottom together with the quotes from the links.

With USDC insolvency fears rampant, users are fleeing to safety in other stables. Not all of them are going to make it there in one piece, however.

Here's how one unlucky user paid $2,080,468.85 to receive $0.05 of USDT.

On-chain investigations revealed that the user had stored the assets in a liquidity pool (LP) — a popular method to earn passive income in cryptocurrencies. The user could have sold his LP tokens for USDT for a 6% slippage. However, they chose to go for a “questionable " method. As explained by BowTiedPickle:

“The unfortunate soul used the KyberSwap aggregation router to dump a large clip of 3CRV (DAI/USDC/USDT) LP token into USDT.”

Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/usdc-investor-shells-out-2m-to-receive-0-05-usdt-trying-to-evade-crash
https://twitter.com/BowTiedPickle/status/1634415551450587138

I am not sure if this was already posted but it will give especially the newbies some idea on how bitcoin grown in over time, and how it looked like before. So, based on the image below it was the last prizes for the participants of Starcraft tournament from fifth to eight place got 25 bitcoins each.




The tournament held in 2011 where the price of bitcoin was still low where it's like from $0.3 to $3.
For context: Tournament's Last-Place Bitcoin Prize Could've Made Starcraft Losers Millionaires.

I wonder if any of those players that have won bitcoin kept a few or if there's a source where they've given statements on how they've kept or spent it after wards. If you'll ask me, even I, I might sell those if I saw it went up to $50 or $100 earlier in those years.

I'll be just giving the estimates for the last ATH and in today's time but we can conclude that most of them were sold already too early.
25 bitcoins * $69,000 = $1,725,000
25 bitcoins * $24,500 = $612,500

Right now, we usually see prizes coming from crypto casinos and I rarely see it become a prize to any tournament whether it's an actual physical sports or e-sports.


Link to another the same and interesting story of getting paid bitcoin earlier(2013): A painter received $50 worth of bitcoin on June 2013.

I guess that many will not like it but Australia launches their stable coin backed by Australian Dollars. There goes the CBDC from other countries like China and this seems is going to be the source of the money that shall flow for the next bull run and this trend might continue for next years.

The National Australia Bank (NAB), one of the four biggest Australian banks, has created a stablecoin called AUDN, which it aims to launch in the middle of 2023, according to the Australian Financial Review (AFR) report.

The purpose of AUDN would be to allow its customers to settle transactions on blockchain technology in real time using Australian dollars, NAB said. AUDN could also be used for several other purposes including "carbon credit trading, overseas money transfers and repurchase agreements," NAB’s Chief Innovation officer Howard Silby told AFR.

The stablecoin will launch on the Ethereum and Algorand blockchains, the latter a smart contract platform similar to Ethereum.
[..]

For the full article, please read the source:
National Australia Bank Becomes Second Australian Bank to Build Stablecoin: Report

Yes, you've read the title right. For Canadian users of Crypto.com, they've delisted USDT because of the ban and regulations that's been implemented in Ontario, Canada.

According to user reports on Jan 10, cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com plans to delist Tether (USDT) for Canadian users effective Jan 31, 2023...
[...]
"You may incur a retrieval fee if deposits of USDT are made from external wallets after this suspension period, and fund retrieval may not be possible in some cases."

Read more: Crypto.com delists USDT for Canadian users following OSC ban
Image source: https://twitter.com/charlestrussel/status/1612740555691425792/photo/1

[FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahamian authorities this evening after the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York shared a sealed indictment with the Bahamian government, setting the stage for extradition and U.S. trial for the onetime crypto billionaire at the heart of the crypto exchange’s collapse.]

Here's what we're waiting for, after what he's done. I guess everyone who's been a victim of FTX fall is now getting some justice.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahamian authorities this evening after the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York shared a sealed indictment with the Bahamian government, setting the stage for extradition and U.S. trial for the onetime crypto billionaire at the heart of the crypto exchange’s collapse.

News: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. files criminal charges

Those that still have their mentioned assets on Coinbase, you better withdraw it immediately they'll be stopping the support for these by January 2023 as per Coinbase's article but on Coindesk, it says December 5. Although from their website says that it won't be lost because as long as you still have the recovery phrase, you'll still be able to access it but it's better to have it on your own posession before anything else.

As of January 2023, Coinbase Wallet will no longer be supporting the following assets and networks due to low usage: BCH, ETC, XLM and XRP.

And the main reason why they're going to stop supporting these coins because of;

Coinbase cited "low usage" as a reason for delisting the four coins,

Sources:
https://help.coinbase.com/en/wallet/getting-started/what-types-of-crypto-does-wallet-support
Coinbase Wallet to End Support for Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, Ripple's XRP and Stellar's XLM

Fidelity just opened bitcoin trading accounts. What this means to the market? Fidelity is one of the biggest assets manager or a financial institutions worldwide. To know more, you can just visit their website directly.
I think they just did it on time because of how FTX messed up, they're the ones that's catching all of those customers that they've left. But, I don't want to celebrate early on this one. It's another centralized platform but I don't know how it will be done by them. What can you say about this news? Are you bullish? Or are you worried as another big financial institution and centralized platform gets in?

Certain users have received emails detailing their new access to purchase and sell bitcoin on the Fidelity platform.

I wonder aside from buying and selling, will they allow to withdraw those bitcoins and it's not just going to be an appearing number on their customers account?

Source: FIDELITY BEGINS OPENING RETAIL BITCOIN TRADING ACCOUNTS

[REMINDER]

I saw this post made by Trading View that Wrapped BTC(WBTC) has been depegged to bitcoin for 14 straight days. To those that are into WBTC, you may take this chart as a potential warning.

https://www.facebook.com/tradingview/photos/a.802024629816535/5993085974043682/

And after looking at this chart, I've compared from a few sources, cmc and coingecko for its price. So for those who don't know it yet, wrapped bitcoin is like USDT that's tied and pegged to dollars while wrapped bitcoin is tied and pegged to bitcoin's price.

But look at the difference of WBTC which should be pegged to bitcoin's price. I know that there's a difference for different source of market prices. And with these two sources, coinmarketcap and coingecko, looking at both wbtc and btc that proves that it's not tied or pegged to btc's price anymore.


[Two images at top from coinmarketcap.com]
[Two images at the bottom from coingecko.com]

With the bear market and things happening to exchanges and projects, it's possible that this (WBTC) could be the next to bite the dust.

REMINDER: WBTC IS NOT A REAL BITCOIN.

Sources: https://www.facebook.com/tradingview/photos/a.802024629816535/5993085974043682/
             https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
             https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/wrapped-bitcoin/              
             https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin
             https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/wrapped-bitcoin

[Ash Ketchum (Japanese: サトシ Satoshi)]

As I've seen the news[1] about Ash Ketchum(main character) of Pokemon became the very best. All of those folks that have watched the series when they're young understands the first lyrics of its intro song. "I wanna be the very best". So, it was after 25 years when he became a Pokemon World Champion.
Little did I know, when I've watched the highlight[2] of the final battle of Ash. The video's subtitle was on and to my surprise Ash was called "Satoshi" by his opponent. Seriously, for that long, I didn't know that Ash = Satoshi in the original language of the series. Yes, I've got no idea for the whole existence of this anime until I've read that subtitle.

So, in theory, is it possible that Satoshi Nakamoto got the alias from Ash Ketchum in original japanese name of the protagonist and watched the series and derived that first name and just added the surname Nakamoto from somewhere else as reference too?

This could be a kiddy stuff for most but what do you think?

Ash Ketchum (Japanese: サトシ Satoshi) is the main character of the Pokémon anime. He is also the main character of various manga based on the anime, including The Electric Tale of Pikachu, Ash & Pikachu, and Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl.

He is a Pokémon Trainer from Pallet Town whose goal is to become a Pokémon Master.

References:
[1] After 25 Years, Ash Ketchum Finally Becomes Pokemon World Champion
      https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ash_Ketchum

Image source:
[2] Ash VS Leon Final Battle - Pokemon World Championship Eng Sub



    

[KEY TAKEAWAYS]

I don't know if many will be happy with this news because it's another centralized company that's stepping to the market. I remember the CEO of this company, Jamie Dimon, that has said too many negative things about bitcoin IIRC, that was around on 2018. And then afterwards, he changed his heart and said good things about it and it tends out that he's been investing already to the crypto market. Here are some short details about what this Morgan wallet and the said trademark is all about. And read more from the sources attached to this post.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), officially registered a trademark for cryptocurrency wallets.
JPMorgan is focusing on offering crypto payment services, including crypto payment processing, virtual checking account, and more.
Even though CEO Jamie Dimon believes cryptos are not a good investment, the bank continues to explore them.

What is J.P. Morgan Wallet?
Real-time virtual sub-ledgers that help manage and scale any number of customer, supplier and vendor1  payments in an organized, easy-to-reconcile way.

How Wallet Works
Connect via APIs to help simplify domestic and cross-border receivables and disbursements. Use Wallet globally2 for management of highly-scalable virtual accounts in real-time.

Sources: https://www.investopedia.com/jpm-crypto-wallet-6831467
              https://www.jpmorgan.com/solutions/treasury-payments/jpmorgan-wallet

With all the ruckus in the market made by FTX. There have been some good news in the past few days that we haven't noticed and this is what the title is all about. Let's take it first about bitcoin mining, so for those that have been thinking if Shell is going to mine bitcoin. I've read a few articles about it and I've been also jebaited by those headlines. What these articles are talking about is, Shell is going to help bitcoin miners with their cooling system from the technology that they have and through their coolants/lubricants. So, it's like they're going to enter the market indirectly through those data centers that might need their cooling systems.

Lastly, Shell had a 2-year deal with Bitcoin magazine and will sponsor the 2023-2024 BTC conferences. It's a great deal honestly, knowing that Shell is an oil giant so, this is like two birds in one stone for the whole bitcoin community.

Read more from the sources
where I've read this news: Oil Giant Shell Makes Move Into Bitcoin Mining Industry – Here’s What You Need to Know
Photo & article: Shell oil company will bring solutions for Bitcoin mining

Yesterday was the 14th Bitcoin whitepaper anniversary and it seems like it's just yesterday when it all started. Rides and waves of up and down. And if you're worried and feeling down looking at the price of bitcoin these days because it's not moving a lot. Just take a closer look at this table made by someone that I've seen. I'm not associated with the guy and the website, I've actually visited it but I can't find this image there.

Nonetheless, this is a good motivation for those that are impatient about bitcoin's price or wanting to see it pump as soon as possible. Just enjoy the ride and this table will make you patient and want to see more about bitcoin in the future. According to the table, looking at the gain of it, that's 10.2 million times of percentage for its yesterday's price for bitcoin since the same date of 2010. But obviously, the highest was still last year which was the bull run. Now, just take a look at those prices on the same date from different years. That will be enough motivation to HODL and DCA as we're waiting for the next halving and bull run.



Source1
Source2

[Let's report these suspicious and harmful phishing links, not just this one but the others too through the link below:]

I was just browsing some random stuff on Google and then this appeared on my search. See image below.



It's shown at the top search and I'm sure that many of us know that Google don't really filter these phishing and scam websites. After I've seen the ad, I'm aware of it that it is sketchy and tried to visit it. And this is what it has shown me, the website is asking for these two wallets to connect to them. I'm safe since I don't have those wallets installed on my browser.



So there it goes, not so unknown conclusion that many have been hacked through this. The forceful asking for the users to connect to their Metamask, Wallet Connect and other wallets before accessing into these fake websites and services lead the victims into stealing their funds.

And that's why for newbies and even those folks that have been long in the community, be careful. This isn't just the one and there are other websites that they are copying. For example, the popular crypto websites like exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, etc.) and other wallet services aside from Coinmarketcap.

Let's report these suspicious and harmful phishing links, not just this one but the others too through the link below:

I think we need a volunteer here to report them to Google below
- https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en

If more people report it I'm sure this domain will remove immediately from their Google ads and it also help our community to fall into this trap.

The links below are the phishing links that has been also caught by other forum members, if you've got spare time, let's report all of them. These are the few from the many out there.

Code:

Coinnmarkuetcap[dot]us
Coinnmarkeetcap[dot]us
coinnmarkedtcap[dot]us
coinnmarkemtcap[dot]us

https://bscacan-home.info/

www.coinsmarketcakp.us
www.coinmarrkehtcap.us
www.cokinnmarketcap.us

Code:

https://coinmaprrketcap.us/

www.coinlmarketicap.us
www.coinmadrketcaap.us

Code:

https://www.coinmarket-account.cc/
http://www.coinnjmarketcap.us/

This isn't sponsored or paid post by Coingecko.

I was just browsing and saw their post on their Facebook page and it hits me after reading it. A throwback Thursday and it's been a year already since bitcoin has reached $64K+ (actually $66k on CMC's chart as for checking it) and there's more to this price because this wasn't the highest. But considering this throwback and this price is closest to the ATH that we've made last year. I'm sure that many will reminisce that moment when you're about to sell but didn't because you think that the price will go higher until you were not able to sell and missed it. And also those that have bought at the top and then has to hold it until now or sold when it's a bit lower to cut losses.

Well, just a reminder that it's been one year that has passed and there's going to be more to go and hopefully, we go back to that former price and even higher soon as we know a few years from now, halving is about to come.


Source