Rachel-Rose O’Leary is a reporter at CoinDesk covering how cryptocurrencies are used in areas of economic, social and political unrest. This article is part of her series from Rojava, Syria.  As Islamic State (ISIS) sought to dominate large parts of Syria and Iraq, it used a subtle weapon to go with the car bombs and suicide attacks: money. The self-declared

Jeff Dorman, partner at crypto asset management firm Arca Funds, spent 18 years on Wall Street and in fintech before turning his focus to developing crypto asset strategies and products. This article originally appeared in ‘Institutional Crypto,’ a weekly CoinDesk newsletter focused on the institutional investors interested in crypto assets. The opinions expressed in this

Expectations were low for Daniel Jones when he took over the role of starting quarterback for the New York Giants in week three. All he had to do was play better than how Eli Manning had been playing—and he has. After two starts, he is 2-0, the Giants are 2-2, and they are only one

On Friday, former NFL wide receiver Antonio Bryant backed Andrew Yang for president in the 2020 Democratic primary. In a tweet hashtagged #YangGang, AB touted the New York tech entrepreneur and universal basic income proponent’s innovative ideas and concern for the average American. In under 24 hours, the post got 2.1K retweets and 13.8K likes.

Algo Capital, an investment firm focused  on the Algorand blockchain, lost a few million dollars in USDT and ALGO tokens after its chief technology officer’s phone was breached, CoinDesk has learned. According to a source familiar with the matter, Algo Capital reported to its limited partners Friday that Pablo Yabo, its CTO, had his mobile

The Lakers have adopted another dubious strategy for the 2019 season. Last year, they were determined to surround their new superstar LeBron James with washed-up veterans who couldn’t shoot. This year, they’re looking to sign people related to talented players. Lakers Missing the Point Again Los Angeles just signed David Stockton, son of Hall of

Dash, one of the top-20 cryptos by market cap, has picked up momentum over the past month with five new exchange listings. Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and local exchanges in Mexico, Brazil and Switzerland have bucked the trend against delisting so-called privacy coins and added Dash to their listings. Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor recently

The Takeaway Bitcoin prices have more than doubled in 2019, far outpacing the 31 percent return for U.S. tech stocks, which Goldman Sachs deems the best-performing asset class year-to-date. Outsize returns could attract interest from big investors in the yield-starved traditional financial markets. Executives at data firm Messari say bitcoin prices, currently around $8,200, could

Friday, October 4, 2019 – BitMax.io, an industry-leading digital asset trading platform, announced that there has been significant misrepresentation of facts and allegations against BitMax.io and its team in the follow-up to its delisting decision of DeepCloud AI (DEEP). This announcement is intended to help users to gain full transparency in the accuracy and completeness

The domain names stolen from the Ethereum Name Service’s (ENS) auction have been returned. As CoinDesk reported at the time, the ENS bidding process managed by digital-collectibles marketplace OpenSea was exploited, allowing a hacker to nab 17 domain names for lower bids than other users placed. ENS and OpenSea asked the hacker to return the

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would pay more than $5 billion in wealth tax during the first year of a Bernie Sanders presidency. But the social media boss claims he wouldn’t mind the 8% hit to his net worth. Mark Zuckerberg: ‘No one deserves to have that much money’ In a live-streamed Q&A session, the Facebook

PayPal has withdrawn from the Libra Association, the company announced Friday. A PayPal spokesperson told CoinDesk in a statement that the payments firm “made the decision to forgo further participation” in the Facebook-initiated crypto project, to instead “continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to

300cubits, an early innovator in using blockchain for international container shipping, has pulled the plug on its TEU token, citing lack of business. “The transaction volume through the system have been far from commercial,” the company wrote in a Sept. 30 statement. “Only a couple hundred containers have gone through the system, which, although may

Fans of the Minnesota Vikings can’t seem to catch a break. Having an $84 million quarterback does not appear to be worth the paper his contract is printed on—yeah, that isn’t good. Having a star player be openly critical of the team’s offense—also not great. But what really isn’t good are rumors that one of

View Bitcoin’s moving average convergence divergence (MACD) histogram is charting higher lows, indicating seller exhaustion. Other indicators are also reporting oversold conditions. A falling channel on the hourly chart may end with a bullish breakout and fuel a rally to $8,800. On the way higher, BTC may encounter resistance at $8,500 (200-day average). The case

Joe Rogan briefly touched on cryptocurrency and the potential of Google’s so-called “quantum supremacy” in a recent podcast with comedian Roseanne Barr. She prompted the brief discussion of crypto when she predicted the future economy will be cashless: “There’s not going to be any more money. I just don’t think there’s going to be any

4th October 2019, Singapore, Singapore –  Well-aware that global success is not an accident, fast-growing trading platform BiKi.com is strategically and meticulously penetrating new markets and countries. With recent appointments of key personnel, the ambitious exchange is poised and ready to continue the implementation of their global expansion initiatives.  South Korea marks the fifth stop

Futures on the Dow and broader U.S. stock market drifted lower in afterhours trading Friday, as investors zeroed in on a critical jobs report scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET. Dow Futures Climb; S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Follow Futures contracts for all three major U.S. indexes edged lower into the early Asian session. Dow Jones Industrial

One of the founding Libra Association members may be on the verge of pulling out. The Financial Times reported Thursday that payments firm PayPal is considering leaving the Facebook-initiated crypto project due in part to the regulatory backlash Libra has received in recent months. According to the Financial Times, PayPal representatives did not attend a

MakerDAO has patched a “critical” bug in its yet-to-be-launched Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) upgrade that could have put more than 10% of the system’s total collateral at risk. The bug was caught by HackerOne user lucash-dev, who reported it via the HackerOne forum and received a $50,000 bounty for uncovering the potentially devastating flaw. “Our auction

IKEA Iceland has taken part in a commercial transaction on ethereum, using smart contracts and licensed e-money to facilitate the settlement of an order from local retailer Nordic Store. The transaction was carried out on a platform provided by supply chain management firm Tradeshift and used “programmable digital cash” from ConsenSys-backed Monerium, according to an announcement

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and broader U.S. stock market rose in after-hours trading Thursday, clawing back some of their brutal losses from the prior session. As the outlook on the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate, Bloomberg provided a sobering take on the so-called Trump rally. Dow Futures Rise; S&P 500, Nasdaq

Two U.S. lawmakers want the Federal Reserve to consider creating a digital dollar. In a letter sent to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) outline concerns they have about risks to the U.S. dollar if another country or private company creates a widely used cryptocurrency, and ask

Donald Trump awkwardly patted Finnish president Sauli Niinistö’s leg at a joint press conference on Wednesday. You could say Finland’s president wasn’t very receptive to the gesture. The best part? It was all caught on video. Watch Trump awkwardly pat Finland’s president on the leg Trump gave the leg pat to add emphasis to the

The Dow Jones took a mammoth beating on Wednesday, plunging as much as 550 points as investors endured a miserable ADP nonfarm private sector employment report. Tuesday’s ISM manufacturing reading had the stock market on edge, and today’s jobs numbers confirmed evident weakness in a previously strong US labor market. Despite Donald Trump’s impeachment odds

The price of gold rallied Wednesday, extending its recovery to two days after stocks plunged over dismal economic data. Gold Rallies; Silver Follows Bullion shot above $1,500 a troy ounce, reaching a high of $1,511.30 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The December futures contract was last up $16.50, or 1.1%,

It is widely believed that the U.S. economy is heading toward a recession. The bad news is that the belief could turn into reality very soon as multiple recession indicators have started flashing all of a sudden. First, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) PMI report for September revealed a massive contraction in U.S. manufacturing

Parity Technologies released a new version of Parity Signer, a mobile application that turns old smartphones into offline wallets. The company announced the V3 beta on Wednesday, which will enable users to store assets, vote for governance proposals and sign transactions offline, with integrations for both the Polkadot and Ethereum blockchains. Offline, or “air-gapped,” wallets

It feels awkward to use the phrase “getting good” in the same sentence as “New York Giants.” I’m still not sure we’re quite there yet, but with rookie quarterback Daniel Jones behind center instead of Eli Manning, the offense has discovered that drives can last more than four downs—and all without the services of an

The extent of the micro-transactions in Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint puts EA’s efforts to shame, and that is no small feat. They are everywhere, pervasive even, encompassing every aspect of the game, which in itself doesn’t offer players all that much to write home about in the first place other than a generic take on