Daedalus Wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet designed specifically for the Cardano blockchain. It is the official wallet for storing ADA, the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano platform. Daedalus is a full-node wallet, which means it downloads and locally stores the entire Cardano blockchain, providing users with increased security and control over their funds.
Benefits of Daedalus Wallet:
Security: Daedalus is a full-node wallet, which means it downloads and verifies the entire Cardano blockchain. This enhances security by reducing reliance on third-party servers.Control: Users have full control over their private keys, ensuring that they have ownership and access to their funds.Staking: Daedalus allows users to participate in the Cardano network’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism by staking their ADA. Staking rewards are earned by supporting the network’s security and functionality.User Interface: Daedalus provides a user-friendly interface, making it easy for users to manage their ADA holdings, delegate to staking pools, and view transaction history.Compatibility: Daedalus is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, providing broad compatibility.
Disadvantages of Daedalus Wallet:
Blockchain Download: The initial blockchain download can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, as it requires users to download the entire Cardano blockchain.Resource Requirements: Running a full node wallet like Daedalus may require a significant amount of disk space and computational resources.Learning Curve: For beginners, the full range of features in Daedalus may have a learning curve, especially for those unfamiliar with cryptocurrency wallets and blockchain technology.
Main Use in Detail:
The main use of the Daedalus Wallet is to securely store and manage ADA, the cryptocurrency native to the Cardano blockchain. Users can send and receive ADA, delegate their holdings for staking, and participate in the Cardano network’s consensus mechanism. The wallet’s full-node nature enhances security and decentralization.
One notable feature is the ability to delegate ADA to staking pools directly from the wallet interface, allowing users to earn staking rewards and support the Cardano network without relying on external services.
Overall, Daedalus serves as a comprehensive and secure wallet solution for users deeply involved in the Cardano ecosystem, offering features beyond basic transaction capabilities.

MicroStrategy’s inclusion in the MSCI World Stock Index brings attention to the significance of cryptocurrency. The performance of MSTR stock surpasses that of Bitcoin, which is regarded as a proxy for Bitcoin.
The widely-known cryptocurrency investment firm MicroStrategy is now a part of the MSCI World Stock Index. This change shows how crypto is becoming a regular part of people’s standard investing portfolios.
Everyone knows that MicroStrategy is a big believer in Bitcoin. The company’s decision to purchase Bitcoin with a significant amount of its financial reserves made news throughout the epidemic. They bought 214,400 BTC at an average price of $35,180 each.
The inclusion of this comes as MicroStrategy stock (MSTR) is experiencing a fantastic year. Its price has tripled since last year, far outpacing Bitcoin’s remarkable climb. During Bitcoin’s peak earlier this year, MSTR stock likewise saw a leap to new highs. Nevertheless, MSTR’s price fell more than 30% due to a recent market slump that prompted a retreat.
Prior to the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs this year, many investors saw MicroStrategy stock as a means to indirectly own Bitcoin. When it comes to providing Bitcoin exposure via the stock market, MicroStrategy may face competition from these new investment vehicles. On top of that, there are analysts who have gone short on the company because they think it’s too expensive right now.
Regardless of these reservations, the general opinion among analysts is still good. There is still room for growth in the market for MSTR, as the average 12-month price objective is approximately 30% higher than where it is now. Joining the MSCI index solidifies the company’s standing in the stock and cryptocurrency markets, where digital assets are merging with conventional ones.

FanTV, leading socialFi app with more than 4 mn users, has partnered with Mysten Labs to bring mass adoption to web3FanTV aims to onboard over 100,000 creators and 10 million users in the next 12-18 monthsSui with impeccable qualities – high TPS, low gas fees, high scalability – is perfect for FanTV’s high-volume needs
Dubai, 7th May 2024 – FanTV is a web3 SocialFi app, poised to disrupt the content creation and consumption market via its unique watch-to-earn offering. FanTV has announced its move to the Sui blockchain via a technical partnership with Mysten Labs,  to fuel the global creator economy and empower creators. FanTV had earlier raised $5.5 mn in their seed round led by Multicoin capital with Krafton, IOSG Ventures, Woodstock Fund.
The global video streaming market size is projected to grow more than four-fold to over USD $1.9 trillion by 2030 with the creator economy leading the charge. FanTV with its unique offering is at the forefront of this revolution with 4 million users and more than 20,000 creators on the platform. FanTV is the leading SocialFi dApp on Polygon with more than 1.5 million  smart wallets, solidifying its contribution to onboarding the masses to Web3. FanTV now plans to onboard creators across the globe and help them build their fan bases and monetize their crafts.
Founded by Prashan Agarwal, ex-CEO of Gaana (one of India’s largest music streaming platforms that raised $115M from Tencent), FanTV is a decentralized video and live streaming platform that empowers creators to create content, monеtizе their creativity, and build money-can’t-buy experiences using exclusive gated communities. On FanTV, creators and users are both rewarded for their contributions to the growth of the platform.
Prashan Agarwal, Founder and CEO, FanTV, expressed excitement about the collaboration, stating, “At FanTV, our vision has always been to empower creators and users. Content creators and users have primarily been the product while the respective platform reaps majority of the benefit. FanTV is hyper-focused on disrupting that status quo. We believe that content creators and consumers are the backbone and should be rewarded proportionately for their contribution. Consumer disruption at scale requires disruptive technology, Sui’s blockchain technology, and commitment to creator empowerment further solidifies this partnership as a win-win. We’re thrilled to embark on this journey of unleashing the full potential of Web3 social together. FanTV’s vision to revolutionize the creator economy is a natural alignment with the values of Sui, the innovative Layer 1 and smart contract platform. This is just the beginning, and our aim is to onboard over 100,000 creators and 10 million users in the next 12-18 months”.

Multiple agencies are closing in on a crypto fraud scam that had a value in the millions of euros.
Eurojust, the EU agency for criminal justice cooperation, collaborated with law enforcement in three member states to stop a cryptocurrency scam reportedly operating out of Austria that saw victims lose millions of euros.
Eurojust characterized the scheme’s active period from December 2017 to February 2018 as an exit scam. During this period, criminals used a fake business website to trick people into purchasing a questionable cryptocurrency that was promoted as a freshly released digital asset.
The con artists from Austria “exited” the scam in February 2018, so they went black by removing all traces of their online presence, including social media profiles and the website for the fake business.
“Investors knew they had been ripped off by this so-called exit scam. About 6 million euros went down the drain. Currently, Eurojust has not been able to identify all victims of the scam.”
The police then began a massive quest for the con artists, which culminated on May 8 with the arrest of six individuals and the taking of two automobiles 750,000 euros in assets and 1.4 million euros in property.
Europol, the Cyprus Police, the National Organised Crime Agency of the Czech Republic, and the Central Public Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption of Austria were among the several agencies cited in the announcement as having worked together to carry out the search and seizure.

The former Cred CEO and CFO are required to make a plea on May 8, after their first court hearings on May 2.
Cred, a cryptocurrency lender that went bankrupt in November 2020, saw three executives face charges related to wire fraud and money laundering.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said on May 3 that “this prosecution underscores our dedication to maintaining our markets free of fraudsters and secure for investors.”
On thirteen counts of wire fraud and money laundering, along with four counts against chief commercial officer James Alexander, former chief executive officer Daniel Schatt and chief finance officer Joseph Podulka face accusations.
“It illustrates a predatory, misleading scheme that bilked prospective victims out of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin at market value,” said Mark Mosley, the acting special agent in charge of criminal investigations at the American Internal Revenue Service.
Many Cred customers took to social media after the company’s bankruptcy announcement in November 2020 to express their fears and enquire as to whether “their funds are secure.”
According to the prosecution, the three executives lied to Cred’s clients about the company’s lending and investing policies.
Cred supposedly said that it limited itself to “collateralized or guaranteed lending,” that it “hedged” its bitcoin holdings, and that it used an “all-weather strategy” to invest to shield itself from market fluctuations.
Cred allegedly participated in loans that “were neither collateralized nor guaranteed,” according to the prosecution.
The first court appearance for Schatt and Podulka was on May 2, and they are required to return on May 8 to enter a plea. The first court date for Alexander is still pending.
A sentencing hearing for Alex Mashinsky, a former chief executive officer of a cryptocurrency lending business that went bankrupt in July 2022, will take place in September 2024. Mashinsky is facing seven felony counts related to the collapse of the company.
In the meantime, creditors are attempting to reach a settlement with Genesis, another cryptocurrency loan company that declared bankruptcy in January 2023. Genesis made $2.1 billion on April 2 from the sale of about 36 million shares in its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

MicroStrategy declares the release of MicroStrategy Orange, a Bitcoin blockchain-based decentralized identity solution.
The biggest Bitcoin (BTC) holding corporation, MicroStrategy, is currently introducing MicroStrategy Orange, a blockchain-based decentralized identification solution. At MicroStrategy World 2024 in Las Vegas, the platform unveiled MicroStrategy Orange as part of the Bitcoin for Corporations section.
Michael Saylor, chairman of MicroStrategy, posed an intriguing idea during the event: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was an orange check that was a worldwide standard instead of a blue check, green check, etc.” He went on to say that MicroStrategy will make this decentralized identification using Bitcoin a reality.
Crypto enthusiast Dylan LeClair discussed MicroStrategy’s Orange protocol on X. In his description of the protocol’s implementation of Bitcoin DID, he said, “The Bitcoin Inscription DID method (did:btc) leverages inscriptions in witness data to store and manage DIDs, using UTXOs for DID management.”
Unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) are supposedly the key to MicroStrategy Orange’s vision for the safe and effective administration of digital identities. Also, the protocol is working on a way to make blocks smaller and cut down on transaction costs.
Saylor emphasised their goal of implementing a “internet native decentralized digital identity powered by Bitcoin” in a section titled Bitcoin Security. His explanation of why Bitcoin is better than other blockchains was further detailed when he said,
“Well, it [Bitcoin] is fault tolerance, it is censorship resistance, it does employ the most sophisticated encryption, and it’s a lot better than most people’s taskwork managers and this federated system.”
The announcement follows a loss of $53.1 million in MicroStrategy’s fiscal report for the first quarter of 2024. On the other hand, the first quarter gross profit was $85.2 million, or 74.0% of the gross margin, according to the report.

Seized by India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED), this is a significant crypto money laundering case linked to a gaming app. Coincident with the scandal, the government also confiscated crypto assets frozen at ₹90 crore ($10 million).
The seventy accounts connected to the big cryptocurrency wallets Binance, ZebPay, and WazirX had frozen cryptos, according to the department’s news statement from Tuesday.
Reportedly, the software, “E-Nugget,” attracted players by pretending to be a gaming platform and offering them double returns on investment.
According to ED, users were unable to withdraw payments since E-Nugget suddenly suspended operations.
After the ED found that some of the funds were put in digital assets, the investigation reportedly started in 2022, according to local sources. The enquiry also found that around 2,500 fraudulent bank accounts were examined, leading to the confiscation of ₹19 crore, or $2.27 million.
The enquiry led to the arrest of Amir Khan, the scam’s mastermind, who is now in the custody of the court.
In November 2022, ED requested that Binance seize 150.22 bitcoins associated with E-Nugget, which were worth $2.5 million at the time. As of 2022, the ED said that the case’s confiscated assets were worth a total of $8.4 million.
These latest arrests follow five others made in September in Kolkata in connection to the gambling app, which led to the confiscation. Police said that the kingpin, Khan, was reportedly hiding away outside of India at the moment.
During that period, the police in Kolkata conducted searches and confiscated a number of SIM boxes. A municipal office was the victim of a theft that included over 3,000 ATM and debit cards, computers, and over 2,000 SIM cards. When it comes to retail cryptocurrency adoption, India is right up there with the best of them in recent years.

Saylor is a well-known Bitcoiner who talks about Bitcoin’s advantages over gold, stocks, and traditional currencies.
Michael Saylor, CEO and co-founder of MicroStrategy and a major Bitcoin investor, has been vocal in his support of the first cryptocurrency on x (Twitter). This time around, he compared Bitcoin to other assets and praised its strength as a store of wealth in his tweet.
Saylor wrote on X/Twitter, “Bitcoin is for people who can’t afford to lose their money.” Saylor shown in the accompanying animated graphic that the proportion of original Bitcoin value to Bitcoin has remained constant at 100% after the half that occurred in 2016 (the second halving event in Bitcoin’s existence).
As a result, Michael Saylor said that it has been an ideal store of wealth when contrasted with its competitors, which include gold, the S&P 500, American real estate, the US dollar, and three other fiat currencies (although used in nations with problematic economies): the Argentine peso, the Turkish lira, and the Nigerian naira.
The Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor is in charge of MicroStrategy, which stated in April that it had acquired 122 more BTC. Buying those Bitcoins for $63,934 cost the business intelligence firm almost $7.8 million.
The present value of the 214,400 bitcoins held by the corporation is an astounding $5.68 billion. The price of the biggest cryptocurrency in the world has fallen dramatically during the last month, falling from $72,450 to its current level of $58,150.
Following news of Binance’s CZ’s four-month jail term and the arrests of “Bitcoin Jesus” Roger Ver for tax evasion in Spain and Hong Kong, Bitcoin’s value dropped by almost 10% in the last day. On the first day of trading, among other crucial considerations, Bitcoin-Ethereum ETFs fell short of traders’ expectations.

The crypto world is paying attention to a recent tweet by X (previously Twitter) owner and inventive entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also manages Tesla, SpaceX, and a number of other start-ups. 
The software billionaire proposed a straightforward way for everyone to support free expression on the X platform in his social media post. Many members of the community have voiced their support for this endeavour.
A monthly membership to the X Premium service is all that’s needed to promote free speech, according to Musk’s tweet addressing the community. In his letter, the owner of X expressed his gratitude for subscribing to it.
Some users thanked Musk for buying X/Twitter and promoting free expression worldwide, while others confirmed that many more had joined previously.
However, it has been noted by some that X continues to restrict users from expressing their opinions, although no specific instances were provided.
The owner of the @XRPcryptowolf X account inquired Musk about the potential launch of X Premium payment using the Ripple-affiliated XRP token.
A report from the U.Earlier today, Elon Musk said on Twitter that Tesla, a behemoth in the electric vehicle industry, plans to spend up to $10 billion on artificial intelligence training this year. As of the first quarter, Tesla has already invested $1 billion in this.
The tech tycoon went on to say that a firm can’t hope to compete in this market unless it is willing to invest that much and does it efficiently.

On April 28, the founder of Io.net will dispel apprehension, uncertainty, and dread by demonstrating live cluster formation via livestream.
There was a recent cyberattack on the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) known as Io.net. On the GPU network, malicious users were able to make unauthorized changes to device metadata by using exposed user ID tokens to perform a SQL injection attack.
Io.net’s chief security officer, Husky.io, wasted no time in implementing fixes and security patches to shore up the system. Thanks to their strong permission layers, the GPUs’ real hardware was luckily unharmed by the assault.
A rise in write operations to the GPU metadata API triggered alarms at 1:05 am Pacific Standard Time on April 25, during which the vulnerability was found.
The answer was to strengthen security by making it more difficult to inject SQL into APIs and by better documenting instances of illegal attempts. Another quick fix for issues with UATs was the implementation of a user-specific authentication system based on Auth0 and OKTA.
This security upgrade happened to coincide with a snapshot of the rewards program, which is bad since it will make the projected decline in supply-side participation much worse. As a result, the number of active GPU connections dropped dramatically from 600,000 to 10,000, since valid GPUs that failed to restart and update were unable to use the uptime API.
In response to these difficulties, in May we launched Ignition Rewards Season 2 to motivate supply-side involvement. Upgrading, restarting, and reconnecting devices to the network is an ongoing operation that involves coordinating with vendors.
Vulnerabilities in the implementation of a proof-of-work approach to detect fake GPUs led to the compromise. Due to an increase in attack tactics caused by aggressive security patches applied before the event, ongoing security evaluations and enhancements are necessary.
Attackers accidentally exposed user IDs while searching by device IDs by taking advantage of an API vulnerability that allowed content display in the input/output explorer. This stolen data was already in a database for a few weeks prior to the incident.
The perpetrators gained access to the “worker-API” by using a legitimate universal authentication token, which allowed them to modify device information without needing authentication at the user level.
Husky.io highlighted the need for regular, comprehensive inspections and penetration testing on public endpoints in order to identify and mitigate attacks promptly. There have been setbacks, but work is continuing to reestablish network connections and promote supply-side involvement, which will guarantee the platform’s integrity and allow it to serve thousands of compute hours every month.
In March, Io.net intended to improve its AI and ML offerings by integrating technology from Apple’s silicon processor family.

Launching USDT and XAUT, Tether moves into Telegram’s TON network to facilitate worldwide payments.
The USDT stablecoin and Tether Gold (XAUT), both backed by gold, are the products of a recent partnership between Tether and Telegram’s Open Network.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and Telegram creator Pavel Durov were among the keynote speakers at the Dubai-based Token2049 event, where this statement was made.
This partnership introduces Tether’s stablecoins to the TON blockchain, allowing them to be part of Telegram’s growing ecosystem.
Overtaking Dogecoin, TON is now the ninth biggest blockchain by market value. According to Ardoino, this step furthers Tether’s vision of a decentralized and global financial system, which will improve the user experience via easier transactions and more liquidity.
The TON Foundation’s Jack Booth emphasized how using Tether’s stablecoins will open up new possibilities for international money transfers by bridging the gap between fiat and crypto.
This puts Tether in a position to possibly change the way cryptocurrency is used for international payments, particularly considering that Telegram has more than 900 million users.
In the past, users of Telegram could purchase USDT using Wallet, an external service. But with this new project, USDT on TON will have another way to transact besides the most popular form of USDT on the Tron network.
Tether Data, Tether Finance, Tether Power, and Tether Edu are the four new business divisions that Tether announced with the stablecoin debut. The goal of these departments is to increase Tether’s footprint in the digital currency industry’s educational, renewable energy, and technological sectors.
This next step in Tether’s growth highlights the company’s dedication to making digital currencies more practical and flexible for use in day-to-day financial transactions. Its ultimate goal is to combine the advantages of blockchain technology with those of the established banking system.
Tether released a feature a few weeks before this announcement that further increases its functionality and user flexibility by allowing users to move USDT across other blockchains.
A more equitable and efficient digital economy is within reach, thanks to Tether’s most recent innovations and strategic alliances, which push the integration of blockchain technology into mainstream financial operations forward.

The United Arab Emirates is only the beginning of where this partnership hopes to take AI solutions, which will eventually reach governments and corporations throughout the world.
Microsoft has announced a massive increase in its worldwide AI efforts with a strategic $1.5 billion investment in G42, an AI tech holding firm located in Abu Dhabi.
Microsoft has taken a giant leap forward in its quest to improve artificial intelligence (AI) research and increase the accessibility of cutting-edge technology in the UAE and throughout the world with the announcement of this cooperation on April 16.
G42 will run its artificial intelligence apps and services on Microsoft’s Azure platform as part of this collaboration.
Beyond the United Arab Emirates, this partnership hopes to provide big businesses and governments throughout the world with cutting-edge AI solutions.
This investment is part of a larger effort to diversify the UAE’s AI workforce and talent pool by strengthening skill development.
G42 chairman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan called the investment a “pivotal” point in the company’s history and highlighted its importance.
The larger goals of the collaboration were emphasised by Microsoft VP and chair Brad Smith, who said, “Our two firms will work together not just in the UAE but to deliver AI and digital infrastructure and services to neglected countries.”
Further strengthening the strategic synergy between the two firms, Smith is also likely to join G42’s board of directors.
A trend of billion-dollar promises across different geographies by Microsoft includes this latest investment in G42.
For instance, the business pledged around 3 billion euros to improve Germany’s AI infrastructure over the next two years on February 15.
The following year, Microsoft announced plans to spend $2 billion on artificial intelligence infrastructure in Spain, with the goal of boosting the country’s expertise in technology.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently announced plans for a “major, long-term investment” in the United Kingdom on April 9. The investment would involve recruiting efforts targeting “enthusiastic innovators.”
These initiatives show that Microsoft is actively trying to increase its AI presence throughout the world. Nevertheless, Microsoft isn’t the only one doing this.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has been meeting with Fortune 500 company leaders to promote AI services, with the goals of expanding OpenAI’s income streams and entering new industries. Altman wants to portray OpenAI as a rival to Microsoft, a big player in the artificial intelligence industry.

Binance, a dominant player in the cryptocurrency industry, has switched its $1 billion safety fund to USDC, a strategic move that might lead to more openness and a return to the Indian market.
In an effort to gain user trust and conform to regulatory requirements, Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, said on Thursday that it would convert its US$1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to USDC stablecoin.
About three percent of the USDC in circulation is attributable to the SAFU conversion. “We are transferring all of SAFU’s assets to USDC today. Binance said that using a stablecoin for SAFU that is trustworthy, audited, and transparent will further increase its trustworthiness and guarantee that it stays stable at $1B.”
At the same time, Binance is reportedly reorganizing its operations to conform with the country’s legislation as part of its continuing discussions to return to the Indian market, as reported Thursday by The Economic Times.
After settling a $2 million fine and getting in line with the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) regulations—including the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the crypto taxation framework—Binance is planning to return to India.
Binance was a major player in India’s cryptocurrency scene before its interim suspension for non-compliance, with Indian investors reportedly owning some US$3.6 billion in crypto assets on the site (Economic Times, 2019).
An important step forward for Binance in Dubai was getting a complete Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license, which opens the door for the business to serve a wider range of customers, including individual investors.
In order to comply with regulations, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao has made significant concessions in governance, including giving up ownership of Binance FZE, an organization domiciled in Dubai.

In order to reach his goal of a post-deal value of $18 billion for the firm, Musk is hoping to raise $3 billion to $4 billion.
The new artificial intelligence (AI) business xAI, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, is responsible for creating the Grok chatbot. Musk is now attempting to raise up to $4 billion for the company.
As mentioned in a recent email sent out to prospective contributors, Musk is making it possible for certain investors to participate in fundraising rounds using special purpose vehicles (SPVs).
Investment vehicles known as special purpose vehicles (SPVs) enable several investors, such as VC firms and private investors, to combine their resources into one.
Despite offering a structured approach to investing, this system is not without its stated up-front costs of up to 5% plus ongoing management fees and interest.
Musk hopes to raise $3–$4 billion in funding, with a post-deal worth of $18 billion for the firm. Specifically, the email said that the goal is to raise the funds “in the next 2-3 weeks on a first-come, first-served basis.”
The San Francisco Bay Area-based company xAI, which Musk founded in March 2023, was formally launched in July of the same year.
The organization’s overarching objective is “comprehending the fundamental essence of the cosmos.” The company claims that its November release of the X-linked chatbot Grok, which outperforms OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was its first product.
The email to investors underlined the AI model’s training on data obtained from Musk’s X microblogging network as a possible selling point, in addition to Musk’s known success with Tesla.
“Concerns about an AI bubble emerge amid skyrocketing valuations and excessive development expenses,” says Mario Nawfal, an angel investor and entrepreneur who has spoken out against the recent surge of investments in artificial intelligence.
In addition to putting an emphasis on internal skills, xAI leverages AI tutors from a variety of disciplines to produce and improve high-quality data for training and evaluating models, as stated on the business website.
In March, Musk made a big announcement: xAI’s AI chatbot would be open-sourced. This will make it a rival to proprietary models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Even though it has a high value and is using new technology, xAI is still pretty small. It has only 10 full-time programmers and uses between 5,000 and 10,000 GPUs.
The business did not respond immediately when Cointelegraph asked for further information from xAI. Grok faces stiff competition in the artificial intelligence chatbot space from technologies such as ChatGPT by OpenAI, Claude by Antropic, Copilot by Microsoft, Gemini by Google, and Meta AI by the formal name Facebook.

Recent remarks by Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari raised red flags over the potential dangers of cryptocurrency.
Kashkari expressed worry regarding consumer protection in relation to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies during his Linkedin Live discussion with Pensions & Investments Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Ablan.
According to Kashkari, Bitcoin is a “consumer protection concern” since not all investors have a firm grasp on cryptocurrency. The unpredictability of cryptocurrency prices, Kashkari said, might hurt a lot of people. From a consumer standpoint, Kashkari expressed worry about the abundance of fraud, dishonesty, and misunderstanding.
The author draws a comparison between Beanie Babies and Bitcoin, stating that the cryptocurrency “has no actual function in the economy other than being a cute toy that some people enjoy buying and trading.” In his opinion, Bitcoin is just useful for traders who are “trying to avoid banking restrictions, conceal drug banking, or engage in illicit behavior,” he said.
Additionally, Kashkari drew similarities between Bitcoin and Amazon. Bitcoin has been around for almost ten years, but according to Kashkari, it still doesn’t have any real utility in a developed democracy, unlike Amazon in 1994. There was a lot of back and forth on Kashkari’s opinions on Bitcoin’s usage after this comment.
Even though he has always been skeptical about Bitcoin, Kashkari had a more positive outlook on cryptocurrencies around five or six years ago.

“Accidentally” owning a Bitcoin puppet worth $15,000 is Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, according to Arkham.
When it comes to Bitcoin, Cathie Wood has been a major advocate. Coincidentally, the investor’s financial firm happens to own a Bitcoin puppet.
The most recent patch for Arkham brought to light a curious development about the investment management firm’s accidental possession of a Bitcoin puppet worth $15,000. Their ARKB ETF’s custodial wallet became the destination of the Bitcoin Puppet in issue, leading many to wonder where it came from.
The puppet has been in circulation since January 4th, when bc1psg inscribed it and then it passed via two connected Ordinals wallets.
Wallet bc1pcw accidentally used the puppet’s engraved satoshis as payment while minting a Quantum Cat on February 5th.
Before arriving at the custody wallet of ARK Invest, the puppet made its way via many wallets linked to Wintermute, Coinbase, and Flow Traders.
Digital collectable Bitcoin Ordinals have been all the rage in the last year, attracting the attention of financial behemoth Franklin Templeton, among others. Ordinals are sparking a “renaissance” in Bitcoin activity, according to the company’s latest statement.
Some other major collections have already begun to claim supremacy in the NFT arena; they include Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, Runestone, Ordinal Maxi Biz, and Bitmap.
This shift mirrored the general public’s increasing awareness of Bitcoin’s many uses outside its traditional monetary function.
In spite of all this controversy, Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it will be closing down its Bitcoin NFT marketplace. The marketplace just went live a year ago.
This move is a component of “ongoing efforts to simplify product offerings on the Binance NFT Marketplace,” according to the company.

A CBDC wallet will now be available via non-payment operators, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The Indian central bank, RBI, has stated that its CBDC wallet will accept more suppliers. A key point of the bank’s announcement is its intention to allow non-payment operators to provide CBDC wallet services. Due to the initiative’s anticipated improvement in access and user options, the bank has said that it would implement the necessary improvements to enable this.
In a statement on developmental and regulatory policies, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) discussed recent changes to its financial sector laws and other recent events. The involvement of non-payment operators in the allocation of the bank’s CBDC was also detailed in the announcement. The CBDC’s retail and wholesale components are now the subject of a pilot test, the bank said.
By adding new use cases and participating institutions, the Reserve Bank of India has expanded the test’s scope, as it has also verified. The RBI also said that the inclusion of non-payment operators was an effort to make the retail CBDC accessible to a larger range of customers on an ongoing basis. In addition to putting the system through its paces with many transactions, this change will provide users with additional freedom of choice and access.
In November 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) began testing the digital rupee in the wholesale market. In December of the same year, it began testing it in the retail market. The Reserve Bank of India’s Deputy Governor addressed the high number of transactions in a later announcement. Thanks to its compatibility with UPI, India’s rapid payment system, the number of transactions reached one million in December 2023. But since then, he said, volumes have been rising slowly.
The total number of transactions has exceeded 22 million since the pilot test began in December 2022 and it is still going strong today. Over the same time period, over 400,000 businesses have helped out with the project, and over 4.6 million users have joined. Due to the small number of CBDC-accepting businesses, the majority of transactions have taken place between individuals. Since the majority of retailers have begun accepting it, there has also been a dramatic change in the retail CBDC market.
In light of the achievements, the RBI has declared its intention to include further features. The bank had previously stated in February that it would be expanding to programmable payments and offline functions. The first formal payment for agricultural goods was received by a farmer, and programmable payments have kicked off, although offline payments are still being tested internally.
The fact that crypto assets cannot be cryptocurrencies is evidence that crypto rules in India are still a major concern, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The minister did say that although there isn’t any legislation regarding cryptocurrency just now, she could see a framework coming together eventually. The governor of India’s central bank, Shaktikanta Das, spoke out earlier this year about the dangers that cryptocurrency poses to the country’s economy, currency, and financial system.

PayPal, the payments behemoth, is introducing its native stablecoin, PYUSD, to facilitate cost-free international money transfers.
Based on its money transfer platform, Xoom, the Silicon Valley-based startup unveiled the new function on Thursday. The press release states that the service will launch on April 4 for subscribers in the United States.
Users may now convert their PYUSD stablecoin in their connected PayPal account to USD and use it to transfer money to 160 destinations worldwide. It went on to say that Xoom will not charge any fees for transactions financed using the stablecoin.
Crypto senior VP Jose Fernandez da Ponte of PayPal stressed the need to establish a constant value to inspire trust among users. He went on to say how useful it is for things like online shopping and payments.
“Providing Xoom customers in the US with the option to finance international money transfers using PYUSD furthers our mission of increasing the usage of cryptocurrencies in everyday life while simultaneously providing a convenient and inexpensive means of sending money abroad.”
When a US user chooses PYUSD as their stablecoin, Xoom will convert it to USD without imposing a crypto selling charge. Then, to make sure everything goes well on both sides, the receiver will get the money in the fiat currency the sender selected.
Additional information from the statement said that for transactions not settled in USD, a transaction exchange rate is applied.
Users in the United States were able to transfer money directly to debit card holders last year using PayPal’s Xoom service, thanks to a partnership with Visa Direct.
Cryptocurrency transfers are much cheaper than conventional international remittances due to the elimination of intermediaries and associated costs. However, new decentralized digital currencies with several benefits over older ones have recently surfaced, such as Bitcoin and Ripple.
Stablecoins have recently emerged as an attractive alternative to conventional payment systems, according to a study by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) on the topic of cross-border payments.
According to the paper, stablecoins provide a more trustworthy form of trade than Bitcoin since its value is related to a stable asset.