The CEO of top cryptocurrency exchange Binance has said President Trump’s crypto-related tweets can only be a good thing for the industry. The CEO of top cryptocurrency exchange Binance has said President Trump’s crypto-related tweets can only be a good thing for the industry.‘The president of the United States is talking about cryptocurrency’Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) told CNBC in an interview published on July 23 that even though Trump has been critical of the asset class in his rhetoric, he has not done anything as of yet that damages the industry. On the contrary, the publicity — coming from the highest echelons of power in the Western political world — in itself is a win for crypto:“Trump so far has not done anything positive or negative, he’s just said he’s not a fan. The fact that he tweeted about it, and the president of the United States is talking about cryptocurrency, it’s a good thing.”CZ even entertained the scenario that were Trump to go so far as to outright ban cryptocurrency ownership in the United States, the asset class would prevail, arguing that:“Cryptocurrency will survive regardless of any one country. Most countries that try to ban bitcoin cause their citizens to want cryptocurrency more.”The CEO also separately addressed this spring’s $40 million hack of Binance’s hot wallets, arguing that traditional financial institutions remain culpably more opaque in regard to such incidents:“Banks get hacked but they’re not transparent with the numbers. You see billions of dollars in fines for banks. Whereas with cryptocurrency there’s more transparency, which is actually good for the users because now they know what’s going on.”Trump tweets and regulators muscle inAhead of CZ’s comments, the CEO of another industry-leading trading platform — Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong — had similarly characterized the president’s crypto-dedicated tweets as being “yuge” for the industry, an opinion that was shared by a host of crypto space commentators:“Achievement unlocked! I dreamt about a sitting U.S. president needing to respond to growing cryptocurrency usage years ago. ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ We just made it to step 3 y'all.” To recall, Trump tweeted that he was “not a fan” of “Unregulated Crypto Assets” (capitals in the original), underscoring their potential use in the drug trade and other illicit activities.Meanwhile, Capitol Hill has been grilling social media titan Facebook on its planned cryptocurrency project Libra, homing in on concerns such as privacy, trust and regulatory compliance. Beyond the U.S., the G7 finance ministers have been voicing concerns over what they perceive to be the potentially systemic financial risks of Facebook’s plans. […]

Bitcoin was freely crossing the $10,000 mark Tuesday after losing another 6% in daily trading. Bitcoin (BTC) price slid back under $10,000 July 23 after a period of sideways action broke down to send the largest cryptocurrency back to four figures.Market visualization. Source: Coin360Bitcoin price swirls around five figure markData from Coin360 showed BTC/USD trading just below the barrier once again Tuesday, having failed to find support. At press time, the price fluctuated within $50 of $10,000.Previously, the pair traded in a narrow range around $10,300, on Monday dropping to those levels after circling $10,600 over the weekend.The latest downturn marks a repeat of the breakdown seen in Bitcoin last week, which resulted in a recent low of $9,125. Now, as then, analysts welcomed the opportunity to buy up cheap coins. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Courtesy of Coin360“Wanting to see a push back up to the neutral area or resistance. If not, more 4 digit BTC to accumulate,” investor Josh Rager summarized in his latest daily price note noting the importance of the $10,200-$10,350 range. As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin struggled in the wake of mixed views from the United States Congress last week, a geopolitical factor compounded Monday by fresh indications that India would seek to ban cryptocurrency altogether. At the same time, however, Bitcoin’s network statistics continue to set new records, with mining difficulty, hash rate and total value of transaction outputs all hitting new daily all-time highs.As Twitter user and Lightning Torch creator Hodlonaut noted, politics did not necessarily have a fairly-weighted impact on price action. One Congressman, he noted, had described Bitcoin as impossible to stop by any government. “9 days ago Bitcoin had not yet been called an 'unstoppable force' in the U.S. Congress. Still, price was almost 30% higher than now. Some dips are tastier than others,” he wrote.Altcoins fall in lineFor altcoin traders, meanwhile, there was less to celebrate. As BTC fell 5.5% on the day, most tokens in the top twenty cryptocurrencies by market cap saw similar losses.Tron (TRX) and NEO (NEO) fared worse, each losing around 13%, while the largest altcoin Ether (ETH) dipped 5.6% to hit $212.Ether 7-day price chart. Courtesy of Coin360The total cryptocurrency market cap was $274 billion at press time, with Bitcoin’s share remaining at 65.2%, a figure still almost at its highest since early 2017.Keep track of top crypto markets in real time her […]

Major American retail brokerage firm TD Ameritrade has launched Bitcoin futures trading. This article has been removed due to noncompliance with Cointelegraph’s quality policy. We carefully monitor the quality of the materials produced by us and this article did not pass the post-inspection.We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause. […]

Tron founder Justin Sun must postpone the Warren Buffet charity lunch due to medical reasons. The Tron Foundation is pushing back the Warren Buffett Lunch and press conferences to an unspecified date.According to an official Twitter post, Justin Sun — who successfully procured the lunch with Buffett by winning the affiliated charity auction —  is currently out of commission due to kidney stones, and associated parties have agreed to reschedule the lunch.In June, Tron founder and CEO Justin Sun won a charity auction on eBay to have lunch with Buffett, the famously successful investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Sun’s winning bid was apparently $4,567,888 — the highest bid in the event’s 20 year history.On July 19, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire accepted Sun’s invitation to join him at the lunch. In addition to Allaire, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee will also reportedly attend the event.Warren Buffett has notoriously voiced some incendiary anti-cryptocurrency views. Last May, Warren said that cryptocurrencies will end badly, and called Bitcoin “probably rat poison squared. "More recently, Warren claimed in February that Bitcoin (BTC) is a delusion, apparently because blockchain does not depend on BTC or actively produce something. Warren said: “You can stare at it all day, and no little Bitcoins come out or anything like that. It’s a delusion, basically.&rdquo […]

Bitfinex and Tether have replied to the Attorney General’s affirmations against case dismissal by arguing that they did not serve New York customers. Lawyers for Bitfinex and Tether, in the course of an ongoing case against the New York Attorney General (NYAG), submitted multiple fillings on July 22 alleging that the companies never served customers within New York. In one filing, attorney Stuart Hoegner noted the provision in Bitfinex’s terms of service that require that customers that transact be foreign entities:“Under Bitfinex’s and Tether’s Terms of Service, Eligible Contract Participants (“ECPs”) that transact with Bitfinex or Tether must be foreign entities. Although those foreign entities may have shareholders or personnel who reside in, or otherwise have contact with, the United States or New York, Bitfinex’s and Tether’s customers are the foreign entities themselves … Bitfinex and Tether do not transact with any New York ECPs.”In another filing, representatives from the firms Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP wrote:“... for purposes of personal jurisdiction, OAG [the Office of the Attorney General] cannot show Respondents engaged in any business activity purposefully directed at New York. OAG tries to confuse matters by referring to isolated instances where Respondents’ foreign customers have shareholders or other personnel in New York. But in those circumstances, Respondents’ counterparties — the ones with which Respondents actually transacted business — are the foreign entities.”Additionally, the lawyers also argue that even if the NYAG were successful in showing that the companies served New York residents, they have not established that the investors were affected by the companies’ activities.They argue that the dozens of documents filed by the Office of the NYAG submitted to establish the companies’ connection with New York residents only demonstrate “a grab bag of miscellaneous and unrelated New York contacts” rather than evidence that investors were actually harmed. The filing further states:“After broad jurisdictional discovery, OAG has not shown that any aspect of the Crypto Capital relationship or the loan transaction — the basis for the § 354 Order — touched on New York in any way. OAG has failed to identify a single New York customer who was misled or even considered representations about tether’s backing, nor any New Yorker harmed.”As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the New York-based Metropolitan Commercial Bank shut down accounts associated with Tether. A bank spokesperson reportedly said that Tether only held its accounts for five months, and that they saw negligible activity during this period. […]