Cryptocurrency

According to Wall Street Journal, FTX is currently in discussions with BlockFi regarding the stake in the firm. The acquisition talks came as BlockFi secured a $250 million line of credit from FTX, which the crypto industry largely recognised as a "bailout." "BlockFi does not comment on market rumours. We are still negotiating the terms of the deal and cannot share more information at this time. We anticipate sharing more on the terms of the deal with the public at a later date," a BlockFi spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

The warning came as the cryptocurrency market continued to face meltdown with Bitcoin hovering around $21,000 per digital coin on Saturday -- a substantial drop from its record high of $68,000 in November last year. "Bitcoin is nothing more than a string of digital codes, and its returns mainly come from buying low and selling high," the newspaper said.

The electricity consumption of the bitcoin network has fallen by a third from its high of June 11, down to an annualised 131 terawatt-hours a year, according to estimates from the crypto analyst Digiconomist, The Guardian reported. That still equates to the annual consumption of Argentina, with a single conventional bitcoin transaction using the same amount of electricity that a typical US household would use over 50 days.

The report by global job portal Indeed also revealed an acceleration in the market's demand. In 2022, the increase was 315 per cent. Job postings in April 2022 were 15 times more than in 2019, highlighting the role of the pandemic in this sustained growth.

Cyber-security company CloudSEK said it has uncovered an ongoing operation involving several phishing domains and Android-based fake crypto applications. "This large-scale campaign entices unwary individuals into a huge gambling scam. Many of these bogus websites impersonate "CoinEgg", a legitimate UK-based cryptocurrency trading platform," according to the report.

The rally came after Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, dropped below $18,000 per digital coin on Sunday -- a massive over 70 per cent drop from its record high of $68,000 in November last year -- as mayhem in the crypto market continued.

Overall, the prices of top cryptocurrencies declined as much as 35 per cent last week in the wake of economic recession fears. The global market cap of cryptocurrencies sank below $850 billion, which recently hovered over $1 trillion. The second-largest Ethereum cryptocurrency fell below $1,000 on Sunday, down nearly 80 per cent since its all-time-high in November last year.

Share prices fell in Asia on Friday at the beginning of what was likely to be another torrid day for investors spooked by the US Federal Reserve's decision this week to raise interest rates by the largest margin for almost 30 years, the Guardian reported. Other leading central banks such as the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank have followed suit, the latter in its first hike for 15 years, sending economists scrambling to revise their forecast for growth downwards.

With a total of 40 FIRs registered by victims (more than 13 FIRs in Maharashtra alone)and Punjab, a large number of people from other states may have also lost their hard-earned savings in the GainBitcoin scam. Amit Bhardwaj, the mastermind who died of cardiac arrest earlier this year, may have collected Bitcoins anywhere between 385,000 to 600,000, amounting to more than Rs 1 trillion.

Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder said that while the company tried its best to get this just right, in this case, it is now clear that it is over-hired. "We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period," Armstrong said.