Currency updates & News

A manager of the Exmo Bitcoin exchange has been kidnapped in Ukraine. According to Russian and Ukrainian media reports Pavel Lerner, 40, was kidnapped while leaving his office in Kiev's Obolon district on 26 December. The reports said he was dragged into a black Mercedes-Benz by men wearing balaclavas. Police in Kiev confirmed to the BBC that a man had been kidnapped on the day in question, but would not confirm his identity. A spokeswoman said that the matter was currently under investigation, and that more information would be made public later on. Mr Lerner is a prominent Russian blockchain expert and the news of his kidnapping has stunned many in the international cryptocurrency community. Exmo described him as an analytics manager. Blockchain is the technology that underpins the digital currency Bitcoin. Exmo Finance is registered with Companies House in the UK, but has its main operations in Ukraine. According to its website, it has 94,955 active users tra...

Bitcoin’s price has risen stratospherically, a fact that leaves many minor players in the market with massive gains and many bigger players millionaires. But is this a bubble? Are the gains real? And are the bitcoin whales in for a sad Christmas? First we must understand what drives bitcoin price and, in particular, this boom. The common understanding for current growth leads us back to institutional investors preparing for the forthcoming BTC futures exchanges. The primary theory about the astonishing rally being put forward by investors on social media is that bitcoin will soon benefit from big institutional money injections via the introduction of the first BTC futures products. CBOE Global Markets and CME Group are launching new futures contracts on December 10 and December 17, allowing investors to go long or short on bitcoin. This ability makes bitcoin far more palatable to big investors who are currently flooding the market to make profits if and when the bitcoin price falls...

For bitcoin traders, all eyes should be on Dec. 10 and Dec. 18. That's when former self-styled bitcoin whales will be swallowed up like plankton as the CBOE and CME Group launch bitcoin futures contracts for the first time in history. Over the next few days, I will be providing information on trading in the bitcoin futures market. My goal is to shed some light on its peculiarities and hopefully help people avoid mistakes. To start, it won't just be the whales that will be devoured, but any other smaller crustaceans that choose to ignore the potential impact a derivatives market can have on an underlying commodity. You see, in bitcoin's cash market, where these whales exist, they swim amongst other bitcoin marine lives without necessarily attacking their co-habitants. The reason is simple. Everyone in bitcoin's cash market is financially incentivized to keep the price of bitcoin high. Sure, the market sometimes takes a dip, but that’s because some bitco...

In Zimbabwe, a country where hyperinflation led to $1 being worth 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars , the relative security of cryptocurrency already came at a premium. The recent military takeover of the capital – which generals insist is not a coup – has made made the problem even worse. Bitcoin prices have risen 10% to $13,499 on Golix, the troubled nation’s only cryptocurrency exchange. That figure is nearly twice the $7,000 Bitcoin price on U.S.-based exchanges such as Bitfinex. The surge has been fueled by Zimbabwean investors seeking a safe haven from domestic banks amid the country’s ongoing political, financial and monetary woes. While Zimbabwe once had its own currency, it began using a mix of currencies from stable economies including the U.S. dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation made its own note nearly worthless .   But, as the country’s political situation has worsened, Zimbabweans have continued to hoard money and park it in assets such as Bitcoin — a move t...