Cryptocurrencies |

UBS Shuns Bitcoin Allocations Due to Threat of Crypto Crackdown

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – UBS Group AG, the world’s largest wealth manager, isn’t prepared to make portfolio allocations to bitcoin because of a lack of government oversight, the bank’s chief investment officer said. Bitcoin has also not reached the critical mass to be considered a viable currency to invest in, UBS’s Mark Haefele said in an interview. The total sum of all cryptocurrencies is “not even the size of some of the smaller currencies” that UBS…

Bitcoin Emerges as Crisis Currency in Hotspots Such as Zimbabwe

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – About a third of the customers queuing at La Maison du Bitcoin’s teller windows in Paris aren’t speculating on the value of the cryptocurrency. They’re sending digital money home to Africa. “In many countries in Africa, there are far more cellphones than bank accounts,” said Manuel Valente, co-founder of La Maison. “For bitcoin, all you need is a phone.” Zimbabwe, where the price of bitcoin spiked to double the…

This Cryptocurrency Miner Says It Solved Bitcoin’s Power Problem

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – A green-energy startup says it can solve bitcoin’s surging electricity consumption without boosting pollution, an issue threatening to halt the meteoric rise of the virtual currency. Austria’s HydroMiner GmbH raised $2.8 million after closing its first initial coin offering on Wednesday, according to its website. The cash will be used to install high-powered computers at hydropower plants, where the company says it can mine new digital currencies at a cheaper cost and…

Bitcoin’s Rivals Multiply Amid Battle for Crypto Dominance

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – It’s getting tougher and tougher to keep track of all the different versions of bitcoin. New iterations of the cryptocurrency are multiplying as disagreements over bitcoin’s design persist and opportunities for making a quick buck prove hard to pass up. The biggest offshoot, called bitcoin cash, appeared in August after a so-called hard fork in the bitcoin blockchain. That spinoff, currently valued at $18 billion, was followed by a less successful…

Bitcoin Cash: The Digital Cousin Disrupting Cryptocurrencies

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Just when you thought you had a handle on the new-fangled crypto craze, here comes bitcoin cash. Bitcoin’s lesser-known cousin, the so-called cash version has disrupted the $200 billion market and over the weekend got close to overtaking ethereum as the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The main difference between bitcoin and bitcoin cash is the block size. A block is equivalent to a file storing data on approved transactions, which…

Bitcoin dives below $7,000

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin has been on a wild ride since a plan to help the red-hot coin scale was scraped. Backers of the so-called Segwit2x proposal were considering to split from bitcoin’s main blockchain network, but power-brokers behind the plan called off their support for the upgrade on Wednesday. That mean’s the network will remain intact — at least for now. Initially, the news sent bitcoin up near $7,900 per coin. Since then, however, it has tanked close to…

Bitcoin Is No Bubble, Says Investor With $213 Million Stake

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tim Draper was walking through a pavilion at a tech conference in Lisbon on Tuesday when he was cornered by an entrepreneur touting a new digital currency. No sooner had the venture capitalist heard the pitch than he was approached by another guy hawking his own initial coin offering. Another followed, then another. It’s no mystery why cryptocurrency peddlers flocked to Draper. As founder of the Silicon Valley VC firm…

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