Top Magazine Stories of The Week
2,000 Bitcoin on the move: Rare Casascius coins awaken after 13 years
Two long-dormant Casascius coins — each backed by 1,000 Bitcoin — have just been activated as of Friday, unlocking more than $179 million stashed away for more than 13 years.
Onchain data indicates that one of the Casascius coins was minted in October 2012, when Bitcoin was trading for $11.69.
The other was minted earlier in December 2011, when Bitcoin was valued at only $3.88, giving that Casascius coin a theoretical return of about 2.3 million percent, not including the cost of minting.
Casacius coins are physical metal coins or bars created by Utah-based entrepreneur Mike Caldwell, which were minted between 2011 and 2013.
Caldwell would take Bitcoin and mint the value into physical coins; these coins are considered one of the most sought-after physical collectibles related to Bitcoin.
Peter Schiff fails to authenticate gold bar during onstage test with CZ
A panel featuring gold advocate Peter Schiff and Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao at Binance Blockchain Week highlighted the challenges of verifying physical gold, after Schiff was unable to confirm whether a gold bar presented to him was genuine.
The debate involved whether tokenized gold or Bitcoin is a better store of value asset based on divisibility, portability, verifiability, durability and supply constraints — key factors in assessing an asset’s viability as money.
CZ argued that BTC is a better medium for storing value for several reasons, including the ability for any user to instantly verify the cryptocurrency through a full node or other methods that check a cryptographically secure public ledger.
IMF lays out guidelines for addressing stablecoin risks, beyond regulations
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a comprehensive report on the potential impact of the growing stablecoin market and the adequacy of global regulations in handling it.
In the “Understanding Stablecoins” report released on Thursday, the IMF analyzed the various approaches regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union, had taken in establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
Although the report noted that emerging regulations could mitigate risks to macrofinancial stability, the landscape was “fragmented,” both in policymakers’ approaches and how stablecoins are issued.
“The proliferation of new stablecoins across different blockchains and exchanges raises concerns about inefficiencies due to potential lack of interoperability,” said the IMF. “Moreover, this can introduce differences and roadblocks among countries, due to different regulatory treatment and transaction hurdles.”
Tether solvency fears are ‘misplaced’ as company sits on large surplus: CoinShares
Concerns about stablecoin issuer Tether’s financial stability resurfaced this week after BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes warned the company could face serious trouble if the value of its reserve assets were to fall. But CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, pushed back on those claims.
In a Dec. 5 market update, Butterfill said fears over Tether’s solvency “look misplaced.”
He pointed to Tether’s latest attestation, which reports $181 billion in reserves against roughly $174.45 billion in liabilities, leaving a surplus of nearly $6.8 billion.
“Although stablecoin risks should never be dismissed outright, the current data do not indicate systemic vulnerability,” Butterfill wrote.
Tether remains one of the most profitable companies in the sector, generating $10 billion in the first three quarters of the year — an unusually high figure on a per-employee basis.
Kalshi taps Solana to tokenize betting contracts: Report
Predictions platform Kalshi has reportedly begun allowing users to buy and sell tokenized versions of its event contracts on the Solana blockchain.
According to a Monday CNBC report, Kalshi has moved to court cryptocurrency users by offering tokenized contracts, which are now live on Solana. The move tokenized bets on the predictions platform, which includes US elections, sports and more, making them tradeable on the blockchain.
“There’s a lot of power users in crypto,” John Wang, Kalshi’s head of crypto, told CNBC. “This is about tapping into the billions of dollars of liquidity that crypto has, and then also enabling developers to build third-party front ends that utilize Kalshi’s liquidity.”
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Paul Atkins, chair of the US Securities and Exchange…
cointelegraph.com