Litecoin Halving Completion, US Crypto Mixer Protection Bill Passed, Coinbase Plans to Integrate Bitcoin Lightning Network, and More

And they continue to tighten monetary policy… In fact, the Bank of England raised the base interest rate by 0.25% to 5.25%. Investors were expecting a 0.5% rise before the latest inflation data showed a sharp slowdown in consumer price growth. Now the question is, when will the central bank end the current round of monetary tightening?. The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have left their options open for their next meetings in September.. Will they be more hawks or doves?

The eurozone economy expanded 0.3% in the second quarter from the previous three months, after two quarters in which growth contracted or stalled. Germany’s GDP growth rate was zero. Italy fell 0.3%. Meanwhile, annual inflation in the eurozone slowed to 5.3% in July, although the service price index rose to a historic high of 5.6%.

The S&P 500 had a good July, rising 20% ​​in the first seven months of the year, its longest streak in 26 years. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, dubbed the “Magnificent Seven”, have largely lagged the rally, but other sectors, especially travel-related stocks and cruise lines in particular, have also surged. The Nasdaq Tech Index fared even better, up 37% since the start of 2023. Will it be a bubble or a new golden age of technology?

On the other hand, regulators are playing cat and mouse with digital assets, delivering both good and bad news.. Some DeFi tokens have risen in value, while others, like Bitcoin, have remained stagnant but with very little trading volume. Because? Cryptocurrencies attracted quite a bit of attention to technology in the first half of the year. But it looks like the buyers have already run out of gas. Lots of uncertainty. People are over. The money is over. I don’t know. In addition, there are now fewer human traders and more robots.

Now let’s talk about the top crypto news of the week according to Cointelegraph in Spanish: this is not a roundup. This article is an opinion. The intention is to consider the following headings skeptically and critically. This article is for freethinkers.

A Litecoin halving is when the block reward is halved to control the supply of that cryptocurrency. The last halving was on August 2, and now miners are getting 6.25 LTC per block. How does this affect the price?

Well, it depends on supply and demand, but in general, growth is expected in the long term. However, it is curious that Litecoin is presented as a cryptocurrency not only for speculation, but also for payment. In my opinion, this puts Litecoin in a difficult position. Because paying users are increasingly using stablecoins. What is the real utility of Litecoin?

Another episode of this tragicomedy. It turns out that the US Attorney’s Office wants to drop the election fraud charge against Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of FTX. It seems that the Bahamas do not agree to extradite him for this, so the prosecutor’s office surrendered.

But don’t think that Bankman Fried gets off so easy. He has yet to face 12 more charges of things like fraud, money laundering and bribing the Chinese. He says he’s not guilty of anything, but I don’t know if that will help him much.

Curiously, his brother apparently had plans to buy the island and prepare for the apocalypse. Maybe I should have listened to him and run to safety. because right now, Bankman-Fried has more problems than a math textbook.

The US Senate passed a protection bill that also affects cryptocurrencies. What does it mean? Well, cryptocurrency trading companies will have to go through more controls and follow some rules to avoid money laundering and sanctions. In addition, the government wants to know more about the anonymous transactions that are made with the help of crypto mixers, which are like washing machines cleaning the origin of coins. And, if that’s not enough, companies investing in China will have to keep Uncle Sam up to date on what they’re doing. These measures are new to the crypto market, but for the rest of mortals, they are not the other world. In fact, these are common practices.

The government of Ukraine has asked cryptocurrency companies to reveal their financial secrets. The National Bank of Ukraine wants to know how much money they are moving, where it comes from and where it goes. And all this in just seven days.

Well, the general director of the Kuna exchange, Mikhail Chobanyan, is also not very pleased. He says that the government is killing his country’s potential in the crypto space and that he has already left for Europe to do business. Is regulation always bad for crypto?

According to Brian Armstrong, Coinbase is considering adding support for the Lightning Bitcoin network.

The Lightning Network is a network that runs on the bitcoin block chain and allows you to create payment channels between users and promises to send bitcoins almost instantly and without paying fees.

Coinbase, the largest exchange in the US, has confirmed that it is looking into adding Lightning Network support to its platform. ANDThis could help spread bitcoin payments around the world. Which seems great to me.

Disclaimer: The information and/or opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial line of Cointelegraph. The information presented here should not be taken as financial or investment advice. All investments and commercial movement involve risk and it is the responsibility of each individual to conduct proper research before making an investment decision.

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