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The U.S. Department of Justice arrested three individuals associated with the July 15 Twitter hack. The hack hijacked the accounts of some of Twitter's most prominent users and sent tweets promising followers who sent Bitcoin to a specific address that their contribution would be paid back double. Authorities said Friday that the attackers used three different Bitcoin wallets to collect their proceeds, receiving more than 400 deposits worth $117,457.58. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis played a key role in the investigation, bringing into question exactly how anonymous are bitcoin transactions. "If [the accused] had carried out these transactions in fiat currency, the investigation may have been more difficult, as the transactions wouldn't have left the same public footprint that Bitcoin transactions do." https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/three-individuals-charged-alleged-roles-twitter-hack

Twitter is reportedly working to introduce payments to its platform, and hopes to complete US licensing within a year before working on global licenses. Twitter aims to offer services such as peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts and debit cards, as part of a plan to launch an "everything app" that incorporates messaging, payments and commerce. It would use fiat currencies at first, but may add crypto functionality later.

"The moment I posted my first piece about Ripple and XRP, my Twitter feed became flooded with rebuttals, counter-arguments, and plain old insults. I discovered that most of these messages came from a group of Twitter accounts who identify themselves as the "XRP Army". I became so fascinated by their tactics and energy, that I decided to dedicate a whole investigative piece to this curious group of crypto fanatics."

The Digital Euro Association (DEA) published actionable recommendations for enhancing privacy in CBDC systems, but the DEA provided a punchier version on Twitter.

FDIC insurance only protects customers in the event of the insolvency of the bank holding the deposits. That leaves open the question of where stablecoin holders rank in the event of the stablecoin issuer's insolvency. This was recently discussed in a Twitter thread launched by JP Koning to which George Selgin and Dan Awry contributed. According to my read of the thread, which focused specifically on the Circle-issued USDC stablecoin, the answer seems to be "maybe" but the question could be tied up in courts for a long time.

"Tether Limited has the sole authority to create (mint) and destroy (burn) Tether stablecoins (USD₮). This paper investigates Bitcoin's response to USD₮ supply change events between 2014 and 2021 and identifies an interesting asymmetry between Bitcoin's responses to USD₮ minting and burning events. Bitcoin responds positively to USD₮ minting events over 5- to 30-minute event windows, but this response begins declining after 60 minutes. State-dependence is also demonstrated, with Bitcoin prices exhibiting a greater increase when the corresponding USD₮ minting event coincides with positive investor sentiment and is announced to the public by data service provider, Whale Alert, on Twitter."

In a case of "do as I say, not as I do" the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not employing two-factor authentication (TFA) on its X account, which was compromised to spread false bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) news on January 9, 2023, according to X (formerly Twitter). Apparently, the SEC did not have TFA enabled at the time the account was compromised, only a few months after SEC Chair Gary Gensler reminded everyone to use "strong passphrases or passwords and set up multifactor authentication"! The fake tweets caused bitcoin prices to immediately spike to $47,680 from the $46,800 level, and then fall as low as $45,400 as the tweets were found to be fake. The fake tweet announced the approval of 13 spot bitcoin ETFs, which was quickly denied by Gensler.

A one-standard-deviation increase in the current day's Bitcoin return predicts a 0.33% increase in the next day's. A one-standard-deviation increase in the Twitter post count for the word "Bitcoin" yields a 2.5% increase in week-ahead Bitcoin returns.

Ireland-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitsane disappeared without a trace last week, likely taking hundreds of thousands of users' assets with it. Account holders told Forbes that attempts to withdraw bitcoin, XRP and other cryptocurrencies began failing in May, with Bitsane's support team writing in emails that withdrawals were "temporarily disabled due to technical reasons." By June 17, Bitsane's website was offline and its Twitter and Facebook accounts were deleted.

New FIS report finds 54 countries now have active real-time payment programs, up from 40 in 2018 and nearly four times as many as 2014. India remains the global leader in real-time payments usage with 10-fold increase in value and eight-fold increase in transaction volumes driven through its national system over the last year.

Nice summary of everything that's known about China's central bank digital currency plans.

Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc. and Stripe Inc. are undecided about formally signing onto Libra's organizing charter because they're concerned about maintaining positive relationships with regulators who have reservations about the project, the people said.

While Ripple was forced to liquidate many of its XRP holdings to stay cash flow positive, online XRP Twitter engagement fell by 16% Q1 2020 and the number of users in the "XRP Army"has declined 82% since January 2018.

Caitlin Long, a former Wall Street executive and blockchain legislation advocate, is taking steps to set up the first crypto-focused bank in the United States. Announced by Long on Twitter, the bank will be named Avanti, meaning "forward" in Italian. She is now preparing to apply for a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter with Wyoming's division of banking.

"There's supposedly a hacked document dump - which I don't have a copy of - from Deltec Bank, including account details and emails relating to Tether and Bitfinex. Someone has been posting bits of it to Twitter."

Dogecoin (DOGE) became the 5th most valuable crypto-asset today after the total market cap of DOGE crossed $50 billion. DOGE received substantial support on social media from different celebrities, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and rapper Snoop Dogg. Dogecoin became a trend on Twitter yesterday amid massive support from retail traders.

The stock-to-flow pricing model was created by anonymous Twitter user PlanB, who claims to be a Dutch institutional investor with a legal and quantitative finance background that manages around $100 billion in assets. The model is a calculation of a ratio based on the existing supply of an asset against how much is entering circulation. The higher the number, the longer it will take for production to meet existing demands and the more scarce an asset is.

Dogecoin jumped today from around 46 cents to as high as 54 cents after Elon Musk posted a survey on Twitter asking "Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?" Within about thirty minutes, the survey had 750,000 respondents.

Elon Musk has spoken with North American bitcoin miners and they have committed to forming a Bitcoin Mining Council to "promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide." They have also agreed to publish their current and planned renewable usage. The meeting was hosted by Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1396914548167233537

Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of Bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.