Hackers: Hacked cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia, which went into liquidation earlier this month, has now filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Cryptopia’s assigned liquidator, professional services firm Grant Thornton New Zealand, announced Monday that it has taken the step to preserve Cryptopia data stored and hosted on servers with an Arizona-based firm. The bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York issued an order to Cryptopia on Friday, granting an emergency motion for provisional relief till June 7. Grant Thornton said: “The interim order preserves the Cryptopia data, which includes a SQL database containing all account holders’ individual holdings of cryptocurrencies and the account holder contact details. Without this information, reconciling individual holdings with the currencies held by Cryptopia will be impossible.” The process of recovering the data and determining how to make distributions to account holders will take “some months at least,” the liquidator said.
Bullish Key Players: Bitcoin has been trading in a very positive range during the last few weeks. Bitcoin grew more than 100% since the beginning of April and this trend does not seem to have an end. Although experts and analysts believed that Bitcoin was going to see a correction, Bitcoin dipped to $6,400 for a very short period before surging again up to $8,600. According to the cryptocurrency analyst Josh Rager, if Bitcoin closes above $8,600 and holds there, he would expect a move to $9,600. Additionally, another analyst and crypto expert, Crypto Rand, mentioned that he sees a clear pattern in Bitcoin in which he believes that the digital currency is expected to reach $10,000.
Banks & Institutions: The first bank-owned crypto exchange plans to expand its services from retail traders to institutional investors. Japan-based SBI Holdings initially geared its exchange VCTRADE towards retail traders, allowing people to deal in four cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether. The exchange is scheduled to delist Bitcoin Cash in June. This week, however, an SBIVC spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the exchange plans to expand its focus. “SBIVC currently offers services only for retail customers. After AML/CFT and custody solutions that we are planning to implement are finalized, we would like to move forward and start providing services to institutional investors. Prioritizing customer asset protection, the SBI Group will make use of its synergies between current businesses, such as securities and FX, to acquire new customers.”
Adoption: The US-based telecom giant AT&T has started to accept payments in cryptocurrencies via Bitpay service, according to the press release published by the company. The crypto payment option is already available for AT&T users through a mobile app or the AT&T website. The customers will see the new option in the myAT&T app or when they log on to their online account. Commenting on the news, the AT&T Vice President of Communications Finance Business Operations Kevin McDorman noted: “We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.” The crypto community interpreted the news as a signal that mass adoption is gaining traction. It is worth noting, that recently Whole Foods, an American supermarket chain which exclusively sells organic food added crypto as a payment option. Starbucks also allows for buying coffee with coins.
