The Crypto Roundup: 10 June 2024

Latest price and news from the crypto space

Latest price from our hand picked list of digital assets

U.S. banking giant Citigroup (NYSE: C) is reportedly awaiting regulatory approval to start trading bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The firm would join Goldman Sachs in offering bitcoin futures trading.

Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) has purchased 3,907 BTC for a total of $177 million, according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The hacker(s) behind the $610 million heist on cross-chain decentralized finance platform Poly Network has finished returning all of the funds it stole from the platform after exploiting a vulnerability in its code.

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Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

Citigroup Reportedly Working to Start Trading Bitcoin Futures
MicroStrategy Buys Another $177 Million of Bitcoin
Poly Network Hacker Returns Final Slice of Stolen $600 Million
How Many Bitcoins Are There? How Many Are Currently in Circulation?
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Citigroup Reportedly Working to Start Trading Bitcoin Futures

CoinDesk, citing unnamed sources with the bank, reports Citi is actively recruiting people to join its cryptocurrency-focused team in London. One of the sources was quoted saying:

“The team is likely to win approval to begin trading CME bitcoin futures first and then bitcoin exchange-traded notes (ETNs).”

A Citigroup spokesperson revealed the bank is being “very thoughtful” about its approach to the market and is “presently considering products such as futures for some of our institutional clients, as these operate under strong regulatory frameworks.”

Citigroup has about $23.7 trillion in assets under custody. In June, it launched a business unit to offer crypto-related products under its wealth management services.

MicroStrategy Buys Another $177 Million of Bitcoin

The company’s latest purchase saw it spend approximately $45,294 per coin. It now holds a total of 108,992 BTC worth well over $5 billion. MicroStrategy’s stock is now being used by some investors as a proxy to gain exposure to cryptocurrency.

The firm’s stock price dropped from a $1,270 high in March to under $720 as cryptocurrency prices dropped after BTC plunged from its all-time high near $64,000.

Poly Network Hacker Returns Final Slice of Stolen $600 Million

After the hacker started reaching out to return all of the stolen funds, they locked more than $200 million in an address that needed both Poly Network and the hacker’s approval to move the funds.

Poly Network has been negotiating with the hacker, even offering him a $500,000 bug bounty reward and offering them a job as their chief security advisor. In a blog post, Poly Network detailed the hacker has handed over their private key.

“At this point, all the user assets that were transferred out during the incident have been fully recovered. We are in the process of returning full asset control to users as swiftly as possible.”

About $33 million worth of USDT were frozen in the hackers’ address after the theft occurred. The hacker, in messages embedded on the blockchain, said they were contributing to the security of the project in their “personal style.” To security experts, they may have realized laundering the stolen funds could reveal the hacker’s identity.

How Many Bitcoins Are There? How Many Are Currently in Circulation?

Bitcoin (BTC) is a radical alternative to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar and the euro. It differs from them in several ways, one of them being its limited supply, which is capped at 21 million BTC. New bitcoins are generated at a fixed rate every year to ensure a predictable inflation rate.

In this guide, we’ll look at Bitcoin’s supply limit, why the cryptocurrency’s supply is limited, and what that means for users on the network. Hopefully, by the end of it, you will have a better understanding of Bitcoin and why so many people support it. First, it’s important to understand a few basic concepts of the network.