Author: Vickie Helm

With tax season approaching and 2025 only a few days left, investors should reconsider their tax and accounting strategies to support their overall financial health. In December, a small correction can lead to big gains. As investing in cryptocurrencies continues to gain traction among retail investors over the past few years, crypto tax reporting and the accompanying calculated tax strategies should not be overlooked.Similar to the stock market, the cryptocurrency market can also experience downturns, but at a much faster pace. The cryptocurrency market has been experiencing a downturn recently, and investors are understandably panicking.But within this broader market uncertainty…

Cryptocurrencies have felt broken in recent weeks.The largest liquidation event in market history took place on October 10th. Bitcoin was nuked. ETH and alternative currencies have fallen even more significantly. Since then, all “bounce” has disappeared on contact.Everyone blamed US President Donald Trump’s 100% tariffs on China, macro policies, or overleveraging. These are all valid explanations for why the market crashed, but they don’t explain why the market remained persistently depressed for weeks afterward.The missing piece appears to be a quiet document published on the same day by MSCI, the world’s second-largest index provider. It directly targets the organizations that…

Wall Street’s appetite for cryptocurrencies has never been higher. BlackRock Bitcoin ETF breaks inflow record. Fidelity and VanEck followed suit with new Spot products. Even Nasdaq has signaled expansion of its digital asset trading infrastructure. But despite all this momentum, very little is actually happening on-chain.Currently, institutions treat cryptocurrencies as a legitimate asset class, but not as a venue for operations. The majority of trading, payments, and market making still takes place on private servers and traditional rails.The reason is simple. This is because blockchain, in its current form, does not yet meet organizational performance standards. Until they can offer…

When Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd filed a lawsuit against CoinFlip and Bitcoin Depot earlier this year, there were some astronomical voices calling this push for consumer protection “anti-cryptocurrency.” they are wrong. Cryptocurrency ATMs (physical kiosks where users can purchase cryptocurrencies) have become a means of fraud and need reform.Law enforcement, regulators, and consumer advocacy groups have all expressed concerns about these machines for years. Brian Schwalb of DC AG sued Athena Bitcoin in September. Pennsylvania AG Dave Sunday warned that BATM is a “magnet for scammers.” Arizona AG Chris Mays even posted “STOP” signs at some crypto ATM locations.…

The digital economy was once again caught by surprise on October 20 when Amazon Web Services suffered its second major outage of the year, devastating exchange platforms such as Coinbase and Robinhood, as well as the analytics service Coinmarketcap. A second smaller outage occurred just 10 days later.According to Amazon’s initial report, the Oct. 20 outage was caused by a malfunction affecting one of the internal subsystems that manage the domain name service, causing connectivity issues across multiple services. This was due to a flaw in an update that ended up breaking Amazon’s critical US-East-1 region. It’s a massive hub…

The world of cryptocurrencies has always had a strange relationship with privacy. Cypherpunk dates back to the 1990s, when cryptographers and activists spread a manifesto for using encryption to defeat government surveillance, and privacy has been treated as almost sacrosanct ever since. Eric Hughes, one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement, wrote in 1993 that “cypherpunks don’t wait for governments to protect their freedom; they write code.” Another early cypherpunk, John Gilmore, wanted assurances that would keep even the NSA at bay, “by physics and mathematics, not by law.” This radical spirit gave birth to Bitcoin and inspired coins…

Cryptoassets have emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in global finance, presenting significant opportunities for both retail and institutional investors. With European revenues expected to grow by more than 30% each year, Europe is well placed to take full advantage of the growth in this dynamic sector, but it must embrace scrutiny and adapt quickly or risk being left behind.The recent adoption of the Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation by the European Union (EU) is a significant step forward in supporting the acceptance of the crypto industry on the continent and has helped establish Europe as a…

If an AI system were to successfully attack or destroy the cryptography of a well-regarded blockchain, even in the field of white-hat research, all the panic selling of cryptocurrencies that had occurred up to that moment would be dwarfed. If quantum computers destroy blockchain, we might all just close up shop. The whole point of blockchain would be forever undermined.The good news is that there is a clearly defined technology roadmap to avoid this. Some protocols already implement it, although not enough. But why are so many people lacking?This is a real and immediate threat, and the crypto industry is…

Today’s “Crypto for Advisors” newsletter Kevin O’Leary, entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary shares both his opinion and his paper on crypto investment, and how both have changed over time.MLTECH CEO Leo Mindyuk then answers questions about how daily investors can access these investments in “Ask An Expert to Experts.”- Sarah MortonRethinking Crypto Investing: Looking beyond digital assetsFrom garbage to money: Why code?In 2019, I made headlines by calling Bitcoin “garbage.” At the time, there were no regulations or oversights. It was chaos. The government was hostile and unsure of how to approach code. Now the scenery has completely changed.For days…

As a lifelong Democrat and former Virginia governor, I always believed that our party should be on the side of growth, innovation and economic opportunity. That’s why I’m worried that too many Democrats are on the sidelines or are getting in the way of one of the most transformative financial innovations of our time: blockchain and cryptocurrency.Blockchain and Crypto are already driving job creation nationwide, from data centers and fintech startups to cybersecurity companies and developers working on decentralized infrastructure. This technology means more jobs, higher wages, and more money in people’s pockets, especially in communities that have been left…