| Bitcoin | $47,695 | 7 day: +25.3% | | Ethereum | $1,809 | 7 day: +4.6% | | All crypto | $1.46T | 7 day: +24.6% | | Bitcoin dominance | 60.6% | 7 day: +0.3% | Prices as of 11:30 a.m. EST
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 India Bloomberg is reporting that India will soon outlaw almost all cryptocurrencies. - An unnamed senior Finance Ministry official says that the Indian government plans to proceed with a complete ban on crypto investments.
- Current investors would have a 3-6 month transitional period to liquidate their holdings.
- India's Parliament has listed "The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021," for its ongoing Budget session. The text of the bill seeks to "prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India." The proposed law will be soon sent to the Union Cabinet for approval.
- Although private cryptocurrencies would be banned, India would allow the use of blockchain technology for research purposes.
Bloomberg 
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 NYAG Letitia James Crypto exchange Bitfinex claims that it repaid the remaining balance of Tether's $550M loan taken from Tether in response to the New York Attorney General's (NYAG) probe. - Bloomberg reported Bitfinex's claim that it has repaid the remaining balance of a loan from Tether Ltd.
- According to Bitfinex, it repaid the $550M loan balance in January.
- The exchange also canceled the line of credit with Tether, which it opened in 2018.
- In 2019, the NYAG alleged that Bitfinex covered the loss of approximately $850M via a $900M loan from stablecoin issuer Tether (USDT).
- Bitfinex has been under a probe by the NYAG's office since April 2019. It is currently in the process of complying with the New York State Supreme Court's order to submit relevant documents.
Bloomberg
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Bill Miller plans to invest 15% of his Miller Opportunity Trust, which holds over $2B in assets under management (AUM), into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX:GBTC). - According to a SEC filing by Bill Miller, his fund may seek investment exposure to bitcoin indirectly via investment via Barry Silbert's Grayscale trust.
- The filing mentions that Miller Opportunity Trust could allocate roughly $300M into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
- The fund manager recently published his Q4 2020 income strategy letter, promoting bitcoin as the "best performing asset."
- In the absence of an exchange-traded fund availability (ETF), many institutional clients are gaining bitcoin exposure through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which holds more than 3% of all bitcoin: $24B as of Feb. 5.
Decrypt
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Serbia extradited a man to the U.S after a Dallas-based federal grand jury indicted him for involvement in a $70M crypto fraud. - A Dallas federal grand jury indicted Serbian resident Antonije Stojilkovic for his alleged involvement in a $70M crypto fraud scheme. The Texas Department of Justice (DoJ) says that the fraud impacted crypto investors worldwide, including some from northern Texas.
- According to a U.S. Dept. of Justice statement, the scheme solicited investments in binary options and crypto mining by falsely advertising 80% payouts and 20% refunds ⏤ even on losing trades.
- Serbian authorities arrested Stojilkovic in July 2020 before delivering him to the Northern District of Texas on Feb. 4.
- The DoJ stated that the defendants produced fake documents regarding trades, transfers, and wires that never occurred to mislead investors.
- If convicted, the defendant could face more than 20 years in prison.
Coindesk
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 Bitcoin Hardware German prosecutors struggle to find the decryption key to a digital wallet holding more than 1,700 bitcoin, confiscated from a hacker. - A judge sentenced a man convicted of "cryptojacking," (hacking people's computers and installing cryptojacking software that mines cryptocurrency) to more than two years in jail.
- He could know the private keys to the digital wallet storing $78M worth of bitcoin, although he claims to have forgotten.
- According to German prosecutors from the Bavarian town of Kempten, the man maintained his silence throughout the inquiry regarding the key.
- Sebastian Mürer, one of the prosecutors, told Reuters that the police's efforts to crack the code have failed.
Reuters
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- Some Miami city commissioners have supported Mayor Francis Suarez's resolution to allow payment of property taxes in bitcoin and "to procure a vendor to be able to offer city employees to get a percentage of their salaries in bitcoin."
- The University of Calgary, McGill University, York University, and the University of Toronto have submitted designs to the Bank of Canada for a digital loonie.
- The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opened cash-settled Ethereum (ETH) futures contracts on Feb. 7.
- Chinese crypto mining pool Poolin is acquiring its North American rival NovaBlock. The acquisition makes Poolin the second-largest bitcoin miner after F2Pool.
- The world's largest custodian, the Bank of New York Mellon, has become the first global bank to allow its clients to transfer, hold, and issue select digital currencies.
- Canadian regulators have approved Accelerate Financial's Bitcoin ETF, making it the first officially approved bitcoin ETF in North America.
- A Virginia tech company offers its staff the option to get paid in bitcoin or Ethereum.
- The governor of Argentina's northwestern province submitted a proposal to President Alberto Fernandez, urging him to create a national digital peso.
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 |  | Curated by Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, and bitcoin follower since $1, Aaron Wise. Temporarily listening to news squawk boxes in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Charlotte Hayes-Clemens is an editor and writer based in Vancouver. She has dabbled in both the fiction and non-fiction world, having worked at HarperCollins Publishers and more recently as a writing coach for new and self-published authors. Proper semi-colon usage is her hill to die on. | |
