Top cryptocurrency news on July 16: Major stories on Bitcoin, crypto mining and regulations

The global cryptocurrency market was in the red on July 16. Market cap was $1.31 trillion, a 2.55 percent decrease over the previous day. The total crypto market volume over the previous 24-hour period was $66.12 billion, which makes a 2.02 percent increase. The volume of all stable coins was now $52.74 billion, which was 79.77 percent of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. Bitcoin's price was at $31,998.58 and its dominance is 45.58 percent, a decrease of 0.13 percent over the day.

The Delhi High Court on July 14 asked the Centre and Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to respond to a plea seeking to direct the markets regulator to issue guidelines and take steps against crypto-asset exchanges advertising on television without standardised disclaimers. A bench of HC Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, SEBI and three crypto-exchanges operating in India and giving advertisements to draw retail investors to trade in cryptocurrencies. The court granted time to the authorities to file replies and listed the matter for further hearing on August 31. (PTI)

China's share of global Bitcoin production power fell sharply even before a recent crackdown by its authorities on cryptocurrency mining, research by the University of Cambridge showed. The country's share of the power of computers connected to the global Bitcoin network, known as "hash rate", fell to 46 percent in April this year from 75.5 percent in September 2019, according to the data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. The research gives a rare glimpse into global trends of Bitcoin mining, amid increasing worries from the likes of Tesla over how the cryptocurrency is produced. The decline in Chinese mining power came ahead of a crackdown by China's state council, or cabinet, on Bitcoin mining and trading in late May, citing underlying financial risks. (Reuters)

Hong Kong customs officials said July 16 that they had dismantled a money laundering syndicate that used cryptocurrency to process some HK$1.2 billion ($155 million) in illegal funds, in what they said was the first successful operation of its kind. “It is the first time in Hong Kong that a money-laundering ring involved in using cryptocurrency to wash dirty cash and conceal the source of criminal assets was broken up,” Senior Superintendent Mark Woo Wai-kwan told reporters. Investigators said four men, including the alleged local mastermind of the syndicate, had been arrested and bailed while some HK$20 million had been frozen. The men opened various local bank accounts with shell companies and made transactions through a virtual currency exchange trading platform to turn laundered crypto into real cash for clients. Around 60 percent of the funds had been channelled through bank accounts in Singapore over the last 15 months. The group was trading in privacy coins issued by the cryptocurrency Tether, officials said. (Input from AFP)

The hype around Paraguay becoming the second country to legalise Bitcoin has been building since El Salvador announced the cryptocurrency as legal tender, but, a leaked draft of the crypto bill that Paraguayan congressman Carlos Rejala plans to introduce in the Chamber of Deputies has no mention of making Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency legal in the country. Instead, it focuses on regulatory purview — specifically when it comes to taxation. The draft shows the bill is meant to regulate crypto mining and trading within Paraguay, and will require companies to register as “obligated subjects”. Read the details here.