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Crypto World

BTC tumbles back to $64,000 as IBM becomes latest AI target

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BTC hits fresh 2026 low as day's plunge continues

The seemingly daily disruption of business models by advances in artificial intelligence continued Monday, sending stock market averages and crypto prices sharply lower.

Today’s victim (in addition to the usual ones) was IBM, after Anthropic said Claude code can automate COBOL modernization.

“COBOL [Common Business-Oriented Language] is everywhere,” said Anthropic. “It handles an estimated 95% of ATM transactions in the U.S.. Hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL run in production every day, powering critical systems in finance, airlines, and government.”

“The developers who built these systems retired years ago, and the institutional knowledge they carried left with them,” the company continued. “We aren’t exactly minting replacements—COBOL is taught at only a handful of universities, and finding engineers who can read it gets harder every quarter.”

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“Modernizing a COBOL system once required armies of consultants spending years mapping workflows,” Anthropic continued. “Tools like Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases that consume most of the effort in COBOL modernization.”

Think of “armies of consultants” as IBM, and the stock’s reaction is understandable. A bit less than an hour before the close, IBM was lower by 11.2%.

IBM’s decline, along with what’s now becoming regular AI-related tumbles in the overall software sector and private equity, has helped pull the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all lower by more than 1%.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear how pivotal the times we are in right now truly are,” wrote The Kobeissi Letter.

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Tied at the hip in recent months to moves in software, crypto prices were under extreme pressure Monday, with many majors now within range of retouching their lows from the Feb. 5 panic.

Bitcoin was lower by 5% over the past 24 hours to $64,000, with ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) down similarly.

Coinbase (COIN), Strategy (MSTR), Circle (CRCL) and Galaxy Digital (GLXY) were all down 4%-7%.

The only names in the green were those bitcoin miners now running AI infrastructure business models, with IREN (IREN) ahead 5%, Cipher Mining (CIFR) up 3.4%, CleanSpark (CLSK) up 1.5%, and Hut 8 (HUT) gaining 0.7%.

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Also moving higher on Monday were precious metals — gold gaining 3.2% to $5,243 per ounce and silver higher by 6.5% to $87.69.

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Crypto World

South Korea Tightens Crypto Rules with 5-minute Asset Verification Mandate

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South Korea Tightens Crypto Rules with 5-minute Asset Verification Mandate

South Korea has ordered all crypto exchanges to reconcile their internal ledgers with actual asset holdings every five minutes after an inspection uncovered weaknesses in internal controls.

The directive was announced on Monday by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) after a meeting with top crypto exchanges and the Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA), during which they discussed the findings of an emergency inspection triggered by the Bithumb payout incident.

The inspection found that three of the country’s five major exchanges were reconciling balances only once every 24 hours, limiting their ability to respond quickly to discrepancies. Systems designed to halt trading during major mismatches were also found to be insufficient, raising concerns about how exchanges would handle large-scale errors.

In February, Bithumb mistakenly distributed 620,000 Bitcoin (BTC) to 249 users during a promotional event. The exchange later announced that it recovered 99.7% of the funds the same day. The remaining 0.3%, 1,788 BTC that had already been sold, was covered using company reserves.

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Related: Bithumb seeks to reappoint CEO despite recent controversies: Report

South Korea mandates five-minute asset checks

Under the new measures, exchanges must implement automated ledger-to-wallet reconciliation systems operating on a five-minute cycle. They will also be required to introduce defined criteria for triggering automatic transaction halts in the event of significant discrepancies.

Beyond reconciliation, regulators are pushing for sweeping changes to internal operations. High-risk processes like promotional payouts will require stronger oversight, including third-party cross-checks and multi-level approval systems. Exchanges will also need to separate high-risk accounts and implement automated verification tools for payments.

Top Korean crypto exchanges. Source: CoinGecko

Furthermore, external audits will shift from quarterly to monthly, while disclosures will expand to include detailed asset balances by wallet and ledger.

“The financial authorities and the DAXA plan to complete the rule changes needed to implement the improvement measures within April this year,” the FSC wrote.

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Related: South Korean brokerage Korea Investment & Securities eyes Coinone stake: Report

Bithumb delays IPO to post-2028

Last week, Bithumb announced it is now targeting an IPO after 2028, marking another delay from its earlier 2025 plans as it works through restructuring and regulatory pressure. The exchange said it will focus on strengthening accounting policies and internal controls through 2027, following an advisory agreement with Samjong KPMG.

Meanwhile, Naver Financial has also delayed its planned share swap with Dunamu by about three months, now targeting a shareholder vote on Aug. 18 and completion by Sept. 30.

Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons

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