A rare pear-shaped diamond that is expected to fetch up to $15 million can be bought at auction next month using cryptocurrencies, Sotheby’s announced on Monday.

Sotheby’s said it would be first time a diamond of such size has been offered for public purchase with cryptocurrency. No other physical object of such high value has previously been available for sale with cryptocurrency, the auction house added.

The 101.38-carat pear shaped flawless diamond, dubbed The Key 10138, is one of just 10 diamonds of more than 100 carats ever to come to auction, only two of which were pear-shaped.

It carries a pre-sale estimate of $10 million – $15 million and will be sold on July 9 in Hong Kong. Bitcoin or ether, along with traditional money, will be accepted as payment. . . .

The news: China’s intensifying crackdown has sent cryptocurrency prices tumbling. China has been upping its regulatory squeeze on cryptocurrencies for some time, but it now looks likely that over 90% of its bitcoin mining capacity in the country will shut down, according to a report in the Global Times, which is published by the Chinese state. Last Friday, authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan ordered crypto miners in the region to cease operating.

Yesterday, China’s central bank announced it was ordering banks to crack down on cryptocurrency trading.

The effects: On the same day, bitcoin’s price dropped to $31,333—it’s fallen by 20% in the last week—amid increasing uncertainty about its future. Other cryptocurrencies also tumbled and the entire market has dropped in value by 12% over the past couple of days, according to cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinBase. It’s having an impact on hardware prices too.. Chinese consumers seeking to purchase graphics cards, which are critical components for bitcoin mining, have found sharply lower prices in the past day or so. Some prices had plunged by as much as 66%, according to the South China Morning Post.

Why now: China sees cryptocurrencies, which are decentralized and unregulated, as a threat. Its central bank said they have “disrupted the normal order of the economy” and “increase the risks of illegal cross-border transfers of assets and illegal activities such as money laundering.” It is planning to become the first country to launch its own official digital currency, the e-yuan.

Another alternative: Bitcoin mining won’t cease because of China’s crackdown. Instead, operators will relocate elsewhere. Texas has been touted as a place that could benefit from the new restrictions in China, thanks to its relatively lax regulatory environment and cheap electricity. . . .

SAN SALVADOR—El Salvador has become the first country in the world to formally adopt bitcoin as legal tender after Congress approved President Nayib Bukele’s proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency.

With 62 out of 84 possible votes, a majority of lawmakers voted in favor of the initiative to create a law that will formally adopt bitcoin, despite concern about the potential impact on El Salvador’s program with the International Monetary Fund.

Bukele has touted the use of bitcoin for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home, while saying the U.S. dollar will also continue as legal tender.

“It will bring financial inclusion, investment, tourism, innovation, and economic development for our country,” Bukele said in a tweet shortly before the vote in Congress, which is controlled by his party and allies.

He added that the use of bitcoin, whose use will be optional, would not bring risks to users. Its use as legal tender will go into law in 90 days.

“The government will guarantee the convertibility to the exact value in dollars at the moment of each transaction,” Bukele said. . . .

A letter sent from the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) to the judge in the Ripple case initiated hours before the former SEC Chairman Clayton resigned, requests that a former SEC official not have to provide information on the case in a deposition.

Last week we reported on the activities the SEC took related to cryptocurrency during the Trump Administration.  Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton was at the center of the story.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Did Opportunists In the US Cede to China Crypto-currency Like Others Did Biowarfare Technology?

Pundit Seekingalpha.com believes the former Head of the SEC may have done this:

While at the helm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), former Chairman Jay Clayton (pictured below) made a mess of the digital economy. Clayton’s actions in office resulted in stalling U.S. cryptocurrency and blockchain innovations, dampening a burgeoning industry, and enabling China to race out in front. Digital money is here to stay, and instead of making efforts to provide clarity and structure for the future of American-made innovation in this space, Clayton’s SEC kept everyone guessing on the rules while picking clear winners and losers among the biggest coins.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Did Opportunists In the US Cede to China Crypto-currency Like Others Did Biowarfare Technology?

But what if Clayton’s approach was intentional? What if the lawsuits, the flip-flopping, and the uncertainty all weren’t from a lack of knowledge or resources but rather a well-thought-out strategy to advance his financial interests? Thankfully for us, Clayton and his deputies left behind a factual trail that can provide an opportunity for a course correction on U.S. crypto policy, as well as accountability if wrongdoing was indeed afoot.

On December 22, Clayton dropped an 11th-hour lawsuit against crypto innovator Ripple Labs. The announcement of this lawsuit came just 12 hours before Clayton resigned from the SEC. As with other administrations, Clayton may have hoped to file the suit and walk away, never to hear of it again. But his decision to sue Ripple labs sent shockwaves throughout the crypto community, and after a closer look, it appears Clayton left us clues that point to a larger story reeking of self-dealing, possibly even corruption.

Even before he was confirmed in the post in 2017, Clayton had been tagged “the most financially conflicted SEC chairman in history.” Accusation doesn’t equal guilt, but the facts made the label stick. In 2014, Clayton, then partner at the Wall Street firm Sullivan & Cromwell, and William Hinman, then partner at Simpson Thacher, helped Chinese tech giant Alibaba explode onto the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This helped a company with proven links to the Chinese Communist Party better position itself with the world’s leading digital payments application: Alipay. For years, the U.S. crypto industry has been trying to disrupt that digital payments space – chief among them has been Ripple. The XRP distributed ledger, which Ripple uses for its digital payments solutions, had only just debuted a year before Clayton and Hinman [Clayton’s right hand man at the SEC] helped engineer Alibaba’s market debut.

As we reported last week, the industry is lacking regulations and definitions for what is a currency and what is an investment.  Pundit Seekingalpha.com continues:

In 2018, Clayton made his own declaration in a CNBC interview that Bitcoin is not a security, and like Hinman’s comments on Ethereum, this action sent Bitcoin’s price skyrocketing. Both of these coins, anointed as free of regulatory risk by Clayton and Hinman, are proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. This label means they are “mined”, while XRP is designed to skip the costly and energy-consuming mining process and generate faster transactions. Was it a coincidence that after both officials declared Bitcoin and Ethereum to not be securities and increased market interest in them, Simpson Thacher took a Chinese company public that manufactures crypto mining equipment?

It is well documented that a hedge fund named One River Digital Asset Management made a billion dollar bet on Bitcoin and Ethereum after Clayton’s SEC declared they are not securities. Soon after, Clayton filed the SEC lawsuit against Ripple that crashed the value of the leading non-mined token, XRP, alleging that it has been an unregistered security for 7 years. Weeks later, One River hired Jay Clayton to a senior position at the hedge fund. Hinman is now back at Simpson Thacher. Now, China has rolled out its own sovereign digital currency, the Digital Yuan, a means by which it intends to use to gain a competitive advantage over western crypto innovators like Ripple. It was activated on Alipay in May while Ripple battled the SEC lawsuit in the Southern District of New York.

Yesterday a letter was sent from the SEC to the judge in the case initiated by former SEC Head Clayton asking that an individual who used to work for the SEC be allowed not to have to provide testimony in a deposition requested (by Ripple) in this case. 

This means that Ripple wants to question, under oath (deposition), a former SEC official. The SEC objects to the deposition, the parties could not work out their differences, and they want MJ Netburn to decide if it will happen. We do not know who the former SEC official is. Yet.

— James K. Filan (@FilanLaw) June 22, 2021

We learned during the Trump years that the US government is full of corruption.  Wherever President Trump turned there was corruption.  The SEC appears to be one of those places.

The post BREAKING: SEC Asks Judge to Quash Deposition from a Former SEC Official in Crypto Case – Former SEC Chairman Clayton Initiated Case Hours Before He Resigned appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

“When privacy coins are widely used, governments will no longer be able to collect taxes. Meaning governments will have to shrink. . . .” ~ John McAfee

The U.S.-based Hilton hospitality company is developing a hotel built on the site of an Uyghur mosque recently demolished by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China’s western region of Xinjiang, Bitter Winter reported on Wednesday.

“The mosque land was purchased at public auction by a local developer, who in turn signed a contract to develop there a Hampton Hotel, one of the brands owned by Hilton,” Bitter Winter, an online religious liberty and human rights magazine, wrote on June 23.

The magazine referenced a recent report by the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper, which revealed on June 12 that Chinese government authorities tore down Hotan’s Duling Mosque in recent years as part of a plan to replace the Islamic religious center with a commercial development, including a Hampton, which is brand of hotel brand owned by Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.

According to the Telegraph, a local Xinjiang landowner purchased the land on which the hotel is being built at a public auction in 2019. A Chinese company called Huan Peng Hotel Management Company, Ltd., signed a contract with the unidentified landowner in August 2020 to develop a Hampton hotel. . . .