Bitcoin Daily: Security Software Firm CEO Charged With Crypto Fraud; Crypto Trading Volumes Up 17 Percent In February

According to federal prosecutors, antivirus software founder John McAfee and an associate orchestrated fraud schemes to net millions in cryptocurrency, CNBC writes.

The 75-year-old McAfee and his “cryptocurrency team” advisor, 40-year-old Jimmy Watson, reportedly did the “age old pump and dump” scheme, which consisted of them allegedly buying large amounts of cheap cryptocurrency and grandiosely promoting them online to artificially inflate their market prices.

The pair reportedly also made use of McAfee’s robust Twitter account to tout “false and misleading” ideas about the crypto.

Cryptocurrency trading volumes spiked 17 percent last month after Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, Reuters wrote.

The movement included larger exchanges taking on more shares of the overall volume.

In February, trading exchanges jumped to $2.7 trillion. Major exchanges took the lion’s share, with volumes rising over 35 percent to $2.4 trillion while smaller exchanges fell by 36 percent to $381 billion.

This, according to Reuters, suggests a concentration of trading on mostly larger exchanges.

Bitcoin, while known for its volatility, has been on an upward trajectory for the past few months; it hit an all-time high of $58,354 on Feb. 23 and began to fall in estimation after that. The rise came as Tesla, along with other prominent companies like Mastercard, voiced support for crypto.

Major bitcoin corporate backer MicroStrategy said on Friday (March 5) that it had bought around 205 bitcoin for $10 million in cash, Reuters wrote.

That brings the company’s holdings to around 91,064 bitcoin.

Meitu, the software firm, has bought 15,000 units of Ether, according to a press release, along with 379.1 units of bitcoin.

The prices were $22.1 million for the Ether and $17.9 million for the bitcoin.

According to the release, Meitu takes the opinion that the cryptocurrency space poses a disruptive power similar to that of the initial launch of the mobile internet around 2005, which disrupted the way the PC internet and other offline institutions.