Bitcoin News Roundup for Dec. 17, 2020

With bitcoin surging to highs of $23K and Paxos raising a monster funding round, CoinDesk’s Market’s Daily is back with another crypto news roundup.

Listen or watch all the new CoinDesk podcast episodes wherever you want.

ABOUT

With bitcoin surging to highs of $23K and Paxos raising a monster funding round, CoinDesk’s Market’s Daily is back with another crypto news roundup.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com and Nexo.io.

Today's stories:

Bitcoin Drops Nearly 7% After Setting New Record High of $23,770

Bitcoin surged to new record highs above $23,000 earlier on Thursday, before quickly falling back by over $1,500.

Paxos Raises $142M Series C Following PayPal Deal, OCC Bank Charter Application

Paxos has raised $142 million to facilitate mainstream adoption. “We think that opportunity is now,” said CEO Charles Cascarilla.

The Big Banks Riding Bitcoin's Bull Run

Banks joined the crypto conversation as bitcoin marched to $20,000. Here's a list of recent crypto developments in the banking sector.

Above $100: Litecoin Hits Highest Price Since Summer 2019

Litecoin hasn't been in three figures since its second mining reward halving in 2019.

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.