Bitcoin Daily: Ether Hits Record High; Paxos Closes $300 Million Series D

Ether has hit a new record high, stealing the limelight from popular cryptocurrency bitcoin, CNBC reported.

Ether is the world’s second-largest digital currency, and it has surged to a new price record of $2,800 as of Thursday morning (April 29), CNBC reported, citing data from Coin Metrics.

Bitcoin, according to the same data, was at a slightly lesser price of $54,471, down about 16 percent from its nearly $65,000 all-time record earlier in April, per CNBC.

Most major cryptocurrencies were buoyed by ether’s performance on Thursday, and bitcoin even had a “stunning rally.” Bitoin prices have climbed 90 percent thus far this year with interest boosted by institutional investors and corporate buyers such as Tesla, according to CNBC.

In other news, Paxos, the first regulated blockchain infrastructure platform, has seen the close of a $300 million Series D funding round, according to a press release.

Oak HC/FT led the round, with participation from previous investors Declaration Partners, PayPal Ventures, Mithril Capital, Senator Investment Group, Liberty City Ventures, WestCap and others, the release stated.

Paxos plans to boost growth through hiring new team members for all functions, scaling its operations, boosting its platform capacity and “investing in innovation,” according to the release.

To continue its development, Paxos also plans to establish the Paxos National Trust Bank, support its application for a Clearing Agency registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and pursue its Major Payment Institution license in Singapore, the release stated.

Lastly, a Massachusetts man, 23-year-old Eric Meiggs, has pleaded guilty to involvement in a scheme to take over users’ social media accounts and use them to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

According to the release, Meiggs admitted that he and one or more co-conspirators had worked to target victims who seemed to have large amounts of cryptocurrency and who had high-value or “OG” (slang for original gangster) social media names. They allegedly used a practice called SIM swapping, which means Meigg and the others hacked into and controlled the accounts to strip them of value, including social media account names and crypto.