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People walk along 5th Avenue in Manhattan, one of the nation's premier shopping streets on February 15, 2023 in New York City.Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesThis report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.What you need to know todayU.S. retail sales in January jumped 3%, versus an expected 1.9%. The figure handily beat a…

Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele speaks during an event in May 2021. El Salvador become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender in June.Camilo Freedman | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty ImagesIt has been more than a year since El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, and so far, 37-year-old resident Edgardo Acevedo has found the nationwide crypto experiment to be relatively anticlimactic."I don't think anything has changed, except that the country is more…

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during an interview on an episode of Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein in New York, US, on Wednesday, Aug 17, 2022.Jeenah Moon | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFTX's winning $1.4 billion bid for bankrupt crypto firm Voyager Digital was announced earlier this week, but court filings indicate that the cash paid for the firm itself is significantly lower — $51 million.The bulk of FTX's offer focused on Voyager's crypto…

It's time for the "merge."The years-in-the-making, systemwide upgrade to the ethereum blockchain is set to roll out on Wednesday, marking one of the crypto sector's most historic events to date. Leading up to the overhaul, investors have been jumping into ether, the native token to ethereum.In the past three months, ether has jumped 32%, dramatically outperforming bitcoin, which has dropped 9%. While analysts say that anticipation around the merge has helped pump up the price, some experts see the real upside coming after…

Ethereum coinJakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty ImagesEthereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, just ran a final dress rehearsal ahead of a years-awaited upgrade that's been billed as one of the most important events in the history of crypto.Since its creation almost a decade ago, ethereum has been mined through a so-called proof-of-work model. It involves complex math equations that massive numbers of machines race to solve, and it requires an abundance of energy. Bitcoin mining follows a similar…

'Bitcoin Family' opens a bitcoin beach bar in Lagos, PortugalDidi TaihuttuThe "Bitcoin Family" is down more than $1 million on their bitcoin investment since the world's most popular digital coin peaked at around $69,000 in Nov. 2021 — but patriarch Didi Taihuttu is as bullish as ever."I'm buying bitcoin daily," Taihuttu told CNBC by phone from a beach in Lagos, Portugal. "For me, the lesson I learned the last two cycles is — when the whole world is freaking out and when everybody is thinking that bitcoin will crash, I am…

Bitcoin just finished its worst month on record, losing more than 38% of its value in June, as of Thursday afternoon. Ether, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ended the same period down by about 47%.Though weakness in the digital assets sector is part of a broader flight from risk, confidence in the crypto market, in particular, has been rocked in recent weeks as major companies face solvency crises.In May, the popular U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin project UST — and its sister token luna…

WASHINGTON — The FBI on Thursday added Dr. Ruja Ignatova, the self-proclaimed 'Cryptoqueen,' to its list of Ten Most Wanted fugitives, and is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to her arrest.Ignatova, the founder of a cryptocurrency called OneCoin that was launched in 2014, allegedly defrauded investors of more than $4 billion over three years, before disappearing. Europol added her to Europe's most wanted list last month.Investigators say the Bulgarian-based project had no blockchain securing transactions…

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday said that the rapid slide in the cryptocurrency market shows that the Federal Reserve is making progress in its arduous struggle to tamp down inflation."There is one front in the war on inflation that's been an outstanding total victory for the Fed, and that's the battle against financial speculation," he said."With the immolation of crypto, the Fed's job is almost complete, but they don't seem to know it yet. … They're just gearing up to throw people out of work to make it clear that…

Bitcoin rallied to a record high of nearly $69,000 at the height of the 2021 crypto frenzy. In 2022, it's moved in the opposite direction.Nurphoto | Getty ImagesProminent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has defaulted on a loan worth more than $670 million. Digital asset brokerage Voyager Digital issued a notice on Monday morning, stating that the fund failed to repay a loan of $350 million in the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDC, and 15,250 bitcoin, worth about $323 million at today's prices.3AC's solvency…