#bitcoin

As the UK heads toward an election, the cryptocurrency industry is expressing support for the Labour Party, which leads in all the polls. However, there is uncertainty about what policies to expect, as Labour has not been in power since 2010, a time when Bitcoin was just emerging.

On April 20th, at 0:09 UTC, the Bitcoin network reached a new milestone with the completion of its fourth halving at block 840,000, reducing the mining reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.

Shares of top mining companies such as Marathon Digital (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) have plunged more than 35% since the beginning of the year in anticipation of the upcoming Bitcoin halving. Analysts from these firms, however, consider the fears over reduced block rewards to be unfounded and maintain a positive outlook on the miners' activities.

BlackRock’s chief investment officer of ETF, Samara Cohen, points out that spot Bitcoin ETFs are progressing slowly due to financial advisors' initial exploration of this investment product. According to the firm, about 80% of all current purchases come from individual investors.

Mastercard has rolled out its new Crypto Credentials system for P2P transactions, initially available to a limited audience on exchanges like Bit2Me, Lirium, and Mercado Bitcoin.

CiberInteligenciaSV, the hacking group behind the security breach of El Salvador's state-run Bitcoin wallet Chivo, has started leaking portions of the app's source code. They had already disclosed the personal information of almost all adult users in El Salvador (5.1 million people) who downloaded the wallet.

Harvest Fund Management, Bosera Asset Management, and China Asset Management have secured approval from the Hong Kong regulator to launch spot ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum.