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Showing posts from December 29, 2020

MLB Team Washington Nationals Partners With Terra Blockchain Community, Ballpark Plans to Accept UST

On February 9, the American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., the Washington Nationals, announced the team has partnered with Terra, the open-source blockchain platform and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Washington Nationals detail that the team is a “leading innovator” and is “consistently introducing new technologies to enhance the fan experience.” Washington Nationals Ink Long-Term Deal With Terra Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Nationals has partnered with the blockchain platform and DAO Terra, according to an announcement published by the team on Wednesday. The deal with Terra follows a slew of sports-related deals with crypto firms, but the MLB team will be the first to partner with an open-source blockchain project. In addition to the partnership, the algorithmic stablecoin UST that’s issued on the Terra blockchain will be “accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.” “The Nationals continue t...
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Physical Crypto Bank Opens in India — These 14 Locations Offer In-Person Banking, Lending, Crypto Exchange

A crypto bank has begun opening physical branches in India through a joint venture between Cashaa and United Multistate co-op society. Customers can open bank accounts, buy and sell cryptocurrencies, obtain crypto-backed loans, as well as learn about crypto. Crypto Bank Opens Physical Branches Crypto bank Unicas, a joint venture between Cashaa and United Multistate Credit Co. Operative Society, has begun rolling out physical branches in India. The first branch has opened in Jaipur, the bank announced Monday. “Unicas is initially opening its services online and through 14 branches across NCR, Rajasthan, and Gujarat by January 2021, and plans to rapidly expand to 100 branches by the end of 2022,” the announcement details. Unicas CEO Dinesh Kukreja commented that “This will allow us to build, scale and offer customized financial and crypto products for the local Indian markets.” A spokesperson for Cashaa told news.Bitcoin.com that “The next 13 branches will all be rolled out between...
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Bitcoin price inches closer to $30,000 with new all-time highs

A swift return to form for Bitcoin sparks 8% daily gains and gives no hint of a deeper reversal under $30,000. Bitcoin ( BTC ) returned to hitting records on Dec. 30 after a fresh rebound took it above its $28,400 all-time high. BTC price nails fresh all-time high Data from Cointelegraph Markets  and TradingView showed BTC/USD tackle its existing historic top during trading on Wednesday. In a strong resurgence overnight, Bitcoin confirmed that it had no time for bears after briefly dipping as low as $25,830 over the past 24 hours. Daily gains were at 7.5% at press time as $28,560 became reality. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView The move brings Bitcoin ever closer to sealing $30,000 as a new psychological level before the end of the year, something which seemed all but impossible just one week ago. As Cointelegraph reported , however, analysts still believe that a reversal could take the largest cryptocurrency down to existing support at $19,50...
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Betting Your Coins Online? Be Sure to AskGamblers First

Visit AskGamblers.com before ever wagering your hard-earned coins in an online casino. AskGamblers is the internet’s largest and most trusted portal dedicated to curating honest, fair, and open gaming experiences for users worldwide. These Days You Can Use Bitcoin to Buy Just About Anything From online shopping to automobiles and real estate, as Bitcoin grows in popularity, there are always new and innovative ways to incorporate Bitcoin into your life. Here are a couple of key industries that are driving cryptocurrency acceptance. Travel Industry When you think of Bitcoin as a worldwide peer-to-peer payment network, it makes sense that the travel industry would be one of the first to adopt cryptocurrency payments. CheapAir.com became the first travel agency to accept Bitcoin in 2013, but these days, you can use Bitcoin to book travel, flights, and hotels worldwide. Sports & Entertainment In the United States, AMC Cinemas, one of the largest theater chains in the country, ma...
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Large Bitcoin Futures Gap Causes Temporary Trading Pause, ETH Open Interest Hits All Time High

CME Group temporarily paused trading of bitcoin futures after the market opened to a large gap of over $3,000 between the derivatives and the underlying crypto asset. According to a report , it was this huge futures gap which “amounted to a massive upside volatility” that led to the trading pause. Futures gaps are caused by information or changes in investor sentiment that occur when the market is closed or not trading. The reported large CME futures gap occurred when bitcoin, which is traded every day on spot markets, rallied to a new all-time high of $28,422 before retreating. Before the weekend rally, bitcoin trading on December 24 had peaked at just under $25,000. The difference between the Thursday high and the new all-time high resulted in the large discrepancy between the spot and futures market when trading on CME resumed on December 28. Due to the misaligned trading periods between spot and futures markets, such gaps, which can either be negative or positive, will always...
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Is Defi Coming to Bitcoin Cash? An Overview of Detoken and the Anyhedge Protocol

Maybe you’ve heard of Anyhedge. Last April, news.Bitcoin.com published an article about its announcement, but what is it really? What does it do, and how’s it work? The Anyhedge Protocol Anyhedge is an open-source protocol . It is simply a way to use the blockchain (in this case, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain) to create a specific type of smart contract. The smart contract here is a “hedge” where the hedge is between Bitcoin Cash (the underlying asset of the BCH blockchain) and any other asset. Hence, the name “Anyhedge”. I wanted to understand more about this, so I took a look at the Anyhedge whitepaper . Whitepapers can be intimidating documents, mostly I think because people have grown accustomed to information being spoon-fed to them. The art of sitting down, focusing, and burrowing in mentally to understand something is becoming a lost art. But, I digress. “One major advantage that BCH has is that fees are still low, while they are getting quite high on Ethereum.” The fi...
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NY Times report alleges history of pay discrimination at Coinbase

“The pay disparities at Coinbase appear to be much larger than those in the tech industry as a whole," wrote the New York Times. San Francisco-based crypto exchange Coinbase may have had a problem with paying its employees fairly based on gender and race.  According to a report from The New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper, Coinbase  paid  salaried Black employees roughly 7% less than people in similar positions based on payroll data from 2018. Across the company, this averaged out to a difference of $11,500. When factoring in the firm's stock options, the gap between white and Black employees' compensation at Coinbase was closer to 11%. The report also alleges a pay disparity by gender. For example, male level 1 managers at Coinbase earned 20% more than their female peers. On average, women at the crypto firm were paid 8%, or $13,000, less than their male counterparts in 2018. “The pay disparities at Coinbase appear to be much larger than those in the tech ind...
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New York authorizes first Yen stablecoin operator in the US

Japanese firm GMO will now be able to offer Yen and dollar-pegged stablecoins to the public in New York. New York has given the first authorization to a stablecoin backed by the Japanese Yen to operate in the U.S. Per a Dec. 29 announcement , the New York Department of Financial Services has granted Japanese firm GMO-Z.com  a charter to handle U.S.D. and Yen-backed stablecoins in New York.  Given New York's status as a global center, the NYDFS is the most prominent state financial regulator in the U.S. It is also one of the most aggressive. A pass to operate in New York often opens up the rest of the country.  GMO's charter is as a limited liability trust company rather than a full bank, the principle difference being in authorization to handle deposits. While a stablecoin operator typically needs the ability to hold reserves of the pegged asset, GMO's charter limits its rights to hold other kinds of deposits not central to its ability "to issue, administer, and r...
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Simplex partners with Visa to issue crypto debit cards

Fiat-to-crypto on-ramp service provider Simplex has partnered with Visa to allow its client firms to issue crypto debit cards. Over 200 Simplex partner companies can now offer crypto debit cards to their customers, potentially enabling greater adoption of cryptocurrencies for retail transactions. The development is the result of a recent partnership between Simplex and Visa announced Monday. Simplex, a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp service is now a principal member of Visa in Europe. A Simplex spokesperson explained to Cointelegraph that the partnership is mainly a boost for the company’s business-to-business activities. “The principal membership is what enables us to roll this out to our partner network, basically giving any Simplex partner the ability to offer a crypto or fiat Visa card.” For Simplex founder and CEO Nimrod Lehavi, the Visa partnership is an important step in the company’s plans of enabling greater access to digital currencies. Back in October, Simplex added a Tether-to...
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Bringing carbon emissions reporting into the new age via blockchain

Blockchain can bring transparency and traceability to mining and metal supply chains, although data challenges may hamper successful use cases. Blockchain for supply chain management is one of the most practical business applications for large, multi-party sectors seeking trust and transparency across daily operations. As such, the mining and metals sector has now started to leverage blockchain technology to effectively track carbon emissions across complex, global supply chains.  This month, The World Economic Forum launched a proof-of-concept to trace carbon emissions across the supply chains of seven mining and metals firms. Known as the Mining and Metals Blockchain Initiative, or MMBI, this is a collaboration between the WEF and industry companies including Anglo American, Antofagasta Minerals, Eurasian Resources Group, Glencore, Klöckner & Co., Minsur, and Tata Steel. Jörgen Sandström, head of the WEF’s Mining and Metals Industry, told Cointelegraph that the distribut...
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India Considers 18% GST on Bitcoin Transactions

The Indian government is reportedly mulling over imposing an 18% goods and services tax (GST) on bitcoin transactions. According to the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, the government could gain Rs 7,200 crore annually from this bitcoin taxation. 18% GST on Bitcoin Trades The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB), an arm of the finance ministry, has proposed imposing an 18% goods and services tax (GST) on bitcoin transactions, the Times of India reported Tuesday. The CEIB, which acts as the finance ministry’s think tank, recently conducted a study on levying GST on cryptocurrencies. The bureau told the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) that the government could gain Rs 7,200 crore ($981 million) annually by taxing bitcoin trading. Quoting sources from the finance ministry, the publication detailed: CEIB has suggested that bitcoins can be categorized under ‘intangible assets’ class and a GST levy could be imposed on all transactions. “The board has ...
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Crust Network Launches Crust Storage Market, Decentralized Cloud Service Built on Polkadot

PRESS RELEASE. One of the star projects of the emerging Polkadot ecosystem, Crust Network, recently completed a several million dollar Series A financing round in September, with investors including NGC Ventures, SNZ, HashCIB, DFG, KNS Group and AU21 Capital. In 2020, Crust Network joined the Substrate Builders Program, and won a grant from the Web3 Foundation. In one of the key stages of Crust Network launching decentralized cloud services to users worldwide, Crust has revealed more details about their Storage Market design, a network storage resource trading market that allows storage resource providers and storage resource users to transact in an open market. In order to promote the Crust Storage Market, the CSM token is being given to community members that provide liquidity on UniSwap and through other community activities. In the future, Crust plans to implement other cloud services, such as decentralized cloud computing, which will also be bought and sold through Crust Service...
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India ponders Bitcoin tax law to target $5B market

India’s government could levy taxes on Bitcoin trading despite the lack of legal clarity for the country’s crypto space. India’s finance ministry has called for the enactment of Bitcoin ( BTC ) tax laws in the country. According to the Times of India, the ministry’s Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, or CEIB, recently submitted a draft document that proposes levying an 18% goods and services tax on Bitcoin trading. CEIB figures put the estimated Bitcoin transaction volume in India at over $5.4 billion. Thus, the proposed 18% tax could see the government earning about $970 million from crypto taxation. As part of the proposed plan, the CEIB is pushing for virtual currencies to be classified as “intangible assets” to fall under the purview of GST with taxes levied on the profits made from trading. Reacting to the news, Tanvi Ratna, CEO of Indian crypto policy advisory firm Policy 4.0, tweeted : “Sadly, this does not necessarily imply that crypto will be legal. Under Indian law,...
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Spanish Municipality Creates Its Own Cryptocurrency to Boost Economy Hurt by Coronavirus Crisis

A municipality in the province of Sevilla, Spain, has launched its own cryptocurrency, which aims to encourage residents and merchants to arrange transactions with it in the midst of the coronavirus-driven economic impact. Spain’s Sevilla Municipality Launches ‘Elio’ Cryptocurrency to Boost Local Economy According to Europa Press , the City Council of Lebrija created “Elio,” a crypto asset pegged to euro price, which will act as a tunnel to send economic aids to stimulate local consumption, between 50 and 200 EUR ($61 to 244) to each one of the 593 selected beneficiaries. The criteria of selection took into consideration their monthly income and number of children. Also, 393 local companies will receive a 400 EUR ($488) economic aid worth in Elio before the end of the year, as part of the “Municipal Reactive Plan.” Pepe Barroso, the mayor of Lebrija, said that Elio’s creation would guarantee that economic aids “invest directly in local businesses.” In fact, Barroso refers to a mob...
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How low could XRP go? Watch these price levels next

XRP price hit new monthly lows after Coinbase revealed it will delist the token in January. XRP price dropped by 30% on Dec. 29 following Coinbase’s decision to suspend trading.  The market sentiment around XRP has become overwhelmingly negative due to the fear of more exchange delistings. In the near term, XRP faces three key historical support levels at $0.224, $0.1743 and $0.1471. Where would the XRP price go next? The ongoing price trend of XRP is not cyclical nor reliant on technical analysis. It is due to investors selling XRP following the suspension of trading across major cryptocurrency exchanges. On Dec. 29, Coinbase announced that it is suspending the XRP trading pairs on their platform. Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer at Coinbase, wrote : “In light of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Inc, we have made the decision to suspend the XRP trading pairs on our platform. Trading will move into limit only starting December 28, 2020 at 2:30 PM PST, and will b...
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Bitcoin price rally cools down as Polkadot gains 34% in first week of 'altseason'

Bitcoin dominance is likely topping out, Michaël van de Poppe argues, as Bitcoin gives way to strong moves from some top ten altcoins. Bitcoin ( BTC ) fell below $26,000 on Dec. 29 as fresh fallout from Ripple's threatened U.S. lawsuit was felt throughout crypto markets. Cryptocurrency market overview. Source: Coin360 BTC price dips as Coinbase halts XRP trading Data from Cointelegraph Markets , Coin360 and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting lows of $25,830 during Tuesday trading. $27,000 support failed to hold overnight, sparking a retest of lower levels which now center on $26,000. At the weekend, Bitcoin hit all-time highs of $28,400 before swiftly reversing. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView The latest losses come as XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, hits $0.23 thanks to major U.S. exchange Coinbase opting to suspend trading from next month. The reason is a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...
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