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Showing posts from February 4, 2021

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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Former South Korean Social Media Giant to Relaunch Its Business by Creating a New Ethereum-Based Token

A social media giant that significantly impacted South Korea’s internet influence in the early 2000s is set to take a second breath. The company plans to regain its popularity by launching a new cryptocurrency. New Ownership Reportedly Got Over $7 Million From Investors to Rebrand Cyworld According to Hanguk Kyungjae , Cyworld is paving the ground to relaunch its business under new ownership. The consortium of five domestic companies includes SKY E&M, a local entertainment company. The negotiation wasn’t a million-dollar transaction. In fact, the consortium bought Cyworld from its troubled former owner for $897,000 — the same amount owed to Cyworld’s employees at the time of the acquisition. The consortium has now revealed its plans to rebrand the firm as “Cyworld Z,” including the issuance of an Ethereum-based token, Dotori (Acorn). The new management expects the crypto can be listed on “one of the country’s (South Korea) top three crypto exchanges.” Moreover, Hanguk Kyungja...
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Coinbase IPO a ‘watershed moment’ for crypto regulation: Caitlin Long

The CEO of pioneering digital bank Avanti Bank & Trust, Caitlin Long, has predicted the upcoming Coinbase IPO will force regulators to provide clarity to the crypto sector. Caitlin Long, founder of Wyoming-based digital asset bank, Avanti Bank & Trust, has predicted Coinbase’s upcoming IPO will be a “watershed moment” for cryptocurrency regulation. Speaking alongside SEC commissioner Hester Peirce during BlockFi and Real Vision’s “Bitcoin in the Real World” event on Feb. 5, Long speculated the IPO of the United States’ leading crypto exchange is likely to “force” the SEC’s hand to establish a precedent for many outstanding regulatory issues key to the digital asset sector. Long emphasized the SEC will examine Coinbase ’s prospectus with a “fine-tooth comb,” stating: “What the world is going to look at when that prospectus goes effective, is that everything that in it is OK with the SEC.” Noting the recent delistings of Ripple’s XRP token from dozens of exchanges after the...
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Crypto escrow agent dodges jail after lying over stolen millions

A crypto escrow agent has avoided prison time despite lying about losing $3.25 million, with the judge noting the agent had been the victim of fraud himself. A Manhattan federal judge has let an escrow agent walk free for deceiving a crypto investment manager about having purchased $3.25 million worth of Bitcoin on their behalf in 2018.  During a hearing held over video conference on Feb. 4, U.S district Judge Edgardo Ramos ordered Volantis Market Making founder John Barry Thompson of Pennsylvania to repay the $3.25 million to New York-based investment manager, Iterative OTC, and sentenced him to three years of supervised release. Thompson pleaded guilty in October 2020. According to legal publication Law 360 , Judge Ramos took into account Thompson’s lack of ill-intent and the fact he had been victim of fraud himself, stating: "Mr. Thompson engaged in serious felonious conduct [but] we have to put that in context. This was an unusual fraud." Judge Ramos was also willi...
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Billionaire Bitcoin investor backs away from California governor bid

Citing the need to focus on business, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has put his political aspirations on hold. Only 10 days after announcing he would run for California state governor , long-time Bitcoin proponent and billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya has backed away from the idea in a Feb. 2 episode of The All In Podcast . E20 is here! -- @Jason & @chamath reconcile -- Robinhood wrap up, lessons learned -- Insiders vs. Outsiders -- California's failing report card (& how to fix it) -- @chamath tells his @azizansari story : https://t.co/IFp93HhAly : https://t.co/yw533KnP4J — The All-In Podcast (@theallinpod) February 3, 2021 Palihapitiya, who started investing in Bitcoin in 2012, has been a vocal critic of current California Governor Gavin Newsom, tweeting the hashtag, “#RecallGavinNewsom” on Jan. 26. The tweet linked to a site saying “Chamath for California Governor” and containing a number of policy promises. However, he's sin...
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The good news for ETH hodlers about insane gas fees

Galloping gas fees are hurting the average user but Grayscale and Ethereum advocates can see the bright side. Ethereum and DeFi proponent Ryan Sean Adams has drawn attention to how high gas fees relative to the current Ether price could actually be a bullish sign.  Citing this week’s Grayscale research paper ‘Valuing Ethereum’ the Bankless commentator claimed that Ethereum is “actually getting cheaper” from a price to sale ratio aspect. Here's what's crazy... From a P/S perspective ETH is actually getting *cheaper* pic.twitter.com/xyz9yuVCyZ — Ryan Sean Adams - rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) February 4, 2021 A price to sales ratio (P/S) is usually calculated by taking a company's market capitalization and dividing it by revenue from sales. In this case, taking Ethereum’s $184 billion market cap dividing it by the total revenue derived from transaction fees provides a similar metric. The lower the P/S ratio, the more attractive the investment (although there’s debate as to ...
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Guggenheim Investments Increases Bitcoin Fair Value Estimate — Says BTC Price Could Reach $600K

Guggenheim Global Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd has increased his bitcoin fair value estimate. He now says that the price of the cryptocurrency could reach $600K based on his firm’s fundamental research. Guggenheim’s SEC filing to invest half a billion dollars in bitcoin became effective early this week. Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd Says Bitcoin’s Price Could Reach $600K The chief investment officer (CIO) of Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd, talked about his new bitcoin price prediction in an interview with CNN Tuesday. Minerd is also the chairman of Guggenheim Investments, the global asset management and investment advisory division of Guggenheim Partners. As of Dec. 31, 2020, Guggenheim Investments had more than $246 billion in total assets across fixed income, equity, and alternative strategies. Minerd began by discussing the current monetary policy against the backdrop of more stimulus, bubbles in the stock market and other speculative assets, as well as the Gamestop saga...
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DeFi tokens lead the market higher as Bitcoin price searches for momentum

DeFi tokens take center stage as top lending protocols AAVE, Maker and Compound establish new all-time highs. Several DeFi tokens saw their prices breakout on Feb. 4 as Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ether ( ETH ) prices traded sideways for the day. Aside from the general bullish trend permeating the DeFi sector, positive comments from big-name investors touting the benefits of blockchain technology and DeFi appear to be lifting sentiment throughout the sector. Currently, Bitcoin price is still struggling to reclaim the $38,000 level and according to Cointelegraph analyst Marcel Pechman, top traders may have added to their short positions as BTC rallied toward $38,000 on Feb. 3. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Elon Musk made waves again as his “ DOGE ” tweet resulted in a sharp volume spike which sent Dogecoin ( DOGE ) into a 48% rally to $0.054. XRP price also broke out, rallying 12.45% to a daily high at $0.4365. Universal Market Access (UMA) saw its price e...
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Australian pleads guilty to $90 million crypto fund scam in the U.S.

The Australian man admitted to cheating investors out of $90 million taken from two crypto funds in the U.S. An Australian citizen has pleaded guilty to cheating investors out of over $90 million by squandering money they invested in his New York-based cryptocurrency funds. Twenty four-year-old Stefan He Qin entered the plea to a single count of a securities fraud charge in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, Feb. 4. According to the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the fraud occurred from 2017 to 2020 as Qin operated the fund titled Virgil Sigma. In a statement , U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “Stefan He Qin drained almost all of the assets from the $90 million cryptocurrency fund he owned, stealing investors’ money, spending it on indulgences and speculative personal investments, and lying to investors about the performance of the fund and what he had done with their money,” She added that Qin then tried to steal money from ano...
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Curve liquidity providers see $3M windfall from $11M Yearn Finance exploit

A hacker has made off with $2.8 million after draining $11 million from Yearn Finance’s V1 DAI vault. DeFi protocol Yearn Finance has reported that its V1 yDAI vault was exploited by a hacker to the tune of $11 million on Feb. 5. However, the hacker failed to reap the lion’s share of the heist, with Curve liquidity providers making more from the attack than its mastermind. While the vault lost $11 million in total, Yearn developer “Banteg” tweeted that the hacker had only been able to profit to the tune of $2.8 million. The team has suspended all deposits to its V1 DAI, USDC, USDT, and TUSD amid an ongoing investigation. Yearn DAI v1 vault got exploited, the attacker got away with $2.8m, the vault lost $11m. Deposits into strategies disabled for v1 DAI, TUSD, USDC, USDT vaults while we investigate. pic.twitter.com/1RWYyu0d5m — banteg (@bantg) February 4, 2021 Cointelegraph reached out to the developer for comments regarding the attack, but Banteg indicated the team does not wis...
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Spanish Treasury Releases Guidelines to Minimize the Risk of Tax Evasion With Cryptocurrencies

The State Agency for Tax Administration of Spain published guidelines to reduce tax evasion for cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin. The document is part of the general program of the so-called Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan. Spanish Tax Authorities Could Ask Local Exchanges for Customers Data According to the paper, the Spanish Treasury’s entity seeks to apply three measures, as the crypto markets’ hype generates “tax risks.” That’s why the agency expects to gather information as countermeasures against tax-related crimes. The watchdog is looking with the first measure to ask for information from the local crypto exchanges about digital asset holders. The document clarifies they’re pursuing such measures to incentivize the voluntary tax payments on crypto transactions. The second input made by the Treasury’s entity reads as follows: Systematization and analysis of the information obtained, in order to facilitate the actions to control the correct taxation of the operations c...
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‘Expensive lesson’: 75 Eth2 validators slashed for introducing potential chain split bug

A company providing nodes for Eth2 stakers was penalized for breaking safety protocols in the pursuit of higher performance. Staking infrastructure provider Staked said it had learned “an expensive lesson” after 75 of its Eth2 validators were slashed on Feb. 4 from the staking pool as punishment for producing competing blocks.  In a statement , Staked took the blame for the “technical issue” and said its customers would be “fully compensated”. The company will pay the penalty of 18 ETH, which is around $29,000 at current prices. An unanticipated reaction to configuration changes caused several nodes managed by Staked to restart in error, leading them to incorrectly sign a second version of a previously-signed block. This introduced the potential for a split in the Ethereum blockchain. Post-mortem of recent Eth2 slashing event from @staked_us : TLDR - Disabling persistence of Prysm’s on-client slashing protection DB across validator client restarts, for improving attestatio...
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MEW now provides access to 2000 DeFi and NFT DApps on mobile

Striving to become Ethereum’s DApp hub, MyEtherWallet users can now search for and access the entire suite of Ethereum DApps within their MEW app. Ethereum wallet and interface MyEtherWallet, or MEW, has brought decentralized applications to its 1.3 million monthly users through a new “DApps Browser” feature in the MEW mobile app. The collaboration with DApp analytics site DappRadar opens the door for MEW users to access more than 2,000 Ethereum based decentralized applications including DeFi and NFT based protocols directly from their smartphone. Through the DApps Browser, users can browse, search for and interact with DeDApps like UniSwap, SushiSwap and Balancer to access financial services such as loans, asset swaps, and staking. They can also track their DeFi portfolios of loans and deposits. The wallet software enables secure access, with the private key never leaving the device's secure encrypted storage , and never shared with the DApp. Users can also access other dec...
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Crypto-Centric VC Fund Lures in Billionaire Investor Paul Tudor Jones and Rapper LL Cool J

This week the former Digital Currency Group (DCG) Vice President of Investments, Travis Scher, announced a $72 million crypto-focused venture capital fund backed by the billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones and hip-hop star LL Cool J. The crypto VC fund was invoked by Scher, the private equity veteran Glenn Hutchins, and his son James Hutchins as well. On Thursday, February 4, 2021, a former DCG executive, Travis Scher tweeted about the new crypto-centric venture capital fund he started with two other partners. The crypto VC fund is managed by North Island Ventures partners Scher, Glenn Hutchins, and James Hutchins. The fund announcement explains that the new venture capital crypto fund initiated by North Island Ventures is backed by well known individuals. Investors in the fund include the rapper and hip hop star LL Cool J and also billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones. Additionally, the announcement also mentions Twitter COO Anthony Noto and Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi as investors....
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Total crypto market cap hits new all-time high of $1.13 trillion

The 2021 crypto bull market has notched another record, continuing a streak of unprecedented performance. The combined value of all cryptocurrencies broke a new record of close to $1.139 trillion at 8:50 a.m. UTC on Feb. 4 . While long-term analysts often eye Bitcoin's solo chances of eating into gold's total market cap, the combined value of all cryptos together is currently more competitive with the total market cap of silver, at just under $1.5 trillion. Having broken the $1 trillion milestone early in Jan. 2021 , today's crypto market is seeing greater distribution of growth between the top two assets in the game: Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ether ( ETH ). On Jan. 7, the date of the market's $1 trillion breakthrough, Bitcoin dominance clocked in at 69%, versus Ether's 13.5%. By contrast, the most recently updated data from CoinMarketCap this week has Bitcoin dominance at 62.2% versus Ether's share at 15.6%. Bitcoin  Total market capitalization of all cryptocur...
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South African Taxpayers Who Fail to Disclose Income From Cryptocurrency Trading Face Possible Jail Time

According to a report, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) has sent out audit requests to taxpayers asking them to disclose their cryptocurrency trades and purchases. Taxpayers that fail to correctly disclose their income from bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies may be “liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to two years.” SARS Tracking Non-Compliant Taxpayers In the report , which is based on statements made by Tax Consulting South Africa, cryptocurrency traders are now required to state the purpose for purchasing the digital assets. In addition, crypto traders must submit a “letter from the trading platform(s) confirming the investments and the relevant trading schedules for the period and bank statements.” However, as Tax Consulting South Africa observes, this changed approach by SARS could spell trouble for taxpayers. According to the tax consulting firm, “it is no longer material whether the taxpayer concerned had justification for such non-disclosure or false statement ma...
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Finance giant SBI expands cryptocurrency lending service to XRP

After launching its crypto lending service in late 2020, SBI has now added support for XRP. Japanese financial services firm SBI Group has enabled XRP lending through its cryptocurrency-related subsidiary, SBI VC Trade. According to a Feb. 4 announcement , SBI VC Trade Lending users can now earn interest by depositing their XRP holdings between 1,000 and 100,000 XRP, with the lending period lasting up to 84 days. “VC Trade Lending is a service that allows customers to rent out their crypto assets to the company and receive interest rewards according to the quantity and duration of the crypto assets,” SBI stated. The annual interest rate for lending XRP amounts to 0.1% with taxes included, the announcement notes. The XRP interest rate is significantly lower than the rate for lending Bitcoin ( BTC ) to SBI. The company officially rolled out its crypto lending platform in November 2020, allowing users to earn 1% interest from depositing BTC. The new listing on SBI’s lending platfor...
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'Ur welcome' — DOGE soars after Elon Musk returns to Twitter... to shill Dogecoin

A sudden reappearance by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has only one focus: a meme-based altcoin now masquerading as the Lion King. Meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin ( DOGE ) gained 25% in minutes on Feb. 4 after a fresh endorsement from the world’s richest man.  DOGE/USD 1-minute candle chart (Bittrex). Source: TradingView DOGE in new "Elon pump" Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView showed DOGE/USD rebound past $0.05 per token on Thursday, edging towards new all-time highs. Musk, who is known for name dropping Dogecoin and Bitcoin on Twitter but just days ago said that he was taking a break “for a while,” returned to post a picture of a rocket and the moon. “Doge,” he added in a subsequent comment , with later tweet reading “Ur welcome,” accompanied by a doctored image of the Dogecoin shiba inu mascot as Simba in the Disney film, “The Lion King.” ur welcome pic.twitter.com/e2KF57KLxb — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021 Immediately afterwards, Doge...
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