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Showing posts from March 2, 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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ECOMI to List OMI Tokens With BitMax

PRESS RELEASE. BitMax.io (BTMX.com), an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the listing of OMI Tokens (OMI) under the trading pair of OMI/USDT on March 2nd at 9:00 a.m. EST. ECOMI is leading the way in the mass market digital collectible space. Its app, VeVe, offers the most comprehensive digital collectible experience, with premium format 3D digital collectibles from the world’s leading brands. The OMI token underpins the economy of ECOMI Collect and is needed for the sale and purchase of digital collectibles and other digital goods within the VeVe App. Digital streaming, gaming, in-app purchasing are all multibillion-dollar markets, and the next one to join this digital trend is the pop culture and collectibles industry. VeVe brings the physical world of collecting into the digital realm and offers collectibles in premium digital format as limited- edition 3D models, which users can place in virtual showroo...
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IRS clarifies reporting requirements for crypto bought with fiat

The United States IRS has clarified that crypto investors who only purchased digital assets using fiat and did not sell during 2020 do not need to report said activities. The United States Internal Revenue Service , or IRS, has updated its FAQ section on cryptocurrency to clarify investors who have only purchased crypto assets with fiat currency do not need to report their transactions under the "virtual currency" question. The first page of U.S. citizens’ Individual Income Tax Return form, or Form 1040 , asks whether the respondent received, sold, sent, exchanged, or otherwise acquired “any financial interest in any virtual currency” during 2020. As such, the form’s wording suggests that individuals who acquired crypto assets through any means would be required to answer yes to the question, regardless of whether the virtual currency was purchased using U.S. dollars, Kenyan shillings, or peanuts. However, question five of the IRS’ updated cryptocurrency FAQ information...
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Theta, Aavegotchi (GHST) hit new highs as Bitcoin price chases after $50K

New partnerships and mainnet launches send select altcoins to new highs as Bitcoin bulls set BTC price back on the path to $50,000. Bitcoin ( BTC ) bulls appear to have found their momentum as BTC price reclaimed the $49,000 level within the last hour. On March 2 the price dropped as low as $47,000 but currently, BTC is trading above the 20-day moving average. Bulls are likely to make another attempt at flipping the $50,000 resistance to support and a sustained high volume spike could send the price to $52,000 where a daily close would confirm that bulls are back in the driver's seat.    Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Even though Bitcoin is struggling to secure a daily close above $50,000, a steady thread of favorable news continues to emerge. Businessman and Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary, who once called Bitcoin a “giant nothing burger,” revealed that 3% of his portfolio will be put into Bitcoin  and in the future, O'Leary plans to inv...
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Vitalik proposes solution to link certain layer-two scaling projects

L2 DeFi protocols currently cannot communicate with each other, so Vitalik has proposed a fix. In an ongoing effort to battle escalating transaction fees while creating a unified ecosystem, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a solution for a particular type of cross-rollup scaling. The proposal outlines how two protocols using rollups can communicate with each other while maintaining interconnectivity and composability. Rollups are layer-two solutions that are essentially smart contract networks that process and store transaction data off the main chain. However, there are a number of different rollup types, with each using unique smart contracts such as optimistic and zero-knowledge. While a number of DeFi projects have deployed layer-two rollups, such as Loopring and Synthetix, the particulars of the various rollups mean projects are unable to communicate to one another directly on layer-two. Buterin’s proposal assumes that one rollup can process simple transact...
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Free fantasy soccer crypto game launched by Ubisoft and Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League

Ubisoft in partnership with Belgium Pro Soccer league has launched a free to play crypto soccer game. France-based game publisher Ubisoft just launched One Shot League, a new free-to-play fantasy soccer game powered by crypto assets. One Shot League was developed by the Ubisoft Strategic Innovation Lab in collaboration with Sorare, an Ethereum-based fantasy soccer game built around collectable cards in the form of NFTs. Discover an all-new fantasy football experience with One Shot League! Developed by the Ubisoft Strategic Innovation Lab, build your squad for the Belgian Pro League and win digital collectible @SorareHQ cards ⚽ #NFT — Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) March 2, 2021 They’ve partnered with the Jupiler Pro League, the professional soccer league of Belgium. The 2020-2021 soccer season will be used to test the beta version of the game and encourage feedback from users. Users build five-player teams and compete with the entire community every week. Players earn points and climb ...
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Bitfarms set to acquire 48,000 new miners in 2022 despite chip shortage

Chinese supplier MicroBT will be providing the new hardware over the next two years. One of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining operations in the world, Bitfarms, has undertaken to purchase 48,000 new miners over the next two years. The Canadian mining company has sourced the equipment from Chinese supplier MicroBT in a bid to increase its hashing capacity by another 5 EH (exahashes) according to reports . Bitfarms was founded in 2017 and currently has a capacity of 1 EH. It has targeted a 200% increase by the end of 2021. The hashing capacity is the amount of pure computing horsepower that can be dedicated to mining Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. The firm anticipates the initial shipment of hardware to take place on or before January 2022, with the final mining rigs expected to arrive in December 2022. It will increase its overall hashing capacity to a total of 8 EH over the next two years. Emiliano Grodzki, CEO of Bitfarms, stated it was getting harder to secure mining rig...
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An Iranian Think Tank Recommends the Use of Cryptocurrencies to Circumvent Sanctions

A think tank affiliated with the Iranian Presidency has unveiled a study report that encourages the use of cryptocurrencies in circumventing sanctions against the country. In addition, the report also claims the government could potentially “generate US$2 million a day and $700 million a year in direct revenue from cryptocurrencies.” Employment Opportunities Meanwhile, as reported by one local media outlet, the authors of the report say Iran can increase employment opportunities across its economy if it enables the creation of more bitcoin mining farms. In their report , the authors assert that: If large mining farms are established, the need to employ manpower for monitoring and repair, security, electrical engineers and technical staff related to hardware and software equipment will increase, which leads to more job opportunities in other sectors. The authors then go on to suggest that “for every megawatt of electricity consumption about nine people are directly employed.” H...
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DeFi token CRV spikes after reports PayPal acquired unrelated custody firm Curv

Curve Finance is up nearly 30% in 24 hours after traders rallied into the wrong market in response to news that PayPal may have acquired the crypto custodian, Curv. Excitable speculators mistakenly rushed to invest in the native token of decentralized finance protocol Curve Finance (CRV) after reports emerged that payments giant PayPal has acquired the unrelated Israel-based crypto custody firm, Curv. News of PayPal’s Curv acquisition was reported on March 2, with the publications citing anonymous sources “familiar with the matter.” Israel-based media has reported the company may have been sold for between $200 million and $300 million. Within an hour of the news breaking, Curve’s CRV token had rallied by more than 10% as opportunistic traders raced each other to enter the markets — pushing prices up from roughly $2.30 to $2.60. The official Twitter account of Curve has also been mistakenly tagged in numerous posts celebrating PayPal’s acquisition, to which Curve has responded i...
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Rarest Pepe — ‘most important NFT in art history’ — sells for 205 ETH

With more than $300M spent on NFTs this year, it is no surprise that one of the rarest Pepe NFTs “Homer Pepe” just changed hands for $320,000. The rarest Pepe of them all, “Homer Pepe”, has sold for 205 ETH ($320,000) according to owner Peter Kell. The one-of-a-kind card displays a morph between Simpsons character Homer and the infamous Pepe The Frog. Peter Kell's Instagram post. Source: Instagram Pepe is a cartoon frog created by artist Matt Furie and has inspired countless memes on the internet including Rare Pepes, one of the first art experiments on blockchain. The Homer Pepe is a user-generated card from the Rare Pepe collectibles platform developed by Joe Looney in 2016 and showcased in the Rare Art Labs Digital Art Festival in 2018. The card was acquired by Kell at the first-ever live auction for blockchain art for $38,500 — said to be the highest price for a non-fungible token, or NFT, at the time. The artwork was also recently featured in the Sundance Film Festiva...
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Top 3 NFT brands' sales grew 381% in February

The NFT explosion is one of the most talked about events for crypto in 2021, with sales from several platforms breaking records on a weekly basis. NFTs had their best month ever in February, according to a report by DApp statistics trackers at DappRadar. Sales volume from the top three platforms grew to $342 million in February, up almost 400% from the $71 million recorded the month before. Sports memorabilia platform NBA Top Shot dominated the sector and is now responsible for 67% of total NFT transaction volume. The other NFT DApps in the top three are OpenSea, a general crypto collectibles market and CryptoPunks, an Ethereum-based collectibles series. CryptoPunks generated all-time high sales of $79M with the floor price of punks increasing from $10,000 to an average of $32,000. Keep up to date with the latest industry trends. Check out our February '21 Dapp Industry Report to find out how different #blockchains and individual projects have performed⬇️ @ethereum @Binan...
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Bitfarms Purchases 48,000 Bitcoin Miners, Plans to Increase Hashpower by 5 Exahash

The publicly listed Canadian bitcoin mining operation Bitfarms has announced the firm is purchasing 48,000 Microbt Whatsminer mining rigs in order to expand capacity. Bitfarms highlights the acquisition of new miners will up the company’s hashpower by approximately 5 exahash per second (EH/s). Bitfarms to Acquire 48,000 High-Powered Bitcoin Miners from Microbt The Canadian bitcoin (BTC) mining company Bitfarms (TSXV:BITF, OTC:BFARF) announced on Tuesday the company has entered an agreement where it plans to purchase 48,000 mining rigs manufactured by Microbt. The China-based firm Microbt is the manufacturer of Whatsminer devices, which are some of the most powerful application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines in the world. For instance, the company’s Whatsminer M30S++ is the most-profitable SHA256 ASIC miner on the market today according to current data. Bitfarm’s announcement on Tuesday explains that Microbt has become the firm’s “supplier of choice.” During the las...
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Litecoin creator draws parallels between 2021’s NFT and 2017’s ICO mania

Litecoin creator Charlie Lee continues to criticize the NFT industry, seeing the hallmarks of a mania similar to 2017 and even 2013. Charlie Lee, the creator of major cryptocurrency Litecoin ( LTC ), believes that the ongoing spike in popularity of the nonfungible token, or NFT, industry has much in common with the 2017 initial coin offering, or ICO, mania. Lee provided at least five similarities between 2021’s NFT popularity and 2017’s ICO mania, also comparing both to the altcoin craze in 2013 in a tweet on Tuesday. According to the Litecoin creator, all three cryptocurrency phenomena look very similar, as they are easy to create “with no barriers” and simple to understand and explain. Lee noted that NFTs, ICOs and 2013’s altcoins also have a big similarity in terms of adoption — as all of them bring, or used to bring, “tons of new people into crypto.” Similar to the high prices and pumps of altcoins in 2013, ICOs and NFTs are associated with massive hype and fear of missing ou...
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The Largest US Options Exchange Cboe Applies to List Vaneck’s Bitcoin ETF

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) has applied to list the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust, as an exchange-traded fund (ETF) if the fund is approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The filing Form 19b-4, if approved by financial regulators, would allow Cboe to “list and trade shares of the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust.” Cboe Aims to List the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust BZX On March 1, 2021, the largest U.S. options exchange, Cboe filed a registration with the U.S. SEC in order to list shares of the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust under the ticker “BZX.” The filing written by Cboe’s associate general counsel notes that the shares may be redeemable for bitcoin (BTC) . The Cboe registration is based on the Vaneck proposal the company applied for on December 30, 2020. Cboe filed to list the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust on March 1, 2021. New York-based investment management firm Vaneck applied with the SEC at the end of 2020, following the successful listing of a crypto ETF in Europe. The announce...
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Winner Cashes Out $160,000 from Bitcoin.com Games with a 13,870x Multiplier

Bitcoin.com Games gave this player 160,000 reasons to be happy this spring! Lucky Player Bags Two Epic Wins Within Minutes What started as a perfectly normal month of March for this player turned out to be a life-changing experience when they won, not one, but two big rounds of The Dog House Megaways slot on Bitcoin.com Games . Starting off with a small bet of $22, the wheels of fortune started turning for the player when the reels started spinning in their favor, landing the player their first win of $17,600. A chunky 788x of the original bet amount! A win like that could take anyone’s head for a spin, but little did the player know what the future had in store for them. As they kept spinning the reels of this one-of-a-kind Megaways slot, Lady Luck decided it was time to bring massive fortunes to the player. Only this time the bet was $11, and the win? $164,170. 13,870x and 788x multipliers applied to player’s bets resulting in a total win amount of $181,770 on The Dog House...
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Enterprise meets DeFi: Organizations work toward adopting blockchain tech

Enterprise DeFi adoption is in development, but a number of challenges must be addressed before it’s ready for the mainstream. Decentralized finance is quickly maturing. While the total value locked in DeFi is over $45 billion , financial institutions and large corporations are starting to implement DeFi concepts to automate business processes. This is known as “enterprise DeFi.” For instance, invoices and other financial products can be tokenized to ensure that transactions are valid and should be processed for payment across multiple parties. Coke One North America is one of the first large corporations to demonstrate this. CONA is leveraging the Baseline Protocol  — a project that coordinates confidential workflows between enterprises using messaging, zero-knowledge cryptography and blockchain — to tokenize invoices. CONA aims to “baseline” its entire supply chain by giving internal bottlers and external suppliers access to a private, distributed integration network. Throug...
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No, Goldman Sachs isn’t a bearish indicator for Bitcoin

The Bitcoin market is a different beast compared to late 2017 when Goldman Sachs balked at launching its crypto trading desk. Peter Brandt, a popular veteran trader and CEO of proprietary trading firm Factor LLC, recently gave his thoughts on Goldman Sachs potentially restarting its cryptocurrency desk. Us old-timers have learned that whenever @GoldmanSachs enters a market niche it is time to guard your money. $BTC pic.twitter.com/tHfRkS4igb — Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) March 1, 2021 On Dec. 21, 2017, a similar Bloomberg piece stated that Goldman Sachs would set up a cryptocurrency trading desk, although the bank was “still trying to work out security issues.” Although Brandt’s chart seems significant, one needs to understand that such speculation had been ongoing for a couple of months. Wall Street Journal already  covered Goldman Sachs’ intention to do this on Oct. 2, 2017. Even if we disregard the exact date, Goldman Sachs apparently ditched those plans to launch ...
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Turkish finance ministry to study cryptocurrency with local regualtors

Regulators are taking a hard look at crypto in Turkey, but local experts welcome the oversight. Turkey made itself a name as a crypto-friendly country with a "wait and see" approach on digital assets, but that could be about to change as the government is now ready to take things in hand. The Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance went to Twitter to express concerns about cryptocurrencies and to announce collaborative work on the topic with several local regulators on March 1. According to the announcement, the ministry is working with the central bank alongside two financial regulatory agencies: "We share the rising concerns about crypto with the rest of the world. The developments (on crypto around the world) and the state of crypto in Turkey are closely monitored by our ministry. We are collaborating with the Central Bank, Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, and Capital Markets Board within this frame under the presidency of Deputy Minister." Coi...
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Thai SEC forced to clarify proposed crypto rules after public backlash

Financial regulators in Thailand may adjust the minimum annual income qualification for crypto investors amid public outrage. Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission has walked back previous plans to enact a 1 million baht (about $33,000) minimum annual income requirement for crypto investment in the country. According to a report by the Bangkok Post on Tuesday, the Commission has clarified that the previous draft document was published to gauge investor sentiment. The Thai SEC backtracking comes amid outrage from crypto stakeholders in the country who bemoaned the proposed rule saying that it would exclude low and middle-income earners from the cryptocurrency market. Clarifying the commission’s position of the matter, Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, secretary-general of the Thai SEC stated: “I proposed the criteria that many considered too tough to prompt people to express their opinions on the matter and did not intend to say these are the exact qualifications that will be imple...
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Crypto Bank Expands in India — Confident Government Will Approve Legitimate Use of Cryptocurrencies

Crypto bank Unicas, a joint venture between Cashaa and United Multi State Credit Cooperative Society, has expanded its operations by opening another physical branch. The bank believes that the Indian government will introduce positive crypto regulation and not impose an outright ban on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin . New Physical Crypto Bank Branch Opens in New Delhi Physical crypto bank Unicas has opened another branch, Cashaa announced last week. Unicas is a joint venture between crypto banking platform Cashaa and United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society. Noting that this will be the first of many branches in the city, the announcement details: Unicas – the world’s first crypto financial institution with physical branches today opened in India’s capital, New Delhi. Unicas is banking on the Indian government introducing a bill to approve the legitimate use of cryptocurrency. “We are proud to bring Unicas to the nation’s capital,” Unicas CEO Dinesh Kukreja commented. “Del...
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