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Showing posts from June 24, 2021

Bitcoin of America Makes It Big: The Team Behind One of the Largest Bitcoin ATM Operators Worldwide

PRESS RELEASE. Bitcoin of America , a popular virtual currency exchange, is known for their 1200+ ATMs across 31 US states. Bitcoin of America is looking to bring attention to the success their team, working behind the scenes, has had on the company’s growth. Some of their top executives were interviewed on the future of the company and their experiences working there. Registered as a money services business with the United States Department of Treasury, (FinCEN) Bitcoin of America offers several different services including Bitcoin ATMs , Bitcoin Tablets, and an online exchange. Bitcoin of America has been known to provide fast and hassle-free transactions to their customers while offering top of the line customer support, which makes them one of the best in the industry. William P. Suriano, General Counsel for Bitcoin of America, has played a major role in the company’s success. When asked about the future of Bitcoin of America Suriano responded, “In the next couple years, I expec...

UN Kenyan Mission Praises Local Blockchain-Based Initiative for Helping to Reduce Poverty

The United Nations (UN) mission in Kenya recently praised a local blockchain-based community inclusion currency (CIC) initiative for its part in helping to reduce poverty in one of the country’s poor informal settlements. The mission’s sentiments follow a tour of the Mukuru informal settlement by its resident coordinator, Stephen Jackson. In a tweet, the mission commended the Sarafu blockchain anchored e-voucher system for helping “vulnerable households access basic needs.” An Alternative Medium of Exchange In a different tweet , UN Kenya also praised residents of the informal settlement for their embrace of the Sarafu blockchain-based e-vouchers system. The world body further added that by using this trading system, the Mukuru informal settlement is “encouraging local circular economy and reducing poverty levels.” According to past remarks attributed to Will Ruddick — one of the co-authors of a whitepaper document that explains the novel monetary system — CICs are shares that ar...

Beeple launches iconic 'moments' NFT platform with Time, Universal, and Warner

The platform will host the sale of tokens depicting historic moments in sport, politics, and fashion. Pioneering digital artist Mike Winkelmann— better known as Beeple — has helped launch We.new, a platform selling iconic moments in sports, politics, art, and fashion as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The platform is backed by industry giants from the world of journalism, sport, and music including TIME, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Wasserman, and Endeavor. We.new will host auctions and direct sales of Ethereum-powered NFTs. Tokens sold in multiple editions on We.new will use Polygon (MATIC) for layer-2 scaling . Beeple, the highest paid NFT artist so far, said that NFTs represented a new paradigm in how the public can celebrate remarkable achievements. "They give people a way to meaningfully engage with the memories and moments that matter to them — maybe even inspired them or shaped who they are in some way. We.new exists to facilitate and make concrete these onc...

Bulls on parade: Galaxy Digital and Alameda pundits tip market recovery

Jason Urban, co-head of Galaxy Digital Trading thinks institutional adoption of crypto is in its early days and predicts BTC is set to reach new all-time highs once the FUD dissipates. Senior traders from Galaxy Digital and Alameda Research are predicting the crypto market is set to recover once the recent wave of bad news stories subside. Markets have been in a downturn since mid-May, with Bitcoin (BTC) fluctuating between the low to mid $30K range . Speaking with streaming financial news provider Kitco News on June 24, Jason Urban, co-head of Trading at Galaxy Digital asserted that once the FUD dissipates by the Fall, Bitcoin should reach new highs and “see something north of $70,000 by the end of the year.” Urban used baseball as an analogy, saying that institutional crypto investment is only in the “first inning”. While he believes regulatory uncertainty has held many institutions back from entering crypto markets, once they do enter, increased demand for the limited supply ...

Athena confirms plans to bring 1500 Bitcoin ATMs to El Salvador

Accessing BTC is about to get a lot easier in El Salvador with the crypto ATM rollout. U.S. company Athena intends to supply El Salvador’s new crypto-based economy with 1500 Bitcoin ATMs, a company representative has confirmed. The rollout will start small, trialing a few dozen machines to establish a business model. The Chicago headquartered firm plans to invest more than $1 million to install cryptocurrency ATMs , targeting regions where residents receive remittances from abroad. Along with installing the new machines it will also hire staff and open an office to carry out operations in El Salvador. Athena currently operates just two ATMs of this type in El Salvador, one at El Zonte beach as part of an experiment called “Bitcoin Beach” aimed at making the town one of the world's first crypto economies, and the other in El Tunco, according to CNN . Athena's director for Latin America, Matias Goldenhörn, told Reuters that Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele had “presented ...

US Regulators Have Imposed $2.5 Billion Penalties on Crypto Firms and Individuals

A new report shows that U.S. regulators have imposed fines and penalties totaling $2.5 billion on crypto firms and individuals so far. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed the most fines, followed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the latest government agency to come after crypto firms. $2.5 Billion in Fines and Penalties Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic released a report Monday outlining “crypto enforcement actions by U.S. regulators.” The report explains: “Contrary to the widely-held belief that the cryptoasset industry is unregulated, US regulators are increasingly imposing significant financial penalties on crypto businesses – for fraud, breaches of AML regulations, offering unregistered securities and sanctions violations.” Elliptic analyzed enforcement actions by U.S. regulators since the birth of Bitcoin in 2009 and found that “$2.5 billion in penalties hav...

PlanB feeling 'uneasy' as 41% of his followers tip $100K BTC won’t happen this year

It’s make or break time for S2F as BTC teeters on the bounds of the famous model. PlanB, the brainchild behind the Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, has revealed he is feeling “uneasy” about his renowned price predictions due to the recent downtrend in markets. The stock-to-flow (S2F) model, which has predicted BTC prices with some degree of accuracy over the past two years, has been called into question by some of his followers in a recent Twitter poll. The anonymous analyst surveyed his followers on June 21 asking them what price they thought BTC would reach by the end of the year. He used the results to compare them to a similar survey in March when market sentiment was overwhelmingly bullish. Of the 124,595 respondents to the latest poll, 41% thought that BTC prices would remain below $100K by the end of the year, which would invalidate the S2F model . That’s two and a half times the 16% in the previous poll who thought the lazer eyes crowd would be disappointed this year. What ...

50,000 electric vehicle charging stations in Europe to offer crypto payments

Over the next three years, 50,000 EV charging stations across Europe will start accepting crypto payments. Two payments firms have partnered to roll out crypto payments across 50,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in Europe. The partnership is between Irish e-commerce and mobile payment solutions firm HIPS Payment Group Ltd and Vourity, a Swedish firm that specializes in unattended payment facilities such as EV charging stations. The integration of crypto payments with charging stations will occur over the next three years starting from November 2021. The firms haven’t revealed which cryptocurrencies will be supported yet, but Vourity has dropped a pretty strong hint that Ethereum is likely to be among the first after it released an image of a payment terminal with an ETH logo on it. Ethereum is moving to the much more energy efficient Proof-of Stake consensus mechanism in the next year, which could mitigate any backlash among environmentally conscious EV drivers. “We ar...

Andreessen Horowitz Says Crypto Is ‘the Future of Finance’ — Launches $2.2 Billion Crypto Venture Fund

Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has announced the launch of a $2.2 billion crypto fund. The firm is “radically optimistic about crypto’s potential to restore trust and enable new kinds of governance.” Andreessen Horowitz Launches $2.2 Billion Crypto Fund Andreessen Horowitz announced the launch of a new $2.2 billion crypto venture fund Thursday. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm, also known as “a16z,” was founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in 2009. Chris Dixon, Katie Haun, and Ali Yahya, partners on the crypto team at Andreessen Horowitz, explained the new fund in a blog post titled “Crypto Fund III.” They wrote: The size of this fund speaks to the size of the opportunity before us: crypto is not only the future of finance but, as with the internet in the early days, is poised to transform all aspects of our lives. “This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founder...

Shanghai Man: China retains mining control? Alipay's ancient NFTs and Amber’s big raise

A look at miners shifting hardware overseas, Amber raises $100m, and Bitmain temporarily shuts down sales among dropping hashrate sales. This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. So low you've got to reach up to touch the bottom This week in China felt like one giant mining-farm sized pile of FUD. This is usually a pretty good indication that a bottom is close to being in, but one can never be too sure when it comes to downwards volatility in cryptocurrency. Canaan, one of the largest mining companies in China, announced it was setting up shop in neighboring Kazakhstan . This is an ideal compromise for Canaan as it can remain close to China, while mitigating their regulatory risk. Reading between the lines, it seems like the plan is to mostly continue administration of the company from Ch...

Sushi to Launch Full Product Suite on Harmony

Since deploying natively on Harmony’s blockchain in May, Sushi is now deepening its collaboration with Harmony after revealing plans to bring its full decentralized finance (defi) product stack onto the blockchain with accompanying incentives designed to drive greater participation. Meanwhile, decentralized exchange (dex) competition continues to swell. Partnership Expansion Accompanies $4 Million in Incentive Campaigns On Thursday, Harmony , a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network focused on cross-chain transactability, unveiled a decision to broaden the partnership agreement with Sushi , a community-driven defi platform offering a full stack of decentralized finance services. After deploying Sushiswap on Harmony back in May, the freshly strengthened collaboration paves the way for Sushi to deploy the remainder of its product suite onto the effective proof-of-stake (EPoS) blockchain. Sushiswap is the second runner-up in the space with an 11% share of dex trade volume, according...

Former NYSE President Says for Bitcoin to Exceed Gold It Needs to Be Accepted More as Currency

On June 24, the CEO of Far Peak Acquisition Corp. and former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) president, Thomas Farley discussed the future of bitcoin and gold on the CNBC broadcast Squawk Box. Farley is optimistic about the leading crypto asset but he doesn’t believe it will surpass gold’s $10 trillion market capitalization unless it’s “an accepted form of currency.” Far Peak CEO Says Bitcoin Will Go Up, But May Not Beat Gold Thomas Farley spoke about bitcoin ( BTC ) on Wednesday following the digital asset’s rebound from the $28,600 low on June 22. Farley is the chief executive officer at Far Peak Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company but he also once led the NYSE as its president. Farley has spoken about bitcoin on a few occasions in the past and was known for revealing the launch of the NYSE bitcoin price index in 2015. “We are now going to use our name, reputation, and global index provider stature to provide bitcoin values that the rest of the market can look to,”...

Chainlink and OVR Collaborate on a $65k Prize Distribution

After OVR announced its integration with Chainlink on June 10th, now the team is proud to explain all the rules of OVR prize distribution powered by Chainlink Verifiable Random Function. In fact, OVR decided to collaborate with Chainlink VRF to determine the winner of its $15k OVR token prize extraction reserved to treasure hunters and to participate in its wider $ 50k OVR token prize extraction for OVRLand buyers. The extraction process will be done through a public and deterministic algorithm. So, OVR will run 2 main competitions, one for treasure hunters and one for OVRLand buyers. OVRLand buyers and treasure hunters to win $65k All the OVRLands where treasures have been discovered after the competition start date will be listed on a specific interface available to the user. The treasure hunt competition will have 3 rounds on different dates starting from June 22nd. At the end of each treasure hunt competition period the list of all OVRLands where treasures have been dis...

Bitcoin hits $35K after Biden reveals infrastructure deal, Paraguay proposes BTC bill

Bitcoin price briefly traded above $35,000 as the stock market hit new highs and Paraguay aims to become the second country to adopt BTC as legal tender. Bitcoin ( BTC ) price received a boost as news that lawmakers in Paraguay plan to present a bill to make BTC legal tender spread across Twitter. Shortly after the unconfirmed news surfaced on Twitter, Bitcoin price rallied to $35,289 before slightly pulling back below the key short-term resistance level. Congratulations Paraguay • a bill has been submitted to make #BITCOIN legal tender • reading likely to occur on July 14th • they wish to be a crypto hub • promotion of green energy mining • some interest from Argentina & Brazil now too — djThistle (@DJThistle01) June 24, 2021 While the cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index still indicates a sentiment of Extreme Fear, it’s worth noting that the measure has risen from 14 on June 23 to 22 on June 24 as traders begin to view the drop below $29,000 and B...

Portuguese national football team launches fan token with Socios

The platform reported the sales of all its fan tokens have generated more $150 million this year. Blockchain-based sports platform Chiliz has partnered with the Portuguese Football Federation to release fan tokens on Socios. In a Thursday announcement from Socios, the platform said it will be dropping tokens for the Portugal national football team, also known as A Seleção or “The Selection,” within the next few days for local fans. As with previously tokenized sports franchises, the digital collectibles are minted on the Chiliz blockchain and allow token holders to vote in polls and earn VIP rewards. “The launch of the $POR Fan Token will allow us to create new ways of reaching our supporters and interact with them in new and innovative ways.” said Portuguese Football Federation’s chief marketing officer Nuno Moura. “This will create new opportunities to engage fans with the Portuguese Team like never before, providing them with exclusive benefits, experiences and rewards.” While...

Sushiswap to deploy full suite of Sushi products on Harmony’s blockchain

“We believe this partnership with Sushi is just the beginning of bringing millions of people into decentralized finance,” said Harmony founder Stephen Tse. As the Harmony blockchain approaches the two-year anniversary of its mainnet launch, decentralized exchange SushiSwap will be deploying Sushi products related to rewards and yield farming. In a Thursday announcement from Sushi, the project said it would be partnering with Harmony to introduce liquidity mining rewards for Sushi, rewards for Kashi borrowing and lending, Sushi-specific hackathon challenges, and other products. In Harmony’s aim to reach 10 billion people, it will be sponsoring a $1 million hackathon with Sushi featuring four challenges, with additional details to come in July. “We believe this partnership with Sushi is just the beginning of bringing millions of people into decentralized finance,” said Harmony founder Stephen Tse. “As our mainnet matures, we are onboarding more key DeFi primitives that will enab...

Cathie Wood Bought the Dip: Ark Invest Purchases One Million GBTC Shares

Cathie Wood, the founder of Ark Invest, bought the dip this Tuesday when Bitcoin prices tumbled below $30K. According to reports, Ark acquired more than one million shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Fund. The company also bought more Coinbase shares. Wood has a positive stance on crypto and keeps predicting Bitcoin will reach a long-term price of $500K. Ark Invest Purchases One Million Shares Dips are for buying: that’s the popular saying in bull markets. And Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of Ark Invest did just that. According to reports , Ark took advantage of the price dip to acquire more than one million shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Fund. These shares were purchased for the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF , a fund that’s based in tech, mobile, and cloud companies. This fund currently holds more than 8 million GBTC shares, totaling almost $240 million invested in Bitcoin only. Wood is showing she puts her money behind her words. She declared she has a positive stance on Bitcoin,...

Echoing Cuban, Novogratz says DeFi should ‘play by the rules’, or ‘pay the piper’ later

Mike Novogratz suggests DeFi projects add KYC and AML features now instead of waiting on regulators to crack down on the entire sector. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has emerged in 2021 as one of the fastest-growing trends in the crypto sector and as the unique features of DeFi begin to work their way into traditional finance, executives from crypto and conventional business circles warn that regulation could be on the way if the protocols don't take steps to self-regulate. On June 23, Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, warned that DeFi protocols will soon need to decide if they want to incorporate know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering procedures to gain acceptance from regulators or “pay the piper later.” Starting to think that major DEFI protocols are going to have to decide if they are going to play by the rules that most countries want them to (KYC/AML), or if they are going to flip the middle finger at them. Invest in a compliance layer now or pay the piper lat...

Enjin joins Crypto Climate Accord, goes carbon negative

The cryptocurrency industry uses approximately 150 TWh of electricity annually, which is more than Poland, Norway, Egypt or Sweden, the company said. Enjin , a blockchain gaming and nonfungible token platform, has stepped up to decarbonize its footprint by joining the Crypto Climate Accord, a move that adds further credibility to the industry’s growing environmental mandate. The Crypto Climate Accord is backed by 20 firms from the blockchain, fin-tech and greentech industries. Inspired by the 195-signatory Paris Climate Agreement, the Accord was established in April to address the "large and growing energy consumption of cryptocurrency and blockchain, and the climate impact of their energy use.” Enjin claims that its JumpNet blockchain has already achieved carbon-negative status nine years ahead of schedule. In March, the company said it planned to enable carbon-neutral NFTs by 2030. “The creation of new forms of technology should never come at the cost of destroying our ...

Bitmain ceases Bitcoin miner sales to aid second-hand sellers following China ban

The Bitcoin mining crackdown in China has significant ramifications for the cryptocurrency industry. Bitmain is stepping up its efforts to ease the burden on Chinese miners looking to offload their equipment in light of the ban. Bitmain, the cryptocurrency infrastructure company behind the Antminer brand, will temporarily halt the sale of mining machines to help secondary sellers offload their supplies following China’s wholesale ban on Bitcoin ( BTC ) mining. The suspension of new Antminer sales will begin immediately, Bitmain announced Thursday via WeChat. By suspending the sale of new mining devices, companies must resort to buying secondhand miners that previously belonged to Chinese mining rigs. The “second-hand market is under great pressure,” Bitmain said, according to a Google translation of the announcement. “In order to help the industry transition smoothly, [Antminer] decided to temporarily suspend the global spot sales." Bitcoin miners have been in short supply ...

Rangers Protocol plans testnet launch for mid-July

"It is time to show the world what we are made of," said Rangers Protocol co-founder Mary Ma. Describing itself as a provider of “virtual worlds blockchain infrastructure,” the Rangers Protocol will open its testnet to users starting in July. In a Thursday announcement at the Global DeFi Summit, Rangers Protocol co-founder Mary Ma said the project would be aiming for a mid-July launch of its testnet following $3.7 million seed and private equity funding rounds. According to Ma, the protocol will have decentralized apps, or DApps, on its network, and will include a cross-chain protocol, nonfungible token protocol and Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible system. "In the past three years, we have solved many problems by tackling down tons of technical problems,” said Ma. “Now it is time to show the world what we are made of.” The announcement of the planned testnet follows the protocol rebranding to include a nonfungible token, or NFT, platform, based on the team’s assu...

Waiting game: Why Friday’s $6B in Bitcoin and Ethereum expiries may not move the market

Traders are looking for BTC and ETH to make a decisive move ahead of Friday's $6 billion in quarterly futures and options expiries, but what does back-tested data show? After an incredible start in 2021, Ether peaked at $4,380 on May 12 but has dropped 55% since then. Unlike the leading cryptocurrency, the Ethereum network faces competition from projects that do not depend on proof-of-work , hence not facing the bottleneck issues that caused transaction fees to skyrocket. Whenever markets disappoint traders with a negative surprise, traders quickly seek external explanations for their failure to interpret signals. But, in reality, a clear indication that China was concerned about the crypto mining energy consumption came out on April 30, six weeks ahead of the initial price crash. On May 6, recently confirmed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler punted to congress on providing more regulatory oversight to the crypto space . However, in defense of excessiv...