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Showing posts from June 30, 2021

Kazakhstan Introduces Surcharge for Electricity Used by Crypto Miners

Cryptocurrency miners in Kazakhstan will pay more than other consumers for the electricity they use to mint digital coins. The country’s president has signed a law that imposes an additional fee for the power utilized by the energy intensive industry. Coin Miners in Kazakhstan to Pay Extra Fee per Kilowatt-hour of Electricity Crypto mining entities in Kazakhstan are going to pay a surcharge for the electrical energy they burn. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a new law this week amending the Central Asian republic’s legislation “on taxes and other obligatory payments to the budget.” The bill, which was voted by the Senate earlier in June, introduces a new fee of 1 Kazakhstani tenge (approx. $0.0023) per kilowatt-hour used by cryptocurrency miners. The new electricity rate will be imposed starting from Jan. 1, 2022, Forklog reported . Authorities in Nur-Sultan claim the additional charge will “bring out of the shadow” those cryptocurrency miners that currently operate in ...

SEC appoints New Jersey Attorney General as director of enforcement

The SEC has appointed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal as the Director of the Division of Enforcement. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal as Director of the Division of Enforcement. The appointment will be effective from July 26, with the SEC adding the veteran prosecutor to its ranks to play a key role in regulating financial markets in the U.S. “He has the ideal combination of experience, values, and leadership ability to helm the Enforcement Division at this critical time. I look forward to working closely with him to protect investors and root out wrongdoing in our markets," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Grewal is a replacement for Alex Oh, who was appointed by Gensler, but was forced to step down in April after only a few days on the job. Oh’s appointment sparked backlash over the history of her work defending corporations as a lawyer, in particular her representation of ExxonMobil...

tZERO to tokenize $18M of stock for the ‘Robinhood of real estate investing’

Around $18 million worth of NYCE’s common shares will be tokenized and supported for secondary trading on tZERO’s security token trading platform. tZERO, an alternative trading system for security tokens, has announced a partnership with real estate crowdfunding company, NYCE Group, to tokenize $18 million worth of the firm’s shares. NYCE’s stock will be tZERO’s first new listing since launching its ASPN pairing in August 2020, representing fractionalized ownership in a Colorado ski resort . Announced June 30, tZERO will support secondary trade for NYCE’s tokenized common shares once the real estate company has completed its upcoming Regulation A+ offering, subject to regulatory approval. NYCE’s shares will be tokenized using tZERO’s proprietary smart contract technology. Philip Michael, CEO and co-founder of NYCE, stated: “Through our partnership with the leader in liquidity for digital securities, tZERO, we are excited to provide investors with liquidity optionality.” The...

Ventup, the IDO Launchpad by Vent, Connects Game-Changers With Investors

Vent is excited to announce the launch of their IDO on the Ventup platform, nurtured by Vent Finance. This innovative community-driven platform promises to usher in a new era of decentralized funding for vetted projects and help empower entrepreneurs on their journey to success. Vent – Welcome to the All-in-One Ecosystem Vent has announced it is launching the Ventup IDO Launchpad on Polygon to provide startups that launch on the platform with scalability, modular security solutions and compatibility with Ethereum tools. Vent will also construct the first Polygon-Cardano bridge and plans to migrate Ventup to the Cardano blockchain upon the rollout of the Alonzo smart-contract mainnet. Ventup offers easier access to DeFi investment opportunities for everyone, with powerful features such as a social community, vetted investment opportunities and low transaction fees. The launchpad is also a critical part of the larger Vent ecosystem that provides new projects with an all-in-one solut...

Messari: USDC set to become ‘dominant’ stablecoin on Ethereum

Tether supplies on Ethereum are dwindling as USD Coin demand grows and grows. USDC has grown much faster than Tether (USDT) in 2021 and it is emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum thanks to its popularity in DeFi according to Messari. Research by the analytics firm revealed that the demand for USD Coin has grown so much that it has consumed a large chunk of Tether’s market share this year. Researcher Ryan Watkins predicted that in the coming weeks, this could result in Tether' share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum falling below 50%. He added that over half of the total USDC supply now sits in smart contracts, which is equivalent to around $12.5 billion. Citing data from CoinMetrics, Messari estimates that more than 40% of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum is USDC. In coming weeks it is very likely USDT’s share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum will fall below 50% for the first time. USDC is quickly emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum in large...

$22B hedge fund Point72 reportedly searching for a “head of crypto”

Reports suggest that Steve Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund is searching for a “head of crypto” as the firm weighs up its options before entering the crypto market. New York billionaire Steven Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 Asset Management, is reportedly searching for a “head of crypto.” Cohen, the 65-year-old dubbed the “Hedge Fund King”, founded Point72 in 1992 and it has approximately $22.1 billion worth of assets under management. The investor also owns the New York Mets Major League Baseball team. The Street reported it has spoken to sources in the know who claim Point72 is seeking to hire a head of crypto, as the firm gears up to enter the crypto sector. If accurate it fits with other signals emerging from the fund. Cohen recently stated in an interview with macro research firm founder, Jawad Mian, that “I’m fully converted to crypto,” and added that “I have an old saying at the poker table, you got to pay to learn. There’s no way around it. You can talk all you want, but you’ve got...

As the Top Coins Lag Behind, an Odd Bunch of Crypto Assets See Double-Digit Gains

The market capitalization of all 10,722 cryptocurrencies in existence is around $1.42 trillion on Wednesday and during the last 24 hours, all of these crypto-assets combined lost 3.92%. Meanwhile, bitcoin captures 45.73% of the entire $1.42 trillion capitalization and ethereum commands 17.8%. As both of these leading assets have improved this week, seven-day changes against the U.S. dollar show a great number of other crypto-assets have seen much bigger double-digit gains. Steemit Coins, 51% Attacked Tokens, and Forgotten Crypto Assets An interesting assortment of crypto assets have seen double-digit gains as larger competitors like bitcoin ( BTC ) and ethereum ( ETH ) have seen weaker improvements. For instance, BTC has gained 2.74% against the U.S. dollar during the last seven days. ETH has jumped close to 10%, but not quite, with an 8.89% rise over the last week. While they are at the very least weekly improvements against the dollar, a number of unconventional crypto assets h...

Tracer DAO raises $4.5M to launch derivatives for anything ‘with an oracle feed’

Tracer DAO has raised $4.5 million from the likes Framework Ventures, Maven 11, and Apollo Capital. Decentralized derivatives platform, Tracer DAO, has announced a successful $4.5 million fundraising round to expand its team and product suite. They hope to launch innovative derivatives for “any market with an oracle price feed,” with plans to one day allow ordinary consumers to hedge the cost of commuting and other household bills using tokenized derivatives. This week’s raise saw participation from crypto venture heavyweights, including Framework Ventures, Maven 11, DACM, and Apollo Capital. The investors will share 10% of the project’s governance token supply, which will be vested linearly over two years. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Pat McNab, Tracer DAO founder and co-founder of Mycelium — the Australian development team working to build Tracer DAO — emphasized that the team is currently working to launch v1 of its open-source perpetual swap contracts to Arbitrum mainnet in the ...

Willy Woo: 'Rick Astley' hodlers a key force again and on-chain signals suggest 'recovery'

Those that are never gonna give up BTC are still accumulating according to the analyst. Bitcoin technical analyst Willy Woo believes that this is not a bear market because on-chain indicators are signaling a recovery and the asset is still being bought by long-term hodlers. The popular analyst’s comments came in an interview on the “ What Bitcoin Did ” podcast on June 28. Woo stated that he does not believe that Bitcoin is in a typical bear market due to signs of accumulation showing on-chain. Referring to the 1980’s hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by British pop artist Rick Astley, Woo stated: “The ‘Rick Astley’ is the holder that keeps buying and never tends to sell much ... And of course Rick was very active over 2021, and then suddenly all the coins moved away from Rick to the weak hands — the speculative traders that buy and sell. Now we’re seeing that cross back into moving to Rick.” He added that we are currently in a speculative phase and those coins that were sold ea...

Bargain? World Wide Web’s source code NFT sells for $5.4M at Sotheby’s

The source code for the World Wide Web has been sold by the inventor for $5.4 million. The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has sold an NFT of the web's source code for $5.4 million at fine art auction house Sotheby’s . The piece titled ‘This Changed Everything’ includes a time-stamped file of the source code's 9,555 lines, a high-fidelity image, a 30-minute animation of the code being written, along with a letter written by Berners-Lee. While $5.4M is a significant sum, it’s a far cry from the $69 million record set in March for Beeple’s Everydays and less than some observers had predicted. Delphi Digital’s Piers Kicks said he’d been expecting a sale around $10M, noting: Huh, it only fetched $5M. Of course internet memes go for more than this... https://t.co/WHPhNFY1LY — Piers Kicks ️ (@pierskicks) June 30, 2021 According to Berners-Lee, he and his wife will donate the proceeds of the auction to causes supported by the family. In a statement to...

Celsius users to receive yield from its $200M Bitcoin mining investment

“There’s nothing better than building a factory that makes Bitcoin,” said Celsius CEO, Alex Mashinsky. Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of centralized crypto money market Celsius, has revealed that a share of profits from the company's recent $200 million investment into Bitcoin mining infrastructure will be redistributed back to depositors. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Mashinsky stated the firm's mining expansion has added a fifth stream of yield generation for its crypto depositors — alongside lending funds to institutional investors, leveraging DeFi protocols, retail lending, and market making on centralized exchanges. In early June, Celsius announced it had invested more than $200 million into North American Bitcoin mining infrastructure and positions in Core Scientific, Rhodium Enterprises and Luxor Technologies. “A big chunk of our community owns Bitcoin and they want to be paid in Bitcoin,” he said, adding: “So, there's nothing better than building a factory that makes Bi...

Fed Vice Chair Quarles Says Digital Dollar Could Pose Significant Risks to US Banking System

The Federal Reserve’s vice chairman of supervision and the chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), Randal K. Quarles, doubts the benefits of the digital dollar but says it “could pose significant and concrete risks” to the U.S. banking system. Fed Vice Chair Speptical About Digital Dollar Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Randal Quarles talked about bitcoin and the Fed’s work on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital dollar, in a speech at the Utah Bankers Association Monday. Quarles is also the chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB). He said: The potential benefits of a Federal Reserve CBDC are unclear. Conversely, a Federal Reserve CBDC could pose significant and concrete risks. He then outlined the risks. “First, a Federal Reserve CBDC could create considerable challenges for the structure of our banking system … An arrangement where the Federal Reserve replaces commercial banks as the dominant provider of money to the general public could ...

US Congressman Calls for Law Allowing Government to Reverse Cryptocurrency Transactions

A U.S. congressman has called for a law that allows the government to identify cryptocurrency users and reverse crypto transactions. “There’s a significant sentiment, increasing sentiment, in Congress that if you’re participating in an anonymous crypto transaction that you’re a de-facto participant in a criminal conspiracy,” he said. Rep. Bill Foster Stresses the Need for Law to Allow the Government to Reverse Crypto Transactions Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, who is also co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, talked about cryptocurrency regulation during an Axios virtual event Tuesday. Addressing the problem of ransomware attacks and how criminals are asking for bitcoin and not cash, the congressman stressed that “there is a fundamental difference between crypto assets and real-world assets. That’s an important distinction that we must make ultimately in the law.” Emphasizing that laws must be passed to allow federal courts to identify crypto users and reverse...

Coinbase to Launch Apple-Like Crypto App Store

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has unveiled its plan to build “the crypto app store,” inspired by how Apple Inc. built its app store. CEO Brian Armstrong said: “Apple didn’t attempt to build every app for the iPhone, it empowered developers and gave mobile users an easy way to access new innovative apps.” In a blog post published on Tuesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong detailed several opportunities in the crypto space the Nasdaq-listed company is pursuing. One of them was to “Build the crypto app store.” The CEO detailed, “Like the internet, or the mobile app stores, we’re seeing developers rush into the space to use these new tools to develop innovative use cases that we couldn’t have imagined before,” adding: Apple didn’t attempt to build every app for the iPhone, it empowered developers and gave mobile users an easy way to access new innovative apps … We’ll work to give our users easy access to all of this from the main Coinbase product. Armstrong stressed: “We ...

Crypto miner claims all major Yunnan operations shut down in advance of CCP anniversary

It's unclear if the shutdowns are due to orders passed down from above or the result of China's announced regulatory crackdown on crypto miners. Reports alleged that cryptocurrency miners in China’s Yunnan province may be out of commission for a day if not longer due to the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary celebration this week. According to Kevin Zhang, the vice president of mining infrastructure company Foundry Services, all major Bitcoin ( BTC ) mining farms in Yunnan have been shut down as of today. Zhang said he personally knew of at least two crypto mining sites in the southwestern region that had received orders to cut power. The shutdowns are purportedly due to the impending Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, celebrations, which occur every year on July 1. Due to this year’s anniversary being a centennial, authorities seem to have taken stronger measures to ensure less pollution — China ranks as the 14th worst country in terms of air quality — traffic, ...

Here's why pro traders expect further downside from Ethereum price

Ethereum's EIP-1559 upgrade is fast approaching, but derivatives data shows traders are less than optimistic about ETH's short-term prospects. Derivatives data shows that Ether ( ETH ) traders are feeling less bullish when compared to Bitcoin ( BTC ). Even though the altcoin captured a nearly 200% gain in the first half of 2021 versus Bitcoin's modest 22% price increase, traders seem to be more affected by Ether's recent underperformance. Institutional flow also backs the decreased optimism seen in Ether derivatives, as ETH investment vehicles suffered record outflows this past week while Bitcoin flows began to stabilize. According to data from CoinShares , Ether funds experienced a record outflow of $50 million this past week. Ether (orange) versus Bitcoin (blue) prices. Source: TradingView Take notice of how Ether is underperforming Bitcoin by 16% in June. The London hard fork is scheduled for July, and its core proposal — dubbed as EIP-1559 — will cap Ethere...

House committee reviews cryptocurrency risks, regulations in hearing

A panel of expert witnesses and members of congress discussed the risks and rewards of cryptocurrency in committee Wednesday. The U.S. House committee on financial services held a hearing Wednesday for legislators and a panel of witnesses to discuss cryptocurrency regulation in the United States. The subcommittee on oversight and investigations invited expert witnesses to testify before congress on the risks and opportunities of blockchain technology. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-MN), a ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, was not keen on the idea of investing in cryptocurrency to save for retirement: “Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, so if one person makes a million dollars and retires at age 45, and nine lose $100,000–– Coinbase makes money, and one millionaire goes on TV and says how wonderful it is, and nine others do not retire with dignity, but instead become eligible for Medicaid.” He also quipped that the California lottery would make a better “bet” tha...

Triall: Bridging the Gap Between Medical Research and Blockchain Technology

The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the global economy, leaving many industries re-evaluating the robustness of legacy models in times of crisis. Unsurprisingly, one of the most impacted industries has been the global healthcare industry, as governments raced to test for, treat and develop a vaccine for the fast-spreading virus. Whilst, on the whole, the testing regimes, treatments and vaccination programs have been somewhat successful in developed countries (especially the United Kingdom and Israel), existing pain points in pharmaceutical research and development have exacerbated delays according to a number of experts. Namely, the clinical trial industry, a sector responsible for testing the safety and efficacy of new vaccines and therapeutics before these enter the market, is currently hampered by various inefficiencies . The pandemic has exemplified the need for solutions to tackle these inefficiencies and thereby help ensure an efficient influx of new medicines. This is where Tr...

Formula 1 Secures Multimillion Crypto Sponsorship Deal

Formula 1, the international auto racing organization, has found a new sponsor from the crypto industry. The long-term deal will provide a digital asset trading platform with brand presence at F1 events while the car championship hopes that the partnership will allow it to “explore the world of cryptocurrency.” Crypto.com to Support Formula 1 as Part of Reported $100 Million Sponsorship Agreement The deal between Formula 1 and Crypto.com, which was announced on Tuesday, has been negotiated with the help of sports firm Creative Artists Agency. The terms were not immediately disclosed but according to CNBC, quoting sources familiar with the details, the five-year agreement has a price tag of over $100 million. Crypto.com, a platform with a claimed 10 million users, will become a global partner for Formula 1 races, including the new Sprint series. The qualifying format will be employed to determine the starting positions in some races, with the first such event to be held at Silversto...

3 key areas traders are watching as Bitcoin’s monthly close occurs

As the month of June comes to an end, traders are asking the Magic 8-Ball for answers to the question of where Bitcoin's price will go next. Bitcoin's ( BTC ) whipsaw volatility has been on full display throughout June, leaving traders confused and in search of the latest technical indicator or major news announcement that might provide some hint at which way the price will move. As the month of June comes toward an end, traders are now focused BTC's on the monthly close to determine if the forward outlook is tilted toward bulls or bears. BTC/USDT 1-month chart. Source: TradingView At the time of writing, Bitcoin price is still 47% away from its all-time high at $64,873 and analysts have a mixed view on whether or not the bullish momentum will return in the short term. Here are three perspectives analysts have in mind as the market prepares to head into the month of July. Bitcoin needs to hold the $34,500 support A survey of crypto Twitter shows that man...