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Showing posts from July 15, 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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Shapeshift to Dissolve Corporate Model, Platform Airdrops FOX Tokens to Community of Users

Founded on July 1, 2014, Shapeshift has been offering global trading of a variety of digital assets for seven years. Following the company’s recent anniversary, it announced Shapeshift is evolving into a community-owned decentralized platform. Shapeshift founder Erik Voorhees explained in a blog post that the firm airdropped FOX tokens to over a million customers in order to “facilitate decentralized governance.” Shapeshift Is Shifting Shapeshift is changing, according to a recent blog post from its founder, and the company’s announcement about an airdrop of the platform’s native FOX tokens to Shapeshift users. The distribution of FOX is meant to make the platform community-owned and governed by FOX holders. Shapeshift’s recent news follows the company’s change toward dropping KYC rules in January 2021, and shifting toward an entirely non-custodial solution. In mid-April, Bitcoin.com News reported on Shapeshift leveraging Thorchain for multi-chain unwrapped swaps. On July 14, Eri...
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Dogecoin Co-Founder Criticizes Crypto World, States It Is Managed by Powerful Cartels

In a recent twitterstorm, Dogecoin founder co-founder Jordan Palmer stated he wouldn’t return to the cryptocurrency world. Palmer unleashed harsh criticisms of the cryptocurrency industry, calling it “hyper capitalistic,” and managed by “powerful cartels” of wealthy figures. Palmer created Dogecoin along with Billy Markus back in 2013 as a joke, making fun of the crypto community. Dogecoin Co-Founder Slams Crypto Industry Dogecoin co-founder Jordan Palmer is really upset about the road the cryptocurrency industry has taken. In a recent tweetstorm, the Australian programmer took shots at the cryptocurrency world, criticizing it harshly. Palmer says he won’t return or mingle in cryptocurrency circles because of what the industry represents now. Similarly, the father of Dogecoin criticized several key traits of what some cryptos claim to be. He stated cryptocurrency was a: …right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a c...
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Michael Saylor doesn't think Bitcoin is ‘going to be currency in the US ever’

The MicroStrategy boss thinks Bitcoin is a form of property and points out that the U.S. Government is not threatened by other forms of property. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor thinks that Bitcoin is more like digital property than digital currency. He was speaking on the July 15 edition of the “Coin Stories” podcast with host Natalie Brunell. Asked if he thought that Bitcoin was a threat to the U.S. dollar Saylor replied: “I would call it a digital property, it's a threat to property, it's particularly a threat to other forms of property: gold is property, real estate is property. I don't think the United States government is threatened by real estate or buildings or companies or gold.” The comments follow on from Saylor's assertions earlier this week on the Scott Melker’s Wolf of All Streets podcast, in which he stated that “I don’t really think that Bitcoin’s going to be currency in the US ever. Nor do I think it should be.” “And what it’s doing is it’s dem...
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Swiss State Secretariat Helps Blockchain Incubator Firm Set Up Base in South Africa

Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) is reportedly helping Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CVVC), a blockchain business incubator, set up an office in South Africa. According to SECO, this move fits with Switzerland’s policy of supporting private firms that seek to help African blockchain start-ups. Funding for Successful Applicants According to a Swissinfo report , CVVC will fund the best blockchain start-ups “in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo and other countries.” The report adds that the initial five successful applicants will each receive $125,000 (CHF114,000) from the incubator while SECO will also chip in with a contribution of over $270,000 in the first year of the project. In addition, the report also quotes a SECO representative explaining some of the objectives of this funding initiative. The SECO rep is quoted as saying: This start-up funding is intended to show that investments in African start-ups that develop blockchain-based solut...
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Payments in a flash: Strip club in Las Vegas now accepts Lightning

Guests at the Crazy Horse 3 will soon be able to tip their favorite dancers using BTC. The Crazy Horse 3 gentlemen's club has announced it has become the first major entertainment venue in Las Vegas to accept Bitcoin using the Lightning Network. The nightspot will implement the layer two Bitcoin scaling solution enabling punters to make payments in a flash. It has integrated BTC payment processor OpenNode which will initially allow guests to securely purchase VIP bottle packages using BTC through the venue’s website. According to the announcement , the Bitcoin payments rollout includes plans to accept the digital asset for admission, food selections, craft cocktails and the club's signature “dance dollars” which are used for tipping entertainers. In other words, Lightning for lap dances. Crazy Horse 3 publicist, Lindsay Feldman, said that the club is embracing the opportunity to accept Bitcoin as a way to deliver convenience and an additional level of anonymity for its gue...
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Master-pieces: Swiss bank issuing NFT shares in Picasso painting for $6K each

Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum is issuing NFTs representing fractionalized ownership in a Picasso painting. Digital asset-focused Swiss Bank, Sygnum, has teamed up with art investment firm Artemundi to offer fractionalized ownership shares in a Pablo Picasso painting for $6,000 each. Shares representing ownership over $3.68 million Picasso painting, “Fillette au béret,” will be tokenized and issued via blockchain technology, allowing a wide variety of investors to gain exposure to the artwork. The nonfungible tokens (NFTs) can be exclusively purchased by sophisticated and institutional investors through Sygnum Bank , with secondary trade set to take place on SygnEx — the bank’s digital asset trading platform. Trades will be settled in Swiss Francs (CHF) using Sygnum’s native CHF stablecoin, DCHF. Fractionalized ownership over the painting will be recognized by Swiss law. The 1964 painting depicts a beret-capped child in brightly coloured clothes, and was last sold for $2.48 mil...
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Judge allows Ripple to depose SEC official who decided ETH is not a security

Bill Hinman could be called to testify on his 2018 comments regarding Ethereum’s security status. San-Francisco-based fintech firm Ripple has notched up another small victory in its ongoing battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Netburn has denied the SEC's motion to suppress the deposition of the former director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, William Hinman, in a ruling in New York on Thursday. In June 2018, Hinman s aid in a speech that based on his understanding of the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure the “current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions.” The deposition may add more weight to Ripple’s claim that the XRP token is not a security. If there is no appeal from the SEC, Ripple can ask Hinman to testify about the reasoning behind his decision on ETH at the time, and then attempt to apply that samrationale to XRP. Ripple has argued that the SEC cannot regulate XRP as ...
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ThorChain loses $7.6M in ‘Chaosnet’ exploit, offers hacker a bounty to return funds

The ThorChain network remains halted after the protocol suffered a hack in which the perpetrator is estimated to have made off with $7.6 million in crypto assets. Popular cross-chain decentralized exchange, ThorChain, has suffered a multimillion-dollar breach. Estimates as to the scale of the damage vary, with ThorChain revising the initial estimate that 13,000 ETH (worth $25.1 million) had been stolen down to 4,000 ETH (roughly $7.6 million) as a ballpark for damages. At this stage the estimate is around ~4000 ETH worth of assets (ETH/ERC20) was taken, not 13k ETH. More detailed assessment and recovery steps will be announced soon. The users who suffered (LPs) will be made whole in the coming weeks. https://t.co/LR2x8VZ2kx — THORChain #ACTIVATETHESYNTHS⚡️ (@THORChain) July 15, 2021 In the ThorChain community Telegram channel, administrators have indicated the project has the funds needed to cover users’ stolen assets, but articulated a preference for the hacker to return t...
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Former US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Says His View on Bitcoin ‘Has Evolved’

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says his viewpoint on bitcoin “has evolved a little bit.” While he personally does not want to have bitcoin in his portfolio, he says if people want to buy the cryptocurrency, “that’s perfectly fine.” Mnuchin Says It’s ‘Perfectly Fine’ if People Want To Buy Bitcoin Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talked about bitcoin, cybersecurity, and the U.S. economy in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. He was asked whether his viewpoint on bitcoin has evolved since the last time he was interviewed by the media outlet when he was still the treasury secretary. At that time, Mnuchin was dismissive of the cryptocurrency, stating that it had no inherent value. Since then, a growing number of major companies and prominent traders have gotten into bitcoin. Major investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup, have either started offering or are in the process of offering crypto products or services to their clients. Regard...
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Shanghai Man: Crypto media closes, bad news just repeats, mining laws are beneficial?

With government officials trying to clean up the image of China prior to the start of the Winter Games, miners are leaving in droves and media group Bishijie has been forced to close down 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. It has now been two months since the crypto crackdown and subsequent enforcement began. Most new stories are now just the trickling down of earlier national policies being enforced at a provincial level. The latest example was from the Anhui provincial government, as it announced a set of measures to reduce energy consumption, with cryptocurrency mining listed among the culprits. Anhui is a small province east of Shanghai, more known for its scenic rural landscape and agriculture than its contributions to the economic development of China. It’s likely other provinces...
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Spike Lee Directs ‘Old Money Is Out, New Money Is In’ Commercial for Cryptocurrency ATMs

Award-winning director Spike Lee has teamed up with bitcoin ATM operator Coin Cloud on a multimillion-dollar crypto campaign. “Digital currency is viable for not just people of color, but anybody who has been historically excluded from traditional financial systems,” said the famed director. Spike Lee Directs Short Film for Bitcoin Company Coin Cloud, a digital currency machine operator with more than 2,000 machines, announced Wednesday a multimillion-dollar campaign with a short film starring and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee. The Las Vegas-based company explained that the campaign features a commercial titled “The Currency of Currency,” describing it as “a raw and honest snapshot of the history of money and the inequalities inherent in legacy U.S. financial systems.” Coin Cloud added: The piece makes a simple, but bold statement: Old money is out; new money is in. The announcement further describes: “From institutions that intentionally exclude communities of ...
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Here’s 2 ways clever pro traders spot crypto and stock price reversals

Many successful traders look for double bottom and W bottom reversal patterns on technical charts in order to spot powerful price reversals. Trading in the direction of the trend is one of the best ways to be profitable. If traders learn to spot a new trend early, it provides an opportunity to buy with a good risk to reward ratio. In addition to identifying a trend, traders should also be able to recognize when it has reversed direction. While several patterns signal a possible trend change, one of the easiest to spot is the double bottom pattern. This can help traders change their strategy when the trend reverses direction from bearish to bullish. Let’s take a look at the double bottom pattern and identify some of the best ways to trade it. What is a double bottom? The double bottom pattern forms after a downtrend and consists of two low points that are roughly formed near a similar horizontal level, with a minor peak in between the troughs. When the price breaks out and closes ...
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DeFi on Bitcoin: Jack Dorsey launches new Square division to make it 'easy'

Jack Dorsey has outlined plans to build an open developer platform focused on creating Bitcoin DeFi services. Square CEO Jack Dorsey has stated that the firm is building a new division that will focus on building decentralized finance services that utilize Bitcoin. Dorsey made the announcement via Twitter earlier today, and revealed that Square’s new division will be building an “open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services. Our primary focus is Bitcoin” Like our new #Bitcoin hardware wallet, we’re going to do this completely in the open. Open roadmap, open development, and open source. @brockm is leading and building this team, and we have some ideas around the initial platform primitives we want to build. — jack (@jack) July 15, 2021 The Bitcoin proponent has also launched a dedicated Twitter account to the project, which is dubbed “TBD” at this stage and features a profile picture...
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Paypal Raises Weekly Cryptocurrency Purchase Limit to $100K, Removes Annual Limit

Payments giant Paypal has increased its weekly purchase limit for cryptocurrencies and has removed the annual limit altogether. The company said, “These changes will enable our customers to have more choice and flexibility in purchasing cryptocurrency on our platform.” Paypal Increases Buy Limit for Cryptocurrencies Paypal Inc. announced Thursday that it has increased purchase limits for cryptocurrencies. The company explained that since the U.S. launch of Paypal Crypto in October 2020, it has been actively engaging with customers “to better understand their needs,” with the aim to provide “a trusted and secure platform to buy, hold, sell and checkout with cryptocurrency.” The payments giant detailed: As part of our efforts to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers, we are pleased to announce that we have recently raised the purchase limits of cryptocurrency for eligible Paypal customers in the U.S. to $100,000 per week with no annual purchase limit. This is a five-fold ...
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Financial Report Shows Bit Digital Is Transferring 14,500 Bitcoin Miners From China to the US

Following the bitcoin mining crackdown in China, the Nasdaq-listed firm Bit Digital published a second-quarter bitcoin production and mining operations update and noted the company is moving 14,500 bitcoin miners from China to the United States. Bit Digital says after the Chinese government’s decision to ban bitcoin mining, the company “accelerated” its migration strategy to North America. Bit Digital Publishes Unaudited Report On July 13, the company Bit Digital (Nasdaq: BTBT) revealed that it was migrating 14,500 bitcoin miners to the U.S. after China’s recent crackdown. The migration information stems from its unaudited report which explains the firm’s bitcoin production and mining operations during Q2 2021. As of June 30, Bit Digital reported that it owned approximately 32,500 miners which produce roughly 1.92 exahash per second (EH/s) of hashpower. Bit Digital emphasized that during the first quarter, the company participated in fleet repositioning and sold specific older min...
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PayPal increases crypto purchase limits to $100K

The company said the move was aimed at giving customers “more choice and flexibility" to purchase crypto. Payment provider company PayPal now allows U.S.-based users to purchase up to $100,000 in crypto weekly. In a Thursday announcement, PayPal said it had increased the crypto purchase limit for certain customers based in the United States from $20,000 to $100,000 per week. The company said the move was aimed at giving users “more choice and flexibility in purchasing cryptocurrency.” PayPal announced it would be moving into the crypto space in October 2020, later allowing eligible customers based in the United States to use cryptocurrencies for trading and payments. Though the company initially announced users would be limited to purchasing $10,000 in crypto each week, the feature launched with a $20,000 limit. The platform has been expanding its features for crypto users since last year, partnering with Coinbase to allow crypto purchases through the major exchange, while...
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3 altcoins showing signs of accumulation while Bitcoin price is down

DeFi and NFT-related tokens like GHST, CNS and TLM defied the market’s bearish mood to post double-digit gains in the past 48-hours. Crypto markets faced another day of struggle on July 15 as the price of Bitcoin ( BTC ) dropped to its " final support zone " near $31,000, which prompted traders to issue dire predictions about the future should bulls fail to hold this level.  Despite the struggles facing the crypto market at large, relatively obscure altcoins like Aavegotchi (GHST), Centric Cash (CNS) and Alien Worlds (TLM) posted positive gains in the past 48-hours and appear to be in a stealth accumulation mode. Aavegotchi volume spikes ahead of DinoSwap release Aavegotchi (GHST) is a DeFi-focused nonfungible token (NFT) that operates on the Aave protocol and allows users to utilize in-game avatars called Gotchi’s as collateral to earn staking rewards. GHST/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the p...
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Rep Tom Emmer introduces bill to provide certainty for digital assets

The Security Clarity Act seeks to lessen regulatory burdens for blockchain-based technology. U.S. congressional representatives introduced a bipartisan bill on July 15 with the goal of providing a clear definition of assets, such as digital tokens and other emerging technologies, under current securities law. Known as the Security Clarity Act , the bill was introduced by Rep Tom Emmer (R-MN), Rep Darren Soto (D-FL), and Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA). This legislation seeks to change the definition of a term that has been used for more than 75 years. The status of any asset sold as an “investment contract” would become an “investment contract asset.” According to the release, this bill would provide a solution for those who have complied with current securities registration requirements or qualified for an exemption. After meeting these requirements, entrepreneurs would be able to distribute their assets without the fear of any additional regulatory burdens. Emmer elaborated: “There has b...
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University of Cambridge Bitcoin Mining Map Shows China’s Hashrate Dropped to 46%

After the researchers from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) project said that the website’s “Bitcoin Mining Map” had not been updated since April 2020, the map has finally been updated. Current data from the mining map shows the coverage goes all the way up until April 2021, and the estimate of China’s hashrate dominance is much lower than previous estimates. New Estimates Show China Has Less Hashrate Than Previous Statistics University of Cambridge data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) indicates that China has a lot less hashrate dominance than once thought. On June 19, Bitcoin.com News reported on how difficult it was to estimate how much hashrate is actually residing in China. While writing that specific report, the CBECI project explained on its website that the Bitcoin Mining Map had not been updated since April 2020. Furthermore, in December 2020, Bitcoin.com News was told at the time the “CBECI map hasn’t been upd...
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