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Showing posts from September 14, 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...

Digital Ruble to Help Curb Use of ‘Money Surrogates,’ Russia Says in Financial Strategy Document

The launch of a digital ruble will be among Russia’s key priorities of digitalization this decade, the country’s financial market development strategy has confirmed. The document claims the issuance of a digital national fiat will help the central bank to prevent Russians from using “money surrogates” as officials have previously called cryptocurrencies. Bank of Russia to Issue Digital Ruble by 2030, According to Financial Market Development Plan The Strategy for the Development of the Financial Market of the Russian Federation by 2030 was released this week by the Ministry of Finance. The plan is open for public discussions between Sept. 14 and Oct. 13, 2021, according to a notice published by the State Automated Information System. The strategy defines the launch of a digital version of the Russian ruble as one of the priority tasks in the field of digitalization, as Bits.media crypto news outlet reported. The digital ruble, the authors have pointed out, will become the third f...

Coinbase increases junk bond offering to $2B after investors swarm

Coinbase has sold $2 billion worth of corporate bonds in an offering that saw $7 billion worth of bids placed. Leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has seen enormous demand for its junk bond offering, with the firm increasing the size of the sale by one-third from $1.5 billion to $2 billion. According to Economic Times, at least $7 billion worth of orders were placed in competition for equal quantities of seven and 10-year bonds, offering interest rates of 3.375% and 3.625% respectively. The publication cites an anonymous source as claiming the interest rates were cheaper than the initial quotes offered by Coinbase, with the influx of demand suggesting buyers hold a higher opinion of the company’s credit-worthiness than initially suspected by the exchange. “The strong demand is clearly a big endorsement by debt investors,” commented Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Julie Chariell. However, the exchange’s bonds were rated one rank below investment-grade, with Bloombe...

Fidelity lobbies SEC to approve Bitcoin ETF in private meeting

Fidelity argues that Bitcoin markets have already reached maturity under the SEC’s own standards. Multinational financial services firm Fidelity Investments has pressed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve its Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (EFT). A private meeting was held on Sept. 8 between Fidelity Digital Assets President Tom Jessop, six of the firm’s executives and several SEC officials. The finance executives laid out a number of reasons why the regulator should approve the investment product. These include increased demand for digital assets and related products, the prevalence of similar funds in other countries, and the rise of Bitcoin adoption. A Fidelity presentation from the meeting outlining the benefits of a Bitcoin product stated that global developed market regulators have approved Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) in Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. In response to SEC chair Gary Gensler’s comments last month on the possibility of re...

KICK.IO’s Token Will Be Available on ExMarkets LaunchPad, 15th September

As the $ ADA bull market continues to gather steam – with new price records set each month – many within the Cardano community are asking, what’s next? The limitless possibilities within the Cardano ecosystem offer many opportunities for both project creators and their investors. But financial and informational asymmetries have always been a major limiting factor. That’s why KICK.IO , a non-custodial crowdfunding protocol, was created to make sure that this immense potential is utilized to its fullest. The platform will ensure projects have access to the most advanced kickstarting and fundraising capabilities and help both retail and institutional investors to come together and pick the winners of tomorrow. To help the team achieve this goal, they have chosen to hold an IEO on ExMarkets decentralized exchange. Following the overwhelmingly successful recent public sale of ADAX – this choice should not surprise anyone, since ExMarkets is increasingly becoming a household ...

PrimeDAO raises $2M to build cooperative platform for DAOs

PrimeDAO has raised $2 million from DeFi funds that share its vision for a collaborative platform enabling cooperation between decentralized autonomous organizations. PrimeDAO, a project seeking to facilitate greater coordination and cooperation between decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the DeFi sector, has secured $2 million in seed funding. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the round featured participation from notable DeFi investment funds including Signum Capital, LD Capital and Stacker Ventures. The funds will be used to develop the “DAO2DAO” (D2D) product suite for PrimeDAO, with the platform set to feature a ‘Negotiation Interface’ designed to enable coordination between DAOs. The platform will allow the creation and ratification of agreements between DAOs featuring on-chain conditions. D2D will also enable DAOs to hold shared ownership over common assets, execute joint ventures, and collaborative liquidity pools. PrimeDAO will partner...

Bitcoin billionaires back ‘moonshot’ to resurrect woolly mammoths ... and save the planet

Colossal is aiming to combat climate change by resurrecting extinct species in their natural habitats, with the firm’s landmark de-extinction project focused on woolly mammoths. Bitcoin billionaires Tim Draper and the Winklevoss twins have backed a start-up dubbed “Colossal” that is aiming to resurrect woolly mammoths as part of the effort to fight climate change. The “de-extinction” focused bioscience firm closed a $15 million funding round on Sept.13, which was led by Legendary Pictures founder Thomas Tull. The round also included participation from Peter Diamandis of Bold Capital, Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital and Tony Robbins, the famous “self-help guru” with a net worth of around $500 million. Colossal was founded by Harvard genetics professor George Church and entrepreneur Ben Lamm. The firm’s landmark de-extinction project will aim to resurrect the woolly mammoth — or more specifically a “cold-resistant elephant with all of the core biological traits of the woolly mammoth” ...

Dapper Labs and Flow Blockchain to Get a Boost From Big Tech as Studio Partners With Google

Google is joining forces with the blockchain firm Dapper Labs in order to help bolster Web3 development, blockchain gaming, and non-fungible token (NFT) technology. The blockchain company’s CEO Roham Gharegozlou tweeted about the deal on Tuesday noting that the firm was “amped to welcome Google to the Flow blockchain.” Google to Collaborate With Dapper Labs Various reports indicate that the American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services, Google, has partnered with Dapper Labs. The Google collaboration announcement follows Dapper Labs’ recent partnership with Filecoin . Speaking with Forbes’ contributor Michael del Castillo, Janet Kennedy, the vice president of Google Cloud North America, explained that “it’s really about helping them with rapid and sustainable growth.” Kennedy further elaborated that blockchain tech is continuing to advance. “Blockchain technology is becoming more and more mainstream. So companies like Dapper need scalabl...

Ark Invest to split '60% Bitcoin, 40% Ether' as confidence in ETH grows 'dramatically'

Ark Investment CEO believes Ethereum’s development is promising and Bitcoin’s value will continue to rise as more companies and institutions adopt the cryptocurrency. Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Investment, has doubled down on her prediction that the price of Bitcoin will grow by tenfold in the next five years, and said the growth of DeFi, NFTs and the Eth2 upgrade has massively increased Ark’s confidence in Ether’s future. Wood’s prediction would value Bitcoin at almost $500,000 by 2026. She said that Ark Investment’s future exposure to crypto was likely to be around 60% Bitcoin and 40% Ethereum. Wood made the comments Monday, during a live stream at the SALT Conference in New York. Her BTC price thesis is based on more companies adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets and institutional investors allocating around 5% of their portfolios towards Bitcoin or other cryptos. In her view, Bitcoin still remains the default currency of the crypto space with El Salvador deeming it legal...

2021's BTC energy use passes 2020's, as study claims each tx produces 272g of e-waste

Bitcoin has already consumed more power in 2021 than it did in all of 2020 according to a recent study. A new study suggests that Bitcoin has already used more power so far this year than it did in all of 2020.  By the end of the year, the Bitcoin network will have consumed 91 TW/h (terawatt-hours or one trillion watts per hour) and it has already consumed more than the estimated 67 TW/h for all of 2020 according to a Sept. 13 Bloomberg report. The precise energy consumption figures are variable and not easy to calculate accurately, but the trend is clear — they are increasing. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index currently estimates that BTC is set to consume an even greater 95.68 TW/h by the end of the year. This is about the same as the power consumption of the Philippines. A separate study by Science Direct has highlighted another issue — electronic waste.  E-waste generally refers to discarded computer equipment and electronics. The report suggests...

Apple app store reportedly blocks Gnosis Safe wallet update for hosting NFTs

Apple has barred Gnosis Safe from applying an app update unless the firm provides access to NFTs as an in-app purchase. The Apple App Store reportedly blocked a Gnosis Safe crypto wallet app update due to it hosting NFTs that weren’t purchased inside the app. Lukas Schor —a product developer at Ethereum-based crypto wallet provider Gnosis Safe — revealed the firm ran into trouble when it submitted an updated version of its app to the IOS app store earlier this month. Schor noted on Sept. 14 that despite the update having nothing to do with non-fungibles, the App Store flagged a sample image that displayed an NFT in the app’s description section, even though it had been up for “many months.” Apple is blocking a release of our @gnosissafe mobile app because we display NFTs in it. After 2 weeks of back-and-forth, I felt that we need to talk publicly about this to raise awareness. See the thread for details and why this might affect other wallets and apps as well. — Lukas Schor...

Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood Doubles Down on $500K Bitcoin Prediction, Discusses Crypto Regulation

Ark Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood expects the price of bitcoin to be more than $500,000 in five years’ time, which is over 10 times what it is today. She also shared her view on cryptocurrency regulation and Coinbase’s trouble with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Predicts $500K Bitcoin Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Investment Management (Ark Invest), discussed bitcoin and crypto regulation in an interview at the SALT conference Monday. Wood is also the firm’s founder and CIO. She was asked what bitcoin will be worth five years from now. Wood replied, “If we are right and companies continue to diversify their cash into something like bitcoin, institutional investors start allocating 5% of their funds into … bitcoin, or other crypto,” then: We believe that the price will be tenfold of where it is today, so instead of $45,000, [it would be] over $500,000. Wood also commented on cryptocurrency regulation. Based on her meeting with s...

Solana and Arbitrum knocked offline while Ethereum evades attack

Solana’s validators are preparing a new release after the network was brought down by a sudden surge in transaction volume while Ethereum has evaded a malicious attack. Surging Ethereum rival, Solana (SOL), has shed 15% of its value over the past 24 hours after suffering a denial-of-service disruption. On Sept. 14 at 12:38 pm UTC, Twitter account Solana Status announced that Solana’s mainnet beta had been suffering intermittent instability over a 45-minute period. Six hours after announcing the incident, Solana Status explained that a large increase in transaction load to 400,000 per second had overwhelmed the network to create a denial-of-service and cause the network to start forking. 1/ Solana Mainnet Beta encountered a large increase in transaction load which peaked at 400,000 TPS. These transactions flooded the transaction processing queue, and lack of prioritization of network-critical messaging caused the network to start forking. — Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) Septembe...

US and Singapore companies collaborating: Okcoin partners with Hodlnaut

“We are building the next generation of tools to help onboard the investors and traders who have been on the fence about crypto,” said Khairi Azmi. Singapore-based crypto lending platform Hodlnaut will partner with United States crypto exchange Okcoin in an effort to drive adoption and crypto transactions among users. In a Wednesday announcement, Hodlnaut said the partnership would allow its users and those on Okcoin to purchase cryptocurrencies and earn rewards on their holdings. The lending platform said Singapore-based users already use Okcoin as a fiat on-ramp solution to go from the Singapore dollar to Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ether ( ETH ). “We are building the next generation of tools to help onboard the investors and traders who have been on the fence about crypto,” said Okcoin's Singapore general manager, Khairi Azmi. “We believe that this partnership will contribute positively to the crypto ecosystem for consumers.” According to the announcement, Hodlnaut users will have ...

Global Investment Bank Morgan Stanley Launches Dedicated Cryptocurrency Research Team

Global investment bank Morgan Stanley is establishing a new cryptocurrency research team. “The launch of dedicated crypto research is in recognition of the growing significance of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets in global markets,” the bank said. Morgan Stanley Sets Up New Research Team Morgan Stanley is launching a dedicated cryptocurrency research team, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing the bank’s internal memo to staff it has seen. Led by Sheena Shah, the firm’s lead cryptocurrency analyst, the team will research cryptocurrencies’ impact on both equities and fixed income globally. Shah will be based in London, where she will report to Adam Wood, who leads Morgan Stanley’s fintech and payments research team in Europe. She will also report to James Faucette, who leads the firm’s fintech and payments research team in the U.S. The memo states: The launch of dedicated crypto research is in recognition of the growing significance of cryptocurrencies and other digital ass...

3 reasons why Elrond (EGLD) price is hitting new daily highs

An expanding ecosystem and the full launch of Elrond’s DeFi capabilities back EGLD’s rally above $300. DeFi-focused protocols are seeing a sustained upward move and the the momentum appaers to be picking up pace now that the NFT sector has cooled off over the past two weeks.   Since the beginning of August, Elrond (EGLD), a scalable and secure blockchain platform designed for distributed apps and enterprise-level businesses has been in a strong rally. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $52 on June 22, the price of EGLD has charged 437% higher to a new all-time high at $302.14 on Sept. 14. EGLD/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Three reasons for EGLD's surge to a new all-time high include the full release of the protocol's Maiar exchange, the altcoin's listing on KuCoin and a string of partnerships and integrations that expand the Elrond ecosystem.  DeFi capabilities follow the Maiar exchange launch The re...

3 reasons why Polkadot is en-route to a new ATH even after a 256% rally

Steady development and strong fundamentals suggest that DOT's rally toward a new all-time high is in the making. The recent 256% Polkadot (DOT) recovery over the past 56 days has been nothing short of spectacular. Although the price is 23% below its $49.80 all-time high from four months ago, the altcoin's $39 billion market capitalization has outperformed the Ether (ETH) by 66% over the past thirty days. Polkadot/USDT. Source: Bybt.com Polkadot is a blockchain network designed to support various interconnected, application-specific parallel chains, known as parachains. This scalability-focused project breaks up transactions into many shards and processes them in parallel, similar to what ETH 2.0 aims to achieve. Polkadot refers to the entire ecosystem of parachains that plug into a single base platform known as the relay chain. This baselayer provides security to the network and handles the consensus, finality and voting logic. To support parachain launches, users vote ...

Crypto Exchange Coinbase Unveils Plan to Raise $1.5 Billion by Selling Bonds

Amid trouble with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase unveils its plan to raise $1.5 billion by selling bonds. Coinbase Plans to Issue $1.5 Billion in Bonds Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN) announced Monday “its intention to offer, subject to market conditions and other factors, $1.5 billion aggregate principal amount of its Senior Notes due 2028 and 2031 in a private offering.” The company explained that the notes “will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed by Coinbase Inc.” and “The interest rate, redemption provisions, and other terms of each series of notes will be determined by negotiations between Coinbase and the initial purchasers.” The announcement details: Coinbase intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include continued investments in product development, as well as potential investments in or acquisitions of other companies, products, or technologies that C...

Africa’s crypto market has grown by more than 1,200% since 2020: Chainalysis

P2P platforms, the need for remittances to circumvent restrictions from banks, and putting savings into crypto as a means of avoiding inflation could have contributed to the growing market in Africa. Digital analytics firm Chainalysis reported that the cryptocurrency market in Africa has grown significantly since last year in addition to the region having a larger share of overall retail transaction volume compared to the global average. In a report released on Sept. 14, Chainalysis said Africa’s crypto market has increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021, with high adoption in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The company said the popularity of P2P platforms could have been one of the driving factors towards greater adoption of crypto in the region, given some countries have restricted or banned residents from sending money to exchanges through local banks. According to Chainalysis, the entire continent received $105.6 billion worth of cryp...

iME Lists on AscendEX

PRESS RELEASE. AscendEX is thrilled to announce the listing of the iMe token (LIME) under the pair USDT/LIME on Sept. 14 at 1 p.m. UTC. iMe is an innovative, Telegram-based messaging platform with extended functionality and DeFi capabilities. iMe is the only project to introduce DeFi functionality on a messaging platform. iMe has integrated Artificial Intelligence, “Topics,” an alternative to Telegram folders, built-in Google Translations, a functional Cloud with Albums, and many other unique developments on its platform. Similar to the functions offered by Telegram, iMe users can send messages, photos, videos, and any file type (doc, zip, mp3, etc.) while creating groups or channels to broadcast to their audience. Users can record contacts on their phones and find people by their names. A hybrid of email and SMS, iMe can handle personal and business messaging needs with the added support of end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls. LIME, the protocol’s native token, allows ...

New report reveals top-graded exchanges at three-year peak volume dominance

The CryptoCompare report ranked the performance of several crypto exchanges across metrics such as security and asset diversity to conclude their findings. Recent data from market analyst firm CryptoCompare reveals that the leading six cryptocurrency exchanges, as per the company's analytical model, were responsible for a three-year high in spot volume throughout the month of August.  The metric grades all cryptocurrency exchanges across a multitude of areas — including legal/regulatory cases, data provision, security and market quality, among others — and ranks them in a list accordingly. Popular exchanges Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, CrossTower, Bitstamp and itBit all received AA grading status within the August period with a score ranging from 86.26 to 75.28, respectively. The report concludes: “In August, Top-Tier spot volumes increased 43.6% to $2.4tn and Lower-Tier spot volumes increased 10.4% to $218bn. Top-Tier exchanges now represent 91.7% of total spot volume.” Altho...

As Crypto Economy Slumps, Total Value Locked in Defi Continues to Rise

Approximately nine days ago, the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) across various blockchains was around $176 billion. At that time, bitcoin ($49,937) and ethereum ($3,886) fiat values were much higher. Despite the fact that the crypto economy and these coins have dipped in value, the TVL across defi has continued to rise, climbing more than 5% to $185.32 billion. Defi TVL Across All Chains Rises by More Than 5% Over 9 Days Decentralized finance (defi) has attracted billions of dollars and at the time of writing, the total value locked across a myriad of blockchains is around $185.32 billion. That’s approximately 5.113% higher than the TVL was nine days ago. At the time of writing, the TVL held in defi is $185 billion and more than 5% higher than it was nine days ago. Statistics from the defillama.com dashboard indicate that there’s been a 2.10% rise during the last day and the defi platform Aave has the highest dominance level in terms of TVL (7.40%). In...

2 key Ethereum price metrics back traders’ confidence in $3,800 ETH

ETH’s 90-day annualized premium and the funding rate on perpetual futures signal that traders are confident the altcoin will recapture the $3,800 level. According to derivatives markets, Ether ( ETH ) traders are still confident that there is the chance formore upside even though the 23% correction on Sept. 7 took a hit on prices.  Ethereum network congestion also peaked on Sept. 7 when the average transaction fee reached $60, and since then it has remained above $17. As a result of the lingering challenges experienced by the network, investors have shifted into Ethereum competitors with bridge and layer-two capabilities. For example, Polkadot’s DOT rose by 29% over the past week and Algorand’s ALGO spiked 67%. Undoubtedly, there’s a quest for interoperability and layer-two scaling solutions, aiming to quickly meet the explosive demand for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Whether the Ethereum network will sustain its absolute leadership ...