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Showing posts from November 11, 2021

Discord drops Ethereum and NFT integration plans after backlash

While Jason Citron said the NFT feature was in “pre-release” mode, he has now changed his tune after being bombarded with thousands of comments calling on him to drop the plans. Popular community messaging app Discord has been forced to walk back its integration plans with Ethereum ( ETH )-based NFTs following strong backlash from a significant number of its user base. The pushback started on Nov. 9 after Discord’s founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted “probably nothing” accompanied by a screenshot of the app’s user settings page that displayed an ETH logo and option to connect digital wallets such as MetaMask and Wallet Connect. Citron was then bombarded with thousands of comments calling on him to abandon the plans along with users threatening to cancel Nitro subscriptions. The crypto-skeptics asserted that NFTs are a Ponzi scheme and damaging to the environment due to the amount of energy consumption used to mine cryptocurrencies. I kindly request that you to not engage in the...

Botswana Does Not Have Regulatory Framework for Crypto — Central Bank

The Bank of Botswana (BOB) has said the country does not have a specific legal or regulatory framework pertaining to crypto assets. The bank does, however, warn residents investing in cryptocurrencies that they will have no legal recourse should they suffer financial losses. Central Bank Responding to Public Inquiries In its statement released on November 10, the central bank starts by acknowledging that local residents, just like their counterparts around the world, are engaged in cryptocurrency trading. In addition, the BOB also acknowledged that it has been receiving and responding to public and media inquiries on the subject. Next, the statement shares some of the observations that were made by the central bank when it monitored developments in the increasing trade of crypto assets. “There is no specific legal or regulatory framework pertaining to, or proscribing investment, in crypto assets, such as bitcoin in Botswana. Therefore, trading in bitcoin or similar decentralised ...

OMG price crashes by one third after BOBA airdrop snapshot

Users have been looking forward to this snapshot for a while but while they'll be getting BOBA tokens later in the month, the value of their OMG tokens crashed by one third today. The price of OMG Network (OMG) has plunged 33% from a daily high of $19.35 down to around $13 immediately after completion of the snapshot for an airdrop from the Boba Network. The snapshot of all wallets holding OMG tokens on the Ethereum network and the layer-two Boba Network took place at 12am UTC on Friday. OMG holders at the time of the snapshot will receive BOBA, the governance token for BobaDAO on Nov. 19. Boba is an Optimistic Rollup layer-two solution that helps to scale Ethereum smart contracts, built by the Enya team as core contributors to the OMG Foundation. BOBA token holders will be eligible to submit and vote on proposals for Boba DAO. Boba Network tweeted at 12:04am UTC that the snapshot occurred at Ethereum block 13597967, and on Boba Network block 15354. Around ten minutes later ...

Solana Labs co-founder: We don't want to kill 'beautiful' Ethereum

Solana Labs’ co-founder thinks the fight between Ethereum and so-called “ETH Killers” is unnecessary, as the true aim for people working in crypto should be to onboard “every human” onto Web 3.0. While many pundits have labeled Solana (SOL) as an "Ethereum killer" due to its lower fees and faster transaction times, Solana Labs co-founder Raj Gokal said the project has no desire to kill the cryptocurrency — and wouldn’t be able to if it did. Gokal made the comments in response to a Nov.10 Twitter post from the co-founder of venture capital firm Placeholder, Chris Burniske who wrote that “despite pretty words, L1 knives are fully out. In crypto, generally, people want their biggest bags to win.” “This will influence almost all communications, so don't take what you see and hear as truth,” he added, In response, Gokal emphasized that “it doesn’t have to be a fight” as he argued that the goal for all people working in the crypto space should be to onboard “every human” o...

Unnamed South African Investor Proposes Buying 51% Stake in Collapsed Crypto Firm for $5 Million

An unknown investor has proposed to acquire a 51% stake in Africrypt — the collapsed cryptocurrency investment company — for a purchase price of $5 million. However, in exchange for the offer, the investor wants all criminal proceedings against Africrypt directors dropped. Offer Must Be Supported by 75% of Creditors According to a report by Moneyweb, Africrypt creditors are set to vote on the compromise offer on November 12, 2021. However, this offer can only become an order of the court if it receives support from 75% of the creditors. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, Africrypt collapsed when the firm’s two young directors, Raees and Amir Cajee, reported a breach of the company’s systems. Soon after alleging that Africrypt was the victim of a hack, the Cajees disappeared along with investor funds. This in turn prompted Africrypt investors to launch legal proceedings against the two directors. However, as part of the compromise offer that has been presented to credito...

Ken Griffin says Bitcoin will be replaced by Ethereum-based currency

Generation X billionaire businessman Ken Griffith says he thinks the “passion is misplaced when it comes to cryptocurrencies”. Billionaire CEO of American hedge fund Citadel Kenneth Griffin thinks a currency on the Ethereum ( ETH ) network will replace Bitcoin ( BTC ) as crypto’s top dog. Citadel manages over $40 billion of capital — a quarter of the trading volume in the US stock market. During this Wednesday’s Nov. 10 DealBook summit hosted by The New York Times, Griffith said that he anticipates that the “Bitcoin-based conception [will be] replaced by the Ethereum-based conception in the next generation of cryptocurrencies.” He added that Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies have “the benefits of higher transaction speeds [and] lower cost per transaction.” Ethereum is only slightly faster than Bitcoin at present, but will significantly scale up transaction speeds and lower costs when Eth2 is fully implemented. Griffin is a long-time crypto skeptic, especially of Bitcoin — which he...

Miami will hand out free Bitcoin to residents from profits on city coin

The race to establish America’s biggest crypto hub is intensifying, with Miami emerging as a front-runner by generating millions of dollars in yield from staking Miami Coin. Every Miami resident with a digital wallet will be eligible to receive a Bitcoin dividend according to Mayor Francis Suarez. “We’re going to be the very first city in America to give Bitcoin yield as a dividend directly to its residents,” Suarez said in an interview on Nov. 11. Citycoins launched the MiamiCoin cryptocurrency in August, which helps fund municipal projects by generating yield. Staking MiamiCoin has generated yields in excess of $21 million for the city. Its reserve wallet converts MiamiCoin deposits into USD based on commands from city officials. Suarez said that if yields continue at that rate, it’s possible that they could entirely cover the city’s tax needs. “Why don’t you just tax people less?” Why don't you just tax people less? https://t.co/YXQGZlsPKI — Parker Lewis (@parkera...

Twitter Sets up Dedicated Team to Focus on Cryptocurrency and Decentralized Apps

Twitter has set up a team to focus on “crypto, blockchains, and other decentralized technologies — including and going beyond cryptocurrencies.” Initially, the team will explore how it can “support the growing interest among creators to use decentralized apps to manage virtual goods and currencies, and to support their work and communities.” Twitter to Focus on Crypto, Blockchain, and Decentralized Apps Twitter has established a dedicated crypto-focused team led by Tess Rinearson. She explained Wednesday that the “new team [is] focused on crypto, blockchains, and other decentralized technologies — including and going beyond cryptocurrencies.” Twitter said: We’re exploring ways to incorporate decentralized technologies into our products and infrastructure. Initially, the company will explore payments, ways for people creating content to earn crypto, and the “decentralization of social media.” Rinearson emphasized that “Twitter truly ‘gets’ crypto,” referencing the company’s bit...

Klima DAO accumulates $100M of carbon offsets, aims to drive up price

Climate activism via blockchain is becoming a serious topic of discussion among academics and industry professionals as carbon offsets are tokenized. Climate-change focused Klima DAO has accumulated over 9 million tonnes of carbon offsets according to a Nov. 8 announcement. The USD value of those offsets has surpassed $100 million. In a blog post , the project explained that those offsets are equivalent to the annual emissions of Georgia, Jamaica, or Papua New Guinea. The Klima DAO protocol aims to increase the price appreciation of carbon assets. The core team told Cointelegraph that it intends to put upward pressure on the price of carbon offsets “so that it becomes more profitable to engage in offset-generating activities, such as conserving land for carbon sequestration, or restoring forests and wetlands.” Carbon offsets are reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for emissions somewhere else. By accumulating all those offsets, known as Base Car...

Austria Plans to Tax Cryptocurrencies Like Stocks, Vows Equal Treatment

As a growing number of governments are looking to tap into crypto profits, authorities in Austria have indicated their intention to tax gains from digital asset investments just like those from stocks and bonds. The move is expected to increase trust and access to cryptocurrencies. Austria to Apply Capital Gains Tax to Bitcoin, Make Crypto More Accessible Claiming it aims for an equal treatment of investments in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, the government in Vienna has announced it’s considering applying the same 27.5% levy to crypto assets it currently uses to tax capital gains from traditional stocks and bonds. Austria intends to impose the measure as part of a wider tax overhaul to be carried out next year. Тhe news comes as more and more nations around the world are exploring ways to tax incomes stemming from the expanding crypto asset market, а report by Bloomberg notes. Just recently, the total capitalization of the crypto economy exceeded $3 trillion in value, as Bitcoin.c...

DEXs growing faster than CEXs but Binance still sees 171M visitors in a month

According to Chainalysis data the number of DEX’s doubled between Q1 2019 and Q3 2021, while the amount of CEX’s stayed around the same. A new Chainalysis report shows that the number of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) is growing faster than all other types of crypto exchanges. But Similar Web data shows centralized exchanges are far from unpopular, with Binance seeing 171 million visitors in October. Chainalysis published a report on crypto exchanges on Nov. 11 and provided an analysis by breaking the exchanges down by their business models including DEXs, CEXs, over-the-counter (OTC) brokers, derivatives platforms and high-risk exchanges with minimal know your customer (KYC) requirements. According to the data, the number of DEX’s between Q1 2019 and Q3 2021 increased more than 100% to sit at around 205 as of June this year. In comparison, the number of CEX’s temporarily increased from around 100 to 120, before dipping back to the 100 region within that time frame. The amount of...

Sotheby’s to Bring Down the Hammer in Ethereum on 2 Iconic Banksy Paintings

Sotheby’s, the British-founded American luxury auction house, has announced the company will be selling Banksy works for real-time bids in ethereum at “The Now Evening Auction” on November 18. While the upcoming auction will have pieces from highly acclaimed artists such as Mark Bradford and Yoshitomo Nara, Banksy’s “Love in the Air” and “Trolley Hunters” will be sold for ether “for the first time at auction.” 2 Banksy Paintings to be Sold at Auction in Ethereum via Sotheby’s Fine Auction House In 2021, the fine auction house Sotheby’s has been in the thick of cryptocurrency payments and non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles. While at first getting into NFTs , the leading auction house decided to accept digital currency payments via Coinbase this past May. In October, Sotheby’s launched the firm’s Metaverse Marketplace and Paris Hilton listed a few NFTs on the newly launched market. On November 11, Sotheby’s announced the “ The Now Evening Auction ” will feature real-time auctio...

Analysts say Bitcoin price ‘dips are transitory,’ suggesting BTC will soon head to $75K

Rising U.S. inflation and overblown fears about Evergrande contagion might be factors behind BTC’s recent pullback, but most analysts view the drop as a “necessary retest.” Volatility is the name of the game in the cryptocurrency market and the Nov. 11 evening sell-off in the price of Bitcoin ( BTC ) is a reminder that new all-time highs are often followed by sharp whipsaws to underlying support levels. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after dropping to a low near $62,800 late on Nov. 10, the price of Bitcoin managed to claw its way back up to the $65,000 level where bulls now look to consolidate and regroup for another push higher. BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what analysts are saying about the outlook for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market as concerns about rising inflation dominate the news headlines in the U.S. Bitcoin dips are “transitory” The sight of a rapid $7,000 decline in BTC may have come as a ...

Doctors Without Borders is now using blockchain tech for medical record storage

Blockchain documentation service Transcrypts announced a partnership with the humanitarian organization on Thursday. At a November 11 press conference, blockchain- based document security company Transcrypts announced a partnership with Doctors Without Borders, or DWB, that began on October 14th. Working together, they have already uploaded 6500 immunization records to the blockchain, with a goal of 76000 by 2022. Most of the recorded immunizations are COVID 19 vaccines, but the company stated that the eventually the goal is to store all patient medical records on the blockchain, where they will be accessible from a patient's phone. The nascent California based startup was founded last year by Zain Zaidi — then still an electrical engineering student at San Jose State University. The company now counts Paychex, ADP, Zoom, Spirit Airlines and Oracle as its clients. Transcrypts began as a tool to combat resume fraud marketed to human resources professionals, before expanding int...

Announcing the Launch of the Lao Crypto and DeFi Product – Welnance Finance

PRESS RELEASE. Welnance, a DeFi protocol built on Binance Smart Chain, is set to launch the first Lao crypto and decentralized product on the 11th of November, 2021. Welnance is a decentralized financial platform that’s aimed at promoting financial freedom and choices for people around the world by offering fast, secure, reliable financial products and services to customers. Welnance is under the Phousy Group ( one of the 6 companies authorized by the government of Laos to trade and mine cryptocurrencies). Since its inception in 1997, The company has participated in different business operations in Laos, especially its construction portfolio of roads and bridges. In 2009, The company’s total assets increased to over $3 billion and today it has skyrocketed. Phousy Group Portfolio comprises road and bridge construction, architecture & design, petroleum, irrigation system, mining, hydropower, and import/export, hotel, transportation, and grindstone factory. It’s home to over 10...

Bitfarms expands to US, plans green crypto mining operation in Washington

The company estimates the completed U.S. facilities will be able to produce 3.7 Bitcoin daily at a cost of roughly $4,000 per BTC. Canadian Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms is planning to build its first data center in the United States following the purchase of a land plot in Washington State. In a Nov. 11 announcement, Bitfarms said it aimed to establish mining operations in the U.S. capable of 620 petahashes per second using 6,200 Bitmain rigs fully powered by hydroelectric energy. The firm has already purchased a 24 megawatt hydro power farm in Washington for $26 million, but plans to expand to 99 MW by developing additional farms in the area. Bitfarms CEO Emiliano Grodzki said the firm had chosen Washington for its “cost-effective electricity” and production rates. With the addition of the 24 MW data center, the company currently has a total mining capacity of 106 MW, but estimates the completed facilities will be able to produce 3.7 Bitcoin ( BTC ) daily at a cost of roughly ...

Crypto miner Hut 8 surpassed 5K Bitcoin held in reserves

According to the firm, it mines close to 20 BTC per day. In its third-quarter earnings release, Canadian cryptocurrency miner Hut8 announced that it surpassed the goal set earlier this year of holding 5,000 Bitcoins ( BTC ) in reserves through mining. Its Bitcoin balance now amounts to 5,053, for a total market value of $430 million. During the quarter, Hut 8 generated 50.34 million (CA$) (worth around $40 million) in revenue and CA$23.37 million (about $18.57 million) in net income, up from CA$5.75 million in revenue (about $4.57 million) and a loss of CA$0.90 million (or $750,000) in the prior year's quarter. The company hosts a sizable fleet of Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC, machines used for Bitcoin mining. In addition, it deploys NVIDIA GPUs to mine Ethereum ( ETH ). The company's total hash rate (Bitcoin and Ethereum mining combined), or the number of guesses per second needed to obtain a mathematical solution to mine a new block on a ...

DCG Mining Subsidiary Foundry Launches Range of Services for 20 Crypto Staking Networks

Foundry, the Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary and cryptocurrency mining and consulting firm from Rochester, New York announced the launch of a new platform on Wednesday called Foundry Staking. The company says the product currently supports 20 blockchain networks and will provide digital asset staking and advisory services going forward. Foundry Launches Staking Services The New York-based Foundry has been making a number of moves in 2021 and partnering with a variety of crypto mining operations. Companies like Hut8 , Bitfarms , Greenidge, and many others have joined forces with Foundry in recent times. Furthermore, in terms of Bitcoin hashrate, the firm’s mining pool Foundry USA is the fourth largest mining pool operating today with 12.67% of the network hash at the time of writing. The mining pool Foundry USA has 20.72 exahash per second (EH/s) in hashrate on November 11, 2021. The new platform called Foundry Staking offers “white-glove services around various proof-of...

Vectorspace AI (VXV) flies under the radar to new highs as big data becomes the ‘new’ oil

High level partnerships and a focus on using artificial intelligence and big data to find solutions to complex problems are backing VXV’s quiet climb to new all-time highs. “I’m in it for the tech,” is a phrase commonly used in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by many who want to express a deeper motivation for being involved with blockchain technology beyond the significant gains that are known to happen in the volatile asset class. One project that has quietly climbed the charts without the need to jump on the decentralized finance (DeFi) or nonfungible token (NFT) trend is Vectorspace AI (VXV), a protocol building correlation matrix datasets capable of detecting hidden relationships in data and training artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $0.71 on May 23, the price of VXV has skyrocketed 2,267% to a record high at $19.47 on Sept. 16 before experiencing a significant pullback alongside the ...

Ascending channel pattern and Ethereum options data back traders’ $5K ETH target

ETH price dropped to $4,400 during Thursday’s correction, but data shows traders expect the altcoin to surpass $5,000 soon. Ether ( ETH ) bulls seem excited with the recent $4,870 all-time high that was hit on Nov. 10. While it was a new high in USD, ETH price is still 51% below June 2017’s price in Bitcoin ( BTC ) terms but it’s entirely possible that the 0.155 BTC level reached in the previous cycle reflected the overzealous expectations that were rampant during the initial coin offer (ICO) frenzy. The Ethereum network’s own success caused congestion and high fees, bringing the competition closer. For example, in mid-2017, the leading “competitors” would have been Ethereum Classic ( ETC ) and NEM ( XEM ) and combined, those represented a mere 13% of Ether’s $37 billion market capitalization. Today, Binance Coin (BNB) and Solana’s (SOL) aggregate capitalization stand at 32% versus Ether’s $557 billion. At the moment, Ether price is trading in an ascending channel with a targ...

Former Binance execs say exchange is worth $300B: Report

Though the exchange’s holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands, Binance currently has no formal headquarters anywhere in the world. Even with no physical headquarters and seemingly few regulations affecting its business practices, Binance could reportedly be worth three times as much as Coinbase if it were to go public today. According to a Thursday report from the Wall Street Journal, former executives of the major cryptocurrency exchange estimated that Binance could be worth up to $300 billion as a publicly traded company, considering its current trading volume and transaction fees. Data from CoinMarketCap shows Binance with a trading volume of more than $46 billion in the last 24 hours, making it the top-ranked exchange ahead of Coinbase at roughly $9.5 billion. The estimated valuation would also likely put it ahead of its U.S. competitor, which went into its initial public offering in April with an estimated valuation of $100 billion. If Binance were to go pub...

Rarible Marketplace Users Can Now Create, List, and Trade Flow-Based NFT Collectibles

On November 10, the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Rarible.com and the Rarible protocol announced an integration with the Flow blockchain. The announcement details that Rarible users can now create, list, and trade Flow-based NFTs on the marketplace. Rarible Partners With Flow Blockchain The NFT market Rarible.com and the Rarible protocol have revealed the support of the Dapper Labs crafted blockchain network Flow. Rarible’s announcement explains that Flow-based NFT users will see “extremely low gas fees and a swift user experience.” For instance, data shows on Thursday, November 11, ethereum ( ETH ) network fees are 0.012 ether per transaction or $57.98. Rarible’s announcement notes that Flow’s network fees are around $0.0001 per transfer. “Moreover, since Flow has been created with both end-users and developers in mind, we also integrated it with the Rarible Protocol , which means that you can now make use of fully open-source infrastructure to build NFT projects with Flow...

Stablecoin payment app Reserve helps individuals protect their savings against inflation in Latin America

"Our long-term vision is to create a currency that is stronger than any fiat currency that exists now," said Reserve community manager Yens Michiels. One under the radar cryptocurrency-powered payment app that's been gaining traction across Latin America is Reserve. The platform acts as a convenient way for people to convert their local currencies, which may be undergoing high inflation levels, to the United States Dollar via the Reserve stablecoin (RSV). The network also features the Reserve Rights token (RSR), which is used for protocol governance. Since its launch in March 2021, the platform says it has seen 367,000 total signups. Meanwhile the number of weekly active users has surpassed 100,000, with most located in Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. In the past 30 days, the app has handled approximately 547,000 transactions. In addition, over 8,000 businesses, predominantly based in Venezuela, now accept Reserve as a payment method for goods and services. 2/1...