Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November 13, 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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two Entertainment Projects Featuring Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Get Backing From Universal Music Group, Timbaland

This week Universal Music Group, the Dutch–American multinational music corporation announced the formation of a non-fungible token (NFT) metaverse music group called Kingship, which features four Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs. Following the announcement, the hit record producer Timbaland revealed the creation of a metaverse-based entertainment company called Ape-In Productions (AIP), which will also leverage BAYC NFTs. Universal Music Group Reveals BAYC NFT Supergroup Called Kingship While non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles have been all the rage this year, one particular collection called Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has turned a lot of heads in terms of sales and popularity. Data shows that BAYC has an overall market valuation of $1.82 billion and the collection has seen $658 million in all-time sales volume, according to dappradar.com statistics. BAYC’s trade volume has been among 9,296 traders across 22,122 sales. The average sale price for a single BAYC NFT on November...
Post a Comment
Read more

Litentry Blockchain Offers Massive Potentials to Crowdloan Investors

PRESS RELEASE. The blockchain industry is an ever-evolving world and Litentry is at the forefront of this revolution. Litentry intends to create a truly decentralized identity aggregation solution that will power web 3.0 applications. Its blockchain architecture is advanced and has witnessed massive growth due to its application in different sectors. Litentry has also created a DID Startups Programs that incentivizes innovative teams to build products that will add value to its blockchain. To continue its growth, Litentry has applied for a Polkadot Parachain slot that will transform its ecosystem. This article will open your imagination into the future of web 3.0 that can be achieved when Litentry gets a parachain. A decentralized ecosystem for innovative projects Litentry has built an innovative decentralized based identity ecosystem that has attracted several projects to its blockchain protocol. One of such projects is the Polkadot Naming System (PNS). PNS intends to introduc...
Post a Comment
Read more

BREAKING: The Bitcoin network welcomes Taproot soft fork upgrade

Taproot soft fork introduces the concept of Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree (MAST) to improve the scripting capabilities and privacy of the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin ( BTC ) network successfully activated the Taproot soft fork following a 90% lock-in consensus from miners and mining pools between blocks 709,488 and 709,632. The milestone signifies the first major upgrade for Bitcoin since August 2017, which saw the launch of Bitcoin’s leading layer-two solution, the Lightning Network and Segregated Witness (SegWit) . The Taproot upgrade aims to improve the scripting capabilities and privacy of the Bitcoin network. To do this, the soft fork introduces the concept of Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree (MAST). According to a Taproot-dedicated website run by prominent Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg : “[MAST] can help make smart contracts more efficient and private by only revealing the relevant parts of the contract when spending.” Speaking to Cointelegraph, Sjöberg pointed out th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egyptian Billionaire Remains Bullish on Gold, Says It’s Wrong to Compare Precious Metal to Bitcoin

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has said he remains bullish on gold and has no intention to invest in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin because such investment is a very risky business. Sawiris Says Gold Still Safe-Haven Asset In his remarks published by The National News, the billionaire reveals he believes it is wrong for people to make comparisons between gold and bitcoin. Sawiris, who is also the executive chairman of Cairo-based Orascom Investment Holding, insists gold is still the safe-haven asset. “I’m still very bullish [on gold] and it is a safe haven. People now are comparing Bitcoin with gold; it’s a wrong comparison,” said the billionaire. As a sign of his endorsement of gold ahead of cryptocurrency, one of the companies that Sawiris backs, AKH Gold, is reported to have signed a deal to explore nine blocks in Egypt’s gold-rich Eastern Desert. Similarly, La Mancha Holding — the company which the billionaire chairs — is reported to have launched a $1.4 billion investmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goldman Sachs: Gold Is Becoming Poor Man’s Crypto

Goldman Sachs’ head of energy research says, “Just like we argue that silver is the poor man’s gold, gold is maybe becoming the poor man’s crypto.” He sees funds starting to flow from gold into bitcoin as inflation fears escalate, noting that “We’ve argued historically that crypto and gold do not have to cannibalize each other.” Goldman Sachs on Gold and Bitcoin Damian Courvalin, Head of Energy Research at Goldman Sachs, talked about the outlook for gold and crypto in an interview with Bloomberg Thursday. He was asked whether he sees any evidence of investors using other assets, including bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, to hedge against inflation other than gold. “I think it’s actually starting,” he replied, adding: “We’ve argued historically that crypto and gold do not have to cannibalize each other.” Admitting that “it’s a fact, we have seen substitution recently,” he detailed: Just like we argue that silver is the poor man’s gold, gold is maybe becoming the poor man’s crypto. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Every Large Bank Will Actively Consider Crypto in 1-3 Years, Says Former Citi CEO

A former CEO of Citigroup said that every major bank and securities firm will consider crypto trading or services within one to three years. He also hopes that central banks worldwide will adopt digital currencies. Former Citi CEO Expects All Major Banks to Embrace Crypto in 1-3 Years Indian-American banker Vikram Pandit, a former CEO of Citigroup, talked about the outlook for cryptocurrency and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) at the Singapore Fintech Festival event last week. Pandit became the CEO of Citigroup in December 2007 and led the U.S. bank during the financial crisis. Prior to Citi, he joined Morgan Stanley in 1983 and ultimately became president and chief operating officer of the company’s institutional securities and investment banking businesses. He co-founded investment firm Orogen in 2016 where he currently serves as the chairman and CEO. He explained at the fintech conference that all major financial institutions will soon be thinking about trading or provi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Crypto Exchange Gemini Adds Shiba Inu Support — SHIB Investors Hopeful Robinhood Will Be Next

Another major cryptocurrency exchange has added support for the meme cryptocurrency shiba inu. Gemini has begun supporting SHIB alongside a few new defi, metaverse, infrastructure, and data management tokens. Meanwhile, the petition for Robinhood to list the shiba inu crypto has garnered more than 531K signatures. Shiba Inu (SHIB) Now Supported on Gemini Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini announced its support for the meme cryptocurrency shiba inu (SHIB) Friday. The company wrote: We are delighted to announce support for shiba inu (SHIB) as well as a range of new defi, metaverse, infrastructure, and data management tokens. The exchange detailed: “shiba inu (SHIB), audius (AUDIO), mask network (MASK), wrapped centrifuge (WCFG), quant (QNT), radicle (RAD), burn (ASH), superrare (RARE), fetch.ai (FET), and numeraire (NMR) are now supported for deposits and custody on Gemini.” The company added: We believe these tokens will provide value to our users and will continue to support defi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Visa Executive Says Crypto Is ‘Becoming Cool’ — Sees Whole New Class of Mainstream Consumers Entering the Space

Visa’s head of crypto sees a “whole new class” of mainstream consumers entering the crypto space due to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The executive f urther says: “Crypto is becoming cultural. It’s becoming cool.” Visa’s Executive: ‘Crypto Is Becoming Cultural, It’s Becoming Cool’ Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, talked about cryptocurrency during a panel discussion early this week at the Singapore Fintech Festival. He explained that a “whole new class” of mainstream consumers are entering the crypto space because of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Visa executive added that people who are interested in art, music, or culture are “setting up crypto wallets in waves,” noting that they are excited to create their own NFTs and support other creators. Before the NFT boom, Sheffield said crypto assets mainly attracted people who are interested in gold and finance. “It used to be that if you were investing in crypto, you were kind of weird,” he opined, elaborating: Crypto is becomi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elon Musk dumps $1.1B in Tesla stock, NYCCoin launches with mayor’s blessing and Mastercard pushes crypto-linked cards in Asia: Hodler’s Digest, Nov. 7-13

Coming every Saturday, Hodlers Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Crypto markets tag $3T combined market cap for first time At the start of this week, the combined cryptocurrency market cap broke $3 trillion for the first time. The market has fluctuated heavily this year, previously topping out at $2.62 trillion during the height of the bull run in May, before crashing down to as low as $1.24 trillion in mid-July. CoinGeckos data tracks 10,418 digital assets across 518 cryptocurrency exchanges, and the surging momentum in the latter half of 2021 comes on the back of Bitcoin ( BTC ), Ether ( ETH ), Polkadot (DOT) and Solana (SOL) all pushing past new all-time highs. Bitcoin still remains the dominant force in crypto, with its $1.21 trillion market cap being more than...
Post a Comment
Read more

SHIB Listed on ChangeHero for Accountless and Limitless Exchange

PRESS RELEASE. ChangeHero instant cryptocurrency exchange listed SHIB on its platform. Customers can exchange SHIB against over 80 cryptocurrencies without an account. Now crypto enthusiasts can easily exchange or buy SHIB not only with Ethereum based tokens but also with cryptocurrencies of different blockchains. To celebrate the listing, ChangeHero announced a zero fees exchange offer for SHIB. Users can exchange SHIB to any other cryptocurrency or the other way around without any fees. The offer is valid until November 15, 2021, and available only on the web version of the platform. One can make a simple exchange with SHIB using the Best Rate type of transaction on ChangeHero. Please note that the zero fees exchange offer is not valid for the Fixed Rate type of transaction. There are no additional requirements such as a registration for the users to enjoy the offer. Furthermore, there is no maximum limit on the amount of SHIB that can be exchanged in a transaction. About Shiba ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Report: Traditional Banks in Africa Hold Trust Advantage Over Fintechs

A recent report by CR2 on Africa’s fintech transformation suggests traditional financial institutions can still be a part of the fintech financial revolution if they leverage one of their most significant assets: client trust. Partnerships Between Banks and Fintechs The report urges financial institutions that wish to accelerate their advance to success in the fintech space to forge partnerships with fintech startups and technology companies. Having such partnerships, as well as their longstanding client networks and more defined regulatory environment, means financial institutions can still grow their share of Africa’s digital market. To illustrate the importance of the collaboration between banks and fintech, the CR2 report makes reference to the story of how one Nigerian bank, GTB, lost clients after its mobile banking platform went offline. The report then contrasts GTB’s misfortunes with the rise of the VC-backed fintech startup Kudabank, which saw its customer base rise fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

The stablecoin boom won’t continue without decentralized interoperability

Universal interoperability is the missing piece that can unlock stablecoins’ and CBDCs’ potential for the global digital economy. Stablecoins are the cornerstone of the digital asset marketplace with a market cap of over $100 billion. Governments are already putting considerable resources in being up to speed with the trends. A November 2021 report published by the United States President’s Working Group on Financial Markets details the various measures to ensure stablecoin regulation is implemented within government guidelines. A global central bank survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) shows 86% of central banks are now actively engaged in some way with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), a government-backed form of a stablecoin. Of this cohort of central banks, seven have now officially launched CBDCs, while 17 more are in the pilot phase, according to the Atlantic Council CBDC tracker. Like all cryptocurrencies, stablecoins rely on blockchain technology ...
Post a Comment
Read more

South African Crypto Token Holders Concerned About Status of Funds, Unable to Withdraw as Promised

A group of South African cryptocurrency investors have voiced concerns about the fate of their investment in the Fight to Fame (F2F token) after they reportedly were unable to withdraw their funds as promised. Token Sale Attracts Over 2,000 Applicants According to an IOL report , the investors had invested in a token that was promoted by Marius Fransman, a former regional leader of South Africa’s governing party, the ANC. Some media reports suggest Fransman’s company may have received over 2,000 applications from investors that include actors, writers, musicians, and directors that wanted to be a part of the project. Fransman had planned to use the funds that were raised to promote an international TV reality boxing show called “Fight to Fame.” The report adds that Fransman’s company, F2F SA, would host large entertainment events at venues such as big casinos, where the tokens would be the means to access the venue and also to be exchanged for gambling chips. Yet as one anonymous ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DeFi’s quest to reimagine finance must come from a community-based design

A more inclusive DeFi lending protocol can empower the unbanked and underbanked in ways traditional finance cannot. Crypto has seen a rise in novel uses of liquidity mining and rewards through protocols like Uniswap, Aave and Compound. More recently, a new crop of DeFi 2.0 protocols such as OlympusDAO , Alchemix and Abracadabra are exploring new ways of operating without giving up token rewards.  For all the innovations happening with decentralized systems in crypto, they are still failing to open new pathways for economic prosperity for the most marginalized. In its current form, DeFi remains open only to people who already have access to the financial system and live in countries with strong financial markets. This is evident by the fact that the growth of DeFi has been particularly driven by crypto degens . As DeFi 2.0 continues to grow, it needs to break free from the historical underpinnings of a financial system predicated upon exploitation and oppression. One immediat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alchemy Pay’s Unique Crypto-Fiat Payment Solution Disrupts the Industry

On November 6, 2021, Alchemy Pay’s Chief of Staff, Karmen Tang, delivered her keynote address at the Epicenter Crypto Conference in Lisbon. Tang took the audience through a brief history of Alchemy Pay and the broad ecosystem they have now built within blockchain infrastructure. The founders of Alchemy Pay come from giants of traditional payments such as Mastercard, QFPay, PayPal, and Tencent. “Experience, expertise and networking have all been key to what Alchemy Pay does. That gives us that edge over others in the crypto payment space,” said Tang. Significant Network Growth In the past year, Alchemy Pay has achieved significant growth and secured new partnerships including access to PayPal payment channels in Q4 of 2020, and to Visa and MasterCard payment channels earlier this year. Today, Alchemy Pay is in over 60 countries, and provides over 200 payment channels for fiat and crypto acceptance. The industry still faces a lack of real-world use cases and in order to solve this A...
Post a Comment
Read more