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Showing posts from December 12, 2021

Kenya Based Fintech Kwara Raises $4 Million in Seed Round

A Kenya based fintech, Kwara has raised $4 million in a seed round that was led by Breega VC firm. The funds will be used to create an app that allows members of credit unions to access financial services. The Rising Demand for Financial Services by Credit Union Members Kwara, a Kenyan fintech that focuses on helping credit unions, has raised $4 million in its latest seed round. The startup plans to use the funds to build a “neobank” app that enables individuals to sign up with their preferred credit unions to access various financial services. The seed round was led by Breega VC firm, with the participation of Softbank Vision Fund Emerge, Finca Ventures, New General Market Partners, Globivest and Do Good Invest. Other investors include Rabacap, Launch Africa, Norrsken Impact Accelerator, Future Africa, Samurai Incubate, DOB Equity and fintech angels. Established in 2019, Kwara already avails its proprietary backend-as-a-service (BaaS) software to Kenyan savings and credit coopera...

ZK-rollups step into the limelight after the quest to scale Ethereum evolves

ZK-rollups become the latest trending solution for scalability on the Ethereum network as developers strive to increase throughput capabilities while decreases transaction costs. Scalability on the Ethereum ( ETH ) network has been a point of contention within the cryptocurrency ecosystem for years, primarily due to high fees and network congestion during periods of peak demand. The latest solution to emerge as the final fix to Ethereum’s scalability woes are Zero-knowledge rollups (ZK rollups), a form of scaling that runs computations off-chain and submits them on-chain via a validity proof. Zk rollup season — cryptowarlord.eth ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (@CryptoWarlordd) December 7, 2021 Earlier in the year, protocols that opted to use optimistic rollups such as Optimism and Arbitrum dominated the headlines and were touted as the best solution to scaling on Ethereum, but aside from Arbitrum, the hype for those protocols has quieted down and traders have pointed out that even optimistic roll...

Ascendex Hacked — Exchange Loses $77 Million in ERC20, BSC, Polygon Tokens

Ascendex, a cryptocurrency exchange, suffered a security breach that allowed hackers to take control of some of the wallets of the exchange. The attack focused on hot wallets, where funds are kept as a buffer to tend to customers’ withdrawals. The company announced that it would reimburse these funds to any affected user. Peckshield, a security and auditing company estimated losses of around $77 million. Ascendex Hot Wallets Ransacked Yesterday, Ascendex, a cryptocurrency exchange, reported a security breach caused by a hack attack that focused on the hot wallets of the exchange. The company acknowledged the attack quickly and ran a series of security procedures to safeguard its cold wallets. While the exchange has not released numbers on the attack, Peckshield, a security and blockchain auditing company, examined the hack and estimated the losses at around $77 million. The hack targeted hot wallets of the Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon networks, with the most value being withdrawn in...

2 key Bitcoin trading metrics suggest BTC price has bottomed

Bitcoin price has yet to reclaim the $50,000 level, but the actions of options market makers and margin traders at Bitfinex suggest the most recent correction is over. Bitcoin ( BTC ) has been struggling to sustain the $47,500 support since the Dec. 4 crash, a movement that wiped out over $840 million in leveraged long futures contracts. The downside move came after the emergence of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus and recent data showing U.S. inflation hitting a 40-year high . Bitcoin/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView While newcomers might have been scared by the 26% price correction over the past month, whales and avid investors like MicroStrategy added to their positions . On Dec. 9, MicroStrategy announced that they had acquired 1,434 Bitcoin, which increased their stake to 122,478 BTC. According to some analysts, the rationale behind Bitcoin’s weakness was the contagion fear that Evergrande, a leading Chinese property developer, defaulted on its US dollar deb...

A letter to Zuckerberg: The Metaverse is not what you think it is

Facebook changing its name to Meta will likely have a huge repercussion on the narrative of the metaverse as a whole. Dear Lord Sugar Mountain, Attention: to my Facebook friend who is building a version of the metaverse that nobody wants as a starter. The last few years must certainly not have been easy. Your business model centered around polarization and, subsequently, outrage has ironically unified many of us against relying too much on your social media platform. Your government — whose sniper rifle accuracy you know all too well as they took out your ill-conceived stablecoin project shortly after your expensive global advertising campaign went live — has tuned in to the many whistleblowers exposing how your company captures and sells attention. It has called you in for questioning. Although to be fair, they also needed to speak with you to better understand the basics of digital ad revenue. What do people do when they are cornered? One of two things: fight back or flee the s...

Bitcoin Hashrate Hits an All-Time High Suggesting Thousands of Next-Gen Machines Have Joined the Race

While bitcoin prices have consolidated around the $50K zone, the network’s hashrate has reached an all-time high (ATH) on December 8, 2021, tapping 194.95 exahash per second. Bitcoin miners have increased their processing power a great deal despite the fact that mining bitcoin is 8.33% harder to mine since December 11. Bitcoin Hashrate Taps 194 Exahash per Second on December 8, Mining Difficulty Jumps Over 8% Higher 3 Days Later Bitcoin prices reached a few all-time price highs in 2021 breaking records from previous years. Similarly, Bitcoin’s hashrate has also seen record highs on two occasions this year as the SHA256 hash power has climbed exponentially. While BTC prices tapped an ATH of $64K in mid-April on May 9th Bitcoin’s hashrate hit a lifetime high at 191.42 exahash per second (EH/s). BTC prices once again reached another ATH on November 10, jumping to $69K per coin. As bitcoin prices have subsided around 26% since then, Bitcoin’s hashrate has skyrocketed to another life...

Inside the blockchain developer’s mind: Proof-of-stake blockchain consensus

Gaining a deeper understanding of a popular — but widely misunderstood — concept in blockchain technology: the consensus algorithm. Cointelegraph is following the development of an entirely new blockchain from inception to mainnet and beyond through its series Inside the Blockchain Developer’s Mind. In previous parts, Andrew Levine of Koinos Group discussed some of the challenges the team has faced since identifying the key issues they intend to solve and outlined three of the “crises” that are holding back blockchain adoption: upgradeability , scalability and governance . This series is focused on the consensus algorithm: Part 1 is about proof-of-work , Part 2 is about proof-of-stake and Part 3 is about proof-of-burn. This article is the second in my series about consensus algorithms, in which I leverage my unique perspective to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of this often misunderstood concept. In the first article in the series, I explored proof-of-work...

Galileo Exchange Launches Its Native Token, the “GELT”

Galileo Exchange is a groundbreaking hybrid of a Crypto exchange, a Blockchain project, and the innovation of accelerated price dynamics. It combines these essential elements to bring trustworthiness, innovation, value and entertainment. Galileo Exchange is Fully Developed, Proprietary & Market Ready The platform introduces many unique features including: Gamification of Financial Markets World’s First Dynamically Tethered Indexes (DTI’s) High Pip Action Trading Instruments Zero-Edge Ecosystem (100% RTP) Native Token (GELT) – built on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) Bonding Curve Tokenomics BNB Secured Liquidity Pool Community Centric Growth Bi-weekly Trading Tournaments Evolving Development Roadmap Galileo Exchange is a breakthrough in trader engagement, fun, and profitability. The platform is designed to level the playing field by removing all frictions to trading and is engineered to return 100% of funds wagered back to its users. Furthermore, the GEx platform of...

Power Utility Sues Russians Mining Cryptocurrency at Their Homes, Raises Electricity Rates

A Russian power utility has found a way to increase electricity prices for consumers mining cryptocurrency using household electricity. The regional distribution company has taken dozens of amateur miners to court and has already won some of the cases. Power Utility Goes After Crypto Miners Using Subsidized Electricity to Mint Digital Coins Irkutskenergosbyt, a power distributor in the Russian region of Irkutsk, has managed to secure an increase of the electricity tariffs for crypto mining farms set up in private homes. The utility was able to prove in court that their owners are carrying out business activities while buying electricity at the low prices meant for household consumers. The enterprise has filed 85 lawsuits this year against people involved in home crypto mining with claims totaling 73.3 million rubles (over $980,000). It has already won nine cases from which it is expecting to receive 18.7 million rubles ($250,000), the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. The...