roadrunner

Cryptocurrency mining is among several energy-intensive industries hurt by a power deficit in Iceland. The country’s main utility is now rejecting requests to connect new coin minting facilities to the grid, after cutting supply to aluminum smelters and fish factories. Iceland Turns Away New Crypto Miners to Deal With Lack of Energy Iceland’s largest utility, Landsvirkjun, has been forced to limit energy supplies to power-hungry industrial customers including aluminum producers and fish processing plants. The restrictions have been applied to consumers with curtailable short-term contracts as well. Data centers mining digital currencies are among the affected enterprises and the company has been turning away new bitcoin miners. Landsvirkjun explained the need for the reduction citing a malfunction at a power station and the low water reservoir levels, Bloomberg reported. The supplier also faced a delay in sourcing electricity from an external producer. The utility announced on Tuesday that the cuts were effective immediately. Unusually high demand for electricity has been another key factor for the deficit, noted Tinna Traustadottir, executive vice president of sales and customer service at Landsvirkjun. Iceland’s giant smelters have been a major consumer for decades but a growing number of cryptocurrency miners, attracted by the island nation’s cheap energy, are now playing a role, too. Crypto mining companies such as the Canadian Hive Blockchain Technologies and the Hong Kong-listed Genesis Mining and Bitfury Holding are among those that are already operating coin minting facilities in the country. Landsvirkjun said, however, that it’s now rejecting requests from new customers in the mining sector. The company further elaborated that due to limitations of Iceland’s distribution system, it cannot serve load points from the country’s biggest power station, Karahnjukavirkjun. The plant is located in the eastern part of the country while the island’s western region is mainly the one experiencing deficits. News of Iceland’s troubles with electricity shortages comes after two other Nordic nations, Sweden and Norway, voiced concerns about the rising energy needs and growing environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. In November, Swedish regulators called for an EU-wide ban on crypto mining. A couple of weeks later, the Norwegian government indicated it may support Sweden’s proposal. Do you think Iceland will lift the restrictions for new crypto mining farms once it deals with its current power deficit? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article

Some economic experts from Africa have suggested that the continent now needs a common cryptocurrency and an integrated capital market to boost trade and sustain growth. The Importance of a Common Crypto Experts on the African economy have argued that a common cryptocurrency along with an integrated capital market is needed to boost trade and to sustain growth on the continent post the Covid-19 crisis. According to a press statement released by the African Development Bank Group (ADBG), these experts had made their arguments during a discussion on reforming Africa’s financial system. One of the experts quoted in the statement, Anouar Hassoune, a Professor of Finance and CEO of the West Africa Rating Agency, argued that a common cryptocurrency has the potential to reduce the cost of doing business. He explained: We need to come up with a cryptocurrency that is acceptable to each member state. It’s better to do it at the continental level, and we have the expertise to do it. It’s a matter of governance, not an issue of technology. Hassoune also suggested that such a cryptocurrency could serve as an alternative to monetize some of the continent’s endowments, such as gold and other commodities. The statement also quotes Emmanuelle Riedel Drouin, head of the Economic and Financial Transition Department at Agence Française de Développement. Although the expert is supportive of the idea, she cautioned that there are conditions that need to be met before such common crypto is launched. She explained: “We should not forget that there is a lot of work to be done on the digital infrastructure, the development of payment systems, payment system interoperability really needs to be worked on, so there is a lot of work to be done in collaboration with the financial institutions on digitalisation of delivery and payment channels.” Africa Needs a Functioning Integrated Capital Market Drouin also added that while central banks play a crucial role, it is still essential for economies to diversify funding sources to lessen dependence on them. Although many African countries have opposed privately issued cryptocurrencies, some have however shown an interest in developing their own digital currencies. In fact, one of these countries, Nigeria, has already launched its digital currency while Ghana is also expected to do the same. It is the creation of such different digital currencies that some experts fear will diminish the possibility of Africa having its own common cryptocurrency objective. Meanwhile, the statement also quotes Augustine Ujunwa, an economist at the West African Monetary Institute, who favors a well-functioning integrated capital market. He explained: Currently, our markets are small, our countries are small and we need to adopt a regional approach towards integrating markets. But, before we get there, we must harmonise our laws, regulations and protocols governing our fintech and digital systems. Concerning the role of central banks, the economist suggested they should now begin to think of innovative ways of providing finance for the critical sectors of the economy. What are your thoughts about this story? Tell us what you think in the comments section below. View the full article

This year the American artist Michael Winkelmann, otherwise known as Beeple, made history when he sold his non-fungible token (NFT) artwork “Everydays” for $69.3 million on March 11. Beeple’s latest NFT called “Human One” is a life-sized NFT sculpture that sold for $29 million, and the artist will update the NFT during the course of the rest of his existence on earth. Beeple’s ‘Human One’ NFT Fetches $29 Million, Artist Plans to Update Art Remotely for the Rest of His Life Beeple is making headlines again after he sold another multi-million dollar non-fungible token (NFT) called “Human One” for $29 million at Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale. Beeple (whose birth name is Michael Winkelmann) is one of the most well-known NFT artists today because his “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” NFT sold for $69.3 million. This made Beeple’s artwork one of the most expensive pieces of art in the world and the most costly NFT sold to date. “Everydays” was sold via a Christie’s auction on March 11, 2021, and Beeple’s latest multi-million-dollar NFT sale was also through the luxury auction house. Beeple’s new art is a life-sized 3D sculpture and an NFT that was minted on October 28, 2021. Christie’s describes it as a “kinetic video sculpture—four video screens (16k resolution), polished aluminum metal, mahogany wood frame, dual media servers; endless video with corresponding dynamic non-fungible token.” Human One: ‘A Portrait of a Human Born in the Metaverse’ Beeple describes his latest NFT art as “the first portrait of a human born in the metaverse.” The interesting thing about Beeple’s “Human One” is that he aims to change it over the course of his lifetime. introducing HUMAN ONE pic.twitter.com/eysmH6WkOY — beeple (@beeple) October 28, 2021 This means that the owner, Ryan Zurrer, and any owners thereafter, may see the “Human One” artwork change to whatever Beeple wants to add. The changes could depend on his mood and could represent something the artist is thinking about. At the moment, the life-sized 3D sculpture NFT shows an individual in a silver-colored space suit with boots, a helmet, and a backpack. The 21st Century Evening Sale auction of “Human One” ended on November 8, with a realized price of $28,985,000. “The physical element is designed to continuously display the artwork. Beeple will maintain remote access to the physical element to ensure proper functionality and/or enhance the displayed artwork,” Christie’s concludes. “Beeple warrants that the physical element does not contain any features designed to impair the continuous display of the artwork.” What do you think about Beeple’s latest “Human One” NFT sale that he plans to update continuously for the rest of his life? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. View the full article

PRESS RELEASE. IOST-powered DeFi Protocol Yokozuna Finance is warming up to claim the title in the IOST’s dApp ecosystem. The sumo-themed gamified DeFi and NFT project has already created a buzz among the IOST and DeFi community and aims to climb the ranks with its official launch on 10th December, 11:00 AM (UTC) The sumo-inspired project, with a total supply of 100,000,000 and a deflationary distribution model, will be offered via FAIR LAUNCH to stakers on app.yokozuna.fi is being developed and guided by an experienced global team and an advisory board composed of professional and contributing expertise from technology, finance, sports, entertainment, media and academia, aims to educate and entertain IOST fans while promoting the sport of Sumo to avid and non-traditional audiences around the world. Built on the IOST Network for its efficiency, ultra-fast speed, and practically zero transaction costs, Yokozuna Finance will allow users to guide the journey of a young rikishi (sumo wrestler) in hopes of becoming a Yokozuna or Grand Champion. At its core, Yokozuna Finance’s numerous compelling set of features is set to create a sensational and unparalleled experience for its users. These include Double Mining, Automated Market Maker, DAO Fund, Deflationary Token, Vaults, Governance, Cross-Chain Liquidity, NFT Staking, and GameFi. The projects’ early 2022 roadmap introduces auctions and a secondary marketplace where the project’s native token, ZUNA will be used exclusively to acquire, buy and sell SUMO NFT’s and related items to accessorize and enhance the performance including increased APY for users. When fully realized, qualified NFT holders will own and govern the Yokozuna Finance DAO funded by transactions beginning December 10th followed by the innovative NFT system with learning-based earning and gamification that will launch in Q2 2022. Ultimately, the owners of the DAO will not only participate in the success of the DAO by receiving distributions but will vote to support global SUMO initiatives designed to grow the sport worldwide. $ZUNA Token Launch Imminent Yokozuna Finance has commissioned and passed a third-party security audit by Beosin and launched its’ website yokozuna.fi and dApp app.yokozuna.fi Currently, users can pre-position IOST in single token vaults & earn IOST before the Official Launch on Friday, Dec 10th – 20:00 TOKYO/11:00 LON/6:00 NYC  Earn $ZUNA by staking IOST (Live) IOST holders can stake IOST in single token IOST vaults that will earn IOST Rewards as if they were voting for IOST When Yokozuna Finance launches their Token Generating Event (TGE), you will be pre-positioned to earn IOST and ZUNA allowing users to earn DOUBLE MINING rewards for IOST single token vaults The Yokozuna Finance launch will introduce ZUNA single token vaults and additional Liquidity Pools where users will see several existing IOST project tokens earning ZUNA What’s Next For Yokozuza? Yokozuna will focus on building its NFT Platform and NFT System Sumo Gamification in early 2022. Cross-chain liquidity, NFT Governance of DAO, and Automated Trading Strategies, just to name a few in the long-term milestones the team aims to achieve. More on Yokozuna’s Roadmap can be found here. To learn more about Yokozuna, check out Telegram, Twitter ,Japan Twitter IOST Blockchain- An Ideal Home for your dApps For DeFi decentralized applications to satisfactorily compete with traditional applications, the underlying network must be fast, meshing perfectly with the objective of DApp launchers. Among the competition, IOST — an enterprise-grade, decentralized and ultra-fast network oiled with a proof-of-believability consensus algorithm — is building a robust portfolio by offering developer-friendly features and environments. The IOST platform emerged as a response to the scalability problem, aiming to tackle the issue once and for all. IOST implements an array of technologies, including a proof-of-believability algorithm and high-performance virtual machine technology, all of which are supposed to offer higher TPS rates of up to 8,000 transactions per second. Since 2019, IOST has offered a holistic dapp ecosystem and continued to make inroads in the budding DeFi and NFT space with multiple strategic partnerships and emerging on-chain projects — such as stablecoins (HUSD, JPYA, USDA), NFT Marketplace (TOKENLINK, Revival, RIZIN FIGHTING COLLECTION) and the newest Yokozuna Finance. Developer-friendly features that have no congestion and no high gas fees, as seen in the Ethereum and Javascript smart contract languages, are the reasons many developers choose to launch DeFi projects on IOST. A transaction fee at no cost also guarantees users the convenience and accessibility of using the applications on the IOST chain. To learn more about IOST, visit its Twitter and Medium page. This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. View the full article

Payments giant Visa has launched global crypto advisory services. The company’s executive says: “We’ve seen a material shift in our clients’ mindset in the last year, from a desire to explore and experiment with crypto, to actually building a strategy and product roadmap.” Visa’s Global Crypto Advisory Services Payments giant Visa announced Wednesday the launch of its “global crypto advisory services,” an offering within Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA). “This comes at a moment when digital currencies are taking greater hold in the popular consciousness,” Visa noted. The company explained that its consultants and product experts have gained expertise from working with more than 60 crypto platforms. Visa noted that they can help “financial institutions evaluate the crypto opportunity, develop concrete strategies, and pilot new user experiences and innovations like crypto rewards programs and CBDC-integrated consumer wallets.” Claudio Di Nella, head of Visa Europe’s consulting & analytics, opined: We’ve seen a material shift in our clients’ mindset in the last year, from a desire to explore and experiment with crypto, to actually building a strategy and product roadmap. “We came to Visa to learn more about crypto and stablecoins and the use cases that are most relevant for our retail and commercial business lines,” said Uma Wilson, executive vice president at UMB Bank. On Wednesday, Visa also released a report titled “The Crypto Phenomenon: Consumer Attitudes & Usage.” It includes a survey of more than 6,000 financial decision-makers across eight markets: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S. According to the survey findings: Awareness of crypto is almost universal at 94% globally among survey participants with discretion over their household finances. In addition, “Nearly one in three crypto-aware adults already own or use cryptocurrency, and the majority of that group (62%) say their use has increased in the past year.” The survey also found that “Among current crypto owners, 81% express interest in crypto-linked cards, which allow you to convert and spend crypto at the retailers where you shop in the same way you can use a debit or credit card.” Meanwhile, “84% are interested in crypto rewards, which allow you to earn crypto as a reward for your card spending.” Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, recently said: “Crypto is becoming cultural. It’s becoming cool.” He explained that a “whole new class” of mainstream consumers are entering the crypto space because of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This week, Visa participated in a funding round for crypto transaction monitoring and forensics platform TRM. What do you think about Visa launching crypto advisory services? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

Another major cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp, has listed shiba inu cryptocurrency. Bitstamp users will be able to trade SHIB against the U.S. dollar and the euro. The announcement came as more trading platforms are listing shiba inu and more stores are accepting the meme crypto for payments. Bitstamp Adds Support for Shiba Inu Crypto Cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp announced Wednesday that it has added support for four more cryptocurrencies, including the popular meme coin shiba inu (SHIB). Besides SHIB, the three other cryptocurrencies added to the Bitstamp platform are dydx (DYDX), gala (GALA), and perpetual protocol (PERP). Users will be able to trade them against the U.S. dollar or the euro. The London-headquartered exchange opened deposits and withdrawals for shiba inu Wednesday. Users “will be able to place and cancel limit orders” on Thursday, Bitstamp detailed, adding that “Order matching will start and trades will be executed normally” on the same day. The exchange clarified: Once the order books gather sufficient liquidity, we will enable all order types and card purchases for the new trading pairs as well. However, Bitstamp noted that “for the time being, these assets will not be available to our U.S. and Singapore customers. ” Shiba Inu Crypto Adoption Rises The adoption of the meme cryptocurrency shiba inu has been steadily rising. On Tuesday, the crypto-friendly travel website Travala announced that it has added SHIB as a payment method, allowing users to purchase over 3 million travel products with the meme crypto. Retail giant Newegg recently announced that it will start accepting SHIB for payments on its platform this month while AMC Theaters said it will start accepting shiba inu in the first quarter. In November, two major crypto exchanges, Kraken and Gemini, added support for SHIB. Supporters of the meme crypto have been petitioning on Change.org for the popular trading platform Robinhood to list SHIB but the company recently said that it is in no hurry to add another cryptocurrency to its platform. What do you think about Bitstamp listing the shiba inu crypto? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

The CEO of Ark Investment Management, Cathie Wood, says that the metaverse can become a multitrillion-dollar market. “It’s a big idea that will probably infiltrate … every sector in ways that we cannot even imagine right now,” she said. Cathie Wood Believes the Metaverse Will Be Multitrillion-Dollar Opportunity Ark Investment Management (Ark Invest) CEO Cathie Wood shared her prediction about the metaverse in an interview with CNBC last week. She explained that the metaverse will be a multitrillion-dollar opportunity that will impact every part of the economy. The Ark Invest CEO opined: It’s a big idea that will probably infiltrate, just like technology is, every sector in ways that we cannot even imagine right now. The metaverse has gained much attention after social media giant Facebook changed its name to Meta. Wood was asked whether she thinks the metaverse can become a multitrillion-dollar market. She simply replied, “We do.” The Ark Invest CEO noted that the metaverse will expand substantially away from the current focus on gaming and consumer goods, elaborating: We’re going to have our digital twins, and it’s going to enable a lot of fun and a lot of efficiencies. Recently, Grayscale Investments published a report stating that “The market opportunity for bringing the metaverse to life may be worth over $1 trillion in annual revenue and may compete with Web 2.0 companies worth ~$15 trillion in market value today.” Last week, Bank of America’s strategist said that the metaverse is a massive opportunity where cryptocurrencies will be widely used as currencies. However, some are skeptical about the metaverse. They pointed out that people have played games in virtual worlds for years, emphasizing that the idea is far from revolutionary. Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana Labs, tweeted last week: “I worry that the metaverse is overhyped (industry-wide). I haven’t seen this much hype in mainstream media over an unreleased product or category of products, maybe ever.” Do you agree with Cathie Wood on the metaverse becoming a multitrillion-dollar market? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

The firm Foundry Digital announced on Wednesday that the business has launched a bitcoin mining rig marketplace called Foundryx. According to Foundry, the company has access to more than 40,000 mining machines that are ready for resale. In addition to the marketplace launch, the company’s mining operation, Foundry USA, has become the world’s largest bitcoin miner in terms of hashrate. Mining Pool Foundry USA Becomes Top Bitcoin Miner, Firm Reveals New Mining Machine Marketplace With Access to 40,000 ASICs At the end of August 2020, Digital Currency Group (DCG) revealed that it pledged $100 million to a cryptocurrency mining firm called Foundry. The company was quietly founded in 2019 and ever since the firm’s inception, it has made significant headway in the bitcoin mining industry. As a subsidiary of DCG, Foundry provides machines, capital, consulting, and intelligence to digital assets miners. The company also operates a mining pool called Foundry USA, which is the largest bitcoin mining pool on December 8, 2021, with 16.5% of the global hashrate or 29.83 exahash per second (EH/s) of hashpower. During the last couple of month’s Foundry USA has been a top pool, consistently commanding a position in the top five mining pools globally. On the same day it commands the largest fraction of SHA256 hashpower worldwide, Foundry announced the launch of a bitcoin mining rig market called Foundryx. The marketplace matches buyers and sellers of bitcoin mining machines and customers gain access to the company’s inventory and pricing. The company details that it has secured more than 40,000 machines from Microbt and Bitmain that can be delivered in 2022. Foundry also says that Foundryx customers can also leverage the company’s enterprise-grade products including services like financing, shipping, logistics, and pooled mining via the company’s mining pool Foundry USA. Foundry Aims to Provide a Reliable U.S.-Based Secondary Market for Mining Machines As things like the semiconductor chip shortages and supply chain problems plague the industry, Foundry details that the company aims to make the process of acquiring miners easier. Furthermore, some resellers require hefty deposits in order to purchase quality machines. “Foundry solves these problems by providing buyers and sellers with a trusted and reliable U.S.-based secondary market for mining machines,” the company’s announcement explains. “With the industry’s leading clients and partners, from machine manufacturers to mining companies, we have the market knowledge and data to match the right buyers and sellers, at the right price,” Jeff Burkey, VP of Foundry’s business development department said during the announcement. Foundry’s marketplace follows the company launching a range of services for 20 crypto staking networks. The company has also partnered with a slew of bitcoin mining operations this year including firms like Greenidge Generation Holdings, Bitfams, Hut8, Cleanspark, Core Scientific, Compute North, Bit Digital, Bitdeer, and Hive. What do you think about Foundry launching a bitcoin mining rig marketplace called Foundryx? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. View the full article

PRESS RELEASE. Label Foundation has recently announced its readiness to deploy on the Binance Smart Chain, utilizing the cross-chain bridge that they have developed in cooperation with the Tokyo-based blockchain development company, Curvegrid. The deployment of the bridge pinpoints to the initiation of the Label’s integration into the Binance Smart Chain’s ecosystem. Label may be understood as a blockchain-oriented international education content platform which presents an incubation system that readily supports various promotion, distribution and investment processes in an attempt to eliminate obstacles and challenges pertaining to existing content production as well as investment procedures. Previous to this development, Label Foundation has expanded its ecosystem with key partnerships within the blockchain and education industry. It has already collaborated with OPENTRACK, a leading music education platform operated by Clesson. The partnership will provide a batch of world-class instructors that will provide early content within the Label ecosystem. They announced that they are committed to bringing world-class artists, such as Scoop DeVille, Mark Lettieri, Docskim and many other Grammy-nominated artists to their platform to incubate and NFTize their IP rights. Label Foundation’s primary objective is to hence provide its users with high-quality educational and entertaining resources. Apparently, with their migration to the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, Label will be able to leverage all the best features of the mainnet to scale and increase their performance of their decentralized application. An innovative platform Through Label, an NFT framework has been constructed atop the Ethereum Network and Binance Smart Chain, and it is supported by the LBL utility as well as governance tokens, with a single purpose of establishing a fair profit-sharing economy with permissionless IP rights incorporation. Label is hence a decentralized P2P (Peer To Peer) incubation platform that invests in high-quality entertainment and education material via the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) voting system, allowing donors to collect profits via the NFT ownership mechanism. Also, the Label platform creates an ecosystem that seeks to establish an unbiased and decentralised incubating system, with the goal of providing content creators in the MOOC industry with improved accessibility. It therefore strives to enhance a seemingly unfair profit structure which is often prevalent in the sector and to also prevent copyright infringement instances from occurring throughout the industry. Bridge with BSC As per the latest developments, Label is now officially bridged to Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and the token shall be deployed via the MultiBaas Middleware, built by Curvegrid. The bridge shall link Ethereum Mainnet with Binance Smart Chain, allowing for the smooth movement of LBL tokens from ERC-20 to BEP-20 and vice versa. Additionally, Solanium shall be joining LABEL as a strategic adviser, assisting in the expansion of the LABEL ecosystem. In the Solana (SOL) ecosystem, Solanium is a platform based in Amsterdam and primarily used for governance voting, decentralized fundraising, and time weight token staking. Furthermore, Label’s IDO is also anticipated to take place on RedKite and NFTb for the purposes of conducting public sale. As per its whitepaper, Label aims to offer an unrivalled sales framework and infrastructure situated on the usage of blockchain technology via the aforementioned incubating system. Through this, experts, professionals and specialists alike can be found and invested in. Moreover, through effective system integration, Label will also create a fair profit sharing environment for the purposes of intellectual property rights. Lastly, with the establishment of its NFT Market, Label will launch a virtuous loop that will initiate the Global Value Chain by making the IP rights embedded in the non-fungible token readily transactable. To that end, it is also partnering up with various organizations from the entertainment and media industry to focus on the cultivation of its respective incubating system. This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. View the full article

The government of Australia is preparing to comprehensively regulate the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians. The push is part of a major overhaul, aimed at preserving the country’s sovereignty over its payments system, which will also affect providers like Apple and Google. Payment Laws in Australia to Cover Crypto Business and Big Tech Authorities in Australia are gearing up to update the nation’s legislation governing payments in the largest reform of the industry in over two decades. The changes will expand the regulatory framework to encompass new payment processors in the online space including those dealing with cryptocurrencies. In 2022, the government will begin consultations on the establishment of a licensing framework for crypto exchanges and the regulation of platforms holding digital assets on behalf of clients, Reuters reported. Canberra also wants to explore the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) issued by the Reserve Bank of Australia. With a daily number now reaching 55 million, non-cash payments, including crypto transactions, have spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic as many Australians have turned to online options. Close to half of them are using their phones to make payments while in 2021 those transacting in crypto have increased by 63% over the previous year. Australia’s plan to broaden its payment regulations also aims to cover online transaction processors such as Apple and Google as well as buy-now-pay-later providers like Afterpay. The goal is to put an end to their unsupervised operations in the country. Speaking on the need for the amendments, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg warned: If we do not reform the current framework, it will be Silicon Valley that determines the future of our payment system. Australia must retain its sovereignty over our payment system. Google and Apple have so far refrained from commenting on the announcement but a spokesperson for Afterpay has been quoted as stating that the company supports “any approach that takes into account consumer benefits from the innovation and competition Afterpay has brought to the market.” The platform has agreed to a buyout from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments firm Square, Reuters noted. Australia’s move comes at a time when a number of other major economies are taking steps to determine their regulatory policies regarding financial innovations, including cryptocurrencies. Unlike China and India, for example, Australia is preparing to take a more inclusive approach similar to that of the United States, the report suggests. Do you think the Australian government will adopt crypto-friendly regulations? Share your expectations in the comments section below. View the full article

A new unnamed investor has offered to bail out Africrypt, the collapsed South Africa-based crypto investment company, with $5 million. The offer, which does not require criminal charges against Africrypt directors to be dropped, must be accepted within seven days. A Better Offer A new mystery investor has offered to bail out the collapsed crypto investment outfit, Africrypt, with $5 million, a report has said. However, investors have been given seven days to accept an offer that was made on December 3, 2021. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, another unknown investor had initially offered $5 million in exchange for 51% of Africrypt’s shares. As part of the conditions for this offer, the investor wanted all criminal proceedings against the missing directors of Africrypt, Raees and Amir Cajee, to be dropped. Unlike the first bailout offer, the latest one — according to a report by Moneyweb — does not compel creditors to agree to the condition that was proposed by the first investors. Nevertheless, this fresh offer forces investors to accept just a fraction of the money they initially invested. This condition means that Afrcrypt investors would not benefit from the increase in value of crypto assets that were acquired by the company in September of 2019. As explained in the report, investors would only be entitled to a payout that is ten times less than the current value of the digital assets they are owed. Although the identities of the two new mystery investors are still unknown, Ruann Kruger, a legal representative of Africrypt’s liquidators, is quoted in the report confirming that the second investor is in fact a company. The lawyer also confirmed that out of the 181 investors, about 35 have accepted the offer. Allegations Against the Cajee Brothers The report states that some Africrypt investors believe the latest offer is being made by the Cajee brothers, quoting one unnamed representative of investors who said: There are of course suspicions that this offer is coming via a proxy for the Cajees, and that we are being paid out with [our] own money. Either way, this is a clever tactic by whoever the investor is. It’s a divide [and] rule tactic. Meanwhile, allegations that the Cajee brothers are also behind the first offer appear to be corroborated by a letter sent to Africrypt investors by the liquidators. In the letter, the liquidators suggested that the first mystery investor had stopped communicating with them after they proposed to amend certain terms of the initial offer. Concerning the latest bailout offer, the liquidators said this one is “a good, firm and less complicated offer that is open for acceptance for the next seven days.” According to the report, investors that accept the offer will receive 65% for every rand (or 65% of the invested funds) for any proven claim within five days of the signing. Do you think that the latest offer to Africrypt investors is better than the first one? Tell us what you think in the comments section below. View the full article

Digital asset exchange Huobi Global has revealed its intention to exit the Chinese Market. The crypto trading platform with Chinese roots said it will stop processing transactions for existing users on the mainland by the end of the year. Huobi Global Halts Services in the People’s Republic Crypto exchange Huobi Global is going to discontinue services for users based in mainland China this month. In a statement quoted by the English-language Chinese TV channel CGTN, the company announced on Sunday that starting from 11:00 a.m. Beijing time on Dec. 14, users in the People’s Republic will not be allowed to purchase cryptocurrencies. Huobi Global further detailed it will cease crypto exchange operations on the following day, Dec. 15, and terminate all crypto asset trading by 12:00 p.m. on Dec. 31. However, traders will still be able to log into their accounts and apply for the withdrawal of remaining assets within the next one to two years, emphasized the platform, which has not accepted new customers from China since September. The report notes that several cryptocurrency exchanges are preparing to pull out of the Chinese market by the end of 2021. Their moves come after Beijing’s decision this year to reiterate restrictions on cryptocurrency transactions which was followed by a crackdown on trading and mining. Besides Huobi Global, the list includes other major platforms such as Binance and Kucoin. The state-run CGTN remarks that China has been stepping up efforts to limit the crypto market amid what it calls a global cryptocurrency crackdown. “Concerns grow that the highly volatile digital currencies could undermine the stability of financial and monetary systems, increase systemic risk, promote financial crime and hurt investors,” the news service adds. The People’s Republic banned crypto-related activities back in 2017 and while the government went after coin trading and token sales, authorities did not interfere with mining until this spring. In May, the State Council, the cabinet of ministers in Beijing, decided to clamp down on the crypto industry following President Xi Jinping’s pledge for the country to achieve carbon neutrality in the next four decades. Leading mining hardware producer Bitmain provided another example of a major crypto company exiting the Chinese market. In October, the Beijing-based manufacturer announced it will no longer ship its products to the mainland, explaining the move was in response to local regulations. As is the case with other businesses, Bitmain stressed the decision does not concern its operations in the special administrative region of Hong Kong and neighboring Taiwan. Do you expect more crypto companies to pull out of the market in mainland China? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article

David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the leading banking institutions in the world, has stated his opinion on the bitcoin vs blockchain dilemma. To Solomon, bitcoin is not as important as the advancements in technology that implementing blockchain and other new ledger-based tools can bring to the traditional finance world. The executive further stated he doesn’t own bitcoin or ethereum personally. Goldman Sachs CEO on Bitcoin David Solomon, CEO of one of the biggest banks in the world, Goldman Sachs, has explained that for him, bitcoin is less important than the technology behind it. The executive issued these statements in an interview on CNBC’s Squawkbox on Tuesday. When asked about his views on crypto, Solomon answered: My view on, on bitcoin for example is I really don’t know but it’s really not something, you know, individually that’s important to me. Furthermore, he argued that the true value of bitcoin lies in the technology that powers it, blockchain, and how it can affect the future of the financing world. Solomon stated that he is a ‘”big believer” in the disruption that these technologies are causing, and that Goldman Sachs is also trying to participate in this revolution vis its services app. Solomon: ‘Bitcoin Is Not the Key Thing’ Solomon also stated that in his opinion, bitcoin was not essential in the view of the banking industry, and that was the influence of the new technologies that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have brought with it that was the key for the modernization of current banking platforms. Solomon stressed: I think bitcoin is really not the key thing. The key thing is how can blockchain or other technologies that are not developed yet accelerate the pace of the digitization of the way financial services are delivered. However, he did state that as a speculative asset it was important for Goldman Sachs to offer bitcoin to its customers, to let them bet on the market behavior of the currency. In the last year, bitcoin (BTC) has been vindicated as a valid asset by several important banking institutions, including JPMorgan, which had criticized the true utility of bitcoin’s proposal several times in the past. The bank started offering access to cryptocurrency investments for its customers earlier this year. The critics of its CEO Jamie Dimon, who said bitcoin was worthless before, didn’t affect the ability of the bank to provide this kind of service to its customers. What do you think about David Solomon’s “blockchain, not bitcoin” approach? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article

Coinsbee is a platform for buying gift cards with more than 100 cryptos, from all your favourite brands and shops, as well as get payment cards and top-ups. This holiday season, use Coinsbee to purchase vouchers for online video game stores such as Steam and PlayStation, gift subscriptions of the video streaming giant Netflix, top up your mobile phone account, and buy almost any goods with Coinsbee. Treat Yourself or Your Loved Ones Using Crypto Launched in 2019, Coinsbee is a rapidly growing solution for buying gift cards, payment cards, and mobile phone credit using more than 100 different kinds of crypto. Its bullish growth has seen it surpass 100,000 customers recently and the Germany-based company now offers a vast network of brands to consumers – last month adding a lot of new gift card brands, taking the tally over 3000, and 600 mobile top-up providers. It provides service in over 165 countries, and you can pay for your purchases on Coinsbee using all the popular cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, LTC, XRF, TRX, BCH and more. Coinsbee recently added the functionality to pay using Binance Pay, which incentivises Binance users with no transaction costs and transaction time. It is very easy, safe, and quick to treat yourself or your loved ones to gift cards this holiday season, thanks to Coinsbee’s shopping-experience friendly user interface. First, you find the brands you fancy and then add as many cards as you wish into your shopping cart. The website gives a conducive environment to shop in – you can select different regions and values for the cards, as well as what cryptocurrency you will see the price in. The checkout process is hassle free, so try it out today. You just specify what email address you want to get the cards sent to, agree to the terms of service, and click ‘buy now with cryptocurrencies’ to be presented with an invoice screen where you can select which crypto to pay with. Once you have made your selection, you get a QR code and a wallet address to send the digital coins to and you are done. The whole process takes about a minute and the digital gift cards will arrive in your email inbox once the transaction is complete. Buy your Christmas coupons using Coinsbee and enjoy stress-free shopping & gifting this holiday season. One-Stop Shopping Destination With Payment Cards and Phone Top-Ups Too Gifting is in, whether for yourself or your loved ones. The long list of gift cards available on the Coinsbee platform includes popular holiday shopping e-commerce destinations like Amazon, Nike, and Walmart, amongst others like iTunes, Spotify, Netflix, and eBay. Whether you like music, movies or games, there’s something for everyone; customers have the option to purchase video-game related gift cards for stores such as Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, too. For brands not directly supported by Coinsbee, you can buy payment cards on the platform that are accepted in a lot of online shops and casinos. The service offer a wide range of prepaid credit cards from the likes of PCS Mastercard, EcoVoucher, Neosurf and CashtoCode. This is also a great solution for improving your online privacy and security by having a prepaid card with set amount of money that you can buy with crypto. Since August 2020 Coinsbee also offers to top-up your prepaid mobile phone plan with crypto. More than 600 providers in over 148 countries have already been integrated into the service. There are even promotions for topping up with various networks around the world, offering 50% bonuses or other deals, making it truly a one-stop crypto shopping destination online. To learn more and get your Christmas presents with crypto visit Coinsbee.com today. This is a sponsored post. Learn how to reach our audience here. Read disclaimer below. View the full article

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a finance organization comprised of several central banks, has stated that while the objective of decentralized finance is to move control of financial tools away from current financial institutions, it just provides an ‘illusion’ of doing so. The organization argues that there is some kind of centralization around governance tokens and that this extends to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus chains. Bank for International Settlements Criticizes Decentralized Finance’s Raison D’etre The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a group of central banks, has addressed the rise of decentralized finance applications and their current impact on capital markets. The bank has criticized cryptocurrencies before, and now, in its latest quarterly review, the organization issued a report called “Defi risks and the decentralization illusion,” where it questions the ethos of the sector, and declares there is no real decentralization in it. The report states that the current implementation of defi has little to no influence in bringing financial freedom to the masses, as it is a self-contained environment. The report stresses: At present, (defi) has few real-economy uses and, for the most part, supports speculation and arbitrage across multiple cryptoassets. Given this self-contained nature, the potential for defi-driven disruptions in the broader financial system and the real economy seems limited for now. Decentralization Is an ‘Illusion’ Furthermore, BIS criticizes the way in which defi declares its total decentralization when compared to the traditional financial market. The organization argues that this decentralization is just an illusion and that the execution of defi today also carries centralization risks. The report states that: All deFi platforms have an element of centralization, which typically revolves around holders of “governance tokens” (often platform developers) who vote on proposals, not unlike corporate shareholders. In addition, it makes the case for defi protocols to be considered legal entities due to this governance element. As most of the chains that host decentralized finance protocols are driven by proof-of-stake consensus algorithms, this also leads to some kind of centralization in the hands of big token bagholders. Another interesting source of centralization, according to the review, are the growing links that the traditional finance world is establishing with these new protocols. This could cause spillover from traditional finance and from bridging companies to defi, affecting the operations of these protocols significantly. What do you think about the latest report from the Bank for International Settlements, and its conclusions? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe remains opposed to cryptocurrencies but is interested in developing its own digital currency, its governor has said. Central Bank Does Not Believe in Cryptos The governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), John Mangudya, has said his institution is interested in creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The central bank, however, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, he added. According to a Bloomberg report, Mangudya made these remarks during an interview with Trevor Ncube, a veteran Zimbabwean journalist. In remarks that appeared to be a reiteration of the government’s recently stated position on digital currencies, Mangudya shared the central bank’s thinking as to how it intends to follow in the footsteps of other countries that have rolled out CBDCs. He explained: As a central bank, we don’t believe in cryptocurrencies. We believe in central bank digital currency which is basically trying to say ‘how do we have an e-Zimbabwe dollar as opposed to cryptocurrency.’ As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, a Zimbabwe government official confirmed in November that his administration is gathering views on CBDCs and cryptocurrencies. The remarks by the official led to speculation that Zimbabwe is planning to adopt cryptocurrencies. However, these claims were later refuted by the country’s information minister. RBZ to Send Team to Nigeria Rather than adopt cryptocurrencies, the report suggested that the RBZ is planning to send a team to Nigeria, the first African country to launch a CBDC. According to the report, the team will learn from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s experiences relating to its launch of the e-naira. Besides the planned visit to Nigeria, Mangudya said the RBZ already has its own fintech team which is he said is working very hard. According to the governor, the central bank’s plan is to ensure the RBZ is not left behind other central banks that are also working on their own CBDCs. What’s your view on this story? Tell us what you think in the comments section below. View the full article

Fundstrat Global Advisors’ head of research says bitcoin still has “exponential growth ahead” of it. While acknowledging recent price swings of the cryptocurrency, the strategist emphasized that bitcoin has so far regained its losses in short periods of time. Bitcoin Still Has ‘Exponential Growth Ahead’ Fundstrat Global Advisors’ managing partner and head of research, Thomas Lee, talked about the outlook for bitcoin in an interview with CNBC Monday. Lee is a Wall Street strategist with more than 25 years of experience in equity research. Prior to co-founding Fundstrat, he was J.P. Morgan’s chief equity strategist from 2007 to 2014. The Fundstrat strategist recommends investment in bitcoin, emphasizing that the cryptocurrency still has “exponential growth ahead” as it becomes more mainstream. While acknowledging that the price of BTC suffered a decline recently, he insisted that it made more sense to hold the cryptocurrency through volatility rather than trade the fluctuations. He explained: Every year, bitcoin makes all of its gains in 10 days and if you don’t own bitcoin for those 10 days, you are down 25% a year. To me, the kind of weekend massacre that happened, it’s painful but it’s pretty common. Last week, Lee commented on Square CEO Jack Dorsey stepping down as the CEO of Twitter. The Fundstrat strategist sees Dorsey’s departure as bullish for crypto. He emphasized that it is still the earliest days for the crypto space, not only for projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum but also “the amount of crypto equities and businesses built around crypto.” Lee is not the only one who sees an upside to bitcoin. Billionaire Barry Sternlicht, the chairman of Starwood Capital Group, said last week that bitcoin could be worth a million dollars a coin. Meanwhile, Microstrategy’s CEO sees bitcoin becoming a $100 trillion asset class. Skybridge Capital founder says bitcoin will easily trade at $500K, urging investors to buy BTC right now. Do you agree with Thomas Lee? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

Crypto-friendly travel website Travala has added support for the shiba inu cryptocurrency. SHIB can now be used to book more than 3 million travel products worldwide on the site, including flights, hotels, and travel packages. Travala Adds Support for Shiba Inu Crypto Travel website Travala announced Tuesday that shiba inu cryptocurrency has been added to its website as a payment method. The official account for the company tweeted congratulating shiba inu supporters for winning the token battle it set up a few days ago, adding that SHIB is now listed as a payment method on Travala.com and can be used to book over 3 million travel products worldwide. Travala set up a “token battle” between FLOKI and SHIB on Dec. 2. The company explained that the cryptocurrency with the most votes after 72 hours “will win a listing on Travala.com.” In addition, “All users who vote for either token will receive a share of $15,000 in AVA, which will be dispersed in accordance with the votes cast.” The voting ended with SHIB as the clear winner. “We pride ourselves on being the leading cryptocurrency-friendly accommodation booking platform,” Travala’s website states. Currently, users can pay with 77 cryptocurrencies, including the meme cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOG) and the newly listed SHIB. The crypto-friendly travel site reported earlier this month that its total revenue for November was $7.2 million, a 683% increase year-on-year. Furthermore, 82% of all bookings in November were paid with cryptocurrencies. The adoption of shiba inu crypto has been rising steadily. In November, cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken and Gemini added support for SHIB. Newegg is set to accept shiba inu for payments this month and AMC Theatres promises to accept SHIB in the first quarter of next year. Meanwhile, shiba inu supporters have been petitioning for the popular trading platform Robinhood to accept SHIB. At the time of writing, 544,304 signatures have been collected. What do you think about Travala adding support for shiba inu (SHIB) cryptocurrency for payments? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

The chairman of Starwood Capital Group, billionaire Barry Sternlicht, has shared his view on how bitcoin could grow to be worth a million dollars a coin. He calls the cryptocurrency a “smart” hedge in a world where the government just keeps on printing money. Billionaire Barry Sternlicht Believes Bitcoin Could Rise to $1 Million per Coin Billionaire Barry Sternlicht, the chairman of Starwood Capital Group, talked about the future outlook for cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin, Friday while speaking at a Bloomberg event in Miami. Sternlicht runs Starwood Capital Group, a private equity firm that specializes in real estate investments. The firm has about $100 billion under management in real estate, debt, and energy assets. According to Forbes’ list of billionaires, his current net worth is $4.2 billion. Noting that he has called his bitcoin position a “great hedge,” the billionaire was asked, “Is that how we all should be thinking?” Sternlicht firmly replied, “Yes.” He explained that we live “In a world where the government just prints money, and prints money, and prints money, and prints money, and doesn’t seem to have any consequences.” Noting that “Sometimes, that will end,” the billionaire stressed: The only thing that they can’t make more of is bitcoin. He added that bitcoin has “never been hacked,” but noted that “It has no real value other than there’s 21 million coins” that are “infinitely divisible.” In comparison, he pointed out that gold also “really doesn’t have a lot of value,” adding that “You can have your gold jewelry but it could be silver or titanium or platinum.” Sternlicht opined: “You could see the world saying to the U.S., especially with our political isolationism, they would say China is going to try to knock us off the dollar standard, and they are going to have a lot of countries aligned with them.” The Starwood Capital executive emphasized: “They are going to try really hard. It’s very obvious. They are going to try really hard to break the dollar standard. If that happens and the dollar devalues, you need one thing that could hold its value.” While admitting that bitcoin “will go down with the stock market,” he stressed that in his opinion, “it will reverse,” elaborating: It would go to $1 million a coin. It could do that because everyone, it’s not U.S. investors, the whole world will look at one thing that they can’t make more of and that would be bitcoin. “There’s no function other than a store of value so having a little investment in bitcoin, I think, might be a smart little hedge in your life because your paper will be worthless, unfortunately,” he warned. The billionaire then disclosed that he has about 2% to 3% of his net worth in cryptocurrencies. Regarding crypto investment, he said: “If it goes to zero, it won’t hurt me either, it won’t hurt you.” However, he emphasized: But if it goes to $1 million a coin, you are going to look at the TV and get very upset. A growing number of billionaires are using bitcoin to hedge against inflation. Famed hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said in October that he preferred bitcoin over gold. Orlando Bravo, the billionaire who co-founded private equity firm Thoma Bravo, said in September that he is very bullish about bitcoin, expecting it to increase “significantly.” Last week, Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego said the U.S. “is looking more and more like any other irresponsible third world country.” Salinas tweeted a weekly chart of the total value of the Federal Reserve’s assets (less eliminations from consolidation) and commented: “Wow…look at the scale of fake money creation. Buy bitcoin right now.” Do you agree with Barry Sternlicht about bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

American Express’ Amex Ventures, Visa, Citi Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Jump Capital, Marshall Wace, Block (formerly Square Inc.), and Paypal Ventures are among investors in the latest funding round of crypto transaction monitoring and forensics platform TRM. Amex, Visa, Citi, Paypal Invest in TRM Platform Crypto transaction monitoring and forensics platform TRM announced Tuesday investments from major financial institutions in its Series B funding round. The company has raised $60 billion from leading financial institutions, including American Express’ Amex Ventures, Visa, Citi Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Jump Capital, Marshall Wace, Block (formerly Square Inc.), and Paypal Ventures. The funding round was led by Tiger Global. It also included investments from 50 of the world’s leading operators including Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi. Esteban Castaño, TRM’s cofounder and CEO, commented: Crypto is moving faster than any sector in our lifetimes. Organizations need a blockchain intelligence partner that can stay ahead of the evolving risk landscape — from ransomware attacks to defi [decentralized finance] exploits. TRM detailed: “In support of our mission to build a safer financial system for billions of people, we developed the first blockchain intelligence platform that combines cross-chain data with threat intelligence, advanced analytics, and intuitive visualizations to help organizations detect crypto fraud and financial crime.” Crypto businesses — such as Circle, FTX US, and Moonpay — “use TRM Transaction Monitoring to detect suspicious activity and meet anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory requirements,” the company said, adding: Government agencies use TRM Forensics to investigate sophisticated crypto-related crime including scams, hacks, and terrorist financing. The TRM team includes threat finance experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Secret Service, and Europol. It also includes data scientists from companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google. What do you think about major companies investing in TRM? Let us know in the comments section below. View the full article

As bitcoin and a number of crypto assets have dropped in value during the last two weeks, its seems that everyone’s hope for six-digit bitcoin prices has become unattainable. However, year-to-date, bitcoin has risen more than 150% in value and despite the rise, skeptics and critics continue to assume bitcoin is dead. In fact, the infamous bitcoin obituary list indicates that 2021 is tied with 2019 for having the third-largest number of obituaries in a year. Bitcoin Obituaries: 2021 Is Now Tied With 2019 On November 10, bitcoin (BTC) tapped an all-time price high at $69K per unit and has since slid below the $50K zone. It seems that higher prices give skeptics the opportunity to declare bitcoin is dead after the leading crypto asset sheds a decent amount of value during market downturns. In 2017, when BTC came awfully close to reaching $20K per unit, the bitcoin obituaries list, hosted on 99bitcoins.com shows that there were 124 bitcoin deaths that year. The second-largest year for BTC obituaries was the following year in 2018, as there were 93 declarations made saying bitcoin has met its demise. This month, 2021 has tied 2019 for the third-largest number of bitcoin deaths in a year’s time. Following the crypto bear market after 2017’s all-time price high, 2019 captured an aggregate of 41 bitcoin obituaries. As of November 29, 2021, 2021 has accrued the same amount of death sentences. The last obituary written about BTC, on November 29, was published by the author Bill Blain via the website capx.co. The bitcoin obituary is called “Bitcoin Is Nothing But A Ponzi Scheme,” and Blain claims cryptocurrencies also accelerate inflation. https://t.co/vUM0HqkFZ3 Cryptocurrencies are a classic illustration of the economic theory of the 'greater fool’… Bitcoin only has value as long as there's more dupes to sell it to If something has to explain to you why it's money, it isn't#markets #investing #Crypto — Bill Blain (@Bill_Blain) November 30, 2021 “Crypto is bogus, and is not money,” the bitcoin obituary written by Blain insists. “It’s far too volatile to be a store of value, it is scarce and not a unit of account. I could explain why it can’t work as money because it is likely to prove an inflationary accelerant, equivalent to pouring petrol on a fire.” Bill Blain: ‘Regulators Will Be Exposed for Not Acting Earlier’ Furthermore, Blain says that once in a while he reads about the blockchain technology behind digital assets. “Periodically, I delve into the myriad of utter rubbish that masquerades as the blockchain genius, the maths and computing logic behind cryptos,” Blain stresses in his opinion piece. “Read it yourself – it’s 10% fascinating and 90% utter garbage. Mathematical dyslexia puked out and dressed up as original thinking and ‘proof of concept.’” Blain’s scathing review of the crypto economy adds: Cryptos have thrived because social media, the internet and connectivity have made it easy to disseminate the con around the global markets at incredible speed. They’ve succeeded because regulators haven’t stopped them – hat-tip to the Chinese for being ahead of the regulatory pack in that regard. Someday, the last greater fool will want his money back, and regulators will be exposed for not acting earlier. Despite Blain’s opinion and the 40 other bitcoin obituaries that preceded his opinion editorial, bitcoin (BTC) is alive and well. There are not many assets that exist in this world that could be called “dead” or “near-deceased” after climbing more than 150% higher in value in 12 months. Blain also criticizes cryptocurrencies in general, many of which have seen their values swell by significantly larger percentages than BTC’s year-to-date gains. The number of so-called bitcoin deaths in 2021 recorded on 99bitcoins.com is also much larger than BTC’s first four years of bitcoin obituaries combined. This shows that the more BTC and the crypto economy mature, the more blowback they seem to get from critics and skeptics. While there’s been a lot of 2021 death calls, it seems as though they are just not strong enough theories to stop bitcoin from gathering another year’s worth of obituaries in 2022. What do you think about the bitcoin obituaries list gathering 41 deaths this year? What do you think about Bill Blain’s recent opinion editorial? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. View the full article

El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro believes that mining bitcoin with a volcano, or geothermal energy, will “end in environmental disaster.” Navarro believes geothermal energy costs more than oil, and thinks El Salvador’s millennial president Nayib Bukele’s decision is questionable. Salvadoran ecologist Ricardo Navarro Questions His Country’s Volcano-Powered Bitcoin City Venture During the second week of June, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele told the public that the Latin American country planned to mine bitcoin (BTC) with energy stemming from volcanoes located in the country. At the end of September, Bukele shared a video of the initial construction of the Salvadoran volcano-powered bitcoin mining facility. Now the president and his government have been criticized by El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro. The Salvadoran ecologist explained to Telegraph contributor Simeon Tegel that developing a ‘Bitcoin City’ next to a volcano doesn’t make sense. “Talking about building this city beside a volcano is like thinking you are rich because you live next to a bank,” Navarro said. Navarro also detailed that geothermal energy is still a costly endeavor and won’t be much better than using petroleum sources. Navarro insists: ​​Geothermal still costs more than oil, otherwise we would already be using more of it. What will end up happening is that we will just be buying more oil. Navarro Insists ‘Bukele Doesn’t Really Understand What Is Going on With the Energy Situation’ Navarro is concerned about the consequences of the world’s so-called climate crisis. The ecologist runs a non-governmental organization CESTA (Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology) and he recently discussed the subject with Politico’s contributing author, Bjarke Smith-Meyer, on November 10. At that time, Navarro dismissed the volcano-powered bitcoin mining facility idea as he wholeheartedly believes the facility will require more energy resources than just geothermal power. “I am under the impression that Bukele doesn’t really understand what is going on [with] the energy situation,” Navarro told the reporter. “That is certainly going to complicate… demand.” Navarro also claims that the digital currency environment in El Salvador could attract drug lords. The Salvadoran ecologist says that the bitcoin tender law was rushed and implemented without debate. “If you have something good to promote, you propose it, you discuss it, and then you put your arguments. But that was not the case with bitcoin,” Navarro stressed to Smith-Meyer. What do you think about the Salvadoran ecologist’s opinion concerning the volcano-powered bitcoin mining facility in El Salvador? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. View the full article

PRESS RELEASE. Bitcoin of America has been named a silver winner in the Company of the Year – Midwest category in Best in Biz Awards, the only independent business awards program judged each year by prominent editors and reporters from top-tier publications in North America. Bitcoin of America is a popular virtual currency exchange, registered as a money services business with the United States Department of Treasury (FinCEN)(RegNum). Apart from ensuring a fast and hassle-free transaction, their customer support makes them the best in the industry. Bitcoin of America has demonstrated rapid growth. In June of this year, Bitcoin of America’s Chief Financial Officer reported record company growth. In January, the company had a total of 630 Bitcoin ATMs. To date, they have seen a 138.095% increase in their number of locations. They even hit a major achievement of 1500 plus BTMs. Bitcoin of America has also seen enormous growth in their number of employees. In just one year their team grew over 32 percent. Bitcoin of America also added new products, services, and even updates to their BTMS. In May, they announced the launch of their new universal kiosk. The kiosk combines the capabilities of a traditional ATM with a Bitcoin ATM. The universal kiosk is known to offer 3 different functions. The first is the traditional ATM feature where customers can dispense cash from a debit card. The second function is being able to buy bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies with cash. The last is that customers can sell crypto in return for cash. This is huge for business owners. These universal kiosks are bringing stores additional revenue streams, while also saving floor space. They also announced that Ethereum would be available for customers to purchase from any of their locations. Besides offering cryptocurrency services to customers, Bitcoin of America has helped hundreds of businesses across the United States. Bitcoin of America offers a host program for store owners who are interested in cryptocurrency or are just looking to earn extra income. They take care of their host locations by providing them with passive income, increased foot traffic, and marketing. They even handle customer support and any maintenance/installation services. This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. View the full article

Bitmart, a cryptocurrency exchange, suffered an attack yesterday that exploited some security vulnerabilities in order to gain access to the funds of the exchange. The attack targeted the hot wallets of the platform, specifically the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain-based wallets. The hackers managed to take almost $200 million in tokens from the platform. Bitmart Hot Wallets Exploited Bitmart has lost more than $200 million in a hack that involved its hot wallets yesterday. The issue was first identified by Peckshield, a blockchain security and auditing company, that raised the alarm about a possible hot wallet vulnerability on social media. The involved wallets were those that held ETH and BSC-based tokens. Bitmart representatives estimated the losses at $150 million initially, but PeckShield did an investigation of the funds taken, saying losses were around $200 million. The hack took significant amounts of SHIB, SAFEMOON, SAND, and MANA, among others. The event affected the price of some tokens with low liquidity listed on the exchange, due to the liquidation of large amounts of these on decentralized exchanges. Bitmart acknowledged the situation and at the time stated that the losses due to the attack accounted for a small part of the exchange holdings. An announcement from the company stated: The affected ETH hot wallet and BSC hot wallet carries a small percentage of assets on BitMart and all of our other wallets are secure and unharmed. We are now conducting a thorough security review and we will post updates as we progress. Tornado-Washed Funds The exploiters moved the funds to other platforms quickly, with the intention of mixing the cryptocurrency taken. According to Peckshield, all of the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum tokens were exchanged for ethereum using 1inch, a decentralized exchange platform, and then were sent to Tornado.cash, an obfuscation protocol that allows users to make transactions less susceptible to tracing. This is one of the more devastating attacks on a centralized exchange this year, with much of the risk for exploits having moved to decentralized finance (defi) platforms. As a result of this situation, the exchange has suspended withdrawals for all assets until it conducts an investigation and a new security review of the platform and its vulnerabilities. What do you think about this $200 million Bitmart exchange hack? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article

A bug in the token lending contract of the Solana Program Library (SPL) was recently found and fixed by Neodyme, a security auditing firm. The bug, that was discovered a couple of months back, could have affected several decentralized finance protocols holding more than $2 billion in total value locked (TVL). Their team identified the possible protocols using this contract (or derivatives of it) and disclosed the bug immediately. Solana SPL Rounding Bug Puts Funds at Risk A bug in one of the token lending contracts that is part of Solana’s Program Library (SPL), a group of on-chain programs targeting the Sealevel parallel runtime on Solana, put the funds of several protocols at risk. Neodyme, a security agency, had disclosed this vulnerability months ago and alerted about it, but the bug, due to its apparently innocuous effect, had not been resolved. The bug caused a rounding error that delivers more tokens than the ones being deposited by the users to the contract. However, the bug was not exploitable without an organized attack that targeted the vulnerability directly. Neodyme, the auditing group, managed to reproduce it and create a script that took advantage of it. Importance of Open Source More than $2 billion in several tokens on these protocols were at risk of being drained slowly by taking advantage of this exploit. More so, if the attack had been conducted in a smart way, it wouldn’t have triggered any alarms, and would just be detected as a slow drain of APY in some pools. Neodyme remarked about the importance of open source code for auditors to be involved and help correct these kinds of bugs. It stated: We believe the most secure code is open-source, and as auditors we believe one of the best ways to write better code is to understand vulnerabilities. After discovering this exploit, Neodyme shared its existence with teams that would probably be using the program as a tool for their operations. Among these were some protocols that are not open source on the Solana chain, and cannot be directly verified by their users. This made it difficult for them to directly verify whether these platforms were exploitable by the bug. However, they communicated with the teams behind these protocols, who are in charge of fixing the issue individually. The SPL token-lending contract had already been reviewed before, and two projects using it have also been audited independently: Solend by Kudelski and Larix by Slowmist. What do you think about the exploit corrected in the Solana token lending contract? Tell us in the comments section below. View the full article