Crypto
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Core Scientific increased Bitcoin production by 10% in July amid Texas power cuts
Crypto mining firm Core Scientific reported its operations produced 1,221 Bitcoin (BTC) in July even as the company powered down several times in response to demand on the Texas power grid. In a Friday announcement, Core Scientific said its month-over-month Bitcoin production had increased from 1,106 in June to 1,221 in July — roughly 10.4%. The firm reported curtailing operations “due to extreme temperatures at multiple data centers,” but also increased the number of its self-mining servers and hashrate by 6%, to 109,000 and 10.9 exahashes per second (EH/s), respectively. JULY 2022 HIGHLIGHTS:-1,221 #Bitcoin self-mined-10.9 EH/s self-mined-+190,000 ASIC servers in operation-8.4 EH/s colocation (hosting)-Deployed first BITMAIN ANTMINER S19 XPs in the United Stateshttps://t.co/Qt2...
Bitcoin fails to beat $23.4K sellers as US payrolls upend inflation debate
Bitcoin (BTC) saw fresh rejection at $23,500 resistance on Aug. 5 as United States equities failed to embrace surprisingly strong payroll data. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Collapsing real wages” poke fun at payroll print Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as bears kept the market in its intraday trading range. Wall Street opened with a whimper despite U.S. payrolls for July coming in at twice estimated levels. The curious reaction had some analysts arguing that the numbers did not in fact show economic strength, but rather existing workers taking on second jobs due to inflation. “The gain of 528K jobs in July as the labor force participation rate fell to 62.1, means that most of the new jobs went to people who a...
Antminer S19 XP dropped in a bid to swing crypto miners back into profit
With the Bitcoin (BTC) price moving at a very steady pace during the crypto winter, the return on investment (ROI) on a new mining device seems like a shot in the dark. But a mining expert explained there may be hope for miners to make a comeback to profit. Phil Harvey, the CEO of crypto consultancy firm Sabre56, told Cointelegraph that there are factors to consider when checking the potential profit of mining devices. These are mining machine specifications, costs, real ROI and the economics of mining over time. Analyzing the recently released Antminer S19 XP by mining rig provider Bitmain, Harvey noted that specs-wise, it’s the most efficient miner at the moment. In terms of costs, the crypto mining expert pointed out that the current costs of mining machines are significantly lowe...
US lawmakers request crypto firms provide info on diversity and inclusion
A group of five lawmakers from the United States House of Representatives has requested data on the diversity and inclusion practices of 20 major firms dealing with cryptocurrencies and Web3. In a Thursday notice, House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters along with Representatives Joyce Beatty, Al Green, Bill Foster and Stephen Lynch penned a letter requesting U.S.-based crypto firms provide information on “how and whether the industry is working toward a more equitable environment for everyone.” The lawmakers sent letters to 20 companies including Aave, Binance.US, Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX, Kraken, Paxos, Ripple and Tether as well as venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Haun Ventures and Sequoia Capital. “There is a concerning lack of publicly available data to effect...
Nonfungible tokens don’t live on the blockchain, experts say
As nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are advertised as blockchain-based technologies, there are misconceptions on how they are stored according to two experts. They argued that technically, these tokens do not exist in the blockchain but are actually stored elsewhere. In a Cointelegraph interview, Jonathan Victor, the Web3 storage lead at Protocol Labs and Alex Salnikov, the co-founder of Rarible, discussed decentralized storage, the future of the NFT space and investing in NFTs. According to Victor, main chains are very limited in size and storing data on the blockchain can be very expensive. Because of the large file sizes of assets, off-chain storage solutions are introduced. He said that NFT data can live anywhere from a hosted node or decentralized storage networks. Salnikov a...
Vitalik: Centralized USDC could decide the future of contentious ETH hard forks
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says that centralized stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and Circle USD (USDC) could become “a significant decider in future contentious hard forks.” Buterin was speaking at the BUIDL Asia conference in Seoul on Aug. 3, along with Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of Near Protocol (NEAR) to discuss Ethereum’s upcoming Merge. The Ethereum co-founder argued that centralized stablecoins could be a “significant” decider of which blockchain protocol the industry would “respect” in hard forks. A hard fork occurs when there is a radical change to the protocol of a blockchain network that effectively results in two versions. Usually, one chain ends up being preferred over another. “At the moment of the merge, you will have two [separate] networks […] and then you ...
Congress will likely decide the fate of crypto jurisdiction: Lummis staffer
A United States Senator Cynthia Lummis staffer believes that U.S. Congress will have to step in and resolve the dispute between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding who regulates cryptocurrencies if the matter cannot be resolved internally. The issue stems from 2014 when the CFTC first asserted jurisdiction over virtual currencies. This was later reaffirmed by a U.S. Federal Court ruling in 2018, which stated that CFTC had jurisdiction to prosecute criminals over fraud cases involving virtual currencies. However, it has been the SEC that has predominantly been investigating U.S.-based crypto exchanges and crypto assets to date. On Aug. 3, Senators Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) and John Boozman (Arkansas) introduced th...
Bitcoin price reaches $23.4K on 4.6% gains amid ‘very mixed’ outlook
Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded overnight into Aug. 5 as a fresh trendline reclaim opened the door to further gains. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Daily BTC pricechart sets up “tentative” long signal Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD bouncing off a local bottom at $22,400 to add around 4.6%. The pair had reversed direction right at key bid support on major exchange Binance, this helping avoid a more substantial loss of the 200-week moving average (MA) at around $22,800. While that key zone remained uncertain for bulls, a reclaim of the 21-period MA on the daily chart gave on-chain analytics resource Material Indicators cause for optimism. BTC/USD might not spark a long signal at the daily candle close, it told Twitter follo...
Alexander Vinnik reportedly en route to the US after extradition
Accused BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik has reportedly been extradited to America to face up to multiple charges relating to money laundering while working at the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange. Vinnik has been embroiled in legal battles over the past five years for his alleged role as the mastermind of BTC-e. The cryptocurrency exchange is said to have profited from various illicit activities that used the platform to launder some $4 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC). Vinnik’s lawyer Frédéric Bélot told American news network CNN on Aug. 5 that Vinnik was in transit from Greece to the United States, where he’s set to face a raft of charges in the Northern District Court of California. The Russian national is accused of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money service in America...
BNB rallies 39% despite smart contract deposits dropping 28% — Should investors be worried?
Cryptocurrencies’ total market capitalization bounced from $860 billion on June 30 to the current $1.03 trillion, a 20.6% relief in five weeks. Ether (ETH) might have been the absolute leader among the largest smart contract chains, but BNB managed to gain 39% over that period. BNB (blue) vs. Ether (orange), AVAX (cyan), SOL (yellow). Source: TradingView BNB token’s year-to-date performance remains negative by 43%, but the current $49.5 billion market capitalization ranks it the third largest, excluding stablecoins. Furthermore, the leading decentralized application (DApp) is PancakeSwap — 843,630 active addresses in the past seven days — which runs on BNB Chain. The token serves primarily as a utility asset within the Binance exchange ecosystem, enabling traders to earn discounts or ...
Insta-rally! FLOW token jumps 50% amid Instagram adoption euphoria
Flow (FLOW) logged its best daily performance on Aug.4 after becoming the latest blockchain to support Instagram’s nonfungible token (NFT) features. Insta-made FLOW rally Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Aug. 4 that Instagram had expanded its NFT support to 100 more countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas. As a result, more users can post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain on Instagram. The high-profile integration helped FLOW surge 54% to reach an intraday high of $2.83 a token. Interestingly, the token’s massive upside move accompanied a spike in its daily trading volumes, confirming some weight behind the bullish trend. FLOW/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView Like any blockchain native asset, the ups and...
Binance and Mastercard will launch prepaid crypto cards in Argentina
Major crypto exchange Binance has partnered with Mastercard to launch a prepaid card for the residents of Argentina. In a Thursday announcement, Binance said the card will allow its clients in Argentina to use Bitcoin (BTC), BNB and other cryptocurrencies to make purchases as well as ATM withdrawals in fiat wherever Mastercard is accepted — roughly 90 million merchants globally and online. Argentine cardholders can also earn up to 8% back in cryptocurrency from certain purchases. According to Binance, the introduction of the card — expected to be “widely available in the coming weeks” — was part of the company’s efforts to further the global adoption of crypto. Residents of Argentina will be the first in the region to have access to the cards, but the crypto exchange announced a simil...
