Crypto

Upcoming NFT based mobile role-playing game Guild of Guardians has sold out two tranches of its native token (GEMS) totaling $5.3 million. The token sale, held on Coinlist on Nov. 30 was oversubscribed 82 times, with around 808,000 users registering. More than 10,700 new GEM holders from over 100 countries purchased a maximum of $500 worth of tokens. However users from Australian, the U.S.,Canada and China were prohibited from purchasing tokens amid mounting regulatory concerns. GOG allocated 6% of the total 1 billion total tokens to the CoinList sale, while 63% of the supply will be distributed via community-driven events, activities, and core gameplay. The play-to-earn game’s soft launch is planned for Q1 2022, with 400,000 users already pre-registered. The game comes from Ukrainian deve...

Global financial market took a hit on Nov. 30 after comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted that inflation and the Omicron COVID-19 variant are growing threats and that the bank’s easy money policies could end sooner than anticipated. Prior to Powell’s comments, Bitcoin (BTC) had been on the rise and the digital asset had rallied 6% from a low of $55,840 in the early trading hours on Nov. 30 to an intraday high at $59,200, but the price was hammered back below $57,000 after the Fed’s remarks. BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView At the time of writing, Bitcoin has managed to climb back to $58,000 but a series of technical indicators signal that traders are not confident about BTC’s next move. Stocks and commodities take a hit It wasn’t ju...

The United Arab Emirates’ postal operator is issuing nonfungible token (NFT) stamps to commemorate the federation’s 50th National Day, offering further evidence that digital collectibles are gaining mainstream appeal globally.  Emirates Post Group, or EPG for short, announced this week that it has become the first postal organization in the Middle East and North Africa to issue digital-collectible stamps. The new stamps, which will be unveiled on the Dec. 2, National Holiday, consist of blockchain-based digital twins that will be sold as digital collectibles linked to their physical counterparts. A total of four stamps, each with a distinct design consisting of a national theme, will be issued. Buyers will be able to see the digital design linked to the physical stamp they purchase af...

In a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, Adit EdTech Acquisition Corp, announced it would merge with Cincinnati-based Bitcoin (BTC) miner Griid at a $3.3 billion enterprise valuation. SPACs are blank check companies created for the sole purpose of acquiring other firms. After the deal consummates, Griid will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GRDI. The deal is expected to close by the first quarter of next year. According to its investor presentation, Griid expects to mine 637 BTC this year with a total hash rate of 187 petahash per second (PH/s) from all miners combined. By 2024, the company projects it can mine 24,348 BTC per year, with its total hash rate surpassing 26,180 PH/...

Today Ether (ETH) price briefly touched $4,760, exciting investors and reminding the world that the altcoin is a mere 2.2% below the $4,870 all-time high reached 20 days ago. While the spot price action might be intriguing, let’s see what’s happening in Ether’s derivatives markets. Ether ETH/USD price at Bitstamp. Source: TradingView While it is possible to draw a descending channel that shows support at $3,960, today’s 5.4% positive move seems decoupled from Bitcoin’s (BTC) negative performance. Earlier today, commodities and stocks took a hit after the U.S. Federal Reserve acknowledged that inflation is more than just a “transitory” trend and Fed chair Jerome Powell said that the bank’s relaxed money policies could end sooner than anticipated. Retail traders...

Avalanche ecosystem accelerator Colony has raised $18.5 million in seed investments to bootstrap the next generation of Avalanche blockchain projects, underscoring heightened demand for the proof-of-stake ecosystem.  The investment round was led by the Avalanche Foundation, an organization overseeing ecosystem development grants, with additional participation from Shima Capital, HashKey, GBV Capital and Bixin Ventures. Members of the Avalanche community also participated in the seed round. Colony will use the funds to finance early-stage projects building on the Avalanche network and to provide liquidity for decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocols. Colony’s community will also have the opportunity to invest in early-stage projects through a process called ecosystem farming. Under Co...

The use of cryptocurrencies to evade international sanctions from various international governmental organizations like the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, among others, has been a concern for regulators ever since the creation of cryptocurrencies. The rapidly increasing adoption of digital currencies in the last two years makes this discussion more important than ever, especially with the advent of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) like the digital yuan.  In an interview on Nov.17, United States Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said that the efficacy of U.S. sanctions would not be undermined by central bank digital currencies.  Adeyemo’s remarks follow comments from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who ...

MetaMundo, a virtual nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace focused on metaverses, has announced the completion of a seed funding round of $2.7 million. Led by Animoca Brands, MetaMundo’s debut funding further included Hypersphere Ventures, Digital Currency Group, OP Crypto, Metaartel Ventures and angel investments from the co-founders of Aave and Rarible, among others. Built upon layer-two network Polygon, the platform lets designers and creators mint, sell and license their NFT assets for usage in virtual and augmented reality, as well as across an array of metaverse worlds including Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium Space. The announcement states that using the Polygon network provides users with reduced gas fees in comparison with the Ethereum network. One of the reasons we decided t...

In 2010, if someone had told you that Internet memes, digital artwork and Twitter avatars would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, would you have believed them?  Well, these are nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in a nutshell. NFTs are driving blockchains toward uncharted territory on the backs of cute kitties and pixelated punks. What may appear to be a shroud of speculation over pointless collectibles is actually the clouded horizon of fintech innovation. NFTs represent a turning point. Blockchain technology is now being used to represent assets beyond the chain. In order to understand the thriving and intriguing world of NFTs, the Cointelegraph Research team delves deep into this new space, presenting the findings in the latest report “Nonfungible Tokens: A New Frontier.” This r...

Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg has debuted his first nonfungible token (NFT) collaboration with artist Coldie in the final release of the Decentral Eyes Portrait Series. The “Decentralized Dogg” NFT was minted on SuperRare on Nov 29 at 7:15 PM UTC and will be on auction until Dec 3. SuperRare is a digital NFT marketplace that caters to buyers willing to pay up for more exclusive pieces. The NFT is a stereoscopic 3D collage of 10 different portraits of Snoop Dogg from various stages throughout his life, underscored by an original NFT-inspired soundtrack by Snoop. At the time of writing, the highest bid was 169 Ether or about $760,000 at current prices. NEW ARTWORK RELEASEColdie x @SnoopDogg Decentral Eyes Dogg1/1 on @SuperRare Auction ends Dec 3 5p PT/8p ET Art by ColdieExclusive audio by @Snoop...

Tornado Cash is about to get a scaling boost as the privacy protocol prepares for deployment on the Ethereum layer two network Arbitrum.  Tornado Cash’s smart contracts are ready to roll on thArbitrum Layer 2 scaling network following contributions from the community to ensure the stability of the protocol. The Nov. 29 announcement explained that deploying on Arbitrum will “allow users to take advantage of all the benefits a Layer 2 can offer, with cheaper transactions being the biggest comparative advantage.” Tornado Cash is a fully decentralized Ethereum (ETH) mixer protocol. Tornado Cash masks the path that tokens such as ETH take from sender to receiver, providing completely private transactions without the need to use privacy-focused coins. Layer two networks on Ethereum boast fa...

United States-based digital asset exchange Kraken has announced it will begin supporting the viral meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) as of Nov. 30. There will be a minimum deposit of 373,000 SHIB ($16 USD), and the minimum trading volume is 50,000 SHIB ($2 USD). SHIB will initially be tradeable against the USD and Euro pairs, however, Kraken Futures and Margin Trading for SHIB won’t be available at launch. New Listing on Kraken: @Shibtoken $SHIB deposits begin NOW! Trading is live November 30. ➡️ Learn more: https://t.co/yUUKaBXKBq pic.twitter.com/L2IUHugyG0 — Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) November 29, 2021 Australian managing director at Kraken Jonathon Miller told Cointelegraph that the crypto marketplace supports projects with a clear demand for trading, including SHIB. At the time...