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Amazon Is Offering Customers Up to $1,000 USD in Compensation for Defective Products
Amazon on Monday announced a new process to compensate customers up to $1,000 USD if they were sold a defective product that caused property damage or personal injury. The policy change is an extension to its existing A-to-Z Guarantee program that provides customers with a return process for products sold through third-party vendors. “Now, in the unlikely event a defective product sold through Amazon.com causes property damage or personal injury, Amazon will directly pay customers for claims under $1,000 — which account for more than 80 percent of cases — at no cost to sellers, and may step in to pay claims for higher amounts if the seller is unresponsive or rejects a claim we believe to be valid,” the company wrote. Beginning September 1, Amazon will help resolve issues related to propert...
AMC Says It Will Start Accepting Bitcoin As Payment
AMC Entertainment Holdings CEO Adam Aron said during an earnings call on Monday that the movie theatre chain plans to start accepting bitcoin as payment by the end of 2021. “Many of our new shareholders are also quite enthusiastic about cryptocurrency,” he said on the call. “By year end, we will have the information and technology systems in place to accept bitcoin as payment for movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of our U.S. theaters.” “We are also in the preliminary stage of now exploring how else AMC can participate in this new burgeoning cryptocurrency universe and we’re quite intrigued by potentially lucrative business opportunities for AMC if we intelligently pursue further serious involvement with cryptocurrency,” he said, adding that more details would b...
BREAKING: BitMEX will pay $100M in penalties to FinCEN, CFTC
Crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has agreed to pay up to $100 million to resolve a case from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. In a Tuesday announcement, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had entered a consent order for HDR Global Trading Limited, 100x Holding Limited, ABS Global Trading Limited, Shine Effort Inc Limited and HDR Global Services Limited to be charged with illegally operating the BitMEX platform. As part of the settlement with both the CFTC and FinCEN, BitMEX will pay a $100 million civil monetary penalty “for illegally operating a cryptocurrency trading platform and anti-money laundering violations.” In addi...
5G blockchain company raises $111M in Andreessen-led token sale
Helium Inc., a provider of decentralized wireless infrastructure, has concluded a $111 million token sale led by some of the biggest venture firms in the blockchain industry. The sale, which centered around Helium’s native token, HNT, was scooped up by several venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz. Alameda Research, Multicoin Capital and Ribbit Capital also contributed, according to BNN Bloomberg. General partner at Andreessen Horowitz Ali Yahya told Bloomberg that new cryptocurrency protocols like Helium will “challenge centralized incumbents” and compete with bigger telecommunication service providers. Yahya tweeted Tuesday that his firm will work with Helium to create a “grassroots telecom network” of the future. We’re beyond excited to annou...
Every dog has its day: Dogecoin and Shiba Inu fetch 50% gains as altcoins rally
Momentum the wider cryptocurrency market appears to be on the upswing this week after bulls pushed Bitcoin price to the $46,700 and Ether price to $3,150 on Aug 9. The growing optimism has also translated into a bounce in dog-themed meme coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), which have both seen their prices rise by more than 55% over the past three weeks. DOGE/USDT vs. SHIB/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Dog-themed meme coins caught fire earlier in the year after Dogecoin became the altcoin of choice for influencers like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin further rocked the boat on May 14 when he liquidated trillions of SHIB and donated the proceeds to charity. At the time, investors viewed this as further bull...
Teller Finance deploys mainnet on Polygon, migrates 2,200 NFTs
Teller Finance, a non-collateral lending protocol for the DeFi market, has officially deployed its mainnet on Polygon, marking a significant milestone in its quest to offer scalable, user-friendly solutions. With the launch of Teller’s Polygon mainnet, users can begin making deposits and funding liquidity pools immediately, the company disclosed Tuesday. The Teller protocol continues to be available for use on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet. Teller’s Polygon deployment is part of a broader strategy to broaden the mainstream appeal of digital assets without the bottlenecks of slow transaction speeds and higher fees. Ryan Berkun, Teller’s CEO, credited the success of DeFi to Ethereum, but also noted an immediate need to address some of the network’s shortcomings. He explained: “Teller want...
An inconvenient truth (about weed)
“For being such a ‘green’ industry, there’s some skeletons in the closet,” said Kaitlin Urso, an environmental consultant with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Despite piecemeal attempts by states and some growers to reduce their power consumption, at least one expert estimates the industry’s footprint already accounts for more than 1 percent of U.S. electricity consumption and continues to rise. Complicating matters further, federal laws also bar the flow of weed over state lines. That requires companies to grow cannabis in each state where they want to do business and deprives them of the scale that makes other industries more efficient. President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress have made cutting the nation’s carbon footprint ...
One Bitcoin now buys 0.6 kilograms of gold as 10-year returns turn negative
Bitcoin (BTC) proponents continue to poke fun at gold bugs as the precious metal’s 10-year returns flip negative. As of Tuesday, fresh data shows tha XAU/USD traded 3.7% lower than it did on the same day in 2011. Gold fails to impress — On any timeframe XAU/USD 1-month candle chart. Source: TradingView It’s been a bad week for gold and its investors — a sharp fall on Monday has consolidated losses that have characterized much of 2021. Starting the year at $1,941, XAU/USD was down to $1,729 at the time of writing — a year-to-date loss of 10.9%. Whereas longer-term performance had previously saved gold from humiliation, as of this month, even a 10-year hodl is a dubious investment. On Aug. 1, 2011, the precious metal traded at $1,830, or 5.8% higher. In the meantime, Bitcoin has vastly outpe...
SEC wants ‘terabytes’ of Slack communications from Ripple
The legal battle between the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC and blockchain-based payments firm Ripple continues, with the regulator wanting further access to Ripple’s internal communications. The SEC filed a motion with the Southern District of New York on Monday, requesting Judge Sarah Netbrun to order Ripple to produce and submit its employee messaging on business communication platform Slack, Ripple executives’ attorney James Filan announced on Twitter. The filing notes that Ripple’s previous production of Slack messages to the SEC was incomplete, with the firm eventually admitting that this was caused due to a “data processing mistake” after “repeatedly contending that its Slack production was complete.” The SEC believes that Ripple only collected a small portion of ...
South Korean banks doubled crypto transaction fee revenue in Q2
Three South Korean banks with crypto exchange partnerships have reportedly made $14.71 million in transaction fees in the second quarter of 2021. According to The Korea Herald, Shinban Bank, K bank and NH Nonghyup Bank announced a total revenue of 16.9 billion South Korean won in Q2. The “big four” crypto exchanges in South Korea — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit — have partnered with the banks for sourcing users’ real-name accounts. Based on the data collected by Yun Chang-hyun, the second quarter performance exceeded the first quarter’s approximately $6.8-million (7 billion won) mark, more than doubling transactions despite ongoing market fluctuations. The data shows that K bank’s partnership with Upbit resulted in the biggest share of $10.4 million (12 billion won), over 71% of the t...
Major Turkish sports club Fenerbahçe issues fan token on Ethereum
Fenerbahçe S.K., one of the three biggest sports clubs in Turkey, issued its own fan token on the Ethereum blockchain through a new partnership with the local crypto exchange Paribu. The initial presale of 500,000 unlocked tokens was completed on Aug. 9, netting the club 15 million lira ($1.75 million) in 30 seconds. The club announced that the Fenerbahçe Token would have a maximum supply of 190,700,000 tokens in reference to 1907, the year Fenerbahçe was established. According to the project’s white paper, a total of 117 million treasure tokens would be created on smart contracts over the next 25 years on a yearly basis. Fenerbahçe also included a roadmap for the token burn that would be triggered by the club’s achievements in soccer, basketball or volleyball. According to the white paper...
Will Young Leads Midweek U.K. Chart With ‘Crying On The Bathroom Floor’
Young shot to fame after winning the first edition of the U.K.’s Pop Idol in 2002. In the years since, he has bagged four U.K. No. 1 singles (including his first three releases) and 11 Top 10s. His albums have led the national albums chart on four occasions, with eight cracking the Top 10. Crying On The Bathroom Floor, a covers album, is the followup to 2019’s Lexicon, his first via indie label Cooking Vinyl, which peaked at No. 2. Earlier in his career, Young won two Brit Awards, for best British breakthrough act and best single, for “Your Game.” Close behind is George Harrison’s 1970 chart-topping solo album All Things Must Pass (Apple Corps), which surges following its 50th anniversary reissue. The late Beatles great blasts in at No. 2 on the Official Chart Update. Another British...
