Business
Wazupnaija – Naija Entertainment blogs & Forums – Business
Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Appeals Underway for Denied Applicants
Since appeal notices began rolling out Monday, 494 invitations have been accepted so far. Those entities will need to review the SVOG Eligibility Matrix to see where they believe errors were made on the behalf of an SBA reviewer. The SBA has not provided specific reasons why each entity was declined, leaving the guesswork up to the companies. “There is a balancing act we have to do. The level of specificity slows things down,” The SBA’s senior advisor for COVID-19 programs Deidra Henry-Spires told Billboard at the end of July. “There are conversations we can have after we’ve seen the whole unit of declines once we’ve gotten through [all the applications that came in the first 60 days]. But often in grant programs, you don’t...
The world’s top climate scientists have a new warning for Washington
Lawmakers pushing for an aggressive climate offensive hope the report will finally jolt some action out of Washington. Democrats have managed to include some climate measures in the Senate’s $550 billion infrastructure compromise bill in the Senate and are calling for more sweeping efforts in their expected $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. “This is why I’m anxious to see the IPCC report,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “It seems as though it may point to tipping point disasters that could warn that we have far less time than previously thought.” Chu added, “I do not think that Washington, D.C. as a whole understands the implications for not investing in climate change measures right this minute.” Previous IPCC assessments have eliminated many of the scienti...
Treasury Secretary reportedly against amending crypto language in infrastructure bill
On Wednesday, several United States senators proposed an amendment to an infrastructure bill that would clarify language concerning crypto. Even though that proposal seemingly has the support of the White House, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has reportedly come out against the measure. According to a Friday report from the Washington Post, Yellen raised objections to the proposed amendment with lawmakers on Thursday. She lobbied Senator Ron Wyden regarding the changes which, if added to the bill, would exclude certain crypto companies from the reporting requirements for brokers. Wyden is one of three senators behind the amendment with Cynthia Lummis and Pat Toomey. The original infrastructure bill currently being considered in the Senate, HR 3684, proposes implementing tighter rules...
MyEtherWallet founder notes two key aspects of Ethereum London hard fork
Ethereum underwent an upgrade on Thursday, bringing with it a number of alterations to the network’s blockchain. CEO and founder of MyEtherWallet, Kosala Hemchandra, pointed toward two changes of particular importance. “The London upgrade adds around 5 changes to the current Ethereum network; however, I believe that only 2 of them are crucial to day-to-day users,” Hemchandra said in comments sent to Cointelegraph. Noting “time bomb delay” as the first of the two, he added: “Since the inception of Ethereum there was a hard coded value basically responsible to make sure Ethereum will move to PoS or ETH 2.0 on time. This value is responsible for making the block difficulty exponentially hard after a certain block number thus making it impossible for miners to mine new bl...
Price analysis 8/6: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, XRP, DOGE, DOT, UNI, BCH, LINK
Bitcoin (BTC) has staged a smart recovery in the past few days and the interest in the crypto sector seems to be picking up. JPMorgan Chase has added access to a new Bitcoin fund created by New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) for its private banking clients. The increasing number of traditional financial institutions opening up crypto trading opportunities for their clients shows there is strong demand for the sector. On-chain analyst Willy Woo said recently that strong holders had been scoping up Bitcoin and locking “them away for long-term investment”, resulting in a supply squeeze. Woo added that he had “not seen a supply shock opportunity like this since Q4 2020 when BTC was priced at $10,000 only to be repriced at $60,000 in the months thereafter.” Daily cryptocurrency mar...
SEC claims first enforcement action in $30M fraud case involving DeFi project
A Cayman Islands-based company and two individuals may be the first subjects in decentralized finance, or DeFi, to face enforcement action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to a Friday announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said that this is the first case involving securities using DeFi technology which resulted in an enforcement action. The agency said it charged the company Blockchain Credit Partners as well as Florida residents Gregory Keough and Derek Acree, alleging they were involved in offering and selling more than $30 million in unregistered securities from February 2020 to February 2021. DeFi Money Market, according to the project’s whitepaper, was “a permissionless and fully decentralized protocol to earn interest on any Eth...
Amazon Launches New Programs to Resell Overstock Merchandise
Amazon is launching two new programs for returned and overstock merchandise in an effort to cut down on its waste. Last month, the company came under fire when ITV News published footage exposing the “destruction zone” in Amazon’s Dunfermline warehouse in Scotland, where millions of unsold items are destroyed yearly. The video showed products that were either unsold or returned by a customer — including Smart TVs, laptops, drones and even COVID face masks — being dumped into bins and transferred to recycling centers and landfills. Currently available in the United Kingdom, with plans to rollout in the United States later this year and elsewhere in early 2022, the “FBA Grade and Resell” will allow third party sellers to sell returned products on Amazon as used items, labeled with conditions...
Bitcoin and Ethereum hit resistance with $42.5K flip needed for BTC longs
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are due for a “huge” move, but short-term signals suggest a correction, an analyst warned on Friday. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Buy into resistance? “Not interested” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed both BTC/USD and ETH/USD acting near critical range resistance as the week drew to a close. A late surge the day before punctuated an overall downtrend after swift upside throughout the previous week, but Friday reinforced the idea that longer-term resistance would remain in place. In his latest video update, Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe highlighted an area above $42,500 as necessary to reclaim in order to seek long BTC positions. “I refuse to become bullish on Bitcoin at this stage u...
Play-and-earn is the secret to mainstream NFT gaming adoption
Since 2017, dozens of projects have created games that use blockchain and nonfungible token (NFT) technology. The overall vision is inspiring and has attracted a solid base of fans and investors in equal measure. However, the industry is still in its infancy, and we have a long way to go until it achieves mainstream adoption. There are various hurdles on the path to this promised land. Some of the primary barriers are that NFT games have relied too heavily on their money-making traits as the selling point and lag behind traditional games when it comes to engaging game mechanics. But it isn’t going to stay this way. Related: How the NFT market leveraged blockchain tech for explosive growth The current state of NFT gaming To understand NFT gaming, we must first understand NFTs. NFTs rep...
Bitcoin fractal that predicted 2020 rally flashes again as BTC price reclaims $40K
A crossover between two Bitcoin (BTC) moving averages that appeared before the 2020 price boom is hinting at making a return in 2021, just as the flagship cryptocurrency eyes a bullish breakout from its current $30,000–$40,000 trading range. The indicators in focus are the MACD Line and Signal Line. MACD is an acronym for Moving Average Convergence Divergence, and a MACD Line represents the difference between the 12- and 26-period moving averages. Meanwhile, a Signal Line is a nine-period moving average. Plotting the MACD Line and Signal Line together forms the so-called MACD Indicator, which allows traders to predict future price trends. For example, when the MACD Line (a faster-moving average) closes below the Signal Line (a slower moving average), it typically reflects a bearish tr...
Cambodia explores cross-border transactions of CBDC-like Bakong
The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) continues progressing with its central bank digital currency-like initiative known as Bakong, disclosing several project milestones. NBC’s director-general and the Bakong project lead Chea Serey said in a Wednesday interview with The Nikkei that Bakong’s electronic wallet reached 200,000 users in June, doubling from three months earlier. Based on blockchain technology, the Bakong payment and money transfer service was originally launched by NBC in October 2020. The digital money project has amassed nearly 6 million users in the first half of 2021, including those reached indirectly through member bank mobile apps, recording a total of 1.4 million transactions worth nearly $500 million, Serey noted. The official disclosed that the NBC is current...
Billie Eilish’s ‘Happier Than Ever’ Crowned on Australia’s Chart
Further down the albums tally, the latest Over You edition of The Kid Laroi’s F*ck Love (Columbia/Sony) sees the mixtape hold at No. 3, while Prince makes his first Top 10 appearance with a studio album in almost a quarter century, with the posthumous release Welcome 2 America (Legacy/Sony). Recorded in 2010, the album bows at No. 5. The last Prince studio effort to enter the Top 10 was 1996’s Emancipation, which peaked at No. 8. Since then, the Purple One landed two high-fliers with The Very Best Of (No. 2 in May 2016) and Ultimate (No. 6 in May 2016). Tasmanian outfit The Wolfe Brothers are based on the end of the world, though they’re living it up on the ARIA Albums Chart with Kids On Cassette (BMG/ADA), their fifth release. It’s new at No. 6 for the country rocker...
