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British Columbia to halt new power connections for crypto miners
A state-owned electric utility provider in the Canadian province of British Columbia is set to halt all new electricity-connection requests from cryptocurrency miners for a period of 18 months. The British Columbia government made the announcement in a statement on Dec. 21 stating that the pause will allow the government and BC Hydro to develop a permanent framework that can better balance the needs of crypto miners and both its residents and businesses in the region. Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said that the move was made to preserve the clean energy it provides for its residents and businesses that create jobs and are more environmentally friendly. “Cryptocurrency mining consumes massive amounts of electricity to run and cool banks of high-pow...
Alameda’s Caroline Ellison and FTX’s Gary Wang hit with additional fraud charges
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have hit former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX co-founder Gary Wang with fresh fraud charges. The new charges from the SEC and CFTC come as the pair plead guilty to federal fraud charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier on Dec. 22. SEC states that Ellison and Wang were charged for their role in the “multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX,” with the SEC also investigating whether other securities laws were violated as well. The SEC alleges that Ellison, under the direction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, furthered the scheme by manipulating the price of FTX Token (FTT), which is described as a crypto security toke...
Frozen bank account triggers switch to Bitcoin salary for a whole year
As Bitcoin (BTC) adoption continues to sow seeds around the world, more and more people are choosing to accept the original cryptocurrency as payment for their goods and services. For individuals, that means accepting BTC as their salary. A Florida-based Bitcoin advocate called SVN (not his real name) took his entire salary in BTC for the past year. Cointelegraph reached out to him to understand why he did it and if there are certain advantages to earning the world’s most recognizable cryptocurrency. SVN explained that when the bank froze one of his accounts, he turned “to Bitcoin as a solution to keep my life going while the issue got resolved.” While banks have the power to unbank customers at will, or must follow governmental instruction–such as during the Canadian trucker protest in wh...
zkEVM could be the endgame for blockchain infrastructure
Very few projects have come close to matching the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network. However, the inherent overhead of maintaining these two critical features has left Ethereum burdened by low throughput and prohibitively high costs. As a result, alternative layer-1 blockchains (L1s) — which normally sacrifice security and decentralization to provide scale — have emerged to nip away at Ethereum’s market share. However, with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-equivalent scaling solutions bringing high throughput and low transaction fees to Ethereum itself, the question is: Do we really need these alternative L1 networks? Despite a rocky year for the industry, Ethereum is still as strong as ever The risks of sacrificing security and decentralization have been largely material...
Genesis and DCG seek path for the recovery of assets amid liquidity issues
The co-founder of Gemini, Cameron Winklevoss, says that global investment bank Houlihan Lokey has devised a plan on behalf of a committee of creditors to resolve the liquidity issues at Genesis and its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG). According to Winklevoss, resolving the liquidity issues would provide a path for Gemini clients to recover assets owed to them by Genesis and DCG following the collapse of FTX. Earn Update: Today, Houlihan Lokey presented a plan on behalf of the Creditor Committee to resolve the liquidity issues at Genesis and DCG and provide a path for the recovery of assets. — Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) December 20, 2022 According to the brief “Earn Update” shared on Twitter by the Gemini co-founder, the plan presented by Houlihan Lokey on behalf of th...
10 crypto tweets that made a splash in 2022
Another year in the crypto space has nearly passed. As usual, Twitter has been a hotbed of crypto-related conversation during the turbulent year. From Terra’s collapse and the whole situation with FTX to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, 2022 has played out like a television drama, keeping people on the edge of their seats. Tweets can act like time capsules from the past, offering up memories or documenting particular historical points. Here are 10 memorable tweets from 2022. The Terra collapse The crypto space suffered several blows this year, and among them was the collapse of the Terra project. Terra started 2022 as a prevalent project in the crypto industry, with its LUNA asset sitting in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at the start of the year. In May, howeve...
Twitter quietly adds BTC and ETH price indexes to search function
Twitter has added a new crypto feature that enables Twitter users to search the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) simply by typing “Bitcoin” or “Ethereum” into the search tab. The Elon Musk-led social media platform didn’t announce the new feature to the public. However, the Documenting Bitcoin account was one of the first to highlight the update, and shared a screenshot of the new price index feature to its 853,700 Twitter followers on Dec. 21. Twitter now shows the #bitcoin price! pic.twitter.com/GWg6i3Ibkb — Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) December 21, 2022 Upon searching crypto token names on Twitter, Ether’s price also shows up too, however it appears that BTC and ETH are the only two price charts that come up on Twitter’s search tab. Other top cryptocurrencies, inclu...
Sony Music Says Artists Have Withdrawn $50M Using Its Cash-Out and Real-Time Advance Features
On Monday (Dec. 19), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) shared a recap with the company’s artists and earnings participants on the progress of its Artists Forward initiative, which encompasses SME’s legacy unrecouped balances initiative, healthcare assistance, advances on projected earnings and more. Notably, the recap offers never-before-reported stats on Sony Music’s artist portal and real-time insights platforms. Introduced in 2019, the features offer music creators and their teams “best-in-class” payment capabilities and real-time updates on consumption of their music and audience engagement data. According to the company, artists and other earnings participants have withdrawn nearly $50 million combined from both the cash-out feature, which allows users to cash out payable monthly account...
Bitcoin rebound to $18.4K? BTC price derivatives show strength at key support zone
Bitcoin (BTC) price lost 11.3% between Dec. 14 and Dec. 18 after briefly testing the $18,300 resistance. The move followed a seven-day correction of 8% in the S&P 500 futures after United States Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued hawkish statements after raising the interest rate on Dec. 14. Bitcoin price retreats to channel support Macroeconomic trends have been the main driver of recent movements. For instance, the latest bounce from the five-week-long ascending channel support at $16,400 has been attributed to the Central Bank of Japan’s efforts to contain inflation. Bitcoin 12-hour price index, USD. Source: TradingView The Bank of Japan increased the limit on government bond yields on Dec. 20, which are now trading at levels unseen since 2015. However, not everything has be...
A beginner’s guide to NBA Top Shot NFTs
NBA Top Shot is a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace that enables basketball fans to buy, sell and trade NBA-themed digital collectibles. These collectibles are “Moments” — NFTs of NBA video clips and digital art — available per their degree of rarity. In other words, users can trade NFTs that feature anything from a winning three-pointe from Luka Dončić to a dunk from Lebron James, depending on their availability. A NBA Top Shot Moment listing example. Source: Official Website The concept is akin to traditional sports collectible where fans attempt to acquire the rarest of items associated with teams, with an aim to either collect or sell it later at a higher price. Except, in the case of NFTs, these collectibles are digital — unique cryptographic tokens that exist on a ...
Sam Bankman-Fried is one step closer to US extradition: Report
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who has been in the custody of Bahamian authorities, faces extradition to the United States following a hearing. According to reports, Bankman-Fried appeared in a hearing of The Bahamas Magistrate Court on Dec. 21 — the third since his arrest — where he waived his right to a formal extradition process that could have taken weeks. Officials from the U.S. Embassy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Marshals Service were reportedly in attendance to facilitate Bankman-Fried’s handover, to which he had first signed papers on Dec. 20. Reuters reported that SBF’s legal team said the former CEO was “anxious to leave” The Bahamas. Jerome Roberts, on Bankman-Fried’s legal team, reportedly heard SBF say on Dec. 19 his decision...
Price analysis 12/21: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, DOGE, ADA, MATIC, DOT, LTC, UNI
As the year comes to an end, investors will be keenly watching for a Santa Claus rally on Wall Street as many believe that if the rally does not happen, the next year may either remain flat or turn negative. Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at asset management giant Fidelity Investments, tweeted on Dec. 19 that the United States equities markets may remain “sideways” and choppy in 2023. He expects “one or more retests of the 2022 low, but not necessarily much worse than that.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 The cryptocurrency market has been largely correlated with the S&P 500 in 2022. Unless both markets decouple, the sideways or negative action in the equities markets may not bode well for the cryptocurrency market. Analysts remain divided on t...
