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Senator Lummis still ‘very comfortable’ with Bitcoin in retirement plans
Pro-crypto United States Senator Cynthia Lummis has remained steadfast in her support for Bitcoin (BTC) as part of diversified retirement plans, despite calls otherwise from her Senate peers. As it stands, Lummis seems to be just one of the few openly crypto-friendly politicians in the United States and has notably pushed for progressive crypto regulation alongside Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Speaking with online news outlet Semafor on Dec. 12, Lummis outlined that crypto winter has not shaken her resolve in BTC and that she’d still like to see the asset included in United States 401(k) retirement plans: “I’m very comfortable with making sure that people can include Bitcoin in their retirement funds because it’s just different than other cryptocurrencies.” “I per...
Judge orders CFTC to serve Ooki DAO founders with lawsuit
A United States federal judge has ordered the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) to serve its lawsuit to the two original founders of the Ooki decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). On Dec. 12, District Judge William Orrick ordered the U.S. regulator to serve Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner, the founders of the decentralized trading platform bZeroX which was the predecessor to Ooki DAO. Bean and Kistner had already settled charges with the CFTC in September relating to illegal commodities offerings on bZeroX, while separate charges were laid against Ooki DAO token holders, which was served using a help chat box as well as a notice on its online forum. However, when Judge Orrick later discovered Bean and Kistner were alsOoki DAO token holders he reconsidered how the CFTC was to se...
Not medical advice: Bitcoiner implants Lightning chip to make BTC payments by hand
The Lightning Network continues to shock the Bitcoin (BTC) community. A swiss IT Professional called F418 (not his real name) surgically implanted a Lightning-enabled chip into his right hand to make Lightning Network (LN) payments. An X-Ray image of the chip implanted into F418’s hand. Source: Youtube Speaking with Cointelegraph, F418 said he experimented with body modification and LN payments for fun. He does not recommend that Bitcoin enthusiasts take the layer-2 payments network, the LN, into their own hands as he did. “The use is just to show that it is possible and you can do stuff like that.” He added that most people carry cards, it’s just his hand has the wow factor: “It’s funny if you are doing a presentation as I sometimes do presentations about payments and talk to ...
FSB to lay out global standards for crypto regulation: Reports
The FTX collapse spurred action from a global financial watchdog to give recommendations to regulate the crypto industry early in 2023. The Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international organization that monitors the global financial system, has reportedly stated that it will be laying out steps to regulate crypto next year. According to Dietrich Domanski, the outgoing secretary-general of the FSB, mentioned that recent events have highlighted that it’s “urgent to address risks” within the space. He explained: “Many crypto market participants argue that authorities are hostile to innovation. I would say so far, authorities have been fairly accommodating.” Domanski also noted that the goal of creating recommendations for crypto regulation will be to hold crypto p...
Tory Lanez Allegedly Shot Megan Thee Stallion Because She ‘Insulted His Skills as a Musical Artist,’ Court Hears
Opening statements kicked off the highly anticipated trial over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot two years ago. Los Angeles prosecutors hope to convict Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) of three felony charges over the July 12, 2020 incident, in which he allegedly shot Stallion in the foot during an argument after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills. In October 2020, he was charged with one count of assault with a firearm and another gun possession charge. On Dec. 6, 2022, just one week before the trial began, the L.A. district attorney’s office added a new, third count of discharging a firearm with gross negligence. If convicted on all three charges, Lanez faces 22 years in prison. Yet Lanez, 30, has maintained his innocence and looked poised to fight for it while ...
Sean Warner to Lead Universal Music Australia
BRISBANE, Australia — Universal Music Australia taps Sean Warner for the top job, which will vacated by the incumbent George Ash at year’s end. Announced Tuesday (Dec. 13), Warner is promoted to president, Universal Music Australia & New Zealand, with effect from Jan. 1, 2023. The incoming chief is a UMA stalwart with 15 years’ experience leading the company’s commercial business, both physical and digital. Warner joined UMA in 2007 as national sales manager and has served on its senior management team in recent years, most recently as senior vice president of commercial, with duties for the commercial growth, innovation and digital development for UMA & New Zealand. During his time with Universal, Warner has overseen the commercial strategy in Southeast Asia (SEA), launched...
Scientists hail nuclear fusion ‘milestone’ — but it may take decades to see its benefits
“Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is whether the U.S. has the foresight and will to move forward,” Meade said. The Financial Times first reported the research breakthrough Sunday. A person familiar with the findings confirmed to POLITICO that DOE will announce that its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had used lasers to produce a fusion reaction that generated 1.2 times more energy than was needed to create it. If reports of the experiment’s results prove accurate, “it’s one of the biggest results of science in the past 20-30 years,” said Gianluca Sarri, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast who researches laser and plasma physics. But even then, hope of a fusion-generation power plant is still more than a decade away, he said. Fusion, which uses extreme heat to combine two ...
$75M worth of FTX’s political donations at risk of being recalled due to bankruptcy: Report
Following the collapse of FTX and its Nov. 11 bankruptcy filing, $73 million worth of its political donations is currently at risk of being recalled to repay the failed exchange’s creditors, according to a report by Bloomberg. Speculators online allege that the former FTX CEO and his executives sought to influence industry regulations with their generous multimillion-dollar donations to politicians and super PACs. Sam Bankman-Fried and executives Ryan Salame and Nishad Singh are believed to have been high-paying donors to both the Republican and Democratic United States political parties. Many politicians who were at the receiving end of FTX’s generosity now face difficulty regarding what to do next, as they may be forced to return the money to the bankruptcy trustee. In order to...
Brazil could cement its status as an economic leader thanks to 2024 CBDC move
As of 2022, more than 30 million Brazillian citizens have no bank accounts, and no credit or debit cards. What’s wrong here? For roughly a decade, Brazil has been passing legislation aimed at changing the situation. However, the results have fallen short of expectations. To better understand the reason, let’s take a step back to look at a historical perspective. The Brazilian banking industry has always been extremely concentrated, historically due to the country’s macroeconomic volatility, the bank’s legacy technology and stringent oversight. At one point in time, the regulator needed some reliable “bulwarks” to build the local financial system and deal with scale. Concentration was an inevitable flipside of that strategy. However, in the past few years, the balance started to shift, with...
13% of Americans have now held crypto: JPMorgan research
Around 13% of the American population — or 43 million people — have held cryptocurrency at some point in their lives, new research from JPMorgan Chase has revealed. According to a Dec. 13 report titled “The Dynamics and Demographics of U.S. Household Crypto-Asset Use,” this number has risen dramatically since before 2020, when the figure was only around 3%. The latest data from JPMorgan comes from analyzing checking account transfers from a sample of over 5 million customers. It found that 600,000 customers in this sample group transferred cash to crypto accounts at some point during period from 2020 to 2022. The study also noted that cryptocurrency holders typically made their first crypto purchases during spikes in crypto prices. During this time, the amount of cash being sent into...
Breaking: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested, set to be extradited to US
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and founder of trading firm Alameda Research has been arrested by authorities in The Bahamas. A Dec. 12 statement from the Bahamas Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Ryan Pinder, states Bankman-Fried was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force following a formal notification from the United States government that it has filed criminal charges against the FTX founder. The U.S. will likely request the extradition of Bankman-Fried. Pinder states The Bahamas will “promptly” process any extradition request by U.S. authorities. Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said in a statement both countries have “a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may h...
Singapore announced by Affyn as first NEXUS World metaverse city
Affyn is a Sinapore-based company operating in the blockchain gaming space. It’s goal is to leverage the play-to-earn model so that rewards earned in the virtual world have the ability to also be utilised in the real world. The NEXUS World metaverse is part of that goal. This will take advantage of mobile geolocation services to directly map metaverse cities to the real world. Affyn has announced that Singapore will be the first city within this world. 2,000 plots of Freehold Land NFTs will be featured. These NFTs will correspond with actual locations in Singapore. The NFTs are hexagonal in shape, representing approximately 15,000 square metres. They are also further categorised into rarity levels – Common, Rare, Epic and Mythical. The NFTs will be further distinguished by their own featur...
