Business

The Laos government’s pilot project to explore cryptocurrency mining and trading is expected to bring in roughly $194 million towards the country’s total domestic revenue projected for 2022. According to a Nov. 2 report from Malaysian news outlet The Star, the Laotian government’s recent bid to capitalize on China’s crypto mining crackdown may be netting the country 2 trillion kip — roughly $194 million at the time of publication — in revenue from six firms. The companies in the public-private mining pilot program officials approved in September include Wap Data Technology Laos, Phongsubthavy Road and Bridge Construction, Sisaket Construction Company Limited, Boupha Road-Bridge Design Survey, Joint Development Bank, and Phousy Group. The government reportedly said the funds would increase ...

During bull markets, altcoins tend to accrue gains when Bitcoin price consolidates and at they run in tandem with BTC price during breakouts. This dynamic appears to be at play today because multiple altcoins went parabolic at the same time that BTC made a run at $64,000 and Ether (ETH) hit a new all-time high above $4,500. According to data from Messari, 31 tokens have established new record-highs in the past 24-hours and the total cryptocurrency market cap increased from $2.619 trillion to $2.732 trillion overnight. Top 13 tokens to recently establish a new all-time high. Source: Messari Let’s take a closer look at the motivating factors behind the rallies in LCX (LCX), Illuvium (ILV) and Tokemak (TOKE). LCX benefits from new exchange listings LCX is the native token of the Liechte...

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is set to launch crypto trading services for the 6.5 million users of its CommBank app. The CBA will become the first bank in Australia to support crypto, and Blockchain Australia says it is “inevitable” that the other ‘big four’ banks including National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and Westpac will soon follow suit. According to a Nov. 3 announcement, the CBA has partnered with the Gemini crypto exchange and blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis to launch its crypto services. The bank will launch a pilot for a limited number of customers in the coming weeks, before rolling out the full service in 2022. Ten crypto assets will be supported in its banking app, with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH)...

American multinational investment bank JPMorgan has put a price on Bitcoin and it is a lot less than the asset currently trades for. In a report to investors as part of the bank’s inaugural outlook focused on alternative investments, strategists stated that alternative assets which include cryptocurrencies “should continue to outperform into 2022.” They also asserted that Bitcoin’s “fair value” is around $35,000 based on the firm’s price model, which roughly 45% lower than its current trading price of $63,281. Nevertheless a price target of $73,000 seems reasonable should the relative volatility continue into next year, the strategists added, but not the sky high targets many expect. “This challenges the idea that a price target of $100K or above, which appears to be the current consensus ...

AllianceBlock, a blockchain tech firm that seeks to bridge the gap between decentralized finance, or DeFi, and traditional finance, announced a partnership with fellow blockchain tech entity Flare. Flare claims its layer-one, or blockchain protocol improvement, technology can bring smart contracts to cryptocurrencies such as Ripple (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin (BTC), Algorand (ALGO) and Stellar Lumens (XLM). In addition, Flare is also a decentralized oracle network that seeks to enable blockchains to access real-world data in smart contract execution. Meanwhile, AllianceBlock brings to the table its cross-chain interoperability solution AllianceBridge, its native decentralized exchange, or DEX, known as AllianceBlock DEX, decentralized peer-to-peer funding protocol AllianceBlock Fundrs,...

The Jungle Freaks nonfungible token (NFT) collection has lost roughly 80% of its trading value overnight after a series of racist cartoons drawn by one of its creators circulated on social media. The project is the brainchild of famed Hustler magazine cartoonist George Trosley and is curated by his son George III Trosley. Many participants from the NFT sale expressed their dismay after Trosley’s offensive illustrations came to light. Even Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood, who has recently taken a public interest in collecting various NFTs, responded, saying: “I was made aware of some of the artist’s disturbing prior cartoons. Upon learning this, I immediately sold the NFTs as I wholly denounce any form of racism. I have donated the funds from the sale of the NFT to ...

Francis Suarez, who has served as the mayor of Miami since 2017, has said he’s going to take his next paycheck in Bitcoin. In a Tuesday Twitter post, Suarez said he aimed to be the first United States lawmaker at the state or federal level to accept part of his salary in Bitcoin (BTC). Public records show the Miami mayor’s salary was $97,000 annually between 2016 and 2017, meaning he would receive a monthly paycheck of more than $8,000 or 0.13 BTC at a price of $63,404, assuming residents did not vote to increase his compensation for public service. Suarez said that he would prefer to use an app like Bitwage or Strike rather than have the local government go through the effort to convert his fiat paycheck into crypto. I’m going to take my next paycheck 100% in bitcoin…problem solved! @Sara...

Crypto markets have hit the ground running right from the start of November and as of Nov. 2, a near uncountable number of tokens have rallied to swing highs as Ether (ETH) broke above the $4,500 level and Bitcoin (BTC) recaptured the $64,000 level. Polkadot (DOT) also hit another all-time high as investors accumulated tokens leading into the upcoming parachain auctions. The climbing price of Ether comes following the recent Altair update to the Ethereum beacon chain as part of the protocol’s transition to Eth2 and a proof-of-stake mechanism, which has also seen more than 8 million Ether removed from circulation and staked in the Eth2 contract. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since trading at a low of $2,780 on Sept. 29, the price of Ether has charged 6...