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Infrastructure platform Quicknode raises $35M in Series A financing
Quicknode, a Miami based blockchain infrastructure platform, announced the completion of a $35 million Series A round of financing on Wednesday, led by Venture Capital firm Tiger Global. Seven Seven Six, Soma Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, Crossbeam and Anthony Pompliano also participated in the round. This follows a $5.3 million seed round back in March, and brings the total investment in the company to just north of $45 Million. Quicknode was founded by Dmitry Shklovsky, Manuel Kreutz, Auston Bunsen and Alexander Nabutovsky and graduated from Y Combinator in March of 2021. The platform currently supports ten blockchains, including ethereum, bitcoin and solana with more being added monthly. Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian who invested in the round through his fund, said in a press r...
Friday’s jaw-breaking $3.2B Bitcoin options expiry could kick-start a new rally
Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a descending channel pattern since its $67,000 all-time high on Oct. 20, which was just one day after ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) debuted at Nasdaq. However, bulls have a sufficient number of incentives to peg Bitcoin’s price above $60,000 on Oct. 29 when the $3.2 billion monthly options expiry settles. Bitcoin price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView Currently, investors are displaying mixed feelings about the exchange-traded fund’s approval, even though it reached $1 billion in assets under management in 48 hours. Either market expectations for these funds were insanely high, or the 42% gain in October until Oct. 19 was previously priced into the event. The regulatory uncertainty in the United States is also a decisive factor in kee...
Litecoin transactions near an all-time high after gaining ground in consumer finance
The number of Litecoin (LTC) transactions has rebounded to over 140,000 in recent days after falling close to the 100,000 mark in early October. Three days prior, the Litecoin Foundation tweeted about the launch of its LTC Visa Debit card, powered by fintech firm Unbanked. According to the card’s homepage, potential customers would first register for a Litecoin Card account, deposit LTC into a specific wallet address, pass a know-your-customer check, and receive a virtual Litecoin Card. The service claims that the sign-up process takes less than five minutes. The Litecoin card is meant to enable users to spend their LTC at all digital merchants that use Visa as their payment processor — a number the Litecoin Foundation estimates to be around 50 million. The day after, the Litec...
White House sets climate spending at up to $555B
Passing legislation would help Biden make good on his pledge to cut U.S. planet-warming emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels this decade. While the climate total is less than the $600 billion in Democrats’ original $3.5 trillion plan, it comes at a crucial moment for Biden, who is eager to demonstrate U.S. leadership on climate change. Democrats have worried that the U.S. delegation would arrive at the United Nations talks with no domestic agreement on how to address climate change, a failure that would damage the nation’s credibility on climate while giving other countries an excuse to do less. That scenario seemed likely after Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) objection to a $150 billion proposal to advance clean power threw the climate package into a tailspin. ̶...
Biden administration plans roll backs of Trump-era Endangered Species Act rules
Background: The Biden administration in June had pledged to reverse the rules that the Trump administration put into effect in its final days. Together, the two proposals would remove the changes that most concerned environmental groups, who had criticized the Trump-era changes for making it too easy for industry to expand into areas necessary to revive protected species. Building developers, oil companies and agriculture firms had sought the changes, saying that the ESA procedure made it too easy to exclude land from development and too difficult to remove species and their habitat from federal protection. “We’re relieved that the Biden administration has taken this important step toward restoring critical protections for imperiled species,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species directo...
U.N. says national pledges failing to keep climate in check
The report said greenhouse gas emissions must fall 30 percent to hit the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of preventing temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius and 55 percent to hit its aspirational target of 1.5 degrees Celsius. All told, current pledges would send temperatures soaring 2.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to the report. Context: The United States, the U.K., the European Union and other nations have set their sights on the more ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius mark, stating recent climate science demands it to ward off increasingly dire conditions from climate change. But the U.N. report showed nations are not doing nearly enough. Details: Greenhouse gas emissions are set to rebound to near record levels set in 2019, with carbon dioxide emissions ...
Bitcoin price dip matches October 2017 with BTC ‘explosion’ still forecast before 2022
Bitcoin (BTC) has dipped below $60,000 — but BTC price action is still mimicking the eye-popping 2017 bull run. The latest data covering Bitcoin’s current halving cycle versus its previous one shows just how similar 2017 and 2021 really are. Bitcoin prints more eerie 2017similarities Bitcoin has had its ups and downs this year, but as Cointelegraph reported, BTC/USD has all but copy-pasted its 2017 fractal all along. Fresh analysis delivers the same conclusion — and for those concerned about Oct. 27’s drop to $58,000, even this is nothing new. Astonishingly, the dates of price phenomena in September and October 2021 practically match 2017. Popular Twitter account Smart Crypto, which noticed the trend, called for an “explosion” in time for 2022. BTC/USD comparison chart. Source: Smart Crypt...
Upgradable NFTs: How collaborations will leap forward
Artist collaborations are an undeniable cornerstone of modern pop culture. The confluence of creative minds ultimately captured in a single artwork is something that has perpetually aroused audiences, critics and the creative community. Take “The Marilyn Diptych,” by American pop art pioneer Andy Warhol. The iconic art piece is based on a publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe for the 1953 noir thriller Niagara. Regardless of the actress’ undeniable appeal, the photo itself didn’t stand out until Warhol put a spin on it, turning it into one of the 20th century’s most admired masterpieces. But is that enough of an argument to justify the fact that the photographer or studio behind the original derived no profits from the painting? After all, it was their photo — not Andy’s. Whil...
BREAKING: Cream Finance appears to have suffered major loss in flash loan hack
Decentralized lending platform Cream Finance appears to have suffered a severe exploit on Wednesday, with an attacker stealing over $100 million worth of funds through a large flash loan attack. Blockchain data analytics company PeckShield first identified the flash loan on Wednesday. The compromised funds were mainly Cream liquidity provider tokens, as well as other Ethereum-based tokens. #FlashLoanAlert https://t.co/XzAvHqoINN — PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) October 27, 2021 During a flash loan attack, an attacker exploits vulnerable smart contracts in order to create their own arbitrage opportunity. Typically, this is done by modifying the relative value of a trading pair by flooding the contract using their loaned tokens. Cream Finance has been routinely targeted by attackers, as...
To the roots of mining: Bitcoin going green faster than ever
There’s no denying that over the past couple of years, the narrative that Bitcoin (BTC) consumes too much power has continued to garner an increasing amount of mainstream traction. However, what sometimes gets ignored is that in recent months, an increasing number of Bitcoin miners have moved toward the use of power sources driven primarily by renewable energy. To expound further on the subject, it should be noted that a number of studies, including one that was released recently by Cambridge University, revealed that more than 75% of all miners operating today make use of renewable sources to power their day-to-day operations. In this regard, MintGreen, a Canada-based cleantech cryptocurrency miner, recently announced that it had entered into an agreement with Lonsdale Energy Corporation ...
CISAC 2020 Report: Global Publishing Collections Fell 10.7% Last Year
That 10.7% overall decline for music, however, was “considerably less disastrous than was foreseen one year ago,” as Oron observed, while TV and radio — still the largest sources of income for collection management organizations — declined less than expected due to a resilient economy. At the front-end of the COVID-19 pandemic, CISAC was anticipating a 25%-30% decline in collections for 2020, based on estimate reports then from member organizations, Oron tells Billboard. As well, “digital collections have managed to mitigate the fall in other income sources in many countries,” Oron said. “The surge of digital collections globally is a tribute to the efforts of CISAC societies to change strategy, shift resources and step up digital licensing activit...
Walter ‘Herbie’ Herbert, Manager Who Helped Launch Journey, Dies at 73
He was a protege of Bill Graham, and also worked with Santana, Steve Miller Band, Roxette and Europe during his career. Longtime artist manager Walter James “Herbie” Herbert II, who worked with groups including Journey and Santana, has reportedly died. According to Variety, Herbert was 73 years old. Herbert began his career in the early 1970s working with famed promoter Bill Graham. Graham helped Herbert land a gig as a roadie for Santana, whom Graham managed at the time. Herbert befriended Santana musicians Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon, and after they went on to found Journey they recruited Herbert to work alongside them. Schon was one of the first people to acknowledge Herbert’s passing in a Facebook post Monday, saying, “I’ll cherish all the incredible times and trials and tribu...
