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Wave and Riot Games Bring Virtual Metal Band Pentakill to Online Stage
“Riot Games is an ideal Wave collaborator as they have been an innovator in using music and emerging technologies to build and extend their worlds beyond games,” Wave COO Jarred Kennedy said. “Wave has sat at the intersection of music and gaming since its inception, and we’re excited to work with Riot to help shape the future of virtual performance.” The Los Angeles-based Wave has hosted more than 50 virtual concerts, called “Waves,” with artists like Dillon Francis, Alison Wonderland and Tinashe, where artists perform as avatars in imaginative virtual settings. The company names Warner Music Group an investor and China’s Tencent Music Entertainment a strategic partner. Meanwhile, Riot Games has been steadily making inroads in the music indust...
USPIS internal audit reveals need for standardised crypto training
USPIS’ current crypto fund programme shows a lack of standardised training among employees, according to an audit There are opportunities for theft or abuse when crypto is used during investigations by USPIS The boom in the cryptocurrency market over the last few years has led to an increase in crimes involving virtual tokens, bringing law enforcement agencies across the world face to face with the digital assets industry. An internal audit by the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) has revealed that the Postal Service’s law enforcement arm is grossly underprepared for the challenges posed by crypto-based investigations. While the USPIS has been exposed to only a few cases involving crypto fraud or uses so far, the Office of the Inspector General emphasised the need for compreh...
Survey finds 77% of Russian investors prefer Bitcoin to gold and forex
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) are getting increasingly popular with Russian investors, apparently displacing traditional investment products, according to a new survey. Russia’s Association of Forex Dealers (AFD), a local self-regulatory organization focused on the foreign exchange market, polled 502 Russian investors to find out the local investor sentiment regarding cryptocurrencies. Released on Tuesday, the survey was conducted from Aug. 4 to Aug. 24, 2021. In the survey, nearly 77% of respondents said that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) are the “most forward-looking” investment. Only 8.8% of respondents indicated that they view gold as the best investment, while 14% preferred “familiar national currencies.” The survey also found that just 23% of ...
China’s new blockchain infrastructure to digitize securities and futures
Chinese regulators, including the Securities Association of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), held a meeting in Beijing to promote blockchain technology in the securities industry and discuss regulations. In the symposium organized by China Securities Industry Alliance Chain and Off-Site Alliance Chain, the deputy director-general of the Science and Technology Regulatory Bureau of CSRC, Jiang Dongxing, spoke about the consensus of Chinese businesses to digitally transform the securities and futures industry. Citing the 14th Five-Year Plan, which details China’s intent to use blockchain technology, Dongxing mentioned that blockchain technology can build a trust mechanism in the network environment, which will be key to the digitization of the securities and future...
Ethereum price breaks $3,500 and hits 3-month highs against Bitcoin
Ethereum’s native asset Ether (ETH) has extended its rally on Sep. 1 to log multi-month highs against Bitcoin (BTC) and the United States dollar (USD). The ETH/BTC exchange rate rose 3.13% to hit 0.07475 for the first time since June 9. Meanwhile, bids for ETH/USD climbed 3.4% to $3,546, the highest since May 18, showcasing a renewed upside sentiment in the second-largest cryptocurrency market after it consolidated sideways for more than three weeks. ETH/USD and ETH/BTC daily price chart. Source: TradingView.com Ether’s price jump appeared despite a wobbling price behavior across the cryptocurrency market. For instance, Bitcoin prices remained stuck around $47,000 while eyeing a clear breakout move above their psychological resistance level of $50,000. Similarly, Ethereum’...
Crypto is too big to exist outside of public policies, warns SEC chair
Crypto assets will not last long outside of a public policy framework because “finance is about trust,” warns Gary Gensler, the chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaking to The Financial Times, Gensler stressed the need for a regulatory framework for crypto platforms for their own survival. He explained that crypto assets should be under the same public policy imperatives to protect investors and fight illicit financial activities. He said that the global market capitalization for cryptocurrencies has already surpassed $2 trillion and, if crypto is “going to have any relevance five and 10 years from now, it’s going to be within a public policy framework,” adding: “History just tells you, it doesn’t last long outside. Finance is about trust, ultimately.” ...
Kusama price analysis: KSM could retest the $380 resistance level
Several altcoins have been rallying over the past few hours despite Bitcoin still struggling to break past the $48k level. The past few hours have been dominated by altcoins, with some of them performing excellently. Ether is up by over 6% to finally break past the $3,500 level and could be set for higher gains in the coming hours and days. XRP, Polkadot, Uniswap and Chainlink are some of the other leading altcoins that have recorded impressive wins in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has stagnated above the $47,000 mark. The leading cryptocurrency has found it hard to break past and stay above the $48,000 level in recent days. Kusama is also one of the coins amongst the top 50 in the market to record impressive gains in the past 24 hours. KSM could be set for further gains i...
Chvrches Leads Maisie Peters, Kanye West In U.K. Albums Chart Race
Close behind on the chart blast is Maisie Peters’ debut studio album You Signed Up For This (Gingerbread Man), new at No. 2. Meanwhile, Kanye West’s long-delayed Donda (Def Jam) album comes in at No. 3, a solid start despite its late release on Sunday (instead of the typical Friday drop), and the fact it’s not available in physical formats. According to the OCC, Donda is leading on both downloads and streaming, and if it can lift to the top spot when the chart is published this Friday (Sept. 3), it’ll mark West’s third U.K. No. 1 album. Closing out an all-new midweek Top 5 is Halsey’s fourth studio effort, If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power (EMI), and Becky Hill’s debut Only Honest On The Weekend (Polydor), respectively. Just 2,000 chart sales currently separate the Top 5, the OCC rep...
Bitcoin could still reach $100k this year, says Anthony Scaramucci
Bitcoin has been trading below the $50k mark for the past few days, but some analysts are optimistic that the price could double before the end of the year. The CEO and founder of SkyBridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, is confident that Bitcoin will still hit the $100,000 mark before the end of the year, thanks to the increasing demand for the cryptocurrency every year. Scaramucci said this during a recent YouTube interview. During the interview, Scaramucci said Bitcoin’s limited and fixed supply and the increase in demand every month play to the cryptocurrency’s advantage. He added that “As long as I see that, I see those prices rising. So, we’re going to stick with the $100,000 price target.” The cryptocurrency market entered a bearish cycle during the summer, with the prices of Bitcoin ...
Data suggests Uniswap is 36% overvalued and SushiSwap trades at a discount
Just looking at Binance Coin’s (BNB) reported market capitalization, one might conclude that the token is the dominant asset when compared to other exchange tokens. Although there is no direct relationship between Binance’s exchange volume (or revenue) and token economics, traders seem to use it as a proxy. The controversial burn mechanism has been losing impact since April 2019, when the exchange changed the BNB whitepaper. Initially, the whitepaper proposed a plan where BNB tokens equivalent to 20% of the exchange’s profit would be bought under a “repurchasing plan”, but the new version scrapped that plan. Exchange tokens market cap and volume. Source: Messari Screener and CoinGecko However, excluding the 60 million BNB that have never been in circulat...
CryptoPunks creators sign with top Hollywood agents, as sales top $305M in a week
Larva Labs, the team behind the outrageously popular NFT project CryptoPunks, has penned a deal with Hollywood agents United Talent Agency (UTA). According to an Aug. 31 article from the Hollywood Reporter, UTA will represent Larva Labs for intellectual property (IP) deals in TV, film, video games, licensing and publishing. Two other NFT projects from Larva Labs, Meebits and Autoglyphs, will also be represented by UTA. CryptoPunks was launched back in 2017 and is one of the first NFT projects created on Ethereum. The IP-related deal with UTA marks a significant milestone for Larva Labs, as it is one of the first examples of content created in the blockchain sector that has entered the mainstream entertainment industry. Lesley Silverman, head of UTA Digital Assets told the Hollywood Reporte...
Offchain Labs launches Arbitrum One mainnet, secures $120M in funding
Offchain Labs, the team behind the highly anticipated Ethereum layer two platform, Arbitrum One, has completed the public mainnet launch of its optimistic rollups solution. Announced on Aug. 31, Offchain Labs also revealed that it has secured $120 million in a Series B fundraising round. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and also saw participation from heavyweight crypto investors Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, Alameda Research and Mark Cuban. Lightspeed partner Ravi Mhatre also joined Offchain Labs’ board as part of the round. Amy Wu, also a partner at Lightspeed, stated: “[Offchain Labs’] dedication to the Ethereum developer community is second to none and they have the best, easiest-to-use scalability product. That’s why over 400 projects have chosen to launch with A...
