business
Wealth managers and VCs are helping drive institutional crypto adoption — Wave Financial execs
Two executives at Wave Financial, an asset management firm providing bespoke strategies to high-net-worth individuals and entities, have reported seeing increased institutional demand for crypto products amid the bear market. Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto on Wednesday, Wave Financial’s head of business development Mike Jones said institutional investment in crypto could be driven by the high end of wealth management firms including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs looking for ways to allow their clients to get exposure to the space. Jones cited the example of BlackRock partnering with Coinbase on Aug. 4, a move that will give users of the asset manager’s institutional investment management platform Aladdin access to crypto trading...
Verve Label Group Ups Jamie Krents to President of Verve Imprint, Dawn Olejar to GM
UMG’s Verve Label Group has promoted Jamie Krents to president of its Verve, Impulse! and Verve Forecast labels, while the company’s executive vp Dawn Olejar has added the role of general manager to her responsibilities. The New York-based executives will both report to Dickon Stainer, president and CEO of Verve Label Group and Universal Classics and Jazz. “These two exciting promotions mark a crucial moment in the evolution of Verve,” said Stainer in a statement. “Jamie Krents becoming President of Verve and Impulse! is a true testament to his unique and exceptional vision for artist development as these legendary labels enter a new era under his stewardship. Dawn Olejar is a role model for outstanding label management, and her new combined responsibilities as EVP and General Manager refl...
Billboard Expands in Asia With Launch of Billboard China
Billboard is expanding its global footprint in Asia. On Monday (Aug. 8), Billboard announced the launch of Billboard China along with plans for its rollout. “We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Billboard brand in China,” Billboard President Mike Van said in a press release announcing the news. “We look forward to providing a platform for Chinese musicians to share their art and unique sound amongst a global audience. Today marks the beginning of another exciting chapter in Billboard’s evolution and we are eager to witness the proliferation of new artists shaping pop culture.” Billboard China adds to the list of the publication’s international editions and music content in Asia, following Billboard Japan and Billboard Korea. Per the press release, Billboard will work closely with ...
Australia-based crypto miner doubles hash rate after energizing Canadian rigs
Australian Bitcoin miner Iris Energy said it had increased its hash rate to more than 2.3 exahashes per second following the completion of phase two of its operations in Mackenzie, Canada. In a Monday announcement, Iris Energy said it had brought 41 megawatts of operating capacity in the British Columbia municipality online roughly two months ahead of schedule, adding 1.5 EH/s to its existing hash rate. In addition, the Bitcoin (BTC) miner expects to bring another 50 MW online in Prince George by the end of the third quarter of 2022, increasing its operating capacity to 3.7 EH/s. Iris Energy co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts said the firm had energized the facility on schedule “despite the current market backdrop and ongoing international supply chain challenges.” The firm planned to de...
Taylor Swift Tells Judge That ‘Shake It Off’ Was ‘Written Entirely by Me’
Taylor Swift herself weighed in Monday (Aug. 8) on a lawsuit that claims she stole the lyrics to “Shake It Off” from a song about “playas” and “haters,” filing a sworn declaration in which she said the words were “written entirely by me” and that she’d “never heard the song” she’s accused of copying. Seeking to finally end a yearslong lawsuit that claims her 2014 chart-topping hit had infringed the copyright to the 2001 song “Playas Gon’ Play” by the group 3LW, Swift was unequivocal: “The lyrics to Shake It Off were written entirely by me.” “In writing the lyrics, I drew partly on experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism which I learned I just needed...
Vitalik Buterin proposes stealth addresses for anonymous NFT ownership
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has suggested there may be a “low-tech approach” to incorporating privacy features ito nonfungible token, or NFT, transactions. In a Monday post on the Ethereum research channel, Buterin implied Merkle trees and Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge, or ZK-SNARKs, were a more complicated method for stealth addresses for ERC-721 tokens, while proposing his own solution. The Ethereum co-founder suggested instead that smart contract wallets could include a method that would allow the sender to essentially mask their address to third parties. “You would be able to eg. send an NFT to vitalik.eth without anyone except me (the new owner) being able to see who the new owner is,” said Buterin. Idea: stealth addresses for ERC721s. A low-te...
Voyager plans to resume cash withdrawals on Aug. 11
Crypto lender Voyager Digital Holdings has reported users may be able to make cash withdrawals from the app more than a month after suspending trading, deposits, withdrawals and loyalty rewards. In a Friday blog post, Voyager said clients with U.S. dollars in their accounts could withdraw up to $100,000 in a 24-hour period starting as early as Aug. 11, with the funds received in 5–10 business days. The announcement followed a judge ruling on Thursday the crypto lending firm was cleared to return $270 million in customer funds held at the Metropolitan Commercial Bank in New York. “Requests will be processed as quickly as possible but will require some manual review, including fraud reviews and account reconciliation, and timing will depend, in part, upon the individual banks to which custom...
Core Scientific increased Bitcoin production by 10% in July amid Texas power cuts
Crypto mining firm Core Scientific reported its operations produced 1,221 Bitcoin (BTC) in July even as the company powered down several times in response to demand on the Texas power grid. In a Friday announcement, Core Scientific said its month-over-month Bitcoin production had increased from 1,106 in June to 1,221 in July — roughly 10.4%. The firm reported curtailing operations “due to extreme temperatures at multiple data centers,” but also increased the number of its self-mining servers and hashrate by 6%, to 109,000 and 10.9 exahashes per second (EH/s), respectively. JULY 2022 HIGHLIGHTS:-1,221 #Bitcoin self-mined-10.9 EH/s self-mined-+190,000 ASIC servers in operation-8.4 EH/s colocation (hosting)-Deployed first BITMAIN ANTMINER S19 XPs in the United Stateshttps://t.co/Qt2...
The Ledger: In Strong 2022, Advertising Is Rare Weakness for Music Biz
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. With a handful of music companies’ quarterly earnings releases now in the books, the outlook for the second half of the year appears strong almost across the board. There is one area of weakness, however: online advertising. On Wednesday, French music company Believe slightly raised its guidance for fiscal 2022 but warned in its investor presentation that organic growth will slow in the second half of the year “as the ad-funded streaming activities should be affected by rising inflation and economic uncertainties.” Spotify also pointed to some weakening in advertising. “For advertising, we did see some softening in tren...
Sony Music Latin & HBO Max Place All Bets on Original Premium Content
En Letra de Otro is Sony Music Latin and HBO Max’s perhaps most notable and longest-running original premium content series to date. With superstar names such as Farruko, Pedro Capó, Gente de Zona and, most recently Goyo attached to the HBO special — which is a conceptual series where artists sing other’s compositions — Ruben Leyva, Sony’s Sony Music U.S. Latin senior vp, artist services and premium content, says these types of projects have “become quite a big part of our business at U.S. Latin.” Original audiovisual content has taken centerstage across streaming, DSPs and social media platforms that are pumping out original recordings and documentaries featuring Latin acts (although this type of content isn’t Latin specific). While HBO is at the forefront, other projects include Amazon M...
Binance and Mastercard will launch prepaid crypto cards in Argentina
Major crypto exchange Binance has partnered with Mastercard to launch a prepaid card for the residents of Argentina. In a Thursday announcement, Binance said the card will allow its clients in Argentina to use Bitcoin (BTC), BNB and other cryptocurrencies to make purchases as well as ATM withdrawals in fiat wherever Mastercard is accepted — roughly 90 million merchants globally and online. Argentine cardholders can also earn up to 8% back in cryptocurrency from certain purchases. According to Binance, the introduction of the card — expected to be “widely available in the coming weeks” — was part of the company’s efforts to further the global adoption of crypto. Residents of Argentina will be the first in the region to have access to the cards, but the crypto exchange announced a simil...
Iman Shumpert, Ex-NBA Star & Teyana Taylor’s Husband, Arrested at Texas Airport
Former NBA player Iman Shumpert was arrested at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport last weekend for allegedly trying to bring 6 ounces of cannabis through security. The police report from the DFW Airport Department of Public Safety shows police were called to a TSA checkpoint at about 3:40 p.m. on Saturday and told there was a “sizeable amount of marijuana” found. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The police report says Shumpert told officers that the bag contained marijuana and “asked if there was any way he could make his flight” to Los Angeles, where he was supposed to pick up his daughter. He has two daughters with entertainer Teyana Taylor. Shumpert was told no, arrested for felony possession of marijuana and taken to the airport ja...
