crypto blog
Crypto Biz: Another billionaire admits he was wrong about Bitcoin, Feb. 25–Mar. 3
After spending years ridiculing Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Wall Street’s billionaire class is finally warming up to the idea of virtual assets powering the digital economy. This week, Citadel founder and billionaire Ken Griffin formally backtracked on his anti-crypto stance as he announced that his firm would begin offering digital assets to its clients. Of course, Griffin isn’t the only wealthy investor to have a change of heart, so we’re not going to bust his chops too much. So, while crypto analysts continue to debate about whether we are in a bull or bear market, institutions, venture capitalists and ordinary people continue to adopt digital assets. As we see in Eastern Europe, trustless money like Bitcoin offers a unique value proposition in times of geopolitical uncertainty and conf...
How behavioral tokenomics could facilitate the creation of a circular economy
The Iota Foundation and Imperial College London recently announced the launch of a four-year distributed ledger technology, or DLT, initiative designed to research and develop solutions to foster socially conscious, circular economic models and businesses around servitization. The Imperial-Iota-Infrastructures Lab, known as the I3-Lab, will operate within the Dyson School of Design Engineering and has adopted the tagline “infrastructure powered by Iota; analytics powered by Imperial; use-cases powered by the community; and impact powered by partnerships.” Expected to commence this summer, the I3-Lab has been initially funded by a $1 million philanthropic grant from the Iota Foundation and will soon become a co-funded project following an undisclosed contribution from ICL describe...
Andreessen Horowitz invests $70M in Ethereum staking protocol Lido
Ethereum staking solution Lido Finance has raised $70 million from venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, marking the protocol’s first funding round since May 2021. Andreessen Horowitz’s investment in Lido is intended to further support the adoption of decentralized staking solutions for Ethereum 2.0, a spokesperson for the venture capital firm said. Ethereum 2.0 marks a significant shift in the network’s consensus algorithm by ushering in the adoption of proof-of-stake (PoS) and other upgrades that could enhance scalability and reduce fees. The transition to Ethereum 2.0, which began in November 2020, is still ongoing. Excited to share that @a16z has invested $70M in @LidoFinance, one of the easiest ways to stake ETH and other PoS assets, and we used Lido to stake a portion of o...
Here is why deVere Group CEO expects Bitcoin to clock $50k this month
Nigel Green believes the Ukraine crisis and institutional investor interest could spur a price surge He explained that the recent developments have paraded Bitcoin’s key traits Since hitting an all-time peak, Bitcoin has been the epitome of fluctuating currencies, but CEO of Financial services firm deVere Group Nigel Green believes that the asset is likely to rise (in the coming months) from its 14th place among the most valuable currencies in the world today. Pointing to its current momentum, the CEO has predicted that Bitcoin could hit $50k before the end of March. Green backed his projection citing the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and a growing appetite for institutional investment as the impetus that will sustain the push to the predicted price. The financial services mogul held tha...
Ukraine scraps token airdrop plans but will soon mint NFTs
Ukraine has cancelled the planned airdrop and will instead release NFTs to support the country’s armed forces Earlier today, spoofing spams appeared to show Ukraine had initiated the now-cancelled airdrop Amidst the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, people from various ends of the world have set up initiatives to support Ukraine and the citizens caught in this humanitarian crisis. Notably, a sizeable chunk of the donations have been completed in cryptocurrencies. The Ukrainian government had planned to airdrop a token to donators, but these arrangements have been squashed. Just hours ago, Ukraine’s vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced that “after careful consideration,” the government has scrapped the plans and indi...
Decentralized Finance tokens you can buy right now under $1: GRT, AMP, LRC, ZRX and KEEP
GRT, AMP, LRC, ZRX, and KEEP are all DeFi-related tokens. Each token is currently at a solid price point under $1, which makes it a solid purchase option. We analyzed each token as a means of indicating how far their value can increase by the end of March. The Graph (GRT), Amp (AMP), Loopring (LRC), 0x (ZRX), and Keep Network (KEEP) are all solid decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens you can buy on March 3 under $1. Should you buy The Graph (GRT)? On March 3, 2022, The Graph (GRT) had a value of $0.3721. The all-time high value of The Graph (GRT) was on February 12, 2021, when the token reached a value of $2.84. Going over January’s performance, The Graph (GRT) had its highest point of value on February 8 at $0.5196. Its lowest point of value was on February 24 at $0.3092. Here, we can see t...
Ledger CTO warns crypto users about the dangers of ‘blind signing’
With the recent attack on OpenSea highlighting blockchain vulnerabilities, Charles Guillemet, the CTO of Ledger warns users about “blind signing” which he defines as “consenting a transaction to be signed blindly, without understanding what it means.” In an interview with Cointelegraph, Guillemet broke down the problems and highlighted issues with blind signing. The Ledger CTO notes that consenting to transactions requires signing a message to be sent to the blockchain. A user is the only one capable of signing transactions with the private key, while others can verify if it’s correct. “The issue is that this message is not intelligible by default. It’s a digital payload,” says Guillemet. Guillemet also explained that when a coin transfer is signed, it’s normally su...
Anti-war Russians start donating crypto to support Ukraine
While the West is growing increasingly concerned over Russia’s potential use of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions, some Russians are using their Bitcoin (BTC) to help Ukrainian people. Pavel Muntyan, a renowned Russian animation producer and creator of the animated web series “Mr. Freeman,” has called on anti-war Russians to support Ukrainian citizens amid Russia’s ongoing military attack on the country. Muntyan took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the opening of a cryptocurrency donation address for Russians who want to support Ukrainian people anonymously as Russia has banned its citizens from helping people in Ukraine. On Feb. 27, Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office officially warned that any assistance to Ukrainians amid Russia’s “special operation” in the country would be conside...
Bitcoin a ‘good bet’ if Fed continues easing to avoid a recession — analyst
Bitcoin (BTC) has the potential to become a “good bet” for investors if the Federal Reserve does everything it can to keep the U.S. economy afloat against impending recession risks, according to popular analyst Bitcoin Jack. The independent market analyst pitted the flagship cryptocurrency, often called “digital gold” by its enthusiasts, against the prospects of further quantitative easing by the U.S. central bank, noting that the ongoing military standoff between Ukraine and Russia had choked the supply chain of essential commodities, such as oil and wheat, resulting in higher global inflation. For instance, consumer prices in Europe jumped 5.8% year-over-year in February compared to 5.1% in the previous month, greater than the median economist forecast of 5.6% in ...
China’s share in Bitcoin transactions declined 80% post crackdown: PBoC
People’s Bank of China, the central bank of the country, claimed in a recent note that China’s share in the global Bitcoin (BTC) transactions has rapidly dropped from over 90% to 10%. The Financial Stability Bureau of the Chinese central bank released a comprehensive note on Wednesday discussing the impact of the crypto crackdown on the financial markets. The official notice claimed that all peer-to-peer exchanges in the country had been eradicated, which eventually curbed the hype around digital currency transactions. A Google translated version of the note read: “The global proportion of Bitcoin transactions in China dropped rapidly from more than 90% to 10%. Severely cracked down on illegal financial activities such as disorderly handling of finance and crackdown on illegal fund-r...
New York state ramps up blockchain monitoring to enforce sanctions
New York state’s efforts to enforce sanctions against Russia have ramped up a gear with the Department of Financial Services, or DFS, expediting the procurement of additional blockchain analytics technology. According to a statement released Wednesday, the department will use the technology to help detect exposure to Russian individuals and entities subject to federal sanctions, by the virtual currency businesses licensed by the department. NY Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Feb. 27 directing state agencies to divest from Russian institutions and companies, as well as entities that provide them with support. She said: “New York is proudly home to the nation’s largest Ukrainian population and we will use our technological assets to protect our people and show Russia that w...
Former ConsenSys employees file for audit claiming ‘serious irregularities’
A group claiming to represent 35 former ConsenSys AG (CAG) employees has requested an audit under the Swiss Code of Obligations to investigate “serious irregularities” they allege occurred at the company during mid-2020. CAG, also known as Mesh, is the company behind top Ethereum-based wallet provider MetaMask and was founded by Joseph Lubin, who is also the co-founder of Ethereum. According to a press release, the group of employees who claim to represent around 50% of all known shareholders submitted the request to a Swiss Court on March 1. The group alleged that “fundamental intellectual property and subsidiaries were illegally transferred” from CosenSys AG (which it refers to as CAG) into a new entity called “ConsenSys Software Incorporated” (CSI) on Aug. 14, 2020. The former employees...
