crypto blog
Estonia is not considering a crypto ban: Finance Ministry notes
The statement comes as a sigh of relief as the crypto community in the country was worried about a purported blanket ban on digital assets The Ministry of Finance in Estonia has clarified via a statement that it is not looking to implement a crackdown on cryptocurrencies. The statement is in response to a draft legislation that sought to oversee the activity of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in an attempt to combat financial crime. The legislation is set to be discussed in the country’s parliament before a decision on its approval is made. Those investing or trading cryptocurrencies using their private wallet will not be affected by the regulations as implied by earlier reports. “…The legislation does not contain any measures to ban customers from owning and trading virtual ...
Mozilla Foundation announces it is accepting crypto donations
Member of the community were displeased by the move, with some threatening withdrawal of monthly donations Mozilla Foundation disclosed last Friday that it would be taking donations in crypto coins. The foundation, whose subsidiary Mozilla corporation oversees several internet-linked applications, including popular browser Mozilla Firefox, noted it would accept Dogecoin, Ether and Bitcoin. The announcement detailed that the non-profit organisation’s move would be facilitated by the popular crypto payments processing firm BitPay. The donations received in crypto would be converted into fiat to skirt any potential volatility. “Dabble in Dogecoin? HODLing some Bitcoin & Ethereum? We’re using BitPay to accept donations in cryptocurrency,” Mozilla posted on Twitter. Many users disapproved o...
Nexo’s Antoni Trenchev predicts a $100k Bitcoin price point by mid this year
Anthony Trenchev sees Bitcoin as an inflation hedge equivalent to gold Antoni Trenchev, the co-founder of crypto lending platform Nexo, has given his predictions on the world’s most dominant digital asset. In an interview published yesterday, Trenchev told CNBC that he sees the world’s largest crypto coin doubling in value by the end of June this year. “I’m quite bullish on bitcoin. I think it’s going to reach $100K this year, probably by the middle of it,” he said. Institutional adoption and Macroeconomic realities are the key drivers The Bulgarian crypto businessman bases his prediction to two major reasons. First, he explained that many major businesses are shifting part of their portfolios into Bitcoin investment and that this would be the major reason that would bo...
Third-largest whale celebrates Bitcoin’s birthday with 456 BTC buy
It’s now been 13 years since the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain was created. To commemorate the occasion, the third-largest Bitcoin (BTC) whale appears to be back after the new year holidays, and they have just completed the first sizable purchase of 2022. On Tuesday, the third-largest Bitcoin address added 456 BTC at an average price of $46,363, equivalent to around $21 million, according to data from BitInfoCharts. 456 #BTC (21,161,750 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown wallethttps://t.co/1rWMaIYR0y — Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 3, 2022 At the time of this writing, the whale holds 120,845.57 BTC worth over $5.6 billion. The holder’s identity remains a mystery, but it appears that the entity is making full use of the current price volatility. Bitcoin...
China’s central bank releases pilot version of digital yuan wallet
As China’s central bank steps up its effort to create a digital currency, the country has released a pilot edition of its digital yuan wallet application on mobile phone app stores. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) digital currency research institute developed the “e-CNY (Pilot Version)” app, which was available for download on Chinese Android and Apple app stores on Tuesday in Shanghai. According to a tweet from BlockBeats, a local news source, individual users in China now can download an earlier version of the app to test opening and managing a personal wallet, as well as digital yuan transactions. The e-CNY app is now available on iOS and Android app stores. This App is the official service platform of China’s CBDC for individual users to carry out pilot trials, providing e-CNY ...
Nexo co-founder targets Bitcoin at $100K by mid-2022
Another promising price prediction has appeared for Bitcoin bulls in 2022. Antoni Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner of Nexo, said that Bitcoin (BTC) could hit the $100,000 milestone as soon as the summer in an interview with CNBC. Despite BTC opening the year with bearish price action, while the Fear & Greed Index shows “extreme fear,” the Bulgarian business mogul set the record straight: “Every time that investors and the broader community write off Bitcoin, it outperforms significantly. This has been the case in 2020 when it rallied close to 1,000% and in 2021 where it rallied 63%. I’m quite bullish on Bitcoin.” As one of the world’s largest lending institutions in the digital finance industry, Nexo is privy to insights from serving 2.5 million users across 200...
Bogdanoff crypto-meme twins pass away at age 72
Raise a glass today to the twin characters behind the famous “pomp eet” cryptocurrency meme. The French television presenters died within one week of each other aged 72. According to Le Monde, the two brothers were hospitalized on Dec. 15 and transferred to the intensive care unit of a Paris hospital after contracting COVID-19. Grichka died on Dec. 28, and Igor died six days later, on Jan. 3. The twins became famous in France in the 80s, hosting a popular TV show called Temps X and selling a best-selling book called Clefs pour la science-fiction, or keys to science-fiction. Despite their TV charm, outlandish views on theoretical physics, and noble Russian bloodline, the twins rose to cryptocurrency market fame due to a viral meme. The twins’ striking high cheekbones, puffed lips and ...
The number of countries banning crypto has doubled in three years
Although 2021 was a good year for the cryptocurrency industry in terms of market performance, the number of jurisdictions banning crypto has more than doubled since 2018. A report by the Library of Congress (LOC) details the nine jurisdictions that have now applied an absolute ban on crypto and the 42 with an implicit ban. This is up from eight and 15 respectively in 2018 when the report was first published. The LOC is the research library for the United States Senate, acting as the national library for the country. In the context of the LOC report, an absolute ban means any “transactions with or holding cryptocurrency is a criminal act”, whereas an implicit ban prohibits cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, and other financial institutions from “dealing in cryptocurrencies or offe...
Crypto predictions platform Polymarket fined $1.4M by CTFC
New York-based crypto predictions platform Polymarket has reached a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to pay a fine of $1.4 million. Polymarket is a decentralized platform that enables users to bet on the outcomes of event markets such as pro-sports games and political elections via binary options contracts. On Jan. 3, the CFTC announced that it had entered an order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Polymarket, with the platform found to have operated an “illegal unregistered or non-designated facility” since June 2020. Under the order, Polymarket is required to pay a civil monetary penalty of $1.4 million along with winding back any markets on the platform that do not comply with CFTC and Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) regulations. Polymarket r...
Coinbase exec says major Ethereum scaling improvements coming soon
Coinbase Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee is the latest to publish his predictions for the crypto industry in 2022 and he foresees major advances in the scaling of Ethereum. Industry leaders, analysts, and investors are sharing their 2022 predictions for the crypto ecosystem, and Coinbase’s Surojit Chatterjee is confident that Ethereum will be at the forefront of Web3 and the crypto-economy as it scales. The CPO shared his predictions in a company blog post on Jan. 4 in which he stated that Ethereum scalability will improve but alternative layer 1 networks will also see traction. “I am optimistic about improvements in Eth scalability with the emergence of Eth2 and many L2 rollups.” He added that newer layer 1 networks focused on gaming and social media will also emerge. Chatterjee ...
Grayscale rebalances DeFi Fund dropping Balancer (BAL) and UMA
Crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments has rebalanced its Grayscale DeFi Fund and adjusted weightings of its Digital Large Cap Fund. A Jan. 3 announcement detailed the changes Grayscale made to its two funds. The DeFi Fund’s weightings have been rebalanced with AMP, the native collateral token of the Flexa payment network being added, while Bancor’s (BNT) and Universal Market Access (UMA) have been removed. Flexa uses the AMP token to collateralize crypto payments and settles them in fiat to recipients enabling merchants to accept crypto easily. Grayscale reshuffled weightings but did not change the token list of The Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC). We have just announced updated component weightings for Grayscale #DeFi Fund, which now includes $AMP. This is the first time AMP ...
Samsung uses blockchain technology to address climate change
Samsung Electronics America announced Monday at the CES Tech Conference in Las Vegas its partnership with veritree, a blockchain-based climate solutions platform, to plant 2 million mangrove trees in Madagascar over the next three months. veritree uses blockchain technology to manage the reforestation process and verify each tree that is planted. The tree-planting initiative is part of Samsung’s nature-based action plan on environmental sustainability, specifically to capture and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The goal is to restore roughly 200 hectares of land and sequester roughly 1 billion pounds of CO2 over a 25-year period. Veritree, developed by tentree, a sustainable apparel company that plants 10 trees for every item of clothing sold, will handle the logistics....
