Crypto news
Nifty: M&M’s jump into BAYC mania, a Pudgy Penguin sells for 400 ETH and more
Global confectionery giant Mars has teamed up with virtual metaverse band KINGSHIP to create limited edition boxes of M&M’s featuring content from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). KINGSHIP is a group made up of three BAYC NFT hodlers and one Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) owner. As part of the deal, the avatars depicted in the nonfungible token (NFT) art will be printed on the chocolate candies in a select number of boxes. There has been a total of 4,000 boxes created in total, split between two tiers of rarity. The regular tier comes in 3,900 brown celebratory gift boxes, while the 100 gold edition boxes are wrapped in gold and white foil, number 1 to 100 and have the Kingship member’s apes printed on the M&M’s. KINGSHIP M&M’S: Mars Additionally, 6,000 candy gift jars have...
Nvidia cites limited visibility into crypto mining’s impact on Q2 results
Graphics card giant Nvidia CFO Colette Kress says the company has been unable to estimate reduced crypto mining demand impacted its Q2 results, which fell short of analyst expectations on Wednesday. The chip giant released its financial results for the three months ended July 31, which revealed a 19% quarter-on-quarter drop in revenue to $6.5 billion, while net income fell 59% to $656 million. Revenue for its gaming division, which includes sales of its high-end GPUs, fell 44% in revenue from the previous quarter to $2.04 billion, which Nvidia attributed to “challenging market conditions.” Kress, who also serves as executive vice president of the company, said Nvidia has limited visibility on how the crypto market affects the demand for their gaming products: “Our GPUs are capable of...
US court gives Voyager green light to pay bonuses to key employees
A New York bankruptcy court has given embattled cryptocurrency brokerage Voyager Digital the green light to pay retention bonuses to key staff members. The firm filed a motion with the United States Bankruptcy Court on Aug. 2 seeking approval for its Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) which entailed $1.9 million worth of payments to 38 key employees that have been identified as crucial to the exchange’s ongoing operation. Creditors of the firm, which filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, had initially opposed Voyager’s KERP payments in a court filing on Aug. 19 claiming that payments to investors should be prioritized ahead of “well-compensated” employees. According to court filings, an agreement was reached between Voyager and the committee of creditors to drop the opposition to the pro...
Ruling to keep Tornado Cash developer in jail for 90 days sparks backlash
A judge in the Netherlands ruled that Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev has to stay in jail for 90 more days while waiting for charges. Puzzled by the decision, the crypto community rallied to demand the release of the developer. In a Tweet, crypto investo Ryan Adams argued that the developer did something good for the public as he wrote the code for Tornado Cash. The community member then highlighted that “a few bad guys” decided to use Pertsev’s code and now the developer has to suffer the consequences. Apart from Adams, crypto researcher Jill Gunter also noted that there has not been enough information regarding the arrest of Pertsev. Gunter described the status of the charges as confusing and defined the situation as a “scary problem.” In Amsterdam, protestor...
Bank of Finland governor says digital euro could facilitate pan-European services to consumers
In a novel address at the University of California Berkley published on Wednesday, Olli Rehn, governor of the Bank of Finland, touted the possibility of a digital euro centralized bank digital currency (CBDC) functioning in tandem with private fintech solutions to facilitate the cross-border payment of services across Europe. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) investigation into the plausibility of the digital euro began in late 2021 and is scheduled to conclude in October 2023. Rehn outlined the utility of the experimental digital euro, stating: “A digital euro would give people an additional choice about how to pay and would make it easier to do so in an increasingly digital economy. It would expand the availability of digital central bank money beyond transactions betwe...
Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco resigns, Caroline Ellison will become sole head
Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco announced his resignation Wednesday on Twitter. Trabucco said co-CEO Caroline Ellison will become the sole CEO, and he will remain in the capacity of adviser. Alameda Research is the quantitative trading company set up by FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried in 2017. In a long thread prefaced with a tweet simply reading “On happiness:,” Hong Kong-based Trabucco said his appointment as co-CEO of Alameda Research last year “was to bring titles in line with reality,” and his resignation had the same goal. Trabucco and Ellison succeeded Bankman-Fried as heads of the company. On happiness: — Sam Trabucco (@AlamedaTrabucco) August 24, 2022 Trabucco was appointed to the position in August 2021, after working as a trader at Alameda Research since 2019....
GameFi developers could be facing big fines and hard time
Are cryptocurrency games innocent fun? Or are they Ponzi schemes facing an imminent crackdown by regulators in the United States? Tokens related to cryptocurrency games — known colloquially as “GameFi” — were worth a cumulative total of nearly $10 billion as of mid-August, give or take a few billion. (The number may vary depending on whether you want to include partially finished projects, how you count the number of tokens that projects technically have in circulation, and so on.) In that sense, whether the games are legal is a $10 billion question that few investors have considered. And that’s an oversight they may soon regret. That’s because a bipartisan consensus appears to be forming among legislators in the U.S. that the industry needs to be shut down. They haven’t addressed the issu...
It’s a go! Uniswap Foundation becomes reality after 86M votes in favor
The $74 million plan by two former Uniswap Lab executives for a new Uniswap Foundation has just become reality after their proposal received over 99% of the votes from UNI token holders. According to the initial proposal, the foundation aims to streamline Uniswap’s Grant Program (UPG) and reduce friction in the protocol’s governance system. Former Uniswap Labs executive Devin Walsh, now serving as executive director of UF shared the results in a tweet on Aug. 24, noting that the proposal to create the foundation “passed its final vote!” Last night our proposal to create the Uniswap Foundation passed its final vote! https://t.co/B2VOAeg5is — Devin Walsh (@devinawalsh) August 24, 2022 According to the Uniswap website, the foundation saw more than 86 million, or 99% of total votes...
Bug bounty quadruples for Ethereum network — Up to $1M payouts ahead of Merge
The Ethereum Foundation has announced it will be increasing the network’s bug bounty payouts fourfold ahead of the blockchain’s transition to proof-of-stake. In a Wednesday blog post, the Ethereum Foundation said between Aug. 24 and Sept. 8, all “Merge-related bounties for vulnerabilities” will be quadrupled for white hats testing the network. According to the foundation, identifying “critical bugs” — those that have a high impact or likelihood of a high impact on the blockchain — will be worth up to $1 million. The bounty program also allows submissions for low, medium and high-risk bugs. • Merge Bug Bounty Bonus: There is a 4X MULTIPLIER between now and 08 September on all bounties and vulnerabilities, with critical bugs worth up to $1mm USD • See full post for updated Execution Layer (E...
Price analysis 8/24: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, SOL, DOGE, DOT, SHIB, MATIC
Bitcoin (BTC) and several major cryptocurrencies have been trading sideways as traders avoid taking large bets before the United States Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, which begins on Aug. 25. The volatility is likely to soar as investors get some clarity on the Fed’s stance in the next few days. On Aug. 23, a team led by Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius said that Fed chair Jerome Powell could sound dovish when he speaks on Aug. 26, reiterating that the central bank may move at a slower pace in future meetings. The analysts expect the Fed to raise rates by 50 basis points in the September meeting, which would be less than the 75 bps hike done in June and July. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Although the short-term price...
MTV adds Metaverse award category: Nifty Newsletter, Aug 17–23
In this week’s newsletter, read about how the Metaverse is a catalyst for nonfungible token (NFT) adoption. Check out how GameStop’s NFT marketplace revenue dropped and how MTV added a metaverse award at the VMAs. In other news, learn about how Telegram’s founder has been floating the idea of integrating NFT-like smart contracts for Telegram usernames. And don’t forget about this week’s Nifty News roundup featuring Decentraland’s Metaverse Art Week. Metaverse is a key factor in long-term NFT success, says new research A report published by consultancy firm Juniper Research highlighted that in the next five years, the NFT market may grow from 24 million to about 40 million. According to the report, Metaverse developments will be one of the primary catalysts to the broader adoption of ...
Tether says it would not freeze sanctioned Tornado Cash addresses unless instructed by law enforcement
On Wednesday, U.S. dollar stablecoin issuer Tether (USDT) said that it would not freeze smart contract addresses sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list for cryptocurrency trail-mixer Tornado Cash. In explaining the decision, Tether said: “So far, OFAC has not indicated that a stablecoin issuer is expected to freeze secondary market addresses that are published on OFAC’s SDN List or that are operated by persons and entities that have been sanctioned by OFAC. Further, no U.S. law enforcement agency or regulator has made such a request despite our near-daily contact with U.S. law enforcement whose requests always provide precise details.” Tether pointed out that unilaterally f...
