A virtual, Cyprus-registered casino Sand Vegas Casino Club faced an emergency cease and desist order from Texas and Alabama state securities regulators. The company is ordered to “stop a fraudulent investment scheme tied to metaverses”. On April 13, the Texas State Securities Board reported issuing the order, accusing Sand Vegas Casino Club, Martin Schwarzberger and Finn Ruben Warnke of illegally offering nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to fund the development of virtual casinos in metaverses. Allegedly, Sand Vegas offered 11,111 NFTs to raise funds for its metaverse casinos. The firm offered those who purchased Gambler NFTs and Golden Gambler NFTs a share of the future casino’s profits. By Sand Vegas’ projections, owners of Gambler NFTs could expect profits between $1,224 and $24,48...
As Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas continues to double down on his anti-transgender rhetoric, including calling on state officials to investigate supportive parents of transgender children for “child abuse,” Billboard is speaking with transgender artists in Texas about the ongoing fallout throughout the state. Below, Houston rapper Uncle Tino shares his story. For 27-year-old rapper Santino Alcoser, being a trans man is an important part of his identity as a recording artist. It’s just not the entirety of his identity. “I’m very much of the mindset that I can prove myself as an artist, period,” he says over a Zoom call with Billboard. “Whether or not I’m queer or trans has nothing to do with that.” Performing under the name Uncle Tino, Alcoser has clawed his w...
Not even a superstar like Willie Nelson was spared from the effects of Texas’ new restrictive voting law. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the iconic singer and his wife had particular difficulty obtaining absentee ballots in order to vote in the state’s primary election earlier this month, which took place on March 1st. Nelson’s wife, Annie D’Angelo-Nelson, told the Austin American-Statesman that she and her husband had to apply for the ballots twice, with their first attempt being rejected because of the new law’s stringent identification requirements. Thankfully, the couple was able to work through the mix-up and apply again, but D’Angelo-Nelson commented that the possibility of other voters with less determination and understanding of the absentee requirements being reje...
Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas, has fully embraced the discovery of what blockchain technology and crypto payments can bring to his city by proposing two new initiatives. The first initiative aims to ensure that Texas’s fourth-largest city promotes the benefits of blockchain technologies and “promotes equity, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion” in the technological ecosystem. To that end, May Adler directed the city manager to explore how the city can utilize Web3 and blockchain in 20 fields from smart contracts, supply chain management and insurance to arts, media, fundraising and identity verification. “The City Manager is directed to ensure the City is helping to create an environment within city government and in the community generally that supports the creation and developme...
Rafael ‘Ted’ Cruz, the junior Republican senator from Texas, is putting his money where his mouth is. According to a financial disclosure filed on Friday 4th Feb, Cruz bought between $15k and $50k worth of Bitcoin (BTC) on January 25th, using the River brokerage. At the time, Bitcoin was trading between $36k and $37k, and over the subsequent days it has risen to a current price of around $41,600. Assuming he hasn’t sold his bitcoins and incurred any short term capital gains taxes, his current profit on the transaction is in the region of $2,000 – $6,850. Source: United States Senate Financial Disclosures Following the example of fellow Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Cruz spent much of the latter half of the crypto bull run aligning himself with the blockchain and cryp...
Bitcoin (BTC) seems to be on everyone’s mind lately as the world recently witnessed the price of BTC take a rather unexpected bearish turn this month. On January 21, 2022, Bitcoin reached six-month lows, sinking below $40,000 for the first time in months. While some panicked, other industry experts pointed out that the Bitcoin network has become verifiably stronger than ever before. The growth of the Bitcoin network has become apparent, as hash rate figures for BTC continue to set new highs this month. For example, on Jan. 22, the BTC network recorded an all-time high of 26.643 trillion with an average hash rate of 190.71 exahash per second (EH/s). The hash rate will continue to grow, which is a good thing Samir Tabar, chief strategy officer at Bit Digital — a publicly listed Bitcoin...
Brenda Gentry, a former USAA mortgage underwriter from Texas, believes that the cryptocurrency ecosystem offers a fighting chance to overcome the generational curse of poverty. Gentry, a.k.a. MsCryptoMom, left her decade-long job as a banker to pursue a full-time crypto career as her initial investments from early 2020 confirmed the “unprecedented opportunities offered by crypto.” She currently runs Gentry Media Productions, a firm that advises decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) projects — generating up to 20 ether (ETH) each month, nearly $50,000 at the time of writing. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Gentry recollected the moment she first bought crypto: “It was early 2020 during the lockdown. I bought Bitcoin, Ethereum and Link on Coinbase. When I started, I almos...
Matthew McConaughey has bowed out of the upcoming Texas gubernatorial election. The 52-year-old actor announced his decision in a video message posted to Instagram on Sunday night. “As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership,” McConaughey said. “It’s a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.” Instead, McConaughey said he would “continue to work and invest the bounty I have by supporting entrepreneurs, businesses and foundations that I’ve believe are leaders, establishments that I believe are creating pathways for people to succeed in life, organizations that have a mission to serve and build trust while also generating prosperity....
Matthew McConaughey has bowed out of the upcoming Texas gubernatorial election. The 52-year-old actor announced his decision in a video message posted to Instagram on Sunday night. “As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership,” McConaughey said. “It’s a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.” Instead, McConaughey said he would “continue to work and invest the bounty I have by supporting entrepreneurs, businesses and foundations that I’ve believe are leaders, establishments that I believe are creating pathways for people to succeed in life, organizations that have a mission to serve and build trust while also generating prosperity....