Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

A Chinese tea retailer is looking to make its inception into the bitcoin mining business. Publicly-listed Urban Tea announced the expansion of its operations by appointing two executives to pursue its crypto plans. Urban Tea Praises Cryptocurrencies’ Widespread Popularity Per the announcement , Urban Tea Inc. hired Fengdan Zhou as the company’s new chief operating officer and Dr. Yunfei Song as an independent director. The tea retailer expects the new roles to lead the “company’s critical strategic expansion in blockchain and cryptocurrency mining.” Zhou will look forward to implementing the bitcoin ( BTC ) business plan of the firm. Her experience includes having worked in blockchain data centers across Southeast Asia and managing crypto mining farms. Moreover, she has expertise in crypto hardware wallet development, the announcement details. Also, Dr. Song comes from an academic background, specifically being a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In fact, his expertise...

Tesla and Spacex CEO Elon Musk has clarified his position on bitcoin. Emphasizing that he is an engineer, not an investor, Musk says that bitcoin “is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash.” Musk also disputed gold bug Peter Schiff’s claims about bitcoin and commented on the price of the cryptocurrency. What Elon Musk Thinks About Bitcoin The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, was interviewed by Bloomberg Thursday after the demand for dogecoin on his exchange soared. He commented on Elon Musk’s enthusiasm towards the meme cryptocurrency during the interview. “I’m surprised that Elon’s so gung-ho on dogecoin,” Zhao began, noting that “This is a decentralized, free world and anybody can like anything. He [Musk] can like dogecoin for any reason he likes.” Emphasizing his strong belief that Musk is not associated with dogecoin, the Binance CEO pointed out that Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin, not dogecoin. Musk saw the in...

Day trader Dave Portnoy has admitted that he is an idiot when it comes to bitcoin after the price of the cryptocurrency continually hit all-time highs. He panic-sold his bitcoins when its price was just around $11,000 and has now vowed to never buy the cryptocurrency again. Dave Portnoy Regrets Panic-Selling Bitcoin at $11K American day trader and founder of Barstool Sports blog Dave Portnoy admitted Thursday that he is an idiot when it comes to bitcoin and said that he will never buy the cryptocurrency again. Portnoy bought his first bitcoin on Aug. 13, 2020, when the Winklevoss twins, who are his neighbors, went to his home and personally walked him through how to buy bitcoin on their cryptocurrency exchange Gemini. Portnoy invested $200K in BTC that day when the price of the cryptocurrency was around $11,172, according to markets.Bitcoin.com. He subsequently bought two other cryptocurrencies: chainlink and orchid. However, when the price of some of his cryptocurrencies topple...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is no longer a bitcoin bear. He has now taken a neutral stance on bitcoin as an investment. However, as an innovation, he says that cryptocurrency is one that the world would be better off without because it allows for certain criminal activities. Bill Gates Changes His Mind About Bitcoin Bill Gates spoke about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in two separate interviews Thursday. One was with CNBC where he was asked what he thinks about bitcoin “in the context of climate change seeing how bitcoin takes an enormous amount of energy to digitally mine.” Gates simply replied: I don’t own bitcoin. I’m not short bitcoin. So, I’ve taken a neutral view. “Bitcoin can go up and down just based on the mania or whatever the views are, and I don’t have a way of predicting how that will progress,” Gates continued. The Microsoft founder added: “I do think moving money into a more digital form and getting transaction costs down, that’s something the Gates Foundation does...

The mainstream has caught a whiff of the gains cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum have seen, but many people are not aware of the passive income crypto users are getting as well. While financial incumbents are giving people with savings accounts a measly 0.35% to 0.60%, digital currencies can give people 1-17% or even more by leveraging certain tactics. Crypto Returns That Outpace the Savings Account You may have heard the term “make your money work for you” in the past, and that’s what savings accounts do if they earn a percentage of interest over time. Certainly, a person can be a bit riskier and invest in stocks and such but with a savings account, the money simply sits there and accrues a return over a period of time. The more money held, the more interest an account will get but these days banks don’t like giving interest. We can see that some of the top banks in the world will only give 0.35% to 0.60% returns according to the best savings account rates on bankrate.com ...

Crypto mining operations have been witnessing some changes within the industry in terms of locations. A recent interview with the CEO of the mining giant Bitriver, revealed that Russia is becoming a preferred hotspot for crypto miners. Russian Mining Giant to Build Two Additional Facilities to Cope With the High Demand According to Igor Runets, CEO and founder of the Russian mining company Bitriver, American and European investors are moving their infrastructure from China, Africa, and Latin America to Russia. The main reason behind the shifting move is the expensive costs of electricity in such regions. That said, most crypto miners are looking to cut costs amid the bitcoin ( BTC ) bull-run seen over the last few months. Bitriver CEO told Kommersant that its existing capacity as a mining company is at the top. Runets said the company is hoping to reach 1 gigawatt (GW) “in the next 18 months.” Such expectations encourage Bitriver to increase its capacity by building two new crypt...

Controversy still surrounds a liquidated New Zealand cryptocurrency exchange, which allegedly got hacked again. Adding to the $30 million stolen in 2019, Cryptopia reports that it was the target of a another theft incident on February 1, 2021. Hackers Accessed a Dormant Wallet Which Holds XSN Tokens According to Stuff.co.nz , the hackers took around NZD 62,000 ($45,000) worth of cryptocurrencies from the troubled exchange. The alert first came from Stakenet, a U.S.-based blockchain firm. The investigation unveiled that hackers accessed a wallet that has been dormant since the hack in January 2019 , where Cryptopia suffered a loss of over $30 million worth in cryptos. The wallet belongs to Stakenet and is under the control of Cryptopia’s liquidators, Grant Thornton. Per the findings, the dormant wallet was holding around $1.96 million worth of XSN, Stakenet’s native token. A spokesman from the U.S. blockchain company commented on the matter: We had no prior warning of any intend...