Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

PRESS RELEASE. AscendEX, formerly BitMax, an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the listing of the Crowny Token (CRWNY) under the pair USDT/CRWNY on Apr 21 at 1:00 p.m. UTC. Crowny has created a new platform by aligning blockchain and digital assets with the world of advertising. The platform will allow brands to develop effective campaigns to reach audiences who are enticed to listen to their messages. Users will be able to connect to their favorite brands through a smartphone application without the risk of privacy breaches. It has become a challenge for brands to reach and interact with their potential customers through digital and traditional media. The Crowny proposition brings the right tools to help advertisers reach customers with ease while rewarding the customers with tokens for engaging with ads. Rewards play a key role on the Crowny platform driving users to interact with brands. Crowny offer...

South Korea’s crypto-sphere has been witnessing a volatile environment in terms of regulatory moves, as bitcoin prices and other altcoins are also having wild moves. Such a scenario hasn’t stopped the country’s middle class to profit from the crypto market, even with very successful stories. One of the Interviewees Risked His Life Savings in Cryptos According to a report published by TV network JTBC, employees from major companies such as Shinhan Card, Samsung, and LG Electronics claimed they collected enough profits to quit their jobs. Testimonies featured in the video report show that the individuals managed to collect millions of dollars worth of cryptos. One of them, a former Shinhan Card worker, told JTBC that he managed to gain almost 3 billion won ($2.7 million) but clarified that he took a high-risk move by achieving such astonishing profits. In fact, he invested his life savings and some loans onto crypto trades, and after he earned the millionaire amount in profits, he...

Bitcoin dominance, the metric that measures bitcoin’s overall market capitalization against all the other crypto asset valuations has dropped considerably in recent weeks. At the end of February, bitcoin dominance levels started sliding downward from 61% to today’s 50%. Meanwhile, from the same point in time ethereum’s market capitalization has increased from 11.8% to today’s 14.5% . Bitcoin Dominance Sinks to 50% Ever since the birth of alternative crypto assets, people have used a metric called bitcoin ( BTC ) dominance, a measurement that records BTC ’s entire capitalization against all the market capitalizations held by other coins. Interestingly, minus a few small dips, BTC ’s dominance was above the 80% range from the day it was conceived to February 2017. BTC /USD hourly chart on April 23, 2021. During the first week of January 2018, BTC ’s dominance dropped to an all-time low of 33%. This year, bitcoin dominance levels have been mostly above the 60% region and in Januar...

On April 23, the publicly listed mining operation Bitfarms revealed a partnership with the Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary Foundry Digital LLC. Bitfarms will be joining Foundry’s American mining pool and the two bitcoin mining firms have revealed the joint purchase of 2,465 Whatsminer M30S ASIC mining machines. Bitfarms Partners With Foundry’s US Operations At the end of March, the mining company Hut 8 explained that the bitcoin mining operation was joining Foundry’s U.S. mining pool. At the time, Hut 8’s CEO Jaime Leverton explained that “having a formidable bitcoin mining pool based and operated entirely in North America is important.” Now another mining operation has announced a partnership with the DCG-owned Foundry as Bitfarms (TSXV:BITF) explained on Friday it was joining the company’s U.S. operations. The two companies disclosed the joint purchase of 2,465 machines and 1,465 were previously installed in Bitfarms’ Sherbrooke facility for hosting purposes. The comp...

Although he is outspoken, raucous, and bombastic when it comes to his public persona, Sun’s questionable publicity stunts could be part and parcel of his strategy for catapulting Tron into the spotlight and capitalizing on crypto’s momentum. Bombastic Approach May Underpin Tron’s Success It’s tough to take Tron’s Justin Sun seriously. His endless shilling on Twitter and use of celebrity endorsements of the likes of Lindsey Lohan are certainly not helping him cultivate an image of blockchain savvy. Yet, despite his controversial approach, something more interesting is brewing beneath the surface. Even with his limited technological abilities compared to Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin and Polkadot’s Gavin Wood, Sun has managed to position himself as one of the most successful individuals within the field. With his brash style of sucking all the oxygen out of the room with his comments or ideas, no matter good or bad, Justin Sun has positioned himself as a mighty successful cryptoprene...

The craze for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) has engulfed the blockchain space as more people move towards this unique sector. The ability to sell works of art and tokenize real-life assets has ensured that the NFT sector has grown immensely, with record sales of NFTs witnessed in recent weeks. However, to this point the NFTs released have been for personal gain or issued by large companies and organizations. Metis, a blockchain project focused on developing Decentralized Autonomous Companies (DACs), plans to introduce a new concept with the launch of the first ever community-minted NFT, named ‘’Rebuilding The Tower of Babel’’. First community-minted NFT The ‘’Rebuilding the Tower Babel’’ NFT will bring together a community of incentivized contributors. NFT participants will take part in five major phases: Reserve Airdrop, Claim Tribe NFT, Community NFT minting, Auction, and Rewards. Community members that participate in the airdrop phase can unveil a mystery box displaying three cards...

The Biden administration has revealed plans to raise taxes on investors who are millionaires according to a flurry of recent reports. President Joe Biden wants to overhaul the U.S. economy in order to help fund American childcare and education. Biden’s proposal will almost double the current capital gains tax rate from 20% to 39.6%, and for some investors, the tax rate could be as high as 43.4%. Biden’s Capital Gains Tax Rate on Wealthy Individuals Could Climb as High as 43.4% Fresh off the heels of proposing new stimulus in order to bolster the American economy, President Joe Biden is also planning to increase the tax rate on wealthy individuals with $1 million or more. The increased capital gains tax will jump to near double for some individuals and possibly even 43.4%. Every report disclosing the capital gains matter stems from people who are familiar with the proposal but wish to remain anonymous. Currently, U.S. capital gains taxes are around 20% and the marginal rate of 39....

The famous author of The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, says investors should not buy bitcoin. To hedge against the current turbulent market, he advises buying stocks or real estate, emphasizing that bitcoin has no connection to inflation or “anything economic.” Nassim Taleb Advises Against Bitcoin Investing Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the famed author of “The Black Swan,” has shared his view on bitcoin and on how to hedge against the current turbulent market in an interview with CNBC Friday. Taleb is a Lebanese-American scholar, mathematical statistician, former options trader, and risk analyst. He was asked about cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin, given that investors have been increasingly restructuring their portfolios with this asset class. Regarding bitcoin, “It has the characteristics of an open Ponzi scheme. Everyone knows it’s a Ponzi,” he claims, adding: Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. You can have hyperinflation and bitcoin goes...

The U.S. Marshals Service has published a contract showing the crypto custodian Bitgo has been chosen to manage law enforcement’s seized bitcoin acquired through criminal forfeiture. The contracted deal is $4.5 million for the storage, maintenance, and disposal of cryptocurrencies according to documents released on Wednesday. USMS Pens a Deal With Bitgo During the last ten years, the U.S. government has seized a substantial amount of bitcoin ( BTC ) and other digital assets from criminal forfeiture cases. Traditionally, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) has been in charge of these funds stemming from high-profile cases like the Silk Road marketplace investigation. Since 2019, the USMS has been in search of a recruit or a custodian that can manage the crypto assets seized by the U.S. government. The government entity published another offering on April 24, 2020, for a contract worth $4.5 million. “The United States Marshals Service (USMS) has a requirement for storage, maintenance,...

PRESS RELEASE. Torum, a social media platform specially designed for cryptocurrency users , is proud to announce that the project is now backed by some of the most promising VCs in the crypto industry. The $1.45M private round was participated by 13 private investors which consist of AU21 Capital, Momentum 6, Lotus Capital, Consensus Lab, Redline Blockchain Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Angel One, Hotbit, Oasis Capital, N7 Labs, Skywater Capital, IDC and Worshipper Capital. Social Media + DeFi + NFT on Binance Smart Chain Based on Binance Smart Chain, Torum seeks to build the first crypto social media platform that is fully integrated with NFT and DeFi functionalities. In short, crypto addicts can stay connected with one another and gain access to every crypto-centric service on Torum. With the resources and connection from its VC team, Torum is able to venture into NFT and DeFi spaces and introduce innovative use cases continuously to the crypto industry. Re-define Crypto Social ...

A recent market report by Localbitcoins suggests that traders or holders under the age of 34 are driving crypto volumes in Egypt. This rise in Egyptian crypto transactions is evidenced by P2P data which shows the crypto asset’s weekly traded volumes averaging $205,000 in much of Q1 of 2021. The Premium on BTC In addition to seeing increased traded volumes, Egypt has also had to contend with a growing premium that is charged on top of the crypto asset’s spot price. For instance, on March 16 2021, BTC was trading at $64,000 in Egypt yet on the same day most international exchanges had the crypto asset’s value just under $57,000. Meanwhile, a video report shared by the P2P platform tries to offer possible reasons why crypto trading has become more popular in Egypt. In the report, it is suggested that many of the Egyptian crypto traders “are looking for additional sources of income (either through) trading or hodling bitcoin.” Further, the report notes that with 67% of the adult popu...

Nigerians are thought to be accumulating foreign currencies which they believe will protect their wealth from the naira’s volatility as well as the surging inflation. Further, as a research paper in a journal published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) found, Nigerians’ use of dollars exceeds IMF’s 30% threshold. Exchange Rate Volatility and Currency Substitution According to a report , this preference for foreign currencies (or currency substitution as CBN economists call it) however, needs to be contained in order to maintain the effectiveness of the central bank’s monetary policy. Remarking on the importance of curbing this currency substitution phenomenon, three CBN economists said: Higher real-exchange rate volatility is associated with an increased level of currency substitution. (Therefore) there is a need to contain “exchange-rate volatility and inflation as a way of curbing the spate of currency substitution in the country. Meanwhile, the report also quotes the econo...

The investigation against an alleged major Spanish Ponzi crypto scheme will now be in charge of the National Court of Spain. A judge from the national legal instance is now taking the investigation of Arbistar after the inhibition of a judge in Tenerife. Economic Damages Could Reach Over $120 Million According to El País , judge José Luis Calama agreed to investigate Arbistar 2.0 SL, as victims of the alleged scam are almost 1,127. Still, authorities believe the number could be as high as 32,000. As a worrisome fact for the judge, said El País, the amount of money stolen on the alleged Ponzi crypto scheme could be over 100 million euros ($120 million). However, law enforcement has accounted for over 41 million euros ($49.26 million) in damages as of press time. That said, Calama pointed out that Arbistar could be the “biggest scam in Spain” related to cryptocurrencies, considering that the bogus crypto trading bots platform allegedly had victims in 30 of the 50 Spanish provinces. ...

As another busy week comes to an end, the NFT universe witnessed many new developments. From Polygon teaming up with leading brands to unique new collectibles up for grabs – here are the top NFT news bytes of the week. Polygon to Offer A Sustainable Way of Minting NFTs NFT creation platform Cent will integrate Polygon with its Valuables platform to offer sustainable minting solutions. The company is already using Polygon’s blockchain solutions to mint NFTs while lowering the environmental impact by 99%. As of now, NFT transactions are processed via a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, requiring the consumption of enormous computational resources to mine each transaction. However, Polygon changes this by utilizing plasma with its Proof-of-Stake (POS) sidechain called Matic POS, powering much higher speed and lower cost transactions. Nomine(eth) Launches NFT For 2021 Oscar Nominees Hollywood’s biggest award show, the 2021 Oscars, is just around the corner. To celebrate th...