Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

On December 11, 2019, the CEO of Twitter announced the company was funding a project aimed at creating a decentralized social media standard. Jack Dorsey said that the ultimate goal of the project dubbed “Bluesky” is for Twitter to be a client of the standard. A year and eight months later, Bluesky announced that a former software engineer from the Zcash project, Jay Graber, will be leading the Bluesky initiative. Crypto Dev Jay Graber Will Lead the Bluesky Project The Twitter initiative to decentralize social media called Bluesky will be led by someone involved with cryptocurrency development. On August 16, 2021, the former Zcash software developer Jay Graber announced that she will be leading the project going forward. “I’m excited to announce that I’ll be leading Bluesky,” Graber tweeted on Monday. “An initiative started by Twitter to decentralize social media.” The CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey , also welcomed Graber to the project on Monday. “Jay will be leading Bluesky,” Do...

The product comparison website Finder has published a report that polled 42 financial technology (fintech) specialists and found the average forecast from the group indicates they believe the crypto asset litecoin will be worth more than $200 by the end of 2021. The crypto asset launched by Charlie Lee in 2011, has been trading for prices between $175 and $187 over the last three days. Average Prediction Among 42 Fintech Specialists Say Litecoin Will Tap $266 by the End of 2021 In recent times, Bitcoin.com News has reported on forecasts concerning the price of bitcoin ( BTC ), ethereum ( ETH ), and dogecoin (DOGE) via finder.com polls. For instance, Finder’s expert panels suggest DOGE prices will hit $1.21 by 2025 and $3.60 by 2030 . Additionally, another panel report from finder.com shows experts believe ether’s value will reach $4.5K this year and $18K by 2025 . The Finder panel with 42 fintech candidates that discussed litecoin (LTC) shows most panelists agree, LTC is predicted...

A new study shows that ethereum is the most popular cryptocurrency among more than 4,000 adults surveyed in Singapore. The second-most popular crypto is bitcoin, followed by cardano. Singapore-Based Crypto Investors Prefer Ethereum, Bitcoin, Cardano The new 2021 State of Crypto in Singapore, a joint study by Seedly, Gemini, and Coinmarketcap, was published Monday. It contains a survey of 4,348 Singapore-based adults ages 18 to 65 across varying household incomes. The survey was conducted between June 29 and July 9. It included 2,862 respondents who said they were current crypto holders and 1,486 respondents who said they were non-crypto holders. One in five crypto holders surveyed were women. According to the survey results, 78% of respondents who had crypto said they owned ethereum ( ETH ), 69% said bitcoin ( BTC ), 40% said cardano ( ADA ), 31% said binance coin ( BNB ), and 25% said XRP . The report describes: Of the 2,862 crypto holders, 2,236 of them are currently holding ...

Bank of America has initiated coverage of Coinbase Global. The bank has identified several factors that could boost Coinbase’s revenue. Regarding the crypto exchange’s plan to become “the Amazon of crypto assets,” Bank of America says it is “still in very early stages of development.” Bank of America Awaits Concrete Signs of Progress Against Coinbase’s Long-Term Vision. Bank of America (Bofa) initiated coverage of Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN) Friday. Jason Kupferberg, a senior equity research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, started Coinbase with a “neutral” rating and a $273 price target. While the analyst sees Coinbase as the “leading provider of crypto infrastructure,” he cautioned that its stock, which is trading at 18.3 times sales, may have limited near-term upside. He described : COIN aims to become the Amazon of crypto assets, though in our view COIN’s model is still in very early stages of development, and we await more concrete signs of progress against ...

Researchers from Microsoft, Alibaba Group, and Carnegie Mellon University have published a paper that claims the Ethereum network can help prevent piracy. The paper, called “Argus: A Fully Transparent Incentive System for Anti-Piracy Campaigns,” describes how Argus is superior to existing solutions. Argus: An Ethereum-Powered Anti-Piracy Tool A study written by Xian Zhang, Xiaobing Guo, Zixuan Zeng, Wenyan Liu, Zhongxin Guo, Yang Chen, Shuo Chen, Qiufeng Yin, and Mao Yang shows researchers have developed a new blockchain-powered incentive system for anti-piracy campaigns. The authors come from Carnegie Mellon University, Alibaba Group, and Microsoft Research Asia. Argus is a “fully transparent” system according to the Argus white paper hosted on microsoft.com. “The groundwork of Argus is to formulate the objectives for fully transparent incentive mechanisms, which securely and comprehensively consolidate the different interests of all roles,” the researchers write. “These objectiv...

Samsung, the Korean tech giant, has decided to participate in a central bank digital currency (CBDC) program that is being carried out by the Bank of Korea. The company will be testing the feasibility of using these new instruments in its lineup of Galaxy phones, specifically assessing the possibility of making offline payments between peers. Samsung Participates in Korean Digital Currency Pilot Samsung, the Korean technology behemoth , has agreed to aid the Bank of Korea in running a test pilot for a central bank digital currency that will assess the feasibility of using these instruments in the payments sector. The pilot started in July, co-managed by the Bank of Korea and Ground X, a blockchain affiliate of Kakao, the messaging platform. The news was announced by a Samsung executive, who stated: Samsung Electronics has recently decided to participate in the BOK-led CBDC pilot project, under which interested parties will research the practicalities of the CBDC in a test environ...

The price of the axie infinity tokens otherwise known as “shards,” has continued to skyrocket in value capturing fresh new price highs. The asset is changing hands for 10% lower than the all-time high (ATH) captured five days ago reaching $75.73 per unit. Axie infinity’s market valuation has also pushed itself into the top 50 most valuable crypto capitalization positions and currently rests at the 41st spot on Monday. Axie Infinity Popularity Grows The cryptocurrency project and Ethereum-based gaming community that leverages the Axie Infinity network has continued to trend higher in value and attention. Worldwide 12-months statistics from Google Trends (GT) data show that the search query “Axie Infinity” tapped the highest GT data score a term can get (100) for the week of July 11-17. While search queries stemming from GT data shows searches have waned slightly since then, the search query “Axie Infinity” still commands a high score of 76 at the time of writing. Axie Infinity Go...

Attendees of the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas were introduced to a new advertisement crafted by the U.S. State Department. According to individuals who accessed the government advertisement via an open Wi-Fi network called “#Rewardsnotransoms” they discovered the U.S. government is offering to pay crypto rewards to individuals who give up information concerning malicious, state-backed hackers. US State Department Advertises ‘Rewards for Justice’ at Black Hat 2021 in Las Vegas The never-ending war on terror continues as the United States government is focused on state-backed cybercriminals that have attacked U.S. infrastructure or have created terrorist organizations. Last week, reporters and attendees of the Las Vegas hacker conference called “ Black Hat ” explained that the U.S. government, specifically the State Department, was advertising a new program called “ Rewards for Justice (RFJ).” The news outlet CNN was the first to break the news after Black Hat participan...

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is hiring a “digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead.” The company says it “enables broad set of payment options for its customers” and is developing a “digital currency strategy and product roadmap.” Walmart Developing Crypto Strategy and Product Roadmap Retail giant Walmart posted a job opening for a “digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead” Sunday. It is a full-time position based in Bentonville, AR, where Walmart Inc. is headquartered. The posting details: As one of the largest retailers and e-commerce companies, Walmart enables [a] broad set of payment options for its customers. As digital currency/ cryptocurrency lead at Walmart you will be responsible for developing the digital currency strategy and product roadmap. “As an expert in digital currencies/ cryptocurrency and blockchain related technologies, you will drive the vision for the product and capabilities roadmap,” the posting continues. “You will provide the ...

PRESS RELEASE. After two-and-a-half years on the TRON blockchain, cryptocurrency project Centric completed their migration to the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Centric announced the decision to migrate in May. Later that month, cybersecurity firm iosiro completed an audit of the updated BSC smart contracts. Two days before the migration, Centric added the first BEP-20 Centric Swap (CNS) tokens to the leading BSC decentralized exchange (DEX), PancakeSwap. “As we completed the audit back in May, some community members wondered why we were waiting until July to make the jump,” said Centric COO Tommy Butcher. “Centric encompasses much more than just a smart contract. We’ve built an entire ecosystem that includes partners. We needed to give our devs time to get everything buttoned up before making the move. Taking the time to do it right paid off, as everything went super smooth,” Butcher said. The migration began on July 15 and proceeded with minimal disruption. Within twenty-four hour...

To many people, the year 2020 will probably go down in history as one of the most consequential of the century. After all, it was the year when governments, health professionals, and business owners all seemed to have a common goal: stopping the spread of Covid-19 at all costs. Indeed, in a majority of the cases, stopping the spread of the virus was said to require shutting down economies and forcing the scared masses to stay indoors. These measures, in turn, forced ordinary people to find ways to carry on with their lives without offending governments or without exposing themselves to the virus. It is these circumstances that brought to the fore the importance of an equally consequential innovation — blockchain technology. Kuva Seeks Solution for Crypto’s Uneasy Relationship With Regulators As some studies have shown, the adoption or use of blockchain technology has surged since the second quarter of 2020. The innovation’s surge in popularity may have convinced many central banks ...

Electron Cash, a leading bitcoin cash wallet, has implemented a new feature called Reusable Payment Addresses. While still in its testing stages, this feature is a tool that can be leveraged to acquire a deeper level of privacy for your transactions, due to how it detaches public addresses from payment history, giving Bitcoin Cash some Monero-like capabilities. Reusable Payment Addresses: More Privacy for Your Transactions The developers of Electron Cash, one of the leading bitcoin cash wallets, have introduced Reusable Payment Addresses, a new privacy feature for the wallet. While it is still in its alpha stages, the functionality is there. Reusable Payment Addresses allows users to have another layer of privacy when transacting. When a user gives another a payment address, it also gives away the whole story of payments associated with it, alongside the balance it contains. This poses a big problem for privacy-concerned users: every time a user or company posts an address it mea...

According to the blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic, cybercriminals are leveraging cryptocurrency analytics to get ahead of law enforcement. Elliptic says a “blockchain analytics tool has been launched on the dark web” and the tool is called “Antinalysis.” Meet the Blockchain Analytics Tool ‘Antinalysis’ Hosted on Tor On August 13, the blockchain surveillance company Elliptic published a blog post that details how the firm discovered a blockchain analytics tool that is leveraged by cybercriminals to protect themselves. The tool dubbed “Antinalysis” allows “bitcoin addresses to be checked for links to criminal activity,” Elliptic claims. The company’s announcement further states that Antinalysis gives individuals the ability to “test whether their funds will be identified as proceeds of crime by regulated exchanges.” The company’s blog post adds: Antinalysis seeks to help crypto launderers to avoid this, by giving them a preview of what a blockchain analytics tool will make of...