Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

On August 31, 2021, Offchain Labs announced the official launch of Arbitrum One mainnet and further detailed that the company has raised $120 million in funding. The Series B financing led by Lightspeed Venture Partners gives the firm a $1.2 billion valuation. Arbitrum One Mainnet Is Now Live, Offchain Labs Raises $120 Million in Funding The highly anticipated Arbitrum One mainnet launch has been revealed by the firm Offchain Labs and the startup also detailed the company has raised $120 million in financing. Bitcoin.com News has written about the Arbitrum One Layer-2 scaling solution on a few occasions as the protocol leverages Optimistic rollups to help Ethereum scale. A number of popular decentralized finance (defi) projects are leveraging Arbitrum’s gateway in order to give users better fee rates and faster actions. Arbitrum’s technology is leveraged by defi projects like Aave, Balancer, Band Protocol, Coinbase Wallet, Chainlink, Curve, DAI stablecoins, Etherscan, Dodo, Met...

PRESS RELEASE. The highly anticipated new crypto friendly social platform, Carbon , has launched. Carbon has been in beta stage since March, undergoing thorough testing, improvements and added features and gaining over 12,000 beta testers. Offering an emphasis on free speech as well as great security and privacy, Carbon includes an end-to-end encrypted messenger, integrated crypto portfolio tracker, Twitter style social feed, Reddit style topics and much more. Influencers have begun to migrate to Carbon as their platform of choice and many are expected to follow. Carbon offers generous crypto rewards for the best content creators, as well as tipping, so it’s little wonder it looks set to become an attractive platform for monetising user influence. The Carbon team is based in Western Australia and highly experienced in designing and launching apps and games. Carbon co-founder Daniel Abela says “We really wanted to create a platform that brought the fun back into social media. We’v...

Iran’s Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has rejected claims blaming illegal cryptocurrency miners for the continuing electricity shortages in the country. The department believes the state-run utility company, Tavanir, has overestimated their role in the power deficit. Illegal Miners Burn Less Energy Than Tavanir Estimates, Ministry of Industries Says An official from the Iranian Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has denied claims by the Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company ( Tavanir ) that illegal crypto miners are largely responsible for the ongoing power shortages in the Islamic Republic. Quoted by Way2pay and the English-language business daily Financial Tribune, the ministry’s Director of Investment and Planning Alireza Hadi stated: Figures announced by Tavanir seem to be highly exaggerated. The consumption of illegal miners is considerably lower than the 2,000 megawatts estimated by the utility. According to Hadi, this amount of elec...

A crypto survey of U.S. consumers, commissioned by regulated crypto platform Bakkt, shows that nearly half of all respondents said they invested in cryptocurrencies during the first half of the year. Nearly Half of US Consumers Invested in Crypto During the Past 6 Months, Study Shows A survey commissioned by regulated digital asset platform Bakkt shows that nearly half of surveyed consumers in the U.S. invested in cryptocurrencies in the past six months this year. Bakkt was launched in 2018 by Intercontinental Exchange, which operates over a dozen of the world’s most prominent exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). “Commissioned by Bakkt and conducted over an online survey tool, we polled more than 2,000 consumers across the U.S. and was fielded in July 2021 … Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States,” the survey report explain...

A vocal critic of the upcoming bitcoin law in El Salvador, Mario Gomez, was briefly detained Wednesday. According to reports, he was arrested without a warrant. Critic of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law Arrested An IT specialist and founder of Hackerspace San Salvador, Mario Gómez, was briefly detained Wednesday morning. His attorney said there was never an arrest warrant for him. Gomez has been a vocal critic of the upcoming bitcoin law in El Salvador. The National Civil Police of El Salvador (PNC) said they detained Gómez “while investigating financial fraud relating to an email phishing scam,” El Faro publication described. A press officer at the Attorney General’s Office told the publication: They tell me it’s a move by the National Civil Police. Our office has no information at this time. Gómez’s mother, who was with him when the arrest happened, explained that the police stopped their car, told her son to get out and go with them. She also said they seized his cell phone. The ...

In 2021, there’s no doubt that non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles have been extremely popular and NFTs have made billions in sales during the last year. For instance, in the last month Opensea saw $3.44 billion in NFT sales, Axie Infinity saw $838 million, and the pixelated NFTs Cryptopunks saw $653 million in sales. However, there are plenty of NFT skeptics who wonder why JPEGs are selling for millions in ether, and some have suspected auctions and sales could be bolstered by shill bidding or rigging. While NFT Market Values Swell, Skeptics Wonder Why JPEGs Sell for Millions You’ve probably seen all the NFTs in the news as rock JPEGs and pixelated images have been selling for more than most medium-sized homes. Non-fungible token (NFT) assets have made billions of dollars during the last 12 months and believers don’t expect the trend to end. For example, Autoglyph #463 sold for 460 ether or $1.582 million on August 31, and the Art Blocks NFT Fidenza #6 sold for 460 ether or $1.58...

This week a project called Pleasrdao announced that a notable Doge non-fungible token (NFT) that sold in June 2021 for 1,696.9 ether or over $3.6 million at the time of sale, will be fractionalized. At the time of sale, the Doge NFT was a historic sale and the NFT’s owner wants others to enjoy the ownership. Furthermore, Cryptopunk #543 is being fractionalized as well and sold at $1 per share. Fractionalizing the Doge NFT Into $DOG A project called Pleasrdao wants to sell shards of the Doge NFT that sold in June for close to 1,700 ether which is now worth more than $6.3 million using today’s exchange rates. The organization’s web portal says that “Pleasrdao is a collective of defi leaders, early NFT collectors and digital artists who have built a formidable yet benevolent reputation for acquiring culturally significant pieces with a charitable twist.” This week the project told the public that it would fractionalize the Doge NFT that sold in June and leverage Fractional Art . The ...

All the recent money creation from the Federal Reserve wasn’t enough, according to a few American bureaucrats, as three politicians from the House Financial Services Committee are urging U.S. president Biden to replace Fed chairman Jerome Powell with someone who will address “climate risk.” AOC, Tlaib, Pressley: ‘Climate Change Is a Warning of the Potential Catastrophic and Irreversible Damage’ According to three U.S. representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley the Federal Reserve leadership is lacking. Despite the massive amounts of quantitative easing (QE) tactics and a benchmark rate suppressed at zero, the three politicians who are members of the House Financial Services Committee want more. Rashida Tlaib (pictured left) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (pictured middle) and Ayanna Pressley (pictured far right). Speaking with Politico , the representatives otherwise known as the “Squad” explained new leadership is needed in regard to the...

Twitter is reportedly testing the option of tipping with bitcoin as part of its “Tip Jar” feature. This followed the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, stating that bitcoin is a major part of Twitter’s future, hinting that the cryptocurrency will be part of several upcoming products. Twitter Reportedly Testing Bitcoin Tipping Option Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) is reportedly testing a bitcoin tipping feature. This development followed CEO Jack Dorsey hinting in July that bitcoin may be integrated into several products, including Tip Jar. Macrumors reported Tuesday: Twitter’s latest beta update introduces support for providing content creators with bitcoin tips using the ‘Tip Jar’ feature that Twitter introduced earlier this year. “Bitcoin isn’t yet available to select as a tip option for beta users, but code in the beta suggests that Twitter is in the process of rolling it out,” the publication described. “Details in the latest Twitter beta indicate that users will be directed through a...

On Tuesday, the global talent, sports, and entertainment agency, United Talent Agency (UTA), announced the company has signed three non-fungible token (NFT) projects created by the firm Larva Labs. UTA will work with the NFT collectibles and intellectual property (IP) for Cryptopunks, Meebits, and Autoglyphs across television, film, licensing, publishing, and video games. UTA to Work With 3 Larva Labs Projects Including Cryptopunks The American talent firm based in Beverly Hills, California, United Talent Agency (UTA), has been a growing force since it was established in 1991. With close to 1,000 employees and various divisions, UTA works with merchandise branding and licensing, film, television, digital, books, music, video games, marketing, fine arts, news, and broadcasting. Now UTA is stepping into the world of Larva Labs as it will represent three popular non-fungible token (NFT) projects minted by the NFT startup. This means that the company’s intellectual property (IP) associ...

The world’s second-leading crypto asset in terms of market valuation, ethereum, has seen significant gains during the last few days. Over the last 24 hours, ether values have jumped over 5% and during the course of the last week, ether has gained 11.8%. The crypto asset’s $417 billion market cap represents 18.9% of the $2.21 trillion crypto economy. Ethereum Prices Jump Close to 40% in 30 Days All eyes have been on ethereum (ETH) during the last few days as prices continue to climb higher. On September 1, 2021, ETH prices tapped a high of $3,563 per unit gaining more than 5% in value over the last day. Two-week statistics show ether has jumped 18.1% and 39% during the last month. At the time of writing, the crypto asset ETH ’s market cap is $417.5 billion which has increased ETH ’s market dominance to 18.9% while bitcoin ( BTC ) dominance has slid to 40%. ETH /USD chart recorded on September 1, 2021. Out of the $158.5 billion in global trade volume across all the coins in exi...

Two Chinese banks are expanding their pilot programs for the digital national fiat. The state-owned financial institutions have revealed they are aiming to allow digital yuan holders to acquire investment funds and insurance products using the new currency. Chinese Banks Partner With Fund Managers and Insurers in Search of Digital Yuan Use Cases China Construction Bank (CCB) and Bank of Communications (Bocom), two leading state-run banks, are increasing efforts to find new applications for the central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) issued by the People’s Bank of China. The lenders are now working with investment fund managers and insurance companies as part of their digital yuan (e-CNY) pilot projects. The cooperation aims to facilitate the use of the digitalized fiat currency for the purchase of investment funds and insurance products, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The participants hope this could become another use case for the e-CNY “beyond the low value, daily...

The Seychelles Police Financial Crime Investigation Unit (FCIU) recently confirmed receiving a request for an investigation into several transactions linked to the transfer of 230,000 bitcoins. The cryptocurrency is said to be associated with pyramid scam Onecoin. Onecoin Loot in Dubai Besides investigating the transfer of the crypto assets, the probe is expected to examine transactions involving cash and property worth $10 billion. According to the Seychelles News Agency , the FCIU’s receipt of the request for an investigation follows the recent discovery of “up to $500 million of Onecoin loot in Dubai bank accounts.” This discovery prompted victims of the pyramid scheme to file claims against Onecoin in London, Dublin, and Brussels. Meanwhile, the same Seychelles News Agency report quotes Tania Potter, the FCIU’s head of legal affairs, explaining the steps the agency plans to take before making a decision. Potter explained: The unit has received quite a number of documents, as...

Centre, the consortium created by Circle and Coinbase around USD coin (USDC), has assembled a team of new executives to power its expansion overseas. The new team, comprising six new executives assembled by David Puth, CEO of Centre, will look to support new partners and add new alliances to keep the company growing in the future. One of the objectives of the new ensemble will be to create an interoperable global network of stablecoins. Centre Consortium Expands Team to Create Stablecoin Network Centre, the consortium behind the issuance of USD coin (USDC), reported it successfully hired six new members to expand its reach and create partnerships overseas to create a global, interoperable stablecoin network. David Puth, CEO of Centre, assembled this team in just nine months and expects to achieve connection with new partners and organize a new level of standards. Puth stated: We assembled this team to ensure we have the right balance of talent to allow us to drive significant gro...

On Tuesday, West Realm Shire Services Inc., the parent company of the crypto exchange FTX, announced that the firm has acquired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulated digital currency futures and options exchange and clearinghouse Ledgerx. FTX Acquires Virtual Currency Futures and Options Exchange Ledgerx Ledgerx has been acquired by the cryptocurrency giant FTX, according to an announcement published on August 31. Ledgerx is a popular crypto derivatives platform that has seen “over 10 million crypto options and swap contracts” since 2017. Furthermore, Ledgerx claims the derivatives platform “pioneered the bitcoin mini contracts that enable granular trading.” The announcement from FTX on Tuesday details that the “financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.” The acquisition is pending at the moment and is expected to settle after customary closing conditions are satisfied. “This acquisition marks a significant milestone for our rapidly growing U.S. bus...