Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

This year, the Sky Mavis-crafted blockchain game Axie Infinity has seen incredible growth and has recently surpassed $3 billion in all-time sales. However, researchers at Naavik explain in a recent study that Axie Infinity players called ‘scholars’ are seeing daily earnings drop, and many have seen earnings dip below the minimum wage line of countries like the Philippines. Naavik Researchers Take a Deep Dive Into Axie Infinity — ‘Scholar’ Earnings Have Been Dropping Since August The Ethereum-based blockchain game Axie Infinity is one of the most popular video games hosted on a distributed ledger network. The game was developed by a studio called Sky Mavis , and as of this week metrics from dappradar.com indicate the game has seen $3.23 billion in all-time non-fungible token (NFT) sales. Sky Mavis launched the game in 2018 and the company is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Bitcoin.com News has covered the project on various occasions and just recently Sky Mavis revealed...

In development since 2018, Integritee AG’s solution enables sensitive business or personal data to be securely handled in an interoperable blockchain ecosystem. Using a hybrid of blockchain technology and hardware-enabled trusted execution environments, it enables businesses to securely process sensitive data, aiding compliance with privacy laws like GDPR. Alain Brenzikofer is the CTO and Co-founder of Integritee Network . He recently joined the Bitcoin.com News Podcast to talk about the technology and the business: Project initiator and Head of Decentralized Systems at Supercomputing Systems AG. MSc from ETH Zurich. Brings vast experience designing and delivering high quality IT and blockchain client-projects. Alain has been involved and active as a thought leader in the blockchain space since 2013. To name a few of his accomplishments, he has actively contributed to Quartierstrom peer-to-peer energy markets as well as the driving force behind Encointer, a crypto-based univers...

Skybridge Capital’s founder says bitcoin “will easily trade at $500,000 a coin,” noting that investors should buy some right now, even at the current price. “I’m trying to do my best to explain to them why they need to own this right now,” he said, emphasizing that we are still “very, very early.” ‘These Coins Will Easily Trade at $500K a Coin’ Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of New York City-based investment firm Skybridge Capital, commented on the U.S. economy, inflation, and bitcoin on CNBC Friday. Scaramucci briefly served as the White House director of communications during the Trump administration in July 2017. He was asked whether he advises people to buy bitcoin at the current price of around $64,000. Scaramucci promptly replied, “no question about that.” At the current BTC price level, he said, “I still believe we are very, very early.” He noted that if Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood is correct and there are “a billion wallets at the end of 2024 into the...

Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has some advice on how to get into bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. “It’s a wonderful universe. It’s a fantastic asset. It’s a must-own if you’re an investor,” O’Leary said. He also revealed that his crypto exposure has grown to about 10%. Kevin O’Leary Has Some Advice for New Crypto Investors Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares ETFs, gave some advice for new investors wanting to get into bitcoin or the crypto space for the first time during an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, published early this month. O’Leary was asked, “Do you have any advice for people curious about bitcoin or just getting into the space?” He replied: I really advise them to explore this asset and the way to do it is to start small, start to understand the platforms. Are you going to buy it through a centralized wallet? Are you going to decentralize? Try all the options, learn by experience. He added: “The thing about bitcoin is you need ...

Crypto exchange Coinbase has been meeting with a number of regulators to convince them that the U.S. should have just one federal regulator overseeing the crypto sector. Currently, there is a variety of different regulators in the U.S., CEO Brian Armstrong explained, noting that Coinbase has “53 regulators in just one country, the United States.” Coinbase Wants One Regulator in the US The Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is pushing for the U.S. to have just one crypto regulator. “We’ve met with a number of different regulators out there … on a regular basis … I had a meeting last week with the chairman of the SEC, Chair [Gary] Gensler, which I think was very productive,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said during the company’s Q3 earnings call last week. “There’s a variety of different regulators in the United States … There’s the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission], the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], the Treasury. And then, of course, we have state ...

A government official in Rivne region of Ukraine owns close to $8 million in cryptocurrency and 500 Tesla shares, his declaration shows. The news comes as another Ukrainian lawmaker in Kyiv has found it hard to prove possession of the crypto holdings on her asset statement. Ukraine Officials Declare Crypto Assets, Fail to Provide Proof of Ownership Crypto investments have enjoyed a growing popularity among Ukrainian politicians in recent years, mandatory asset statements have revealed. According to recent media reports , a member of the Virovsky Village Council in the western Rivne Oblast has declared having 124 BTC worth almost $8 million in today’s prices. Vladimir Pachesny acquired the coins in early 2013 for 73,920 hryvnia at the time of purchase, a little over $2,800, using the latest exchange rate of the inflated Ukrainian fiat currency. In 2019, the 36-year-old local deputy also bought 500 shares of the U.S. electric vehicle company Tesla which pushed crypto prices up this...

After becoming one of the top non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, the Tezos-based NFT market Hic et nunc has discontinued its services. After more than $50 million in all-time sales on the market, Hic et nunc’s creator has not disclosed why the NFT marketplace was shut down. Tezos-Based NFT Marketplace Shuts Down A popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace that leveraged the Tezos network has closed down its business and has not explained why. The now-defunct NFT market is called Hic et nunc and it was one of the top twenty NFT markets in terms of all-time sales. At the time before its closure, dappradar.com metrics show Hic et nunc was the 14th largest NFT marketplace in terms of all-time sales. Has anyone deciphered wtf happened here? https://t.co/1xOhZOjV2r — 2kew (@2kew4u) November 12, 2021 At press time, the Hic et nunc front end is not operating and it gives a server error explaining that the server cannot be found. Although, other affiliated links like hen101.x...

Bitcoin advocates are celebrating the successful implementation of the Taproot upgrade after block height 709,632. The upgrade was highly anticipated as it was one of the biggest changes since the introduction of Segregated Witness (Segwit) in 2017. After the upgrade was completed, the Bitcoin community discussed the slew of benefits Taproot and Schnorr signatures have to offer and have started measuring Taproot usage as well. Taproot Has Been Activated on the Bitcoin Blockchain At 12:15 a.m. (EST) at block height 709,632, at difficulty period 352, Taproot was officially activated on the Bitcoin ( BTC ) blockchain. The upgrade was long-awaited as it’s an improvement that’s taken seven years to complete. 709632 🎇 — jack⚡️ (@jack) November 14, 2021 Taproot allows users to operate Bitcoin scripts in a myriad of ways in order to improve privacy, scalability, and security. Combining Taproot with an improvement called Schnorr signatures allows for more compact transactions and k...

PRESS RELEASE. Miami, FL – As the first and only company publicly known to date to use blockchain technology to fight depression and anxiety, FivebalanceUSA is one of a handful of Companies listed on Coinmarketcap and trading on exchanges that has a real product fighting real world problems. The Company has just signed a linkage agreement with V.O.A to provide services. Fivebalance trades on the Mercatox exchange under the ticker symbol FBN. At time of writing it’s current price is well under a quarter of a penny. This is significant for a number of reasons which will be laid out in this article. Fivebalance has just over 1 billion coins in circulation as verified on Coinmarketcap. The order books on Mercatox exchange look extremely thin, so much that 50 dollar transactions move the price. When speaking with the CEO James McCoy, he has said he wants to see a minimum of 10 cents, but he believed fair value to be a dollar per coin. When asked for the reasoning behind those numbers,...

Dutch authorities have seized more than 25 million euros in cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, from dozens of suspects in criminal cases. “Cryptocurrencies are widely used as a means of payment for various types of crime,” said the Netherlands’ Public Prosecution Service. Authorities in the Netherlands Seize More Than 25 Million Euros in Cryptocurrencies, Including Bitcoin and Ether The Netherlands’ Public Prosecution Service announced last week that it has seized more than 25 million euros ($28.6 million) in cryptocurrencies in recent months in collaboration with two other agencies. The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), the National Criminal Investigation Service (DLR), and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) collaborated on various investigations in which the emphasis was on seizing crypto wallets, the announcement details. The FIOD is an agency of the government of the Netherlands responsible for investigating financial crimes. The National Crimin...

Following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rejection of Vaneck’s bitcoin spot market exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Friday, a number of cryptocurrency advocates discussed the subject this weekend. For instance, the veteran FX trader Peter Brandt told his 581,700 Twitter followers that bitcoin maximalists “should oppose” a spot market bitcoin ETF. Bitcoiner Preston Pysh said bitcoin could care less “about the approval of a spot ETF.” Crypto Community Discusses Recent Bitcoin ETF Rejection — Peter Brandt Says ‘Let’s Not Encourage Wall Street to Convert Bitcoin Into a Vending Machine Asset’ During the first week of November, U.S. lawmakers urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). But on November 12, the U.S. regulator rejected Vaneck’s bitcoin spot ETF and cited a lack of prevention toward “fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” in the market. The rejection also follows the approval of the first bitcoin E...

The Russian Ministry of Interior has rejected a request filed by clients of Wex to do its part in the blocking of crypto funds removed from a wallet controlled by the now-defunct crypto exchange. Over 10,000 ETH have been recently withdrawn from the wallet and transferred to other platforms. Wex Victims Try to Freeze $46 Million of Cryptocurrency Lost to Bankrupt Russian Exchange The Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (MVD) has refused to act on a request from victims of crypto exchange Wex to take steps aimed at seizing digital assets worth $45.9 million withdrawn from one of its wallets in September. Details were shared on social media by the CEO of Indefibank Sergey Mendeleev who quoted an official document from the department. The former Wex users have provided the MVD with a detailed scheme of how the funds were transferred from the wallet to other crypto platforms, Forklog reported . They also submitted data from an analytics tool to prov...

A South Africa and London-based fintech startup, JUMO, recently revealed it has raised $120 million in a funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company. AI-Powered Financial Services According to a report by Techcrunch, financial services giant Visa and Kingsway Capital also participated in the funding round, which now sees JUMO valued at $400 million. This latest capital influx comes a year after the startup successfully raised $55 million in what the report calls a similar but unnamed funding round. JUMO, which was founded in 2015 by founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball, claims to use AI to power financial services, particularly lending in emerging markets where over 1.7 billion people do not have basic access to financial services. So far, the fintech has reportedly served loans worth over $3.5 billion to more than 18 million customers across these markets, granting up to 120 million individual loans. Although JUMO claims to have the opportunity to disburse $29...

Santander, a leading financial institution in Spain, is preparing to offer a Bitcoin ETF to its customers in the country. This, while Spanish asset managers have been largely reluctant to embrace crypto products as part of their investment portfolio offerings to customers. Santander Bitcoin ETF in Preparation Santander will be giving the finishing touches to a Bitcoin ETF product in Spain, according to reports from local sources. This reportedly positions the company to be the only financial institution interested in offering this type of product to its customers in Spain. Santander’s Executive Chairman Ana Botín declared that the institution has had a team working on this offering for some time. She stated: Our clients want to buy bitcoin, but we have been quite slow to adopt it due to regulatory issues. We are now about to offer crypto ETFs. The fact is that most asset managers in Spain are still reluctant to put their funds in cryptocurrency-based investments, at least dome...