Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

With three days left until the end of 2021, the Ethereum network and its native token ether have had a phenomenal year as ether has increased more than 450% in value in 12 months. 145 days ago, on August 5, the Ethereum network implemented the London hard fork and since that day, 1,283,226 ether worth close to $5 billion has been burned. Burning $5 Billion in Ether in 4 Months Around four months ago, Ethereum implemented the London upgrade which added a number of new rule-sets to the chain. The most transformative included EIP-1559 , an Ethereum rule-set improvement that created a new fee rate scheme allowing the network to burn a portion of ether. “The algorithm results in the base fee per gas increasing when blocks are above the gas target, and decreasing when blocks are below the gas target. The base fee per gas is burned,” EIP-1559’s description notes. As of today, December 28, 2021, 1.28 million ether has been destroyed by the burn process, which equates to close to $5 billio...

According to data recorded on December 28, there’s approximately 434,265.43 bitcoin-pegged or wrapped bitcoin tokens worth more than $21.3 billion across several blockchains. Ten different bitcoin-pegged projects exist today and the project Wrapped Bitcoin dominates 59.66% of all the tokenized bitcoin in circulation. Close to a Half Million Tokenized Bitcoin Circulates on Several Blockchains, Wrapped Bitcoin Dominates by 59% Toward the end of 2018, when tokenization really started heating up in the crypto space, a number of different projects launched bitcoin-pegged token protocols. On January 30, 2018, Bitcoin.com News reported on the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project launching on Ethereum. By the end of July 2019, WBTC eclipsed the Lightning Network (LN) in terms of total value locked. Today, WBTC is the largest bitcoin ( BTC )-pegged token project with 259,090 BTC in circulation on the Ethereum network. Statistics indicate that there are seven BTC-pegged projects on Ethereum an...

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) plans to obtain information from commercial banks pertaining to some money transfers between private individuals, including clients trading cryptocurrency. The measure is likely to affect online crypto exchangers which the regulator accuses of conducting illegal operations. Central Bank to Check Transactions Between Russians Exchanging Crypto As part of efforts to clamp down on certain transactions it considers illegal, the Bank of Russia is going to seek additional data from financial institutions processing transfers between individuals. The move concerns a number of platforms using accounts registered in the name of dummy persons such as online bookmakers and websites providing crypto trading services, local media revealed. The Russian business news portal RBC reported Monday that the regulator had sent banks a new reporting form for transactions. According to the initial report, the CBR intends to request information on money transfers between R...

PRESS RELEASE. NFTs have exploded in terms of popularity and usage in 2021, and for good reason. Artists and content creators alike have been able to profit immensely from NFTs, and many traders have also been able to benefit from buying, selling and trading these non-fungible tokens. However, one project in particular is looking to change the way we look at NFTs, and that is Vincent Peter’s ‘Inheritance Art’, provided by Inheritance AI. What is the issue with the current generation of NFTs? NFTs are one-of-a-kind digital assets which may be used to demonstrate ownership of various goods or experiences. Since their conception, NFTs have come a long way, but there is still considerable space for development. However, one feature that many people find particularly vexing is the present market’s lack of subtlety and elegance. Instead of developing wholly new forms of art, a vast majority of NFTs are generated by modern animators who study market trends and attempt to mimic them. This...

Hackers recently took control of a group of HP-branded servers and used them to remotely mine a cryptocurrency called raptoreum, according to reports. This resulted in the compromised cluster of HP machines becoming the biggest contributor to the total mining pool of the cryptocurrency, allowing attackers to rake in $110,000 worth. The coins are said to have been mined between December 9 and December 17. HP Servers Suffer Cryptojacking Attack A group of HP servers operating for an undisclosed company was attacked by hackers that managed to take control of the hardware and repurpose it to mine cryptocurrency. The crypto chosen by the hackers was called raptoreum, a coin in the top 1,000 by market cap that takes advantage of an algorithm called Ghostrider, blending PoW (proof-of-work) and PoS (proof-of-stake) consensus mechanisms. The server cluster started mining raptoreum on December 9, and at the time, it provided more hash power than all other parties combined on the Raptoreum b...

A man allegedly behind a cryptocurrency investment scam has been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand. He lured people into investing in his fraudulent crypto scheme by promising high returns, telling investors they could earn a 400% return by investing in just 200 days. Alleged Crypto Scammer Arrested in Bangkok A 50-year-old man who allegedly scammed Thai and foreign cryptocurrency investors was arrested on Saturday in Bangkok, Thailand. He tried to flee with over 500 million baht ($15 million), the Bangkok Post reported . Major General Montri Thetkhan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), said Mana Jumuang, along with his Thai and Vietnamese accomplices, allegedly colluded to swindle investors in 2018 and 2019. He detailed that Jumuang claimed to be a cryptocurrency guru, duping investors into investing in Onecoin by promising high returns. The CSD chief noted that the suspect told investors they could invest and earn a 400% return in just 200 days. In addition, he and ...