Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

On February 8, the subsidiary of Animoca Brands and the decentralized gaming virtual world project, The Sandbox, announced the company has partnered with the French video game company Ubisoft. According to the announcement, Ubisoft will have its own land in the virtual metaverse, and the world will begin by featuring voxelized versions of Rabbids’ characters. The Sandbox Partners With Ubisoft, Multimedia Game Franchise Owner to Bring IP Elements to the Sandbox Gaming Metaverse Ubisoft and the Rabbids are coming to the blockchain-based virtual world The Sandbox, according to an announcement from the company. The gaming giant Ubisoft is well known for its multimedia franchises including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy’s, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, and Rayman. The Sandbox says the project has “strategically partnered with Ubisoft to introduce Ubisoft game IP elements to The Sandbox gaming metaverse.” To start, Ubisoft is bringing characters from the franchise Rabbids, a spin-o...

PRESS RELEASE. Dvision Network’s second LAND sale has now been successfully conducted on the Polygon Mainnet. As a matter of fact, all 4650 LAND NFTs offered on the primary sale had been sold out at an incredibly fast pace, sealing the successful sold out both on Dvision Marketplace as well as OpenSea . The original first LAND sale had occurred not too long ago, and it was similarly successful, which became the largest LAND NFT Sale to occur on Binance Smart Chain’s history, completing the LAND Sale on Binance NFT, Dvision Marketplace and NFTb in less than 5 minutes. Building upon that success, the second sale saw plenty of action from buyers and investors who were all eager to partake as soon as the sale officially started on January 27th, 2022, at 11:00 AM UTC. It should be noted, that secondary trading on OpenSea is continuously occurring, with the floor price for the most common LAND NFT being traded at x2 from the original price, and the total volume currently exceeding 3...

Authorities in Kazakhstan are discussing new regulations for the country’s crypto space that may lead to a serious increase in the tax burden on the mining business. Among the proposed changes is a fivefold hike of the fee miners pay per each kilowatt-hour of utilized electricity. Mining Companies in Kazakhstan Expected to Pay Much More to the State Government officials in Kazakhstan are debating over new legislation for the cryptocurrency industry. The authors of a draft law “On Digital Assets in the Republic of Kazakhstan” have covered certain matters that concern the growing crypto mining sector, local media reported. Quoted by Kazinform, First Deputy Minister of Finance Marat Sultangaziyev noted at a recent meeting of an interdepartmental commission that mining activities are now subject only to registration , but more rules are to come. He also emphasized that it’s very difficult to identify underground miners who consume a lot of electricity illegally. Kazakhstan has been tr...

India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has reportedly revealed that the government is “constantly monitoring” and “watching the crypto sector.” Referring to her budget speech, she noted that crypto taxation will be implemented before the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), issues its digital currency. Indian Finance Minister on Monitoring Crypto Sector and RBI’s Digital Currency Launch India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has revealed that government officials are constantly monitoring the crypto sector, India Today reported Monday. Speaking at India Today Budget Roundtable 2022 on the “State of India’s Economy: The Final Word,” she was quoted as saying: We have a team of people who are constantly monitoring, watching the crypto sector and listening to people from that area. They are giving me feedback. In addition, the finance minister said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is working on issuing India’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), the di...

Crypto exchange FTX is giving away bitcoin during the Super Bowl this weekend. The company estimates that each winner could receive between eight and 10 bitcoins. The actual prize amount depends on the time FTX’s Super Bowl commercial airs. FTX Giving Away Bitcoin in Super Bowl Sweepstakes Cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced Monday that it is giving away bitcoin during the Super Bowl this weekend. The company’s website explains: We’re making our Big Game debut and giving away the time our ad runs in bitcoin. Super Bowl LVI, the upcoming championship game of the National Football League (NFL), will be played between the National Football Conference Champion Los Angeles Rams and the American Football Conference Champion Cincinnati Bengals. “When the ad airs, we’ll tweet the commercial and pin the tweet. To enter, follow us and retweet that pinned tweet on our @FTX_Official Twitter account between the time it airs and 11:59 p.m. EST,” FTX detailed, adding that no purchase is nec...

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has named the evaluation of crypto assets a priority this year. “The rapid introduction of a variety of crypto-asset or digital asset products into the financial system could pose significant safety and soundness and financial system risks,” the FDIC said. Crypto Evaluation Named a Priority for FDIC The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced Monday that Acting Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg has released the FDIC’s priorities for the coming year. The FDIC is an independent agency created by the U.S. Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation’s financial system. One of the priorities is to “evaluate crypto-asset risks,” the announcement details, elaborating: The rapid introduction of a variety of crypto-asset or digital asset products into the financial system could pose significant safety and soundness and financial system risks. “It is imperative that the federal banking agencies c...

The first real estate purchase with Bitcoin has been registered in Colombia last week. The company, called La Haus, sold one property in Santa Marta to a buyer that was not in Colombia at the time of the purchase. While Colombia is just starting to consider bitcoin for real estate payments, in neighboring countries like Venezuela, it is becoming more common to use crypto for such transactions. Colombia Debuts Real Estate Purchases With Crypto The real estate sector in Colombia has reached a milestone when it comes to cryptocurrency usage, after registering its first purchase with bitcoin. La Haus, an online real estate company, mediated in this purchase after having received a reserve payment for 0.03 BTC a month ago. The purchase was recently completed by a buyer that was not in Colombia, so the operation was completed using Lightning Network through Opennode, a payment processor. The purchase comes roughly one month after the company announced it would accept bitcoin for reser...