Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

According to Maxwell Mayhew, founder of the decentralized e-ticketing platform UTIX, event organizers can potentially overcome ticket scalping by switching to smart contract-based event hosting platforms. Such platforms not only help organizers control the amount of event tickets in secondary markets, says Mayhew, but “even the maximum price the tickets can be sold for.” The U.S. Government’s Tacit Approval of the ‘Troubled Event Economy’ On the other hand, Mayhew claims the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as event tickets allows buyers in the secondary market “to easily verify if the ticket is actually valid and owned by the seller.” For Mayhew, that is how the blockchain and smart contracts in particular “can help eliminate two of the biggest symptoms of the troubled event economy.” In written answers sent to Bitcoin.com News, Mayhew also discussed how both event organizers and attendees can still use blockchain-powered platforms despite not being familiar with the technology. ...

Financial giant Nomura’s digital assets subsidiary, Laser Digital, has announced the launch of its Bitcoin Adoption Fund to provide “long-only exposure to bitcoin whilst being one of the most cost-effective and secure investment solutions.” Laser Digital’s Bitcoin Adoption Fund Nomura’s digital assets subsidiary, Laser Digital, announced the launch of its Bitcoin Adoption Fund on Tuesday. Nomura Group is Japan’s largest investment bank and brokerage group. The announcement explains that Bitcoin Adoption Fund will be the first in a range of digital adoption investment solutions that Laser Digital Asset Management will bring to the market. Laser Digital emphasized: The Laser Digital Bitcoin Adoption Fund provides long-only exposure to bitcoin whilst being one of the most cost-effective and secure investment solutions. “To secure the fund’s assets, Laser will use Komainu , which was founded in 2018 by Nomura, Ledger, and Coinshares and delivers a regulated custody solution for ins...

A registered broker and former investment banker with financial giant Deutsche Bank has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors into a fraudulent crypto fund. He is facing up to 30 years in prison and will be required to pay restitution of more than $1.5 million, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Ex-Deutsche Bank Investment Banker Pleads Guilty The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that Rashawn Russell has pleaded guilty to “participating in a scheme to defraud clients of the R3 Crypto Fund,” a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment fund that he operated. Russell, who was formerly an investment banker and registered broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), was charged in April. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York explained: When sentenced, Russell faces up to 30 years in prison. As part of his plea agreement, Russell will be required to pay restitution in the amount of more than $1.5 million. “Russell lev...

The world’s debt has surged to a record high level in the second quarter, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The increase has also helped lift the global debt-to-GDP ratio which had been declining for seven quarters but is now projected to reach 337% by the end of this year. Major Markets Behind Latest Surge in Global Debt, Slower Growth and Inflation Cause Debt Ratio Rise Global debt has hit a record $307 trillion in Q2 of 2023, jumping by $10 trillion in the first half of the year despite rising interest rates that have been curbing bank credit, Reuters and Bloomberg informed, quoting a report by the IIF. On Tuesday, the financial services trade group, which represents the world’s largest international banks and financial institutions, further pointed out that world debt has ballooned by a “staggering” $100 trillion over the past decade. Debt has also resumed its increase as a share of the global gross domestic product (GDP), climbing to 336% from 334% a...

As artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) continue to gain prominence, the organization Defense Distributed has unveiled an experimental LLM-based agent named “Gatgpt.” The platform is being referred to as “The Digital Second Amendment,” and the LLM is trained on a combination of open-source and proprietary firearms files, texts, and datasets. Cody Wilson’s Defense Distributed Steps Into Generative AI Cody Wilson and his organization, Defense Distributed (DD), are well-known for advocating fundamental privacy rights and the right to bear arms. Wilson is also the co-creator of the now-defunct bitcoin (BTC) wallet, Dark Wallet, and the inventor of the first functional 3D-printed firearm, known as the Liberator. Now, Wilson and DD are entering the era of AI with a generative chatbot project called “ Gatgpt ,” an LLM that enhances open-source gun datasets in support of “the interests of American riflemen.” “ The Digital Second Amendment ” document hosted on t...

Rollups are structures that have been designed as a way of scaling Ethereum’s capacity to process transactions and data. They group a bunch of tasks and compute them offchain, only posting the result of these transactions to Ethereum, allowing more data to be piled up on L1 (layer one). Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been pushing rollups as part of the future of Ethereum scaling since 2020, and with the proposal of Danksharding, its scaling roadmap has become rollup-centric. Rollups and the Scalability Problem Ethereum, one of the first-generation smart contracts-enabled blockchains, has been facing a scalability problem due to its limited capabilities for processing transactions and data. In its base layer, Ethereum can process approximately 15 transactions per second (TPS), which was enough in its first stages but is now insufficient given the popularity of the blockchain. Rollups attack this problem by taking part of the blockchain burden offchain, while maintaining a c...

Recent data shows a single mining pool controls more than 53% of the hashrate for the cryptocurrency network Zcash. On September 19, 2023, the crypto mining pool Viabtc had 4.2 giga solutions per second (GSol/s) of Zcash’s total 7.84 GSol/s hashrate. Electric Coin Co., which oversees the Zcash project’s codebase, acknowledged the issue Tuesday, citing a “lack of finality.” Zcash Network Hashrate Faces Dominance: Industry Players and Electric Coin Co Respond Recently, chatter within crypto circles has centered on the Zcash protocol, especially after observations that Viabtc holds over 51% of the network’s entire hashrate. On September 19, 2023, at 6:49 p.m. Eastern Time, archived records reveal Viabtc’s hashrate dominating with 53.69% of the total, registering at 4.2 GSol/s out of an overall 7.84 GSol/s. Just days prior, the crypto exchange Coinbase released a “Security PSA” titled “Observed risks in Zcash mining pool distribution.” In the PSA, Coinbase detailed the prevailing iss...