Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Tony Hawk joins a growing list of celebrities digitizing and selling their collectibles as non-fungible tokens. The skateboarding icon plans to auction a film of the last time he performed the Ollie 540 – the trick he first mastered 32 years ago. Ethernity Chain to Mint and Auction the Digital Collectible as NFT Boom Accelerates On the heels of numerous blockbuster NFT auctions by artists, celebrities, entertainers, and crypto evangelists, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk is set to auction his digital collectible at a still-unannounced date and time. The 52-year old pop-culture icon announced on Instagram that he had completed his final performance of the 540-degree “Ollie” that he landed first in 1989, underlining the scare and danger of doing the trick. On Twitter, he added, “Did my last ever ollie 540 today. You can compare it with my first one 32 years ago. This one meant a lot to me.” Did my last ever ollie 540 today. You can compare it with my first one 32 years ago. T

On Monday, the New York-based company Greenidge Generation Holdings revealed the business aims to be the first publicly-listed mining operation with a wholly-owned power plant. Greenidge expects to be publicly listed on Nasdaq via a merger with the firm Support.com. Greenidge Bitcoin Mining Operation and Gas Power Plant Plans to be Listed on Nasdaq Last year in March, Bitcoin.com reported on the company Greenidge Generation Holdings joining the bitcoin mining ecosystem, as it launched a fleet of mining rigs at the 65,000 square-foot natural gas utility plant in Dresden New York. Because Greenidge leverages the utility plant’s natural gas as its native energy source the company developed a direct “behind-the-meter cryptocurrency mining operation.” The following month, the gas power plant sold a fully compliant hashpower contract of 106 petahash to an undisclosed buyer as well. On March 22, 2021, Greenidge announced it plans to be publicly listed via Nasdaq through a merger with Su

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sees cryptocurrency as a substitute for gold, rather than the dollar. However, he cautioned that crypto assets, including bitcoin, are highly volatile and not useful as a store of value. Fed Chair Sees Bitcoin as a Gold Substitute During a webinar sponsored by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) on Monday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell talked about cryptocurrency, mentioning bitcoin in particular. The Fed chair detailed: “Crypto assets are highly volatile, see bitcoin, and therefore are not really useful as a store of value. And, they are not backed by anything. They are more of an asset for speculation. They are also not particularly in use as a means of payment.” He elaborated: It’s more a speculative asset. It’s essentially a substitute for gold, rather than for the dollar. Powell proceeded to say that with crypto assets, “the public needs to understand the risks. The principal thing is there’s the volatility. Th

Major chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) keeps making headlines amid the battle between crypto miners and PC gamers. Now, the company seems to have made a step forward to become friendlier to those with crypto mining purposes. AMD Doesn’t Want to Follow Nvidia’s Path According to a PC Gamer report , citing a product manager from AMD, the chipmaker has zero intentions to block crypto mining operations on its devices. “The short answer is no,” said Nish Neelalojanan, a product manager of the firm. Crypto miners were concerned about AMD’s possibility of implementing the same measures as its competitor, Nvidia, which recently implemented a limiter on its graphic processor units (GPUs) for ethereum ( ETH ) mining. Specifically, Nvidia made the maneuver on the Geforce RTX 3090 graphics cards in the wake of the gaming community’s complaints. Neelalojanan said: We will not be blocking any workload, not just mining for that matter. That said, there are a couple of things. First of a

PRESS RELEASE. B26 Finance , the world’s first blockchain-based self-banking service, has recently been released to the world. Being a relatively new project, developed and worked on for years, but officially launched 2 weeks ago (8/03/2021), B26 Finance has seen massive growth and adoption from the DeFi and crypto communities alike, with immense potential for mainstream adoption. Being a community and transparency-driven project , B26 Finance was created with the goal of helping common citizens become their own bank, removing encumberments and fees created by middlemen and third parties that provide little to no value when it comes to the required services. In short, B26 Finance is leveraging the innovations created by the DeFi sector to become a worldwide self-banking service, accessible to anyone. An incredible achievement, not yet seen in the world of banking or blockchain. As Jérôme CALMETTES says: “Banking has always evolved alongside technology, privacy and trust and it i

Jordan Belfort, the self-proclaimed “Wolf of Wallstreet” has moved away from his bearish views on bitcoin and now predicts the crypto asset might reach $100,000. Belfort, who has reinvented himself as a motivational speaker and consultant, says bitcoin unlike company stocks is more about “pure supply and demand.” He adds that the crypto asset is “free from the distortion of effectively printing more of your own corporate currency.” Bitcoin’s Fixed Supply Distinguishes It From Stocks Belfort’s remarks about bitcoin ( BTC ) were made during an interview with Fortune where he offered his take on Gamestop stock’s recent Reddit inspired price rally. While some observers have viewed the Gamestop price rally as another form of pump and dump, Belfort disagrees. Although he concedes that traders were “collectively pumping up these stocks” he, however, insists there is “no dump.” Meanwhile, when compared to company stocks, Belfort concludes that the crypto asset’s fixed supply gives it an

The publicly-listed bitcoin mining rig manufacturer Ebang has announced the completion of a new 6nm ASIC mining chip. Ebang believes the next-generation mining chip will give the firm’s ASIC products a “competitive edge” in the ambitious bitcoin mining industry. Mass Production of 6nm Chips to Begin When Market Conditions Become Suitable During the last few weeks, Bitcoin’s hashrate has been climbing to new heights as the network tapped 190 exahash per second on March 22, 2021. The price of bitcoin ( BTC ) has also helped propel bitcoin mining profits, but improved mining rig semiconductors have also increased the hashpower a great deal. Firms like Bitmain, Canaan, Microbt , and Ebang have seen massive demand in 2020 and into 2021. Most of these manufacturers are out of stock after selling mass quantities of ASIC miners to institutional buyers. On March 17, the China-based Ebang International Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: EBON), announced the development of a new 6nm ASIC mining chip.

The team behind Turtledex protocol, a Binance Smart Chain (BSC) project has reportedly rug pulled its investors shortly after raising 9,000 Binance tokens worth $2.5 million. Immediately following the confirmation of the theft, the value of the protocol’s native token TTDX, reportedly plunged to near zero. At the time of writing, the social media accounts associated with the protocol appear to have been deleted. The Rug Pull As one report explains, Turtledex, which touted itself as a decentralized storage platform for users, successfully duped users by claiming it could help them “keep data and preserve files without needing to keep them on their computer.” These claims initially helped the Turtledex team to raise funds via the pre-sale round “in just two hours on Monday 15th.” Next, the team would follow up this successful fundraising round by “opening their liquidity pools on two major BSC Decentralized exchanges (DEXs): Pancakeswap and Apeswap.” The native tokens, TTDX, “were u

Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital has filed an S-1 registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The prospectus for the “First Trust Skybridge Bitcoin ETF Trust” notes that the ETF aims to list common shares on NYSE Arca. Skybridge Capital Files to List a Bitcoin ETF Skybridge Capital and its founder Anthony Scaramucci have been all about bitcoin (BTC) these days and even more so after the company’s successful launch of the Skybridge Capital Bitcoin Fund. At the end of February, Scaramucci said in an interview that he expects $100k BTC prices this year. On March 19, 2021, Skybridge Capital filed an S-1 registration prospectus for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Skybridge Capital will be among a number of firms such as Vaneck and Valkyrie Digital Assets looking to get their ETFs approved. The S-1 registration filed on Friday notes that the ETF will be dubbed the “First Trust Skybridge Bitcoin ETF Trust” b

Deutsche Bank has published a report stating that bitcoin is too important to ignore, noting that it is now the third-largest currency in terms of the total value in circulation. In addition, the bank says that governments and central banks know that cryptocurrencies are here to stay and are expected to start regulating the industry this year. Bitcoin Is Too Important to Ignore Deutsche Bank Research published a report last week entitled: “Bitcoins: Can the Tinkerbell Effect Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?” It is part three of “The Future of Payments: Series 2.” The report author, research analyst Marion Laboure, Ph.D., wrote: Bitcoin’s market cap of $1 trillion makes it too important to ignore. As long as asset managers and companies continue to enter the market, bitcoin prices could continue to rise. At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin stands at $57,455 and the cryptocurrency’s market cap is approximately $1.07 trillion based on data from markets.Bitcoin.com. The

The founder and chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund firm, has warned that the government could “impose prohibitions against capital movements” into assets such as bitcoin. He added that regulators may also impose changes in taxes that “could be more shocking than expected.” Ray Dalio Warns About Government Prohibitions and Taxes Ray Dalio, founder and chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, wrote a post on Linkedin last week entitled: “Why in the World Would You Own Bonds When…” He pointed out that the bond markets currently offer “ridiculously low yields,” which “do not meet these asset holders’ funding needs.” The executive wrote, “There is now over $75 trillion of US debt assets of varying maturities,” adding that their holders will at some point want to sell them to get cash to buy goods and services with. However, Bridgewater’s chief investment officer estimates that “at current valuations, there is way too much money

Six people involved with the Free Keene movement have been arrested and charged for allegedly operating an illegal cryptocurrency exchange business. “They operated their virtual currency exchange business using websites, as well as operating virtual currency ATM machines in New Hampshire,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said. FBI Raids Properties and Charges 6 People The DOJ announced this week that it has charged six New Hampshire residents with crimes related to a cryptocurrency exchange business. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided several Keene properties associated with members of the liberty-minded Free Keene movement on Tuesday and arrested the six defendants. The individuals charged are Ian Freeman (formerly Ian Bernard), 40, of Keene; Colleen Fordham, 60, of Alstead; Renee Spinella, 23, of Derry; Andrew Spinella, 35, of Derry; Nobody (formerly Richard Paul), 52, of Keene; and Aria DiMezzo (formerly James Baker), 34, of Keene. DiMezzo is the self-describe

PRESS RELEASE. BitMax.io (BTMX.com), an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the listing of Fire Tokens (FIRE) under the trading pair of FIRE/USDT on March 19th at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Fire Protocol is the first infrastructure project built based on the Huobi Eco Chain (HECO). Fire Protocol seeks to build more comprehensive functionality and use cases than other DeFi projects in the marketplace by combining various components on one platform. In the future, Fire Protocol will also be supporting Cross-chain functionalities to bridge assets between various blockchains such as Polkadot and BSC. The native token of Fire Protocol, FIRE, is a governance token, used to power the economic incentive mechanisms, support community proposals, and voting. Fire Protocol’s key products include Fireswap, a fast and secure trading service and Liquidity Mining feature, Cross Chain Wrapping solutions to bring non-Huobi Chain assets in

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has found its way onto the deep web and during the last few months, researchers have found a great number of individuals turning to darknet markets (DNMs) for employment. The organization Check Point Research has recorded a rising trend of people looking for jobs on hacking forums and DNMs. Additionally, alleged versions of the coronavirus vaccines from the top manufacturers are being sold on DNMs alongside vaccination records. Mass Darknet Market Closures in 2020 Invoked Opioid Product Premiums In 2020, a great number of darknet markets (DNMs) went dark by either voluntarily closing, exit scamming, or getting busted by global law enforcement. Despite the loss of many DNMs, the vast amount of spontaneous underground markets saw record revenues in 2020. However, the numerous amounts of DNMs disappearing have led to an increased demand for opioids. A new report from the Australian National University (ANU) shows that the effects of global law enfo

A senior executive with Nigeria’s central bank, Adamu Lamtek, has reportedly denied that his institution had placed restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies. Instead, Lamtek, who is the deputy governor responsible for corporates services at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says his organisation’s directive only applies to the banking sector. Prohibition Only Applies to Banks The remarks by Lamtek, who spoke on behalf of the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele, follow the central bank’s February 5, 2021, directive which prohibited banks from facilitating crypto-related transactions. Immediately following the announcement, financial institutions began to comply with the directive. Since then volumes on centralized crypto exchanges have plunged while reports suggest that volumes on peer to peer platforms are on the rise . In the meantime, before the latest communication from the CBN, rumours circulated that authorities would soon clampdown on peer to peer trading like Binance’s P2P pl

PRESS RELEASE. Chicago, Illinois, USA – Hummingbot.io , a premier open-source algorithmic trading project, has chosen to incorporate Beaxy Exchange into its most recent software release, allowing Beaxy users to take advantage of 24/7 automated high-frequency trading on a U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange. Previously, traders could use the open source codebase to run their own versions of Hummingbot. Now, a version exists which was custom tailored by the Hummingbot Development Team to ensure a streamlined integration with beaxy ’s trading interface. Hummingbot differs from other trading bots in several respects. It is an open source program and is free to download and use. The core strategy of the bot enables a trader to function as a market maker on multiple exchanges – put simply, the bot will place both limit buy and limit sell orders for others in the market (termed “takers”) to meet. While there are numerous strategy templates and operating styles, the bottom line is that Hum

The founder of Bytetree Asset Management, Charlie Morris, has suggested the reduction of the GBTC management fee as one way Grayscale Investment can ease the current selling pressure and possibly reduce the discount on the shares. Morris says if no action is taken, “the selling pressure will build” and “could morph into a systemic risk.” Recent GBTC Buyback Insignificant On the other hand, Morris, who is also the chief investments officer (CIO) at Bytetree, thinks Grayscale’s recent $250 million GBTC may be too insignificant to make a difference. However, in his Bytetree Market Health Update , Morris does acknowledge that 2020 was a year of “record inflows” for Grayscale Investment. During this period, the premium on GBTC shares averaged 30% while the value of assets under management (AUM) soared to over $30 billion. However, when the premium began to ease, the inflows into the trust similarly began to slow down. This subsequently led to the premium on the GBTC shares turning into