Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

PRESS RELEASE. xSigma, a decentralized exchange for stablecoin swaps, has successfully launched on the Ethereum network on February 24, 2021. The integrated DEX and liquidity mining platform xSigma, which is backed by a NASDAQ-listed company, has seen great interest in its stablecoin liquidity pools which enable assets to be swapped seamlessly and with minimal slippage. Within the xSigma ecosystem, liquidity providers (LPs) earn SIG tokens, with a 2x bonus to bootstrap liquidity in place for the next fortnight. SIG is the platform’s native utility token with built-in voting and value accrual mechanisms. $150 million of liquidity has been pooled in xSigma DEX (as of February 28) and almost $10m of SIG has been allocated to LPs. Pool 1 and 2 continue to offer some of the highest yields in the defi space, at 125% and 2700% respectively. DEX volume has surpassed $700k per day. $20m worth of SIG tokens were traded on launch day and there is over $100 million of stablecoins pooled, compr

On March 2, 2021, the average fee on the Ethereum network costs around 0.0083 ETH in gas or around $12.89 per transaction. Transaction fees of this caliber have dampened Ethereum-based decentralized finance (defi) applications and Web3 platforms. On February 23, however, crypto proponents were introduced to an alternative solution called Moeing chain. The Moeing chain project aims to provide the same benefits as Ethereum 2.0 scaling solutions but with help from the Bitcoin Cash network. Moeing chain to Introduce an EVM and Web3-Compatible Sidechain for Bitcoin Cash Decentralized finance (defi) has been a hot topic in 2020 and into 2021. Defi has also been dominant on the Ethereum ( ETH ) network, but during the last year, defi has leaked over to a number of other blockchains. The Moeing chain project introduced itself on February 23, 2021, on Twitter. For instance, Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) proponents have recently welcomed the noncustodial exchange Detoken and the Anyhedge protoco

Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China, is planning to shut down all cryptocurrency mining activities in the area by April 2021, as part of efforts to improve energy efficiency. Regulating the Electrical Consumption in Inner Mongolia The government of Inner Mongolia will also stop approving new projects in energy-intensive industries such as steel and coke production, Reuters reported on Mar. 1, citing a draft policy to regulate energy consumption in the region. Chinese journalist “Wu Blockchain” tweeted that the decision might be due to China’s need to meet its carbon emissions commitments under the U.N. climate change treaty. Much of the energy produced in Inner Mongolia is coal-based, a major source of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. China, the world’s second-largest polluter after the U.S., aims to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2060. Together with the likes of Sichuan and Xinjiang provinces, Inner Mongolia is a favorite destination for miners lookin

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) has applied to list the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust, as an exchange-traded fund (ETF) if the fund is approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The filing Form 19b-4, if approved by financial regulators, would allow Cboe to “list and trade shares of the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust.” Cboe Aims to List the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust BZX On March 1, 2021, the largest U.S. options exchange, Cboe filed a registration with the U.S. SEC in order to list shares of the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust under the ticker “BZX.” The filing written by Cboe’s associate general counsel notes that the shares may be redeemable for bitcoin (BTC) . The Cboe registration is based on the Vaneck proposal the company applied for on December 30, 2020. Cboe filed to list the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust on March 1, 2021. New York-based investment management firm Vaneck applied with the SEC at the end of 2020, following the successful listing of a crypto ETF in Europe. The announce

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Crypto bank Unicas, a joint venture between Cashaa and United Multi State Credit Cooperative Society, has expanded its operations by opening another physical branch. The bank believes that the Indian government will introduce positive crypto regulation and not impose an outright ban on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin . New Physical Crypto Bank Branch Opens in New Delhi Physical crypto bank Unicas has opened another branch, Cashaa announced last week. Unicas is a joint venture between crypto banking platform Cashaa and United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society. Noting that this will be the first of many branches in the city, the announcement details: Unicas – the world’s first crypto financial institution with physical branches today opened in India’s capital, New Delhi. Unicas is banking on the Indian government introducing a bill to approve the legitimate use of cryptocurrency. “We are proud to bring Unicas to the nation’s capital,” Unicas CEO Dinesh Kukreja commented. “Del

Global investment bank Goldman Sachs has brought back its bitcoin trading desk and will start handling bitcoin futures next week. The firm is also reportedly exploring the potential for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and plans to provide a crypto custody service. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has restarted its cryptocurrency trading desk, Reuters reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter. Goldman first set up a cryptocurrency desk in 2018, after a bull run as the price of bitcoin was falling from record highs, muting investor interest in the cryptocurrency. The desk will “begin dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards for clients from next week,” the publication conveyed. It will also take on projects involving blockchain technology and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The crypto desk will be within Goldman Sachs’ global markets division and will serve as a market-maker, buying and selling on behalf of clients but not actively managing cryp

The price of bitcoin and a number of digital assets saw significant gains on Monday, as the entire market capitalization of the crypto economy has gained 2.4% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin’s value passed the psychological $50k zone after hitting a low of $43,021 the day prior on Sunday. Bitcoin (BTC) touched a high on Monday, March 1, at $50,244 per unit at around 7:26 p.m. (ET). At the time of publication, BTC ’s overall market valuation is around $926 billion and there’s $22.83 billion in global trade volume. The current price is over 15% higher than the low of $43,021 per unit on February 28. Out of all the crypto-assets in existence, BTC ’s market dominance in terms of market valuation against the $1.44 trillion in value is 61.02% today. Bitcoin is still down 8% for the week but is up 44.92% against the U.S. dollar during the last 30 days. The second-largest market capitalization is ethereum (ETH) , which is now trading for $1,583 per coin. ETH has jumped over 9% during

Thanks to TON Labs, BSN will now be able to produce real-life applications that require a scalable backend and use cases in compliance with China’s regulatory framework while still using an inherently decentralized network to do so. China’s Developers Gain Access to TON Technology China’s Blockchain-based Service Network ( BSN ) and TON Labs announced today that they have struck a partnership agreement to p r ovide China’s developers with access to TON Technology through BSN’s Open Permissioned Blockchain (OPB) Initiative in order to build applications and create use cases in compliance with Chinese regulatory demands. OPB Initiative is designed for public chains to enter the Chinese market legally. It makes public chains regulatory compliant by removing the mechanism of using cryptocurrencies to pay for gas fees and offering permissioned controls over node deployment. The TON protocol, originally developed by Telegram, was ultimately abandoned by its founders back in A

Since the company Microstrategy shifted a lot of its treasury reserves into bitcoin, a great number of companies have followed the firm’s lead. According to the web portal, bitcointreasuries.org, data shows that 42 companies are now represented on the list and the businesses hold more than $65 billion worth of bitcoin. The Corporate Bitcoin Stash- 6.43% out of the 21 Million Capped Supply It has become a trend to add bitcoin (BTC) to a company’s balance sheet and the company Microstrategy invoked the trend when the business purchased $250 million worth of BTC . Since then, a great number of companies have followed suit and BTC ’s value has skyrocketed as well. For instance, at the end of 2020, 29 firms held around 1.1 million bitcoin worth more than $30 Billion using exchange rates on December 28. Moreover, at the time, the 29 companies owned 5.48% of the entire 21 million BTC supply. Today, according to bitcointreasuries.org statistics the numbers have changed a great deal. Th

Last Sunday, the price of bitcoin touched an all-time price high at $58,354 per unit and surpassed a $1 trillion market capitalization. Bitcoin’s value has dipped since then, but the decentralized crypto asset’s market still captures a large $900 billion valuation. On February 26, the director of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) warned that bitcoin’s growing value and success may lead to a technocratic dystopian society that rivals “the kings and emperors that ruled over empires in centuries past.” Hyperbitcoinization: ‘A Voluntary Transition From an Inferior Currency to a Superior One’ Almost seven years ago back in 2014, Daniel Krawisz wrote about and created the term “hyperbitcoinization,” in order to describe how fiat currencies will rapidly lose value and Bitcoin supplants them. Krawisz explained what demonetization is and one specific type that is often talked about these days called hyperinflation. Essentially, in economics, the term hyperinflation stands for

On March 1, the startup General Protocols announced the company has raised $3 million in a Series A financing round led by a number of strategic investors. General Protocols is the firm behind the Anyhedge protocol, the first decentralized finance (defi) project built on the Bitcoin Cash network. ‘The Untapped Power Behind the Concept of Programmable Money’ The company General Protocols has revealed on Monday the startup has completed a Series A financing round that was funded by a number of investors. News.Bitcoin.com has reported on General Protocols on a number of occasions, as the startup believes “smart contracts on programmable money are the foundation of a multi-trillion dollar shift toward non-custodial and trustless networks.” At the end of December, General Protocols alongside the Detoken decentralized exchange (dex) launched the Anyhedge protocol into the wild. Being the first public defi protocol built on top of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network, Detoken and Anyhedge

PRESS RELEASE. Decentralized storage is a crucial infrastructure in the technical field. With the Filecoin mainnet launch in October of 2020, Filecoin and IPFS are now leading the decentralized storage field. One of the star projects of the IPFS/Polkadot ecosystem, Crust Network proposes to implement key concepts of Filecoin based on the Substrate technical framework within the Polkadot ecosystem, and also address several design and technical issues of Filecoin. After several rounds of internal testing, Crust Network has launched its Decentralized Storage Market on Crust Apps and opened storage functions to users for public testing from the end of February. Crust Preview Network, Apps and DSM Based on the Substrate and PolkadotJS stack, Crust is building a decentralized storage network. Crust uses IPFS as the underlying data storage, retrieval and exchange protocol, and includes layered solutions on storage proof, PoS-derived consensus, storage market and storage applications. The

Just days after the conclusion of its long-running feud with the Office of the Attorney General of New York, Tether says it is now a victim of an extortion attempt. According to the stablecoin issuer, the blackmailers are threatening to release documents they claim “will harm the bitcoin ecosystem” if their demand for the payment of 500 bitcoins is not met. Tether Not Paying the Ransom However, in its statement dismissing the threat, Tether says the blackmailers were attempting to extort money using “forged documents.” According to Tether, the documents purport to show an interaction between Tether personnel and representatives of Deltec Bank. Still, in a Twitter thread , Tether says it will not send the 500 BTC which the blackmailers want to be paid by March 1. The stablecoin issuer also says a formal report about the ransom demand has been made to law enforcement. Tether tweeted; We have reported the forged communications and the associated ransom demand to law enforcement. A