Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

A Zimbabwean fintech lawyer, Prosper Mwedzi, recently initiated a process that seeks to bring recognition and regulation of cryptocurrencies. Under this private member bill procedure, a legislative proposition initiated by private citizens will be debated in the Zimbabwean parliament. If the crypto regulation bill succeeds in garnering the required support, it will become part of the country’s national laws. Meanwhile, Mwedzi’s attempt to use the private bill to bring regulation to Zimbabwe’s crypto space comes more than two years after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) issued a public advisory against cryptocurrency trading. For an update on the private bill’s progress, Terence ZImwara of Bitcoin.com News recently reached out to Mwedzi. Below are Mwedzi’s responses to a set of questions that were sent to him. Bitcoin.com News (BCN): Can you start by telling us what prompted you to go the route of a Private Member’s Bill? Prosper Mwedzi (PM): We have been trying to get regulator

According to data from Skew Analytics, more than 55,000 bitcoin options contracts worth $2.2 billion will expire on Friday. Statistics further show, as far as options are concerned, Deribit captures the lion’s share of contracts with 48,469 bitcoin options contracts ($1.95 billion notional) set to expire. 55K in Bitcoin Option Set to Expire, Deribit Carries $1.95 Billion Notional Another large options expiry is set to happen on May 28, 2021, following last week’s bitcoin (BTC) market sell-off. The analytics provider’s Twitter account from skew.com revealed on May 25, 2021, that over “55k bitcoin options expiring this Friday with $40k strike open in $130mln notional.” Skew data shows approximately 55,900 contracts ($2.2 billion) will expire around 4 a.m. (ET) on Friday. The options expiry follows the recent market carnage stemming from China, significant leverage , and environment FUD during the last two weeks. However, Skew Analytics said that bitcoin ( BTC ) markets absorb

Like Bitcoin, DeFi’s ambition to build a fully decentralized global network is the fundamental source of its revolutionary characteristics – that of being trustless and enabling disintermediation. It is these two characteristics that build the core value of DeFi and determine its long-term market growth. It’s easy to see why this is so: On the one hand, the core model of any DeFi project must be zero-centric in order to carry unlimited trust, exhibiting the value of a decentralized network beyond the market value of one single product or a brand. On the other hand, a decentralized network must also be disintermediated, in order to compete with centralized products and retain its most critical competencies. A non-cooperative network is a naturally robust decentralized network model. Shield is building a decentralized non-cooperative game theory based, derivatives trading network consisting of traders, dual liquidity pools, liquidators and brokers. Shield Decentralized Network Ba

On Wednesday, the Veriblock project, a blockchain that leverages the implementation of proof-of-proof (PoP) consensus, announced an initiative to secure the Dogecoin blockchain using Bitcoin. The Veriblock Foundation believes the effort counters the hostile ‘Blood Bitcoin’ narrative in regard to recent environmental concerns over proof-of-work (PoW). Veriblock to Secure Dogecoin via PoP and Bitcoin’s PoW The Veriblock Foundation , a nonprofit created to bolster the adoption of Veriblock’s PoP securitizing consensus algorithm, has revealed a new initiative dedicated to securing the Dogecoin network. Presently, Veriblock developers are in the midst of integrating PoP into the Dogecoin codebase and aim to “present an open-source beta to the Dogecoin community soon for testing and feedback.” Additionally, the Veriblock team will perform a 51% attack on the PoP-enabled version of Dogecoin in order to showcase the benefits of this technology. Veriblock’s cofounder and chief technical of

Graphics cards manufacturer Nvidia has earned $155 million in revenue from chips designed for cryptocurrency mining during the first fiscal quarter. The company admitted that crypto miners have also pushed sales up in the gaming products segment which remains its main market. Leading GPU Maker Reports Record High Video Card Sales Supported by Crypto Miners Announcing its first fiscal 2022 results , Nvidia revealed its total revenue rose 84% in Q1 that ended on May 2. The record high $5.66 billion figure, which exceeded preliminary expectations, comes from the company’s gaming, data center and professional visualization platforms. Surging demand for graphics processing units (GPUs) during the pandemic, along with the growth of AI applications have played a major role, but so have booming crypto markets. While $155 million of the total have been attributed to crypto-specific chips, Nvidia also admitted that cryptocurrency miners have boosted sales in its larger gaming card segment, R

On Wednesday the White House defended President Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar spending proposals despite the criticism concerning rising inflation and low-interest rates. Inflation has risen at unprecedented levels in the U.S. and the average American’s purchasing power is growing less powerful. Now critics like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and American economist Larry Summers have blasted the Biden administration because they expect inflation to grow “considerably higher.” Americans Watch Purchasing Power Sink While Analysts Suspect Even More Inflation on the Horizon Inflation has been a worry for American citizens ever since the U.S. government and Federal Reserve decided to increase the M1 monetary supply like never before in history. Essentially, inflation is the rise in price for goods and services, and the nation’s currency ends up buying fewer goods and services. Reports show that nearly everything is rising in value, and the U.S. dollar can purchase far less than it could

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced that cryptocurrency mining is banned in Iran, effective immediately. The ban, which will last until Sept. 22, is imposed as many cities in the country are facing major power blackouts. Iran has banned cryptocurrency mining effective immediately, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday in a televised speech at a cabinet meeting. He was quoted by the media as saying: The ban on the mining of cryptocurrencies is effective immediately until September 22. Many cities in Iran are facing major power blackouts and the government has blamed power cuts on cryptocurrency mining, drought, and rising demand for electricity in summer. Bitcoin News recently reported that Iran will shut down licensed crypto miners in peak hours of power consumption. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.5% of all bitcoin mining takes place in Iran. The firm said income from mining has allowed “the country to circumvent trade embargoes

During the course of the week, the cryptocurrency community has been focused on China and the country’s Financial Stability Board detailing that it aims to crack down on the bitcoin mining sector. Following the statements from Chinese officials and a few crypto businesses abandoning services in the region, executives from some of China’s largest bitcoin mining companies have openly discussed the situation. Btc.top’s CEO: ‘If China Takes Regulatory Actions Against Crypto Mining, Then Major Chinese Manufacturers Will Sell Abroad The million-dollar question right now is whether or not the Chinese government will continue to crack down on the crypto industry. It all started when Reuters published a report on May 18, that said: “China bans financial, payment institutions from cryptocurrency business.” Essentially the news publication said that “three financial industry associations” from China told financial institutions and payment processors “not to offer any crypto-related services.”

PRESS RELEASE. Bitcoin.com Exchange is thrilled to announce the listing of GHX, being available to trade on the 27th May 2021 at 10:00AM UTC. GHX (GamerCoin) was created by the GamerHash team, as an incentive for the miners within the app and as a reward for carrying out the tasks on the Play&Earn module. GHX will start trading with BTC as a pair . What is GamerHash? GamerHash is an ecosystem where gamers can use their computing power to earn Bitcoin. That is the basic functionality of the platform, created in 2017, that has brought together over half a million gamers to this day. One of the moot points behind the recent GHX token growth is the already working platform supporting over 600,000 registered users. The big number of users (mostly gamers) corresponds with the ease of crypto mining on the platform – you can earn BTC while playing games or watching Netflix. At the same time, you receive GamerCoin as a 20% bonus on top of the BTC you mine. Lower-end PC owners with

Payments giant Paypal will soon allow its users to transfer cryptocurrencies away from its platform to third-party wallets, the company’s head of cryptocurrency reportedly revealed. Paypal has been seeing tremendous growth in its crypto business. Paypal to Support Crypto Transfers to Third-Party Wallets Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Paypal’s head of cryptocurrency, said during the Consensus 2021 conference Wednesday that his company will soon start allowing cryptocurrency withdrawals to third-party wallets. He explained: We want to make it as open as possible and we want to give choice to our consumers … They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they have bought with us and take it to the destination of their choice. The change will allow Paypal users to transfer their cryptocurrencies away from the platform to third-party wallets. Currently, Paypal’s terms and conditions for its crypto service state that “Yo

Chia, a cryptocurrency project created in 2018 that uses storage for its consensus, is eyeing a public offering this year, according to statements from its COO, Gene Hoffman. The company just received an influx of investments that are pointing it to become the next ‘green bitcoin substitute,’ due to its relatively low energy consumption compared to other proof-of-work (PoW) alternatives. Chia Aims to Launch an IPO This Year Chia, a cryptocurrency that was founded two years ago but launched its mainnet recently, is striving to launch an initial public offering (IPO) as soon as this year, as statements from the company backing it show. Chia Network Inc, which was founded by the Bittorrent creator, Bram Cohen, just recently received a funding round of more than $60 million, which gave the cryptocurrency a valuation of $500 million. The companies which led the funding round were Richmond Global Ventures and the known Andreessen Horowitz, but other companies were also involved. Breyer

Recent announcements and actions by Elon Musk surrounding bitcoin mining sustainability raise questions about the reasoning and motivations of Tesla’s Technoking. Is it possible that Musk is playing a calculated marketing game to introduce a Tesla mining solution? The World of Bitcoin Mining According to Musk Once upon a time, for 49 days, the world was able to purchase Teslas with bitcoin. Then, on May 12, Elon Musk posted the now-infamous tweet saying that Tesla “suspends” vehicle purchasing using bitcoin due to the increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions. It was a curious announcement. Was Musk not aware of the bitcoin mining footprint in March when announcing that Tesla would begin accepting bitcoin ? Or when he bought $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency? Another question that must be addressed – how many Teslas were actually purchased with bitcoin during those glorious 49 days? No data is available from Tesla on this, but one can speculate th

Chinese traders still exert a major influence in the cryptocurrency market, even with all the distinct issues they must now face to operate. This is the opinion of several experts in the field that have weighed in on how the recent prohibitions and ban proposals from China are really affecting how Chinese bagholders that conduct their business in Asian and worldwide exchanges. Chinese Traders Still Big in the Market Chinese traders still have a big influence on how crypto markets move even with all of the difficulties they have to operate, according to different experts with knowledge about how Asian markets work. Even sidestepping all of the government regulations, these traders are still managing to do business, taking advantage of gray markets and other services that let them exchange the local currency for crypto. News of China i nvoking strict warnings toward cryptocurrency trading and initial coin offerings (ICOs) are not new: China has warned against these activities since