Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that she has not made up her mind about whether the Fed should issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC). “There are some benefits” to a digital dollar, Yellen said, but noted that “there are also meaningful costs.” Janet Yellen Has Not Decided Whether the Fed Should Develop a Digital Dollar Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday during an interview at the Reuters Next conference that she has not formed an opinion about whether the Federal Reserve should create a digital dollar. She explained that the decision would require broad consensus among Congress, the central bank, and the White House. The treasury secretary believes that more study is needed on the advantages and disadvantages of having a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the U.S., including its effects on the banking system. Yellen opined: I see both pros and cons to doing it. And my own mind is not made up about this. According to the Atlantic Council’s Ge

India is no longer planning to ban cryptocurrency, a cabinet note circulated by the government reportedly indicates. Activities relating to crypto assets will be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Crypto Will Not Be Banned in India, Cabinet Note Indicates Despite reports of the Indian government planning to ban cryptocurrencies, NDTV reported Thursday that a cabinet note circulated by the government indicates that cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and ether, will not be banned. Emphasizing that cryptocurrency is not recognized as legal currency in India, the publication noted: The legislation also describes cryptocurrency as cryptoasset. According to the cabinet note, crypto exchange platforms will be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the regulatory body for securities and commodity markets in India under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance. In addition, “A cut-off date will be prescribed for those having cryptoa

Roskomnadzor, the government body responsible for oversight of communications in Russia, is taking steps to block six more VPN providers. The move comes after the agency cut access earlier this year to a number of VPN services helping Russians to reach “banned” information. Roskomnadzor Moves to Block More VPNs in Russia The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media ( Roskomnadzor ) is preparing to restrict another six VPN platforms active in the country. The targeted providers are Betternet, Lantern, X-VPN, Cloudflare Warp, Tachyon VPN, and Privatetunnel. VPN services such as those listed provide Russian residents with an option to bypass government restrictions and gain access to information that is prohibited by the law in Russia, Forklog noted in a report quoting Roskomnadzor’s announcement . In a growing number of cases, Russian authorities have treated crypto-related content as banned. In June, a court in the Perm regi

Discussions on the future of “virtual currency exchangers” in Russia should be completed in 2022, a high-ranking representative of the country’s financial watchdog has indicated. Following international standards, authorities in Moscow would have to either regulate or ban such platforms. Decision on Digital Currency Exchangers in Russia Expected Next Year Considerations regarding the regulatory treatment of online exchangers working with cryptocurrencies must come to an end in 2022. That’s according to a statement by the Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service ( Rosfinmonitoring ) Herman Neglyad, quoted by Tass. At this year’s Banking Legal Conference, the official noted that in the light of efforts to manage risks associated with money laundering and terrorist financing under the national risk assessment adopted in 2018, virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies are recognized as a high risk factor for Russia’s financial space. Neglyad also emphasized: Her

Marathon Digital Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed bitcoin mining-based company, has announced a new deal with Compute North, a data center service provider, to host more than 100,000 mining machines in its data centers. The deal is an expansion of an earlier deal that secured positioning for 73,000 mining machines in Texas. Now, the new partnership secures hosting for all of these machines, to be powered with renewables. Marathon Expands Mining Operations Marathon, one of the largest bitcoin mining companies in the U.S., has announced it will expand its prior agreement with Compute North to host more than 100K miners in data centers around the country. The former agreement secured hosting for 73K miners in several data centers managed by Compute North, which is a Tier 0 data center service provider. The partnership also includes the installation, operations, and deployments of Marathon’s existing and new mining facilities. With this partnership, Marathon will position all of its mining m

PRESS RELEASE. Abu Dhabi, UAE – Empire Token’s flagship utility, the Empire NFT Marketplace, is now live on the Ethereum mainnet. The Ethereum Blockchain is a global computing platform and operating system which can be used to create decentralized services and applications. Fortunately, the bright future of this blockchain now has Empire on its side. NFT creators and traders can now use Ethereum coin and Ethereum based tokens to mint and trade NFTs on the Empire NFT Marketplace. Projects that are powered by Ethereum may include anything from smart contracts, voting systems, decentralized exchanges, and much more. Constructing a bridge to the Ethereum Blockchain will be the building blocks for exciting applications to come to the Empire Ecosystem. Empire NFT Marketplace expansion to Solana is likewise around the corner. Solana is a company that offers enterprise-grade blockchain solutions to meet the increasing demands of enterprises. Solana is a high-performance blockchain that’s de

Hashed, a Korean blockchain VC firm, has announced the launch of Hashed Venture Fund II, a new fund that will focus on investing in Web 3.0-based startups. The fund raised $200 million for these investments, and while the company did not disclose those who participated, it did announce it will be scaling operations to have a more global impact. Hashed Focused on Web 3 Investments Hashed, one of the biggest blockchain-based VC firms in Korea, has announced the launch of a new fund that will focus on Web 3.0 investments. Hashed disclosed its new fund, called Hashed Venture Fund II, would open with $200 million available to incubate startups in the Web 3.0 arena, including play-to-earn initiatives and decentralized finance companies. With this fund, Hashed wants to expand its influence and reach a global scale, connecting with creators in places not contemplated before. Hashed’s announcement, written by partner Baek Kim, states: We are carefully scaling our impact in key markets. I

PRESS RELEASE. On the back of a big year for CoinFLEX, the crypto derivatives exchange that now powers the Bitcoin.com exchange, has just launched its brand ambassador initiative to expand its global community. CoinFLEX’s first brand ambassador is world-renowned poker star, Doug Polk . Doug Polk is one of poker’s most well-known superstars, having won over $9.5 million in live tournaments and more recently booking a win for $1.2 million in a heads-up competition versus fellow poker pro Daniel Negreanu. Doug is just as well known for his skills “away from the felt” as a content creator and educator as he is for being a card shark. Some may know Doug from his crypto youtube channel , which gained 150,000+ subscribers in 2017. He also built one of poker’s most beloved youtube channels , amassing over 350,000 subscribers and over 1.3 billion views across his four YouTube channels. Doug discovered crypto during his poker career when he needed a simple way to move money around the worl

The German multinational corporation that crafts athletic shoes, sportswear, and accessories, Adidas AG is teaming up with the non-fungible token (NFT) brands the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and the comic series Punks Comic. Adidas revealed last week that the company partnered with Coinbase and believes the metaverse is one of the most “exciting” developments in digital. Adidas Partners With Bored Ape Yacht Club, Punks Comic, and Gmoney Adidas wants the world to know it is entering the world of blockchain technology and metaverse collectibles in a big way. On December 2, the company’s Twitter account announced that it teamed up with the cryptocurrency investor Gmoney , the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT project, and Punks Comic . “Today we leap Into The Metaverse with [Bored Ape Yacht Club], [Gmoney] & [Punks Comic]. It’s time to enter a world of limitless possibilities,” Adidas wrote on Thursday. The tweet was liked over 8,000 times and retweeted more than 4,000 times. The tweet

Jordan Belfort, the former stockbroker whose memoir was made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has warned about investing in meme cryptocurrencies, like dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB). Belfort explained that “People are taking advantage of an unregulated market,” emphasizing that “The sooner governments step in the better it is for crypto.” The Wolf of Wall Street’s Advice on Dogecoin and Shiba Inu Cryptocurrencies Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, has warned investors about putting money in meme cryptocurrencies, like dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB), in an interview with The Sun, published Tuesday. “I’m a fan of blockchain but there’s a lot of nonsense out there, a lot of shit coins which serve no purpose and are only there to separate people from their money,” he opined. Belfort is a former stockbroker whose memoir was adapted into a film titled “The Wolf of Wall Street,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese. Belfort founded Stra

Meta, formerly Facebook, has relaxed its policy for cryptocurrency advertisements, making it easier for companies to run crypto ads on its platform. “We’re doing this because the cryptocurrency landscape has continued to mature and stabilize in recent years and has seen more government regulations that are setting clearer rules for their industry,” the company explained. Meta’s New Rules for Cryptocurrency Advertising Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced Wednesday new rules for cryptocurrency advertising. Instead of “using a variety of signals to confirm eligibility” for advertising on its platform, the company has increased the number of regulatory licenses it accepts from three to 27. Now, businesses only need to have one of 27 licenses to be eligible to advertise on Facebook. “We’re making it easier to run ads about cryptocurrency on our platform,” Meta emphasized, adding: We’re doing this because the cryptocurrency landscape has continued to mature and stabilize in re

Jurors in the Kleiman v. Wright trial are currently unable to come to a decision on the high-profile billion-dollar bitcoin lawsuit in Florida. While the judge has told the jury to take time deliberating the case, on Wednesday, the jurors issued a statement that explained they could not “come to a conclusion.” Kleiman v. Wright Jurors Unable to Make a Decision — Judge Issues Allen Charge Extending Deliberation Time Following the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, jurors from the Kleiman v. Wright case have been deliberating on their decision for quite some time now. Some believe the jury may end up deadlocked and the case may lead to a mistrial. Court reporter Carolina Bolada from Law360 tweeted on December 2, 2021, that everyone at the courthouse was simply waiting for the decision. “I’ve had a few requests for updates on Kleiman v. Wright,” Bolada tweeted on Thursday. “Believe me, if there were news, I would’ve tweeted it. We are all just waiting around for word from th

UK and Swiss based gaming and blockchain company, GAIMIN.IO Ltd has developed a PC-based platform to create a global, decentralised data processing network with “supercomputer” level performance. The GAIMIN platform utilises underused processing power available from high performance GPUs and rewards users in its own cryptocurrency, GMRX, for participation in the GAIMIN data. Why is the GAIMIN platform needed? The Digital Revolution has created a large number of new industries, each with their own ever increasing demand for processing data. The powering of blockchain computations is one example. Within the cryptocurrency industry, this is commonly known as mining. With an increasing number of daily blockchain computations requiring increasingly more difficult computations and calculations to validate and close transactions, the demand for processing capability and computing power is ever increasing. Other industries, such as video and CGI rendering, scientific computing simulation

Following Jack Dorsey’s resignation announcement on Monday, two days later Dorsey’s payments company, Square Inc., disclosed that it was rebranding and changing its name to Block Inc. The company said the name Block has “many associated meanings” including the term “blockchain.” Square Changes Name to ‘Block’ — Square Crypto Rebrands to ‘Spiral’ On Wednesday, Square Inc., the firm founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey has decided to change its name following Facebook’s rebrand to “Meta.” The news follows Jack Dorsey’s resignation announcement when he explained on Monday that he would step down as Twitter’s CEO. “We built the Square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs,” Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block said during the announcement on Wednesday. Dorsey added: Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.

Two days ago on November 30, the price of bitcoin ( BTC ) tapped a high that day reaching $59,250 per unit, but it has since dropped close to 5% in value to just above the $56K region. Onchain statistics indicate that whales and long-term holders (LTHs) have been spending over the last month and blockchain parsers have witnessed enormous movements in recent days. Btcparser 3 Spots Droves of Bitcoin From Cold Wallets Move to Active Exchanges On the first two days of December, there have been some massive bitcoin (BTC) whale movements stemming from long-term bitcoin holders. On Thursday morning, the creator of the web portal Btcparser.com explained that “significant amounts of bitcoin were taken out from cold wallets and moved to active exchanges.” The onchain action was caught by the blockchain parsing tool Btcparser 3 , a tool that analyzes each and every new bitcoin block by getting detailed information about all transactions within it. “The bot uses groups of 100 blocks and ide

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called Badgerdao has disclosed that it has “received reports of unauthorized withdrawals of user funds.” The analytics team Peckshield estimates that over $120 million was siphoned in the Badgerdao breach. Badgerdao Suffers $120 Million Exploit — Engineers Pause Smart Contracts According to the official Badgerdao Twitter account , the team has noticed reports of unauthorized withdrawals from the protocol’s system. “Badger has received reports of unauthorized withdrawals of user funds,” the team stressed on Tuesday evening at 11:30 p.m. (EST). “As Badger engineers investigate this, all smart contracts have been paused to prevent further withdrawals. Our investigation is ongoing and we will release further information as soon as possible,” the team added. The analytics firm Peckshield told its 22,000 Twitter followers the estimated damage from the Badgerdao breach. “Here is the current whereabouts as well as the total loss: $120.3M (

Customers of the largest supermarket chain in Croatia will be able to pay with cryptocurrency for their orders in the retailer’s online shop. The company plans to soon offer the crypto payment option also at its physical stores throughout the country. Konzum Allows Shoppers in Croatia to Pay With 9 Cryptocurrencies Croatia’s supermarket chain with the largest number of stores, Konzum , is now accepting cryptocurrency for groceries and other items sold through its online shopping platform. Starting from Dec. 1, customers can buy any of the 12,000 listed products using nine major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin ( BTC ), ether ( ETH ), bitcoin cash ( BCH ), EOS , DAI, XRP , XLM , and the stablecoins USDT and USDC. “The introduction of cryptocurrency payments is another indicator that Konzum is constantly monitoring global trends, introducing innovations and setting the standard in the retail sector,” said Uroš Kalinić, member of the Management Board of Konzum responsible for finance and I

PRESS RELEASE. Blockchain based P2E Fantasy Sports Game TradeStars has announced the launch of staking of their native token TSX. Users will now be able to stake their TSX tokens and earn more TSX tokens as rewards. TradeStars and TSX TradeStars is a P2E Fantasy Sports game built on Ethereum, where users can trade Fantasy Stocks whose value is directly influenced by the real-life performances of athletes. Sports enthusiasts can use their sporting knowledge to buy Fantasy Stock of players who display potential to be the stars of tomorrow, and enjoy significant upside on their investment. The Fantasy Stocks are implemented as Fractional Non-Fungible Tokens (F-NFTs), and are traded against smart contracts using TSX as the medium of exchange. TSX is an ERC-20 token which serves as the in-game currency (utility token). Users can also participate in DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) contests on TradeStars and win TSX as rewards. TSX Utilities Being the utility token, TSX drives the in-game

The adoption of blockchain technology and the use of cryptocurrencies by people in Africa surged to unprecedented levels in 2020. While many have attributed this to Covid-19, blockchain advocates believe their work is partly the reason many are turning to digital currencies. Importance of Education Starting in the first quarter of 2020, the adoption of blockchain-anchored digital currencies such as bitcoin accelerated in regions like Africa where the number of financially excluded adults is still very high. Indeed, the blockchain and cryptocurrencies have proved to be tailor-made for the “new normal” that has subsisted since the pandemic began. While blockchain and crypto advocates might view the increased use of crypto as a direct result of their efforts, some have argued that it was a pandemic that forced many Africans to consider using blockchain-related solutions. But as Roselyne Wanjiru, a Kenya-based blockchain advocate and educator told Bitcoin.com News, the work that she do

The Nervos Network is an open Blockchain platform for innovators to build applications that are decentralized, autonomous and universally accessible. They want to create an all-encompassing architecture that allows dApp developers to build once and reach all of these users, everywhere using layer 1 + Layer 2 solutions. Ben Morris is the Director of Business Development at Nervos . He recently joined the Bitcoin.com News Podcast to talk about the business: Ben is a business development leader, investor and founder. He spent over 10 years managing regional businesses at some of the world’s largest financial services companies including Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa. Ben entered the blockchain industry in 2018 to set up Status Incubate, which led to early-stage investments in projects including Superrare, LeapDAO and Matrix. He was also the founder of fitness live streaming startup lift.tv and partner at private blockchain fund

Investments in alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies account for over half of the portfolio of non-qualified Russian investors, a recently held survey has indicated. Almost half of them consider digital currencies like bitcoin as a potential hedge. Cryptocurrencies Outperform Traditional Currencies and Stocks in Russia Alternative investments like crypto, real estate, and antiques constitute more than half of the portfolios of non-qualified investors in the Russian Federation, according to a new poll conducted by Investing.com. Digital currencies are leading among these options with 46% of 1,000 respondents viewing them as a hedge investment for the future. Another 37% of those betting on alternative assets look at buying real estate as an effective investment, the Russian daily Izvestia reported , quoting the results from the study. Around 47% of the participants regarded gold as a reliable instrument, especially during times of crisis, while 27% admitted they had never inve

On November 30, the crypto firm Blockchain.com announced it acquired the Argentina-based investment platform Sesocio. According to the firm, the acquisition will give the company’s global workforce an aggregate headcount of 400 Blockchain.com employees worldwide. Blockchain.com’s Global Headcount Grows to 400 After Acquiring the Crypto Investment Platform Sesocio At the end of March, Blockchain.com raised $300 million and the firm’s post valuation swelled to $5.2 billion. In August, Blockchain.com’s CFO Macrina Kgil discussed how the company has surpassed $1 trillion in cryptocurrency transactions. Kgil further revealed the firm may go public in 18 months while disclosing that Blockchain.com held BTC and ETH on its balance sheet. The crypto firm, founded in 2011 by Benjamin Reeves, Nicolas Cary, and Peter Smith, detailed on Tuesday that the company has acquired the Latin American crypto investment platform Sesocio . Blockchain.com explained that it has already made a mark in c

Everscale (ex FreeTON) network developers Broxus have announced the opening of their Everscale Grants program. The grants program will provide crucial financial and professional support to promising IT startups that qualify. November has been a busy month for the Everscale network. Early on the project, which previously was called FreeTON, announced it would be rebranding into Everscale. The reasons behind the change were tied to the significant advances that had been made on the network and its correlated ecosystem, relative to where it had started out as FreeTON. FreeTON was started as a continuation of the now-halted Telegram Open Network. Once development of that network ceased on the Telegram side, the project was made open source and a group of enthusiasts, which eventually became FreeTON, came together to try to realize the potential that the network had. A bit further down the road, however, community members and developers cognizant of the strides made in network developme