Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The Kleiman v. Wright trial has come to a conclusion and Craig Wright and his defense team has won on all claims except one count of conversion. According to a court reporter, Craig Wright, the man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, said he was “incredibly relieved.” Craig Wright’s Defense Wins on All Claims Except Conversion — Wright Says ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere, I’m Here for the Long Term’ After the jury was deadlocked in the Kleiman v. Wright case for days last week, the jurors came to a decision on Monday, December 6, 2021. Craig Wright and his defense team from Rivero Mestre LLP have managed to beat all the charges except one count of conversion. We have a verdict. Or a hung jury. We've got something at least. Back in the courtroom, waiting for everyone to get here and figure out what's going on. — Carolina Bolado (@CarolinaBolado) December 6, 2021 The jurors ruled that while Wright was cleared of most charges, he must pay $100 million to W&K Info Defense a

As bitcoin and a number of crypto assets have dropped in value during the last two weeks, its seems that everyone’s hope for six-digit bitcoin prices has become unattainable. However, year-to-date, bitcoin has risen more than 150% in value and despite the rise, skeptics and critics continue to assume bitcoin is dead. In fact, the infamous bitcoin obituary list indicates that 2021 is tied with 2019 for having the third-largest number of obituaries in a year. Bitcoin Obituaries: 2021 Is Now Tied With 2019 On November 10, bitcoin ( BTC ) tapped an all-time price high at $69K per unit and has since slid below the $50K zone. It seems that higher prices give skeptics the opportunity to declare bitcoin is dead after the leading crypto asset sheds a decent amount of value during market downturns. In 2017, when BTC came awfully close to reaching $20K per unit, the bitcoin obituaries list , hosted on 99bitcoins.com shows that there were 124 bitcoin deaths that year. The second-largest year

El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro believes that mining bitcoin with a volcano, or geothermal energy, will “end in environmental disaster.” Navarro believes geothermal energy costs more than oil, and thinks El Salvador’s millennial president Nayib Bukele’s decision is questionable. Salvadoran ecologist Ricardo Navarro Questions His Country’s Volcano-Powered Bitcoin City Venture During the second week of June, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele told the public that the Latin American country planned to mine bitcoin ( BTC ) with energy stemming from volcanoes located in the country. At the end of September, Bukele shared a video of the initial construction of the Salvadoran volcano-powered bitcoin mining facility. Now the president and his government have been criticized by El Salvador’s leading ecologist Ricardo Navarro. The Salvadoran ecologist explained to Telegraph contributor Simeon Tegel that developing a ‘Bitcoin City’ next to a volcano doesn’t make sense. “T

PRESS RELEASE. Bitcoin of America has been named a silver winner in the Company of the Year – Midwest category in Best in Biz Awards, the only independent business awards program judged each year by prominent editors and reporters from top-tier publications in North America. Bitcoin of America is a popular virtual currency exchange, registered as a money services business with the United States Department of Treasury (FinCEN)(RegNum). Apart from ensuring a fast and hassle-free transaction, their customer support makes them the best in the industry. Bitcoin of America has demonstrated rapid growth. In June of this year, Bitcoin of America’s Chief Financial Officer reported record company growth. In January, the company had a total of 630 Bitcoin ATMs. To date, they have seen a 138.095% increase in their number of locations. They even hit a major achievement of 1500 plus BTMs. Bitcoin of America has also seen enormous growth in their number of employees. In just one year their team g

Bitmart, a cryptocurrency exchange, suffered an attack yesterday that exploited some security vulnerabilities in order to gain access to the funds of the exchange. The attack targeted the hot wallets of the platform, specifically the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain-based wallets. The hackers managed to take almost $200 million in tokens from the platform. Bitmart Hot Wallets Exploited Bitmart has lost more than $200 million in a hack that involved its hot wallets yesterday. The issue was first identified by Peckshield, a blockchain security and auditing company, that raised the alarm about a possible hot wallet vulnerability on social media. The involved wallets were those that held ETH and BSC-based tokens. Bitmart representatives estimated the losses at $150 million initially, but PeckShield did an investigation of the funds taken, saying losses were around $200 million. The hack took significant amounts of SHIB, SAFEMOON, SAND, and MANA, among others. The event affected the

A bug in the token lending contract of the Solana Program Library (SPL) was recently found and fixed by Neodyme, a security auditing firm. The bug, that was discovered a couple of months back, could have affected several decentralized finance protocols holding more than $2 billion in total value locked (TVL). Their team identified the possible protocols using this contract (or derivatives of it) and disclosed the bug immediately. Solana SPL Rounding Bug Puts Funds at Risk A bug in one of the token lending contracts that is part of Solana’s Program Library (SPL), a group of on-chain programs targeting the Sealevel parallel runtime on Solana, put the funds of several protocols at risk. Neodyme, a security agency, had disclosed this vulnerability months ago and alerted about it, but the bug, due to its apparently innocuous effect, had not been resolved. The bug caused a rounding error that delivers more tokens than the ones being deposited by the users to the contract. However, the b

There are reports that the Indian government may impose restrictions on self-custodial cryptocurrency wallets and only allow Indian crypto exchanges. The CEO of a major cryptocurrency exchange in India has shared his thoughts on the possible restrictions. The Indian government has listed a cryptocurrency bill to be taken up in the current session of parliament. Possible Restrictions in Indian Crypto Regulation A cryptocurrency bill is waiting to be heard in the current session of parliament in India. The country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has confirmed that the bill needed to be reworked from its original version that seeks to ban cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin in ether. However, she still has not revealed what’s actually in the bill, leading to much speculation. The CEO of local cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx discussed some of the speculations in a series of tweets Friday. “There have been unconfirmed reports” that “‘Self custodial wallets’ may not be allowed

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Phemex is celebrating its 2nd anniversary this November. It’s been an eventful couple of years for the derivatives platform, and with its Choose Your Reality event, this anniversary is going to be a memorable one. Phemex’s dedication to its users has created a thriving community, and to celebrate their impressive growth the exchange is inviting participants to wish them a happy birthday by talking about their own dreams and aspirations. They’re also giving away grand prizes to those participants who come up with the most creative wishes. Thus, a few special winners will see their dreams come to life. The firm’s dedication to its users is deep-routed. Phemex’s CEO and founder, Jack Tao, was a Wall Street veteran from Morgan Stanley. After over a decade of observing the inner workings of the traditional financial system, he realized just how underserved retail investors were compared to the more wealthy players. Jack and his team of ex-Morgan

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has revealed that his country holds 44,106 oz. of gold in its reserves that has lost some value over the past year. He told gold bug Peter Schiff that if El Salvador had sold its gold and bought bitcoin last year, it would now be worth $125 million more. Bitcoin vs. Gold: El Salvador Could’ve Made Millions More Switching Reserves From Gold to Bitcoin El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has revealed some details of his country’s gold reserves in a conversation on Twitter with gold bug Peter Schiff. Schiff commented on El Salvador buying the dip Saturday morning after Bukele announced that his country bought 100 more BTC as the price of bitcoin fell from above $52K Friday night to below $44K. “There’s a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?” Schiff asked Bukele. The Salvadoran president replied, “None.” He emphasized, “We’re already in the green from our last purchase, in less than 24 hours.” Bukele conti

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has called for more investor protection in crypto markets. “This asset class is rife with fraud, scams, and abuse in certain applications,” he said. “In many cases, investors aren’t able to get rigorous, balanced, and complete information on tokens or trading and lending platforms.” Gary Gensler Wants More Investor Protection in Crypto Markets SEC Chairman Gary Gensler raised concerns about the cryptocurrency markets at an Investor Advisory Committee meeting last week. The Investor Advisory Committee, established by Section 911 of the Dodd-Frank Act, advises the SEC on regulatory priorities, including “initiatives to protect investor interests and to promote investor confidence and the integrity of the securities marketplace.” During his speech, Gensler shared some concerns regarding the crypto markets. He began by acknowledging that “Satoshi Nakamoto’s ‘Bitcoin Whitepaper’ and the crypto markets tha

Since mid-November the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) has slid from $257 billion to $250.55 billion and during the last 24 hours it lost a touch more than 5%. Over the last seven days, defi tokens like uniswap, pancakeswap, curve dao token, 1inch and sushi have lost anywhere between 15% to 23.9% in value. Defi TVL Drops — Curve, Makerdao and Convex Finance Dominate At the time of writing, the TVL in defi protocols across a myriad of blockchains is $250.55 billion, according to metrics from defillama.com. The aggregate defi value locked has lost 5.08% during the last day, and the protocol Curve dominates most of the TVLs listed with 8.07% dominance. The automated market maker (AMM) Curve commands $20.23 billion TVL which is up 1.13% this past week. Makerdao is the second-largest defi protocol TVL with $18.56 billion at the time of writing. The third-largest defi protocol TVL belongs to Convex Finance with $15.14 billion today. Ethereum Defi TVL Dominanc

Editor’s Note: The following story was written by Neomi, an author from China with experience covering art, music, culture, tech, and travel. Bitcoin.com News sent her into the field of blockchain-based metaverse experiences to capture the feeling of a pioneer entering this new reality. Decentraland, Day One: I Need a Hat Upon entering Decentraland for the first time I wanted to lay low, so I created my avatar: a bald guy with a black suit and a pair of black sunglasses. Within just ten minutes of beginning my exploration, however, I came across ten other players that looked exactly like me. We probably had another thing in common, too — none of us could afford to buy a proper hat. I had heard people were investing millions into NFTs in the metaverse but had just been too afraid to check the prices. Suffice to say, I found out that things are expensive — even hats. In order to look slightly different from the other bald guys in the metaverse, I needed to grind for some assets. I en

A report says over 80% of African users on the Mineplex marketplace have shown an interest in the platform’s commodity staking program since launch. Zero Fee Alternative According to a recent study, over 80% of African users have taken part in the commodity staking program since its launch as a new product on the Mineplex marketplace. This figure by far dwarfs that of Asian users (23%), Europe (14%) and the U.S. (9%) users who find commodity staking interesting. As noted in a study report that was shared exclusively with Bitcoin.com News, Mineplex Banking said this commodity staking option serves as a zero-fee alternative to traditional loans and gives users the ability to buy products they cannot afford straight away. Explaining African users’ clear preference for staked crypto, the report suggested that this could be based on changing tastes and preferences. “The high level of interest by African users in the new financial instrument can be based on the need to change the syste

Tau, in development, is the world’s first fully user-controlled blockchain, capable of understanding and implementing users’ consensus in real-time. It allows you to understand and be understood by billions of people, on a platform so advanced that it changes and updates itself based on how you as its users collaboratively decide what its next version should be like. Ohad Asor and Prof. Enrico Franconi recently joined the Bitcoin.com News Podcast to explain the advanced technology behind Tau : By writing in languages that the Tau platform and its users can understand, it unlocks truly revolutionary features such as the ability to make your knowledge machine accessible, creating the world’s first knowledge economy to trade specific pieces of knowledge for cash (using the Agoras cryptocurrency (Ticker AGRS)) as well as the ability to host efficient discussions and collaboration of ideas of up to billions of people. As users are able to make themselves understood to Tau, the network

The global cryptocurrency market valuation has rebounded a great deal since the initial downturn after 12:00 a.m. EST on December 4, and on Sunday, the crypto economy is down 1.4% during the last 24 hours. Meanwhile the meme token market capitalization today is $47.2 billion down 12.6% during the last day. Dogecoin has suffered pretty badly losing 19.2% during the last seven days, while its rival shiba inu has shed 9.7% last week. Meme Token Economy Takes the Brunt of the Crypto Market Carnage — Dogecoin Drops 19% in a Week’s Time At the time of writing, the crypto meme token market economy is valued at $47.2 billion and has taken a deep hit from yesterday’s market carnage. Dogecoin (DOGE) is the largest meme token market cap with $21.5 billion as each DOGE is trading for $0.164 or 0.00000342 BTC per unit. DOGE is down 37.7% over the course of the last month, but dogecoin is still up 4,863% year-to-date. On Sunday, December 5, there’s $1.4 billion in global DOGE trades with Binan

Bitcoin’s hashrate has increased a great deal, even after the leading crypto asset’s price slipped below the $50K price zone. Eight days ago the network hashrate was coasting along at 168 exahash per second (EH/s), and this past week it increased 7.73% to today’s 181 EH/s. Bitcoin’s Hashrate Climbs Higher Following Difficulty Decrease Following the price drop under the $50K zone, Bitcoin’s ( BTC ) hashrate remains strong and has increased more than 7% higher during the last week. At the time of writing, BTC ’s hashrate on Sunday is 181.59 EH/s as the network’s processing power has been reaching daily highs. Three month statistics indicate BTC ’s hashpower tapped 190 EH/s on Friday, December 3. Metrics show that the network’s hashrate reached an all-time high on May 9, 2021 at 191.42 EH/s. One reason the hashrate remains high despite the recent price drop is because the network’s mining difficulty has dropped during the last difficulty change on November 28. The change that day sa

PRESS RELEASE. The next crypto conference lighting up the season is DeFiCon 2021, hosted on December 18-19 in Brooklyn, NYC. As a nonprofit conference, DeFiCon steers away from the typical corporate and for-profit conference model. All of DeFiCon’s net proceeds will be donated to charity. The event is also engages civic leaders and activists. Featured keynote speakers are Stani Kulechov, the Founder and CEO of AAVE, Jaz Gulati, the Co-Founder founder of Ren Labs, and Kieran Mesquita, Chief Scientist at RAILGUN. As a crypto native event, DeFiCon tickets are NFTs designed by the original artist of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Seneca ( www.allseeingseneca.com ). Mint now to own the Unbearable Bear, a collection of 1,218 Bears living on the Ethereum blockchain. Then join frens in Brooklyn at DeFiCon next month on December 18-19. To mint General Admission and VIP NFT tickets, visit: www.deficon.nyc – ALL net proceeds from the event will go directly to nonprofit. Mint now   FIND DEFICON

The province of Hainan in South China has taken steps aimed at curbing crypto mining activities. Besides blacklisting the industry, local authorities are also introducing higher electricity rates for the mining enterprises that continue to operate in the region. Hainan to Ensure Crypto Miners Pay More for Power The ongoing crackdown on cryptocurrency mining in China has reached the country’s smallest and southernmost province, Hainan. The coin minting business has been recently listed as an “eliminated industry” and the remaining miners in the region will soon face higher electricity bills. According to a document published this week by the provincial Development and Reform Commission, the differentiated tariffs for electrical energy will be imposed as part of a pricing mechanism designed to reduce carbon emissions. While China banned crypto-related activities such as trading back in 2017, authorities did not interfere with mining until this year. In May, the State Council in Be

Two days ago on December 2, the Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection auction of non-fungible token (NFT) assets kicked off at Art Basel Miami via the Superrare platform. The Ulbricht NFT collection auction ends on December 8, and so far the auction has seen a bid of 666 ether or roughly $2.6 million. Additionally the project Pleasrdao aims to up the ante as the “Free Ross DAO” bidding on the collection has raised 1,042 ether or $4.2 million to date. Ross Ulbricht NFT Auction Eyes Millions in Ether During the third week of November, Bitcoin.com News reported on the Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection auction taking place at the start of Art Basel in Miami . The auction was initiated on the Superrare NFT marketplace platform and the collection is an assortment of ten artworks by Ross Ulbricht. “Curated by Entoptic , this is the first and only NFT to include Ross Ulbricht’s personal work,” the announcement detailed. So far, the Ulbricht NFT collection has seen significant demand and to da

OVR launched its new Token Burning Program on 1 November to make its own tokens more rare and valuable. The results of this first month of November saw a total of 246 thousand OVR burned. OVR and the Numbers From the Token Burning Program’s First Month OVR’s updated token economics started on November 1, 2021, after the OVR team burned nearly 1 million of its tokens last May. By the end of last month, the platform had collected a total of 615,365 OVR from its sales of OVRLand NFTs, excluding GAS costs. As anticipated, the Token Burning Program foresees that 40% of the collected OVR are burned, while 10% is used to incentivize OVRLand sales with monthly draws among new OVRLand buyers using Chainlink VRF . And indeed, for this month of November 2021, the total tokens burned amount to 246,146 OVR , while exactly 61,536 OVR have been dedicated to the OVRLand draw on Chainlink . In general, the more OVRLands purchased on Chainlink, the higher the probability of winning the jackp

Authorities in Russia and Ukraine have closed down a number of illegal crypto mining facilities allegedly powered by stolen electricity. The underground farms have been discovered around the capital cities, Kyiv and Moscow, as well as in the Russian republic of Dagestan. Russia Busts Illegal Mining Farms in Moscow Region and Dagestan Russian law enforcement and customs agents have recently uncovered the theft of a large amount of electricity from the network operated by Rosseti in Moscow Oblast, the region adjacent to Russia’s capital. Tass broke the news about the operation this week, quoting Ekaterina Korotkova from the Moscow Interregional Transport Prosecutor’s Office. The official explained: An audit revealed an unauthorized connection to the power grid, theft of electricity and illegal seizure of land for the operation of equipment designed to perform cryptographic calculations related to the mining of digital currencies. The cost of the illegally consumed electricity use

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, says China did the right thing to “ban” cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. He wishes that cryptocurrencies had never been invented, emphasizing that he will not participate in the crypto boom. He considers “this era even crazier than the dot-com era.” Warren Buffett’s Right Hand Man, Charlie Munger, Wishes Crypto Had Never Been Invented Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, often known as Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, talked about cryptocurrency Friday at the Sohn Hearts and Minds, Australia’s premier investor event. The 97-year-old previously called bitcoin “rat poison” and likened cryptocurrency trading to “trading turds.” Commenting on the current investing environment, he said: I think the dot-com boom was crazier in terms of valuations than even what we have now. But overall, I consider this era even crazier than the dot-com era. Discussing cryptocurrency, Munger said: “I just