Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Ebay is looking at cryptocurrency as a payment option for its 187 million buyers on the platform, the company’s CEO has revealed. The e-commerce giant is also exploring opportunities in the non-fungible token (NFT) business. Ebay Looking Into Adding Cryptocurrency as Payment Option Ebay CEO Jamie Iannone said in a CNBC interview on Monday that the company is looking at accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option. He was asked about how Ebay is responding to the rise in popularity and adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The CEO replied: We are expanding the types of payments that we take. We now take Apple Pay and Google Pay. More choice for buyers … We will continue to look at other options, like cryptocurrency. He added: “One of the great things about Ebay is that when there is a new trend, it just shows up on Ebay. That’s what we are seeing in areas like NFTs [non-fungible tokens], which we are looking at how we can explore that better.” He also noted that Ebay h

Hip hop legend and recording artist Nasir Jones, known by his stage name “Nas,” recently released a new video with record producer DJ Khaled and rapper Jay-Z. The songwriter mentioned being a “cryptocurrency Scarface” and also mentioned the San Francisco company Coinbase in his rhyme. Nas was an early Coinbase investor back in 2013 and it is estimated that Nas raked in over $100 million from his investment with the company. Nas Dubs Himself the ‘Cryptocurrency Scarface’ Nas is a very well known hip-hop recording artist and since 1994 he’s released twelve studio albums that have been certified platinum and multi-platinum in the U.S. Nas has also been considered one of the greatest rappers of all-time, up there with Eminem, Jay-Z, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, the Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac. In addition to being a songwriter, Nas is also an entrepreneur and he’s invested in numerous projects over the years. One lucrative investment Nas has made was with the San Francisco company Coinbase

Sunacrip, the Venezuelan cryptocurrency watchdog, has recently published a new set of AML/KYC requirements for VASPs (Virtual Asset Service Providers) that establishes new and updated rules about the kind of information these providers must require and share with the Venezuelan government, raising alarms in the cryptocurrency community about what the government could do with this data. Venezuelan Crypto Watchdog Sunacrip Strengthens KYC/AML Requirements for VASPs Last week, the Superintendence of Crypto Assets and Linked Activities of Venezuela (Sunacrip), quietly published a new set of rules that aim to tighten the KYC/AML requirements this institution requires from Virtual Asset Service Providers that offer these services on Venezuelan soil. The new norm, published in the National Gazette under the title: Rules relating to the administration and inspection of the risks related to the legitimation of equity, terrorism financing, and the financing of proliferation of weapons of

In early April 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular warning Nigerian institutions to stop the practice of rejecting old or lower denomination USD notes. The CBN issued the warning after it became “inundated with complaints from members of the public on the rejection of such notes by banks and other authorized forex dealers.” Rejection of Defaced or Stamped USD Notes In the circular issued by Ahmed Umar, a director in the CBN’s Currency Operations Department, the central bank says it will sanction institutions that “refuse to accept old series/lower denominations U.S. dollar bills from their customers.” Furthermore, the CBN warned against the same institutions to cease the practice of defacing/stamping USD notes as these “always fail authentication tests during processing or sorting.” In the meantime, Nigeria is not the only inflation hit African country to face this predicament. In Zimbabwe, which has similarly seen the value of its currency plunge in the pas

For years now the well known economist and gold bug Peter Schiff has continuously spoken out against bitcoin, as he claims precious metals are far superior. A great number of people have rebutted Schiff’s statements about bitcoin but during the last year, the gold bug has had a different thorn on his side. In recent days, Schiff’s nemesis on Twitter is his own son Spencer Schiff, a young entrepreneur who is “interested in finance, Austrian economics, libertarianism, [and] anarcho-capitalism.” Gold Bug vs. Bitcoin Bug During the last year, Bitcoin.com News has reported on Peter Schiff on numerous occasions and one time our newsdesk did a report on his father Irwin Schiff. His now-deceased father Irwin was a very popular libertarian and tax resistance advocate who published a number of books. In other instances this year, our newsdesk also covered Peter’s son as well. Peter’s son, Spencer Schiff , is an advocate for bitcoin ( BTC ) and he always has something to say when his fathe

PRESS RELEASE. Phuture, a decentralised protocol built for the creation and investment of passive index strategies in a Web3 environment, today announced that it has completed its private seed round fundraise. The round, led by Ascensive Assets, raised a total of $1.5 million. Once live, Phuture will introduce an open design philosophy for creating passive investment strategies. Designed from the ground up to be intuitive to both crypto and non-crypto native users, Phuture provides the tools to create new indices or invest into existing ones created by the community. The Phuture protocol introduces its unique, scalable, aggregated index architecture that allows it to rebalance across multiple indices simultaneously. Its smart rebalancing engine dynamically ascertains the optimal rebalancing triggers, minimising value lost through swaps and improving index performance. The round included several prominent blockchain investors, including: NGC Ventures, SevenX, Moonrock Capital, Origin

Bitcoin miners have started to signal for Taproot activation and crypto supporters are looking forward to the largest bitcoin update in almost four years. The mining operation Slush Pool mined the first block signaling for Taproot and since then the pools Foundry and F2pool have joined in on signaling as well. Bitcoin Block: 681,458 Signals for Taproot It’s been a long time since the Bitcoin network has seen a major upgrade and the last time it happened was in 2017, back when BTC participants activated Segregated Witness (Segwit). Since then, bitcoiners have been discussing the next major upgrade Taproot . The Taproot proposal was introduced in January 2018 by software developer and Bitcoin Core contributor Gregory Maxwell. Last October, Taproot was introduced into the Github repository as a pull request initiated by Bitcoin Core programmer Pieter Wuille. Ostensibly, Taproot can help BTC scale and bitcoin transactions can become more private. The protocol that will be deployed if

American comedian and television host Bill Maher mocked bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, including dogecoin, on his show Friday. He quoted several bitcoin critics: Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and “The Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb. Bill Maher Admits He Doesn’t Get Bitcoin Television host and political commentator Bill Maher mocked bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on his Real Time with Bill Maher show Friday. Naming bitcoin, dogecoin, and a few other cryptocurrencies, he said as far as he is concerned, dogecoin is “the same as all the other cryptocurrencies because the whole thing is a joke.” He called dogecoin “Easter bunny cartoon cash,” and likened cryptocurrencies to Tinkerbell’s light. “Its power source is based solely on enough children believing in it,” he asserted. Claiming to have read articles about cryptocurrencies and had it explained to him, Maher said: I still don’t get it and neither do you or anyone else. Maher then

At CNBC’s Stock Draft, an annual stock-picking competition, bitcoin was the number one pick. Tim Seymour, the founder of Seymour Asset Management, believes that the government will come out with regulations that support bitcoin. He is confident that the cryptocurrency will take him “to the top” this year. Bitcoin Was Top Pick at Annual Stock Picking Competition CNBC’s 2021 Stock Draft, an annual stock-picking competition, began last week. There are 10 contestants or teams of different professions. Each team makes 2 picks from a list of 60 stocks and other investments. The teams are led by asset manager Tim Seymour of Seymour Asset Management, professional poker player Maria Ho, Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful), and “The Stock Guy” Jason Frank. Also competing are mentalist Oz Pearlman, supermodel Petra Nemcova, Tiktok star Josh Richards, professional basketball player for the Miami Heat Andre Iguodala, and Chief Investment Strategist and Po

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, says he hates bitcoin’s success. “I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth,” Munger said. Buffett, on the other hand, dodged the question about bitcoin because he did not want to upset the sheer number of investors who are long on the cryptocurrency. Charlie Munger Hates Bitcoin’s Success At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting Saturday, Vice Chairman Charlie Munger commented about bitcoin. The 97-year-old said during a Q&A session: Of course I hate the bitcoin success. I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth. Munger, who is often known as Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, added that he also does not like “shuffling out of a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air.” Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett

No. 1 NFL Draft Pick Trevor Lawrence has reportedly converted his entire signing bonus to cryptocurrencies via crypto firm Blockfolio. Lawrence is the top overall pick in the 2021 National Football League. His signing bonus is estimated to be around $24 million. NFL Draft Pick Trevor Lawrence Converts Signing Bonus to Cryptocurrencies Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence was selected No. 1 overall in the 2021 NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday night. The 6-foot-6, 220-pounder has partnered with crypto management and trading platform Blockfolio where has reportedly converted his sign-on bonus to cryptocurrencies. Lawrence tweeted last week: “Pumped to announce I’ve joined Blockfolio. Excited to help bring these two worlds together.” He also said: When it comes to my crypto portfolio, I wanted a long-term partner in the space that I could trust. According to Dealbook , “The quarterback’s first payment was made exclusively in crypto tokens transferred directly into

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has seen a massive drop this week, as the metric slid 12.6% and was the largest difficulty drop in 2021. The mining difficulty decline follows the recent electrical outages in China which had affected the network’s hashrate to some degree. Following the difficulty drop, Bitcoin’s hashrate is climbing northbound again nearing the 200 exahash per second zone. Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Drops 12% Allowing the Hashrate to Climb Higher On April 18, 2021, Bitcoin.com News and a number of crypto publications reported on Bitcoin’s ( BTC ) hashrate dropping after reports noted that in China the Xinjiang grid is having electrical blackouts. Initial reports estimated the loss of hashrate was above 40% but other reports mention the loss could have been between 12.61% to around 25%. On April 21, 2021, Coin Metrics’ founder Nic Carter said five-day stats had shown the Bitcoin ( BTC ) hashrate only lost around 25%. Whatever the exact number may be, BTC ’s network h

A South African non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, Momint has officially launched following the end of the two-week trial phase which saw the artwork of former rugby player Bryan Habana fetch over $10,000. More than 800 people from 25 countries took part in the auction. The Momint marketplace, which has been developed as a social media app similar to Instagram, is backed by investor Rob Hersov and has a “pre-seed funding reportedly valuing the company at over $2 million.” According to a report , Momint combines an NFT marketplace with the functionality of a social media platform. In addition to accepting cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH , Momint says buyers will be able to use fiat currency. In his remarks following the launch, the marketplace’s co-founder and COO, Joshua Minsk said: NFTs offer a means for creators to sell their works and support themselves without needing to litter their work with sponsor shout outs or advertisements. Meanwhile, in addition to Habana, the

The Turkish government has updated the country’s cryptocurrency regulation following the banning of cryptocurrencies for payments and failing crypto exchanges. Published in the Official Gazette on Saturday, the new rule adds crypto trading platforms to the list of entities covered by anti-money laundering (AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations. The Official Gazette states that the country’s latest expansion of rules covering cryptocurrency transactions would take immediate effect. Crypto service providers must now comply with existing regulations. The government previously said that it plans to establish a central custodian bank to eliminate counterparty risk among other provisions. Turkey’s central bank recently banned the use of cryptocurrencies for payments. Following the ban, two Turkish cryptocurrency exchanges, Thodex and Vebitcoin , halted trading abruptly and are now being investigated for fraud. Six people have been jailed in

The infamous meme-crypto dogecoin has seen double-digit gains in recent days after Tesla’s Elon Musk tweeted about his upcoming Saturday Night Live appearance on May 8. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted “The Dogefather SNL May 8,” and a great number of people assume dogecoin will be mentioned to some degree on the show. Dogecoin Captures a $50 Billion Market Cap This weekend, dogecoin (DOGE) has started to surge again, as the token featuring the likeness of the Shiba Inu dog is nearing the asset’s all-time high (ATH). The last dogecoin ATH was two weeks ago when the cryptocurrency reached $0.44 per token. DOGE has jumped more than 45% during the last seven days, and 30-day stats show dogecoin gained 537.92% against the U.S. dollar. In recent times, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was asked about dogecoin at a press conference, and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban talked about DOGE with Ellen Degeneres. Just before the weekend, Tesla’s Elon Musk, who tweets about dogecoin often, mentio