Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

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

The founder and manager of several cryptocurrency funds has pleaded guilty to luring investors to his crypto investment scam. His funds consistently lost money and his scam left investors with a $5 million loss, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Investors Scammed Into Investing in Coin Signals’ Funds The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that Jeremy Spence (aka Coin Signals) has pleaded guilty in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme. Spence “solicited over $5 million from more than 170 individual investors for various cryptocurrency funds that he operated, after making false representations in connection with these funds,” the DOJ explained. Spence was charged in June. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams detailed: Jeremy Spence, a/k/a, ‘Coin Signals,’ admitted today to luring investors to his cryptocurrency investment scam by touting fictitious historical returns of up to 148%. “In reality, Spence’s investments consistently lost money, an

Bank of America’s strategist says that the metaverse is a massive opportunity where cryptocurrencies will be widely used as currencies. “I definitely believe this is a massive, massive opportunity,” he said. Bank of America’s Metaverse Prediction Bank of America’s strategist, Haim Israel, told the Insider Tuesday that the metaverse is a massive opportunity for blockchain technology. In addition, he expects it to take cryptocurrency mainstream. Israel is Bank of America’s managing director of research and a global strategist. He is also head of the global thematic research team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He detailed: I definitely believe this is a massive, massive opportunity … You need the right platforms … that is definitely going to be a big opportunity for this entire ecosystem. The Bank of America strategist predicted that the metaverse is where “we’re going to start using cryptocurrencies as currencies,” emphasizing that it will be where people finally start using c

Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, is reportedly considering issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to fight the use of cryptocurrency. “A CBDC would be one of the tools to fight crypto. We assume that people would find CBDC more credible than crypto,” said an assistant governor of the central bank. Central Bank Sees CBDC as Tool to ‘Fight Crypto’ Juda Agung, an assistant governor of Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, talked about cryptocurrency and central bank digital currency (CBDC) during his parliamentary “fit and proper test” to become the deputy governor of the central bank. He said that Bank Indonesia wants to issue a digital rupiah to be used as legal tender to fight cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reported, noting that the central bank has been looking into this issue since the beginning of the year. In Indonesia, crypto assets are traded alongside commodity futures and are regulated by the trade ministry, the assistant governor explained. However, he

While non-fungible token (NFT) assets have been extremely popular in 2021, there’s been a slew of issues tied to the ecosystem as well. A recent report indicates that roughly a dozen artists are considering taking legal action against an NFT collection called “Art Wars” because their original artwork was sold as NFTs without their consent. NFT Collection Targeted Over Using Artwork Without Permission From the Original Artists Non-fungible token (NFT) assets have seen billions of dollars in sales this year, and the term “NFT” was just recently awarded the Collins English Dictionary Word of the Year. During the last seven days, NFT markets such as Opensea have seen $587 million in sales, Atomicwax has seen over $20 million, and Rarible has seen over $3 million in weekly NFT sales. However, certain issues in the NFT industry have been introduced in recent times such as problems with permanence , censorship , insider trading , and now artists are upset about NFTs being issued without

1inch Network, the decentralized exchange (dex) aggregation project, has announced the company has raised $175 million in a Series B financing round. According to the announcement, the fresh new capital will be leveraged to scale the team, foster additional 1inch token utilities, and build new protocols. 1inch Raises $175 Million From Strategic Investors Over the last year, decentralized finance (defi) has propelled itself into the spotlight as a great number of dex platforms now provide users with the ability to trade and provide liquidity in a decentralized fashion. 1inch Network provides users with the ability to get a better exchange rate as the aggregation platform combines multiple dex exchange rates to find the cheapest alternative. Furthermore, 1inch spread out even more by supporting five different blockchains which include Ethereum ( ETH ), Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Polygon (MATIC), and the two rollup solutions offered by Optimism and Arbitrum. The announcement sent to

India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has revealed that the previous version of the cryptocurrency bill the government is pushing needed to be reworked. “This bill, once the Cabinet clears, will come into the House,” the finance minister told Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament. Indian Government Pushing New Crypto Bill Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman answered some questions in Rajya Sabha Tuesday regarding the government’s cryptocurrency plans and the crypto bill that has been listed to be taken up in the current session of parliament. “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021” seeks “to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses,” according to the legislative agenda for the winter session of Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament. Responding to questions regarding the crypto bill, Finance Minister

The second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, ethereum, has come awfully close to reaching the digital asset’s all-time high ($4,878) it reached 21 days ago on November 10. While bitcoin dominance has slid below the 40% zone, ethereum’s market dominance, or $557 billion market valuation, represents close to 20% of the crypto economy. Ethereum’s Price Trajectory Nears All-Time High — Ether Market Dominance Increases During the last two weeks, ethereum (ETH) has increased 10.8% in fiat value and year-to-date (YTD), ETH is up 668%. The YTD ether gains are much larger than bitcoin’s ( BTC ) 190% 12-month increase. At the time of writing, there is $31 billion in global ETH trade volume and ethereum has a market capitalization of around $557 billion. While BTC commands a 38.7% dominance rating, 19.9% belongs to ethereum, and the remainder is held by the 11,289 crypto assets in existence today. The top trading pair with ethereum is the stablecoin tether ( USDT )

PRESS RELEASE. Miami, Florida – The reality of the recent past has changed many aspects of life, from the way live events get hosted to the frequency with which we use up bottles of hand sanitizer. While not all of the changes have been improvements, the rise of digital art and NFTs have been decidedly positive. The landscape of the art world has changed forever, creating new opportunities for artists, not just monetarily but also creatively. Miami may be known for its art and party-filled festivals, but this is Miami like never seen before, thanks to the NFT presence. As such a big part of the most recent art history, the city is sure to be brimming with digital art and NFT-related events, but none like the collection of work that LGND will be presenting. Almost two years after our lives were changed, LGND debuts N ot F or T ourists, an exclusive NFT art show at Miami Art Week. Celebrating recent advancements in art and technology, pioneering an artist-centric model that speaks to

Russian President Vladimir Putin has again spoken about cryptocurrencies, noting the “high risks” associated with the virtual assets. However, the Russian leader has also acknowledged that digital currencies may have a future and it’s necessary to follow their development. Russia’s Putin Still Cautious About Crypto Russian President Vladimir Putin has made another comment regarding cryptocurrencies. Speaking at the VTB Capital Investment Forum “Russia Calling!” 2021, the head of state noted that crypto assets still carry a lot of serious risks. Quoted by the news portal Life.ru, Putin elaborated: As for cryptocurrency, it is prohibited in some countries. It is not backed by anything, the volatility is high, the risks are high. I also believe that we need to listen to those who talk about the high risks. At the same time, Russia’s strongman did not rule out that there may be a future for cryptocurrencies. He further emphasized that right now it is necessary to carefully monitor t

Bitcoin.com is integrating technology from CoinFLEX that enables users to earn interest on a wide range of cryptoassets, including a US-dollar stablecoin (flexUSD), through both passive and active strategies. The passive yield strategy is built on flexUSD, a US-dollar pegged cryptocurrency that automatically provides all holders with compounding interest payments, regardless of where they hold it. “We’re incredibly excited to be offering an interest-earning product that’s easy to use and carries minimal risk,” said Bitcoin.com CEO Dennis Jarvis. “Now our users can not only shield themselves from the downside market volatility by trading into a US dollar equivalent, they can also earn yield on those dollars that far exceeds anything available in legacy banking.” To start earning interest now, Bitcoin.com users can either swap into or “mint” flexUSD in a few clicks. Behind the scenes, yield for flexUSD is generated by fees and interest paid on short-term lend/borrow markets.

A recently established crypto industry association in Iran has commenced activities under the country’s chamber of commerce. Its management hopes to help remove obstacles challenging its members while facilitating the implementation of blockchain technology in the sanctioned nation’s economy. Industry Association to Address Blockchain-Related Challenges in Iran The newly-established Iran Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Association (IBCA) has started operating under the supervision of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mining and Agriculture (ICCIMA), the English-language business daily Financial Tribune reported. According to the publication, the IBCA is the first organization affiliated with the chamber that is dealing with challenges facing Iran’s growing blockchain ecosystem. The launch was announced by Mohammad Reza Sharafi, member of the association’s board, who expressed hope that the IBCA would be able to remove hurdles faced by businesses in the crypto space and use blockc

2TM, a Brazilian fintech unicorn that is the holding company of Mercado Bitcoin, one of the leading crypto exchanges on the continent, has closed its Series B funding round again, raising an additional $50 million. The funding round was led by U.S.-based 10T and Tribe Capital, with the participation of other new investors. 2TM Gets $50 Million More, Prepares for Expansion 2TM, one of the biggest fintech conglomerates in Latin America, has raised $50 million in an expansion of its Series B funding round. The second closing of the round was led by 10T and Tribe Capital and had participation from other parties, including Traders Club, Pipo Capital, and Endeavor. The first closure of the funding round was in July when it received $200 million from Softbank. 2TM is the holding company of Mercado Bitcoin, one of the leading crypto markets in Brazil, and it’s now seeking to expand its services to other countries on the continent. The entrance of companies like 10T, which is making its fi

BCH House Venezuela, an adoption organization, has published its first documentary on social media, where it shows the way in which Venezuelans are using cryptocurrency as a means of exchange. Roberto García, the founder of this initiative, shows us the level of adoption the BCH House initiative has reached in Barquisimeto — a city in the west of the country — and how merchants are embracing cryptocurrencies. BCH House Venezuela Showcases On-Site Adoption BCH House Venezuela, a BCH adoption organization, has released its first documentary , where it shows the advances of the organization in promoting the use of bitcoin cash as a means of exchange and also as a store of value. BCH House centers its action in Barquisimeto, a city with a population of one million inhabitants, and it shows how merchants are accepting bitcoin cash for everyday purchases. Roberto García, the founder of BCH House Venezuela, interviews some of these merchants to see what they think about cryptocurre

Some say trading is a game of luck; others view it as an adventure sport. Just like athletes love performing mind-blowing maneuvers, there’s a thrill that comes with executing the perfect trade, For those newer to the scene, trading competitions allow novice traders to learn and grow as a broker, and give more experienced participants the chance to overcome a new challenge. If you know what you’re doing, trading competitions can be a fun way to make a quick buck, but the level of risk can be hard to justify when you don’t have much to invest, especially with lackluster prizes and unpredictable markets. Phemex is no stranger to hosting trading contests, having successfully conducted Bitcoin Bonanza last month celebrating the launch of their inverse BTCUSD contracts . This time, however, the stakes are being raised. This November, Phemex, a Singapore-based crypto derivatives powerhouse, is launching the fourth edition of its ‘ Phemex Trader’s Arena ’ trading contest, encouraging team