Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Bitcoin mainstream adoption is not limited to celebrities endorsing the cryptocurrency via social media or interviews on TV. The music industry is also interested in joining the bandwagon, with an independent publishing company recently enabling bitcoin payments. Bitcoin Adoption Comes in Response to the Requests of Prescription Songs Creators According to Variety , Prescription Songs, founded by Dr. Luke (Lukasz Sebastián Gottwald), is now offering its roster of producers and songwriters the option to send payments in bitcoin ( BTC ). The feature is possible thanks to a partnership signed with crypto payments provider Bitpay. Dr. Luke is a well-known hitmaker in the industry, whose publishing company’s catalog includes hits such as “Say So” by Doja Cat, “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Miley Cyrus’ “Party In The U.S.A.,” “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5, “Starboy” by The Weeknd and “Juice” by Lizzo. In the words of ...

Crypto mining in Abkhazia is still a hot potato for the de facto state government, which is now determined to criminalize such activities. Continuous massive power disruptions, in parallel, are fueling the anger of the people towards crypto miners. Public Officials to Face Bigger Penalties According to a report published by E Daily, the Abkhazian government revealed that it’s due to present a proposal to fine miners and also file criminal charges against them. The plan is to set fines up to $8,000, which is a considerable amount of money, as it is the same yearly average income per individual in the de facto South Caucasus state, equal to 20 minimum national wages. But such punishments are the lowest ones considered in the proposal. In fact, the government seeks to hit back with even more significant penalties against public servants who are caught in crypto mining activities, as well as companies running rigs, with up to 5,000 minimum national wages. However, the report detail...

On Friday, April 2, 2021, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is the highest it has even been in its lifetime but bitcoin miners still captured record revenues last month raking in $1.5 billion in coinbase rewards and transaction fees. Today, the blockchain’s hashrate is around 160 exahash per second (EH/s) with 17 pools dedicating hashpower to the network. $1.5 Billion in Bitcoin Rewards and Fees, Difficulty Ramps Up to 23 Trillion With a 5% Increase on the Way The price of bitcoin has been consolidated just under the $60k region and at 10:30 (EST) on April 1st, BTC jumped over the $60k handle to $60,103 per unit. The price has been driving the hashrate higher as miners are dedicating a lot of resources toward finding bitcoin blocks. On March 27, 2021, the Bitcoin hashrate spiked to 195 EH/s coming awfully close to the 200 EH/s zone for the first time ever. The continuous rise in hashrate has also pushed up the crypto network’s mining difficulty which is currently at 23.14 trillion. Mi...

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has revealed that the regulating body will adopt the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “travel rule” and standards toward the cryptocurrency industry throughout the nation. Meanwhile, FATF’s rule has been considered far-reaching and the organization Global Digital Finance and the company’s advisory member, Malcolm Wright, hopes industry innovators will help shape the regulatory conversations. Japan’s Financial Services Agency Is Ready to Follow FATF’s Lead Japan, the island country in East Asia with its 125 million people has seen cryptocurrency spread throughout the country since the early days, with a myriad of exchanges residing in the nation-state like the now-defunct Mt Gox. On Wednesday, the Japanese regulator the Financial Services Agency (FSA) announced that the country plans to adopt the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines toward virtual assets (VAs) and virtual asset service providers, otherwise known as VASPs. On March 2...

The price of ethereum tapped a new all-time high (ATH) on Friday afternoon reaching an ATH of around $2,072 around 12 p.m. (EST). Today, ethereum’s market capitalization captures 12.3% of the crypto economy’s overall $1.9 trillion market valuation. Meanwhile, as ether prices jumped over 6%, the crypto asset bitcoin cash has spiked over 8% nearing $600 per unit during the afternoon trading sessions. Ethereum Markets Shine While bitcoin ( BTC ) prices have been sitting just under the $60k per unit zone, a number of crypto assets are seeing strong gains. Yesterday it was dogecoin (DOGE) and filecoin (FIL) ramping up the action, but today all eyes are on ethereum ( ETH ) and bitcoin cash ( BCH ). Ethereum prices touched an ATH on Friday reaching $2,072 per ether and the crypto asset has managed to stay above the $2k handle. During the last seven days, ETH is up over 20% and a whopping +165.03% during the last three months. Just recently the billionaire investor Mark Cuban touted e...

The billionaire investor and television personality, Mark Cuban recently did an interview on the recent episode of a podcast and discussed crypto assets at length. Cuban says his cryptocurrency portfolio is 60% bitcoin, 30% ethereum, and the rest is dedicated to smaller cap cryptos. Mark Cuban Shares His Crypto Portfolio Allocations Mark Cuban is a well known investor, one of the hosts on Shark Tank, and the owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Dallas Mavericks. For years now, Cubans and some of his fellow Shark Tank co-hosts have been discussing cryptocurrencies and whether or not they are a good investment. During the first week of February, Cuban told stock traders that bitcoin holders were a great example to follow. In March, Cuban told gold bug Peter Schiff that bitcoin was better than gold. However, Cuban has been skeptical as well and has also criticized the crypto industry on a few occasions. For instance, at the end of 2020, Cuban explained that bitcoin ...

Morgan Stanley has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to add bitcoin exposure to 12 of its mutual funds’ investment strategies. These mutual funds may invest in bitcoin futures as well as obtain indirect exposure to the cryptocurrency through investments in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the filing details. Bitcoin Exposure for 12 Morgan Stanley Mutual Funds Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Inc., the asset management division of Morgan Stanley, filed a statement of additional information supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday. The purpose of the filing is to enable 12 of the investment bank’s mutual funds to start adding exposure to bitcoin. The company explained that “Bitcoin Exposure” has been added to the “Investment Policies and Strategies” of 12 mutual fund portfolios, under “Other Securities and Investment Strategies” section. The mutual funds that may start adding bitcoin exposure are Advantage Portfolio, Asia Opp...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has greenlighted Coinbase’s initial public offering via a direct listing on Nasdaq, the company has confirmed. Coinbase’s IPO is set to debut in two weeks, on April 14. Coinbase IPO to Debut in 2 Weeks Coinbase Global Inc. announced Thursday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has declared its registration statement relating to its initial public offering (IPO) effective. The company has also set a date for its IPO, stating: Coinbase anticipates that its Class A common stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ‘COIN’ on April 14, 2021. The IPO was pushed back from March following enforcement action by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to Bloomberg. The derivatives watchdog fined the crypto exchange operator $6.5 million “for reckless false, misleading, or inaccurate reporting as well as wash trading.” Coinbase was valued at about ...

PRESS RELEASE.   Stratis, the Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform , expands developer reach by collaborating with C# Corner, the largest, most active group of C# developers in the world. 2nd April 2021, London, United Kingdom -    Stratis  achieves another milestone as it partners with  C# Corner , a 3M+ member community that works towards the advancement of knowledge and software technology. Stratis’ focus on leveraging Microsoft technologies, specifically the C# programming language, means a plethora of programmers worldwide will now be developing and supporting one-another to build with Stratis Blockchain Technologies. The partnership will influence several activities being performed in the coming months, starting with a dedicated Stratis Blockchain Development Team focussed on developing practical use cases utilizing Stratis. C# Corner’s development team will commit to delivering multiple solutions, ultimately demonstrating the power of the platform developed by Stratis.  ...

As non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming a global phenomenon increasingly due to their mainstream adoption, there are also concerns about the surge of related scams. A recent study revealed the most common NFT scams that are spreading on the net. Suspicious Domain Registrations With ‘NFT’ Word Surged 250% in March 2021 According to the research conducted by security experts of Bolster, replica stores are on a bullish trend, as the recent figures show a boost in the number of domain registrations. Scammers have been actively setting up replica stores with suspicious-looking domains with names such as “rarible,” “opensea,” and “audious.” Per the study, such domain registrations have skyrocketed nearly 300% in March 2021 when compared to previous months. The replica stores or phony copycats, says Bolster, often rely on using the same design of legitimate NFT stores, even replicating their logos. Similarly, fake NFT stores are considered a variant of the replica NFT stores, with ...

In an abrupt move, Binance South Africa announced on March 31 that all South African rand (ZAR) trading pairs will be delisted on April 2. The crypto exchange adds in a statement that “all trade orders will be automatically removed after 10.00 UTC on April 1” in each respective trading pair. Binance concludes by requesting users to withdraw all funds before the 10.00 UTC deadline. ZAR No Longer Meets the Standard In justifying the decision , Binance South Africa states that it “periodically reviews each digital asset we list to ensure it continues to meet the high level of standard we expect.” The email goes on to add that when “a token no longer meets this standard or when the industry changes,” a decision will be made to remove such a digital asset. Meanwhile, in a strong hint that ZAR trading pairs had failed the in-depth review, Binance said: Based on our most recent reviews, we have decided to delist and cease trading on all ZAR trading pairs at 10.00 UTC on April 1, 2021. ...

Irish police are on high alert due to the rising number of cases related to a bitcoin-related scam targeting high-net-worth people in the country. The situation has become worrisome because suspicious high-value transactions have already been noticed by authorities. Authorities Already Searched One Property Tied to One of the Suspects According to The Irish Times , Gardaí (Ireland’s police) investigates what they consider a major crypto scam whose criminals could be residing in the country. A local bank already raised concerns about a suspicious transaction of 500,000 euros ($586,500) from a dormant account. After inquiries conducted by Gardaí on the older customer who wanted to invest such an amount of money into what he believed was a legit crypto business opportunity, he accepted the police’s advice to not send the fiat money. But per the media outlet, it seems other similar transactions took place before they acted to block the 500,000 euros move to the criminals’ wallet. In f...

On Thursday, Bitcoin Cash proponents were introduced to a new website that features a project called Smart Bitcoin Cash or Smartbch for short. Essentially, the project is a sidechain for Bitcoin Cash that is compatible with Ethereum’s EVM and Web3 API, which means people will soon be able to leverage decentralized applications (dapps) without paying lots of money for transaction fees. Bitcoin Cash Fans Introduced to a Unique Ethereum and Web3-Compatible Sidechain At the time of writing, Ethereum is the dominant chain when it comes to Web3 applications and decentralized finance. However, ethereum (ETH) fees to interact with a Web3 compatible dapp or some type of smart contract can be very expensive these days. The Smartbch project aims to change all that and the creators plan to make throughput as large as one billion gas every 15 seconds. The new website called smartbch.org says the sidechain will essentially maximize throughput of EVM and Web3 tools. The website gives a person...

According to Bloqport’s latest data, bitcoin, which ended the month of March with an overall gain of 29%, has now been in the green for six consecutive months. The data also shows that the crypto asset’s value has nearly doubled from its December 2020 closing price of $29,383 to its current value of $58,647. With this run, bitcoin has already outperformed many other assets including gold. An Institution-Fueled Bull Run As shown by the research and analytics firm’s data , BTC ’s current run began at the start of Q4 of 2020, a period that coincides with increased reports of institutional investors acquiring the crypto asset. As reported by Bitcoin.com News, Microstrategy and Square Inc had kickstarted a new wave of large corporations and hedge funds buying into the crypto asset. For instance, on October 7, 2020, Square Inc announced it had converted 1% of cash reserves (or $50 million at the time) into BTC . Since then, more corporations including Elon Musk’s Tesla have revealed t...

While bitcoin prices have been consolidating just under the $60k handle, a number of other alternative digital assets have seen steep gains. Two coins, in particular, the decentralized storage network filecoin token and the notorious meme token dogecoin have jumped well over 10% during the last 24 hours. On Thursday, April 1, 2021, otherwise known as “April Fool’s Day,” the popular cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE) jumped over 12% during the last 24 hours. The spike in price was immediately after the famous Tesla executive Elon Musk tweeted : SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2021 Dogecoin kind of slumped during the course of March but did very well during the first two months of the year. During the last seven days, DOGE is up 19% against the U.S. dollar and 973% during the last three months. On Wednesday afternoon (EST), dogecoin was exchanging hands for $0.058 per coin. Meanwhile, filecoin (FIL) has been duking i...