Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

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...

A chief economist at UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, sees a number of problems with bitcoin. In attempting to answer the question of whether the cryptocurrency defies the zeitgeist, he claims that “bitcoin is denied to those minority groups who have reduced online access.” UBS Chief Economist Sees Multiple Problems With Bitcoin Paul Donovan, Chief Economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, published a weekly update entitled “Does Bitcoin defy the Zeitgeist ?” on the UBS website Friday outlining a number of issues he sees with the cryptocurrency. UBS is the largest bank in Switzerland. “There is something weird about Bitcoin. Bitcoin seems to specifically defy the spirit of the age, in a way other cryptos do not,” he began, adding: Some suggest bitcoin is a safe haven from runaway inflation. But controlling supply does not guarantee value … Bitcoin has a history of extreme price fluctuation. “We cannot keep living on environmental credit and must become increasingly sustai...

Visa CEO Al Kelly says that the payments giant is leaning into the cryptocurrency space “in a very, very big way.” He outlines five key areas of crypto opportunities that Visa is focusing on, stating that his company is “extremely well-positioned.” Visa Is Focusing on 5 Crypto Areas During Visa’s earnings call for the period ended March 31 last week, the payments giant outlined its commitment to the crypto space, highlighting five key areas the company is focusing on. Al Kelly, Visa’s chairman and chief executive officer, began by noting that there are “two market segments” his company sees in the crypto space. One is bitcoin, which he described as “primarily” an asset held by people. “We kind of think of them as the digital gold,” he continued. “Then there are digital currencies, including central bank digital currencies [CBDCs] and stablecoins that are directly backed by existing fiat currencies.” The CEO further revealed: Our focus is on five different opportunities that we s...

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has compiled a list of 19 large-cap stocks with cryptocurrency exposure that have massively outperformed the S&P 500. “On average, these stocks have dramatically outperformed the S&P 500 during the last several months alongside the surge in the price of bitcoin,” the firm wrote. 19 Stocks With Crypto Exposure That Outperformed S&P500 Goldman Sachs released a research note last week listing 19 large-cap U.S. stocks with blockchain and cryptocurrency exposure that outperformed the S&P 500. Ben Snider, the bank’s strategist and managing director, said: “Our screen yields 19 stocks with market caps greater than $1 billion … On average, these stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 by 34 percentage points year to date (+46% vs. +12%).” He noted that during the same time period, the price of bitcoin rose by 86% and Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index increased 156%. The Goldman Sachs strategist elaborated: On average, these stocks have dramatic...

Fundstrat Global Advisors’ most recent “Weekly Crypto Briefing” and the company’s lead digital asset strategist, David Grider, opines a target bitcoin price of $100k per coin is still “intact.” Moreover, Fundstrat believes that the price of ethereum will reach a $10k target, while the entire crypto-economy is “on pace to hit $5 trillion.” Fundstrat Maintains $100K Target for Bitcoin The independent financial research firm Fundstrat has a very bullish view of the current trajectory of cryptocurrency markets in the future. Fundstrat’s digital asset strategist, David Grider explains in the company’s weekly briefing covering digital assets that bitcoin (BTC) has rebounded after a “healthy cooling-off period last week.” Grider’s report further says that “the macro backdrop remains accommodative [and the] bull market remains intact.” The Fundstrat briefing stresses: We believe the bull market remains intact, and we are maintaining our $100k Bitcoin price target. One of the accommo...

During the Second 421 Wet Season Festival and Mining Ecology Conference the Chairman of the Bitdeer Group and cofounder of Bitmain, Jihan Wu spoke about institutions flocking to cryptocurrency mining. During the event Bitdeer outlined the company’s computing partnerships and its plans to make digital currency mining greener. Bitmain’s Cofounder Jihan Wu Is Optimistic About the Future of Cryptocurrencies and Mining Two weeks ago, Bitdeer Group, the corporate organization behind the web portal bitdeer.com , announced the firm has been granted funding for $12 million from the Hong Kong subsidiary of Genimous Technology , Genimous Investment. The funding aims to be allotted toward the development of Bitdeer’s cloud mining services. Bitdeer was founded by Jihan Wu and is backed by Sequoia Capital, IDG, and other financial institutions. At the Second 421 Wet Season Festival and Mining Ecology Conference, Jihan Wu, spoke to the crowd about institutions stepping into the digital currency...