Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

A cryptocurrency-related malware program has been advertised on darknet forums as the “leading way to make money in 2021,” raising alarms among the cybersecurity community. Palo Alto Networks published a report on the malicious app Westeal, detailing the author’s ties with other types of malware that steals major streaming services accounts. Westeal Claims to Be Immune Against Major Antivirus Software According to the cybersecurity firm , “Westeal” is an evolution of “Wesupply Crypto Stealer,” another malicious crypto software that has been sold since May 2020. Findings suggest that Wesupply’s evolution has been advertised since mid-February 2021. The study points out that Westeal was designed to basically steal bitcoin ( BTC ) and ethereum ( ETH ) coming in and out of the victim’s wallet through their clipboard. Moreover, people who acquire the malicious app get access to a web panel to handle all the operations, including a “victim tracker panel.” A detail that raises concerns ...

The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, approved a minimum wage raise increase last week that took it to three dollars monthly, a very low income for the citizens of the country that are facing a strong economic crisis since 2013. However, the crypto environment has been growing, and now Venezuelans are flocking to exchanges like Binance and Localbitcoins, platforms that are now serving thousands of Venezuelan users monthly with their peer-to-peer offerings destined to preserve the value of their money. Venezuela’s Minimum Wage Raised to $3 Monthly Earlier this week. Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, announced a minimum wage raise through its Labour minister, Eduardo Piñate, in a public support rally to Maduro’s government. The raise of 300% takes the minimum wage to an approximated value of three U.S. dollars monthly, a number that is insufficient to cover the basic needs of a family even for a day. According to ground reports, one kilogram of meat costs about $3.75, ma...

On Tuesday, the Nasdaq-listed Canadian company Mogo revealed the firm has purchased 146 ether at an average price of $2,780. The move follows the firm’s corporate investment in bitcoin, as well as offering bitcoin rewards for the company’s mortgage and card clients. The company plans to keep 5% of its balance sheet assets in digital currencies. After Adding Bitcoin to the Balance Sheet, Mogo Stacks Ether The Vancouver-based Mogo (Nasdaq:MOGO), a fintech firm that provides various financial services has announced the corporate purchase of ethereum ( ETH ). The ethereum investment follows the company’s initial bitcoin purchase back in December 2020. Mogo has been interested in blockchain and crypto solutions for a few years now. At the end of March, Mogo mortgage clients were offered bitcoin rewards if they got a mortgage through the company or refinanced an existing property. On May 3, Mogo explained that it obtained 146 ETH for around $2,780 per unit. Both the bitcoin and the...

OVR.ai has sold the Eiffel Tower, putting it for sale as Non Fungible Token on OpenSea for about $106.9K USD. In fact, the auction ended a few days ago, reaching a value of 38.6159 ETH . The Eiffel Tower NFT was a package of 60 OVRLands and it was on sale on Opensea for only a couple of days. The investor (AKA Camembert) who won the auction of Eiffel Tower is already known in the NFT world, as he’s already bought another famous non fungible token, the one of Cristiano Ronaldo sold by Sorare for $290,000. Camembert commented the news: “I am very excited about my new NFT acquisition on OVR. I also recently bought some unique football cards such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Zinedine Zidane but this one is very special : Eiffel Tower is a powerful and distinctive symbol of France. Today it welcomes almost 7 million visitors a year making it the most visited monument in the world. I will allow developers to launch virtual projects on the Eiffel Tower, we could organize digital exhibitio...

More than 800 limited edition collectibles, some from shooting scenes, are set to go to auction on the Starcoll NFT marketplace, as a large collector leverages blockchain technology for one of the most storied movie franchises in history. Early Registration Timed for May The 4th (Be With You) In a growing sign of the times, non-fungible tokens (NFT) have become too attractive for even Star Wars collectors to ignore. As one of the more popular memorabilia and toy markets even before the rise of blockchain, the move by Starcoll to capitalize on the promise of blockchain technology for assuring both digital and physical ownership for Star Wars collectibles represents a natural fit. Starcoll , an NFT marketplace and collection, is built on the QAN blockchain to ensure the highest level of security possible. The adoption of this hybrid, quantum-resistant blockchain is intended to address problematic issues that have plagued NFTs, like poor security and the ability of hackers to change...

A company paid an employee for his work done in cryptocurrency. However, after the price of the cryptocurrency skyrocketed 700%, the employer wants the coins back, offering to pay the employee in U.S. dollars instead. Employer Wants Crypto Back After It Rose 700% Marketwatch published a letter to The Moneyist columnist, Quentin Fottrell, Monday from someone asking for advice about crypto payments he received from his employer. The Moneyist is a service that provides answers to all sorts of dilemmas, and Fottrell is the publication’s personal finance editor as well as The Moneyist columnist. The letter was signed “Crypto Confused,” who explained that he did some business development work for a tech startup “on a contract basis.” The company is still trying to generate its first dollar in sales, he noted. “The purpose of the contract was to generate sales and it included a commission component, but the understanding was that I would bill hourly for cold calling and emailing people,...

DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, says that cryptocurrency trading volumes on its exchange have grown 10 times to around $30 million to $40 million. The bank is also collaborating with JPMorgan on a blockchain settlement platform and plans to launch its first security token offering in the second quarter, its CEO has revealed. DBS’ Crypto Business Sees Massive Growth A leading financial services group headquartered in Singapore, DBS, talked about the performance of its crypto exchange during the media briefing for its first-quarter earnings results last week. DBS operates across 18 markets. The bank launched a “ digital exchange ” in December last year. DBS Bank CEO Piyush Gupta explained, “Our digital exchange capabilities are much like Coinbase.” He added that “The difference is that Coinbase is mass-market retail while we have been judicious by offering this to accredited investors and institutional counterparties to start with.” “Even with the careful expansion,” the DBS CEO...

The Spanish government doesn’t stop imposing its tough stance on cryptocurrencies, as another rule comes to strengthen the existing ones. A royal decree recently enacted aligns current regulations with the European Union’s directives regarding anti-money laundering (AML). Rule Aligns With the European AMLD5 Policies According to the decree published in the state official newsletter, Spanish laws now follow the directive 2018/843, commonly known as AMLD5. Specifically, crypto exchanges and custodial firms must share customers’ data with the whole European bloc. That said, domestic crypto businesses should be registered with Spain’s authorities as “new obligated subjects” to comply with the rule. An excerpt of the decree reads: The creation of this registry is accompanied by the establishment of an obligation for legal persons and entities without legal personality to obtain, keep and update this beneficially owned information and provide it to authorities and obligated subjects. ...

Cryptocurrency ATM operator Bitcoin Depot has launched 355 new teller machines across the United States. The announcement comes as the number of ATM locations supporting crypto-fiat exchange now exceeds 19,000 globally. US Company Bitcoin Depot Expands ATM Coverage in 40 States Bitcoin Depot, which runs a growing network of crypto teller machines in the U.S., has added 355 new kiosks only in the past month. In March, it announced the launch of 115. Its ATMs allow registered users with a wallet to acquire cryptocurrency. For amounts of less than $250, providing a phone number will be enough for identity verification. The Atlanta-based company says it has installed over 2,500 crypto ATMs worldwide, most of which are in the U.S. The latest batch of 355 machines have been deployed in 40 U.S. states, 20 of which are in its home state of Georgia, 40 in Florida, 32 across North Carolina, 24 in Texas, and 23 new kiosks across California. Most locations are open 24/7. Source: Bitcoin Dep...

PRESS RELEASE. The leading blockchain-based global point integration platform, ASSEMBLE Protocol has announced that its utility token ASM has been added to Coinbase Custody. This means that ASM will receive a cold-storage custody solution from one of the largest custodians in the crypto sphere, Coinbase Custody. Coinbase Custody to provide cold-storage custody support for ASM The support of the ASM on Coinbase Custody has been officially confirmed by the Coinbase Institutional on 3rd May 5 PM PDT, that has been revealed in their Twitter handle . According to their tweet, Coinbase Custody officially approved ASM token to be added to their cold storage custody following technical and compliance review of the token. This is a significant milestone for ASSEMBLE Protocol, given the fact that users on Coinbase Custody can now access the token. The Custodial platform is considered to be one of the largest and most trusted crypto custody solutions for individual and institutional investor...

The Avalanche cryptocurrency, the first cryptocurrency ever to implement the Avalanche consensus, experienced an outage of service yesterday when its web wallet presented an outage that lasted for six hours. This was the consequence of severe congestion due to an airdrop carried out by AvaLaunch, leaving users without control of their funds for this period. Avalanche Web Wallet Stalls After Avalaunch Airdrop The Avalanche Web Web Wallet, the official wallet for the AVAX cryptocurrency, experienced an outage yesterday that left customers without control of their tokens for six hours. According to official reports taken from status.avax.network , the page that monitors the state of every component of the Avalanche network, the outage started at 18:05 UTC, when web wallet nodes started experiencing a sharp uptick in API traffic. After some users complained about not being able to see access funds in the wallet, it was taken into maintenance mode at 18:4 UTC due to: degraded performa...

China, the world’s most populous country, has jumped leaps and bounds in comparison to a great number of other countries when it comes to the creation of a central bank digital currency. As each day passes, China’s digital yuan is seemingly getting closer to large-scale adoption, as big-name corporations like the e-commerce giant JD.com, Mastercard, Ant Group, and Tencent have been bolstering the venture. China’s Digital Yuan Is Seemingly Near Completion, JD.com Employees Paid in e-CNY China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) that’s being crafted by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has many names. Some are calling it the “e-CNY,” others call it the “ digital yuan ” or “digital renminbi,” and it’s also been called “Digital Currency Electronic Payment” (DCEP). The country has been developing a CBDC for years now and in more recent times, the PBoC has unveiled the project via banks and businesses accepting it and giving away digital red envelopes. At the end of March, it was ann...

S&P Global, the parent company of S&P Dow Jones Indices, has launched three cryptocurrency indices. One tracks the performance of bitcoin, another tracks the performance of ethereum, and the third measures the performance of both bitcoin and ether. 3 Crypto Indices Launched by S&P Global S&P Global, the parent company of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, launched “The S&P Digital Market Indices” on Monday. The index series include the S&P Bitcoin Index, the S&P Ethereum Index, and the S&P Crypto Mega Cap Index. The ticker symbols for the three are SPBTC, SPETH, and SPCMC, respectively. The latter “measures the performance of bitcoin and ethereum,” the company detailed. Three crypto indices launched by S&P Global. Source: S&P Global The company explained that “The indices aim to bring transparency to the emerging cryptocurrency market,” elaborating: These indices are designed to measure the performance of a selection of digital assets (cry...

Today, Ripple is excited to announce two new appointments to its leadership team. Rosa “Rosie” Gumataotao Rios, 43rd Treasurer of the United States, joins the Ripple Board of Directors and Kristina Campbell joins as Chief Financial Officer.  “These two exceptional leaders join Ripple at a pivotal time for the company,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple. … Continued The post Ripple Appoints Former Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios to Board of Directors and Kristina Campbell as CFO appeared first on Ripple. http://dlvr.it/Rz2bYG

The popular meme-based crypto-asset dogecoin has seen incredible gains during the last 24 hours jumping over 40% since yesterday. After just recently capturing a $50 billion market valuation, Dogecoin’s market cap now exceeds $71 billion. Moreover, the meme-coin has been eating away at bitcoin’s market dominance, as dogecoin captures 3% of the entire crypto-economy at the time of publication. Can’t Keep a Good Dog Down Dogecoin continues to rise higher as the crypto asset DOGE has touched an all-time high on Tuesday reaching $0.57 per unit. Dogecoin is up over 45% today and 97% during the last seven days. There is $15.91 billion in global DOGE trade volume on Tuesday morning (ET). Against bitcoin ( BTC ), dogecoin has gained over 41% during the last day and 51% against ethereum ( ETH ) during the last week. Doge has captured the fourth position in the crypto economy among the 9,000+ crypto assets in existence today. The meme asset’s valuation is worth more than Honda Motor Com...

Sotheby’s, the world’s largest auction house, will start accepting cryptocurrencies for physical art. The first auction for which bitcoin and ether will be accepted is Banksy’s Love is in the Air image at the Contemporary Art Evening Auction. The piece is estimated to sell for between $3 million and $5 million. Sotheby’s Accepts Bitcoin and Ether Sotheby’s announced Tuesday that it will start accepting cryptocurrency via Coinbase. According to the auction house, this is the first time cryptocurrencies will be accepted for payments for physical art. Established in 1744, Sotheby’s described itself as the world’s largest marketplace for art and luxury. With a network of specialists spanning 40 countries and 44 departments, “we host over 600 auctions annually and offer a cross-category selection of items available for immediate purchase via both digital and physical shopping experiences as well as private sales,” its website details. Artprice.com ranks Sotheby’s as the number one aucti...

Faced with challenges on many fronts, the European Central Bank is now deepening the analysis of how to digitalize its currency. A decision on whether to issue a digital euro, which has the potential to become a major CBDC, is expected around mid-2021, a high-ranking official of the central bank has confirmed. Eurozone’s Central Bank to Decide on the Digital Euro Project Within Months Occupied with planning a “cautious exit” from the social, economic and health emergency forced upon the European Union by the Covid-19 crisis, the ECB is also compelled to think about a digital version of the euro, the fiat currency of Europe’s monetary union. The U.S. Federal Reserve is preparing to present prototypes of a digital dollar in July, Facebook-backed, dollar-pegged diem is set to launch this year, and China has already offered its citizens to apply for a digital yuan wallet. Luis de Guindos, Vice President of the ECB On this backdrop, the central bank of the Eurozone is now increasi...

PRESS RELEASE. Redshaw Advisors will support XELS mission of increasing participation in carbon markets in Japan and beyond. Tokyo, Japan — XELS , a revolutionary blockchain-based carbon offset platform has announced that it has joined forces with renowned carbon brokerage and risk management firm Redshaw Advisors. Under the collaboration, Redshaw Advisors will provide strategic advisory, consulting, and procurement of carbon credits for XELS. Immutable Carbon Offsets Initially focused on the voluntary carbon credit segment, XELS launched its blockchain platform and eponymous digital asset earlier this month. The startup’s tokenized offset credits, which exist on an immutable public ledger, are designed to boost both transparency and participation in carbon markets. Unlike traditional carbon credits, XELS cannot be modified or double spent, and the process of “burning” used tokens ensures the credit is retired forever. Anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection ...