Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The cryptocurrency market is at an all-time high and the NFT world is booming. ERTHA is one of the hottest P2E (play to earn) gaming Metaverse projects and has already achieved incredible product-market fit, while still being in the private NFT sale round. Erthaverse is a 3D virtual representation of a futuristic planet Earth, divided into 350,000 unique land plot NFTs, differing in resources and features. Landowners are joining a persistent, life-like simulation to build their homes, customize their environment, participate in politics, and earn real income by creating and driving the in-game economy. More than 2000 Hexs have already been sold to individual owners in the first few days of the private sale. Saudi Arabia in the Ertha world, representing an oil-rich country in the real Earth, was sold out in a few hours, demonstrating the tremendous hype around owning NFT land in Ertha. The future income and opportunities are the main criteria when purchasing. Investors are acquiri

On Tuesday, the digital asset exchange Crypto.com announced the launch of the first official Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles. The new NFT series will feature UFC digital collectibles that showcase fight night artwork, event posters, championship belts, and athlete profiles . UFC to Drop Official NFTs for Usman vs. Covington 2 Fight During the first week of July, Bitcoin.com News reported on Crypto.com partnering with UFC in a ten-year deal worth $175 million. At the time, sources disclosed that the deal was the UFC’s largest sponsorship deal to date. On November 2, the two announced the launch of official UFC NFTs that will feature UFC artwork, event posters, athlete profiles, championship belts, avatars, artist collaborations, and mystery boxes. The collection of NFTs called “UFC 268 Packs” will drop on November 4, and fight posters and belt designs will be based on the upcoming event “UFC 268: Usman vs. Covington 2,” slated to take p

Coinbase is acquiring an AI-powered support platform Agara in an effort to deliver “world-class support for customers.” The exchange explained that “Through this acquisition, we’ll be able to provide our customers with new personalized, intelligent, and real-time support options.” The acquisition also reconfirms Coinbase’s strategy to build out its tech hub in India. Coinbase to Improve Customer Support With AI Platform Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Tuesday: Today, Coinbase is announcing that we are acquiring Agara, an AI-powered support platform with operations in India and the US. “We plan to leverage Agara’s powerful Deep Learning and Conversational AI technology to automate and enhance our customer experience (CX) tools,” explained Manish Gupta, Coinbase’s EVP of Engineering. He added that improving CX “remains a top priority for Coinbase.” In the past few months, the company increased its support staff headcount by five times. It also announced that 24/7 phone

The mayor of the U.S. city of Miami says that he is going to take 100% of his next paycheck in bitcoin and become the first American politician to accept a salary in cryptocurrency. The mayor is currently trying to build his city into a bitcoin capital of the world. US Politician Wants to Be Paid in Bitcoin The pro-bitcoin mayor of the U.S. city of Miami, Francis Suarez, tweeted Tuesday that he is going to take 100% of his next paycheck in bitcoin. His statement was in response to a challenge by Morgan Creek Digital partner Anthony Pompliano asking on Twitter: “Who is going to be the first American politician to accept their salary in bitcoin?” In his tweet, Mayor Suarez asked Mike Sarasti, CIO and director of Innovation & Tech of the city of Miami, to help make it happen. Sarasti indicated that he will help by tweeting “Mayor. Amazing” in reply, along with two “100” symbols and a bitcoin symbol. The Miami mayor’s statement came as a growing number of professional athletes a

Singapore, already a major financial center in the world, is now aiming to become a cryptocurrency hub as well. The city-state is seeking to secure its role as a leading player in the crypto space, the head of its central banking institution has indicated in recent comments. Singapore to Establish Itself as Center for Crypto Business Authorities in Singapore are taking steps to cement its position as a key player in crypto business, the official who has been at the helm of the Monetary Authority of Singapore ( MAS ) for a decade has revealed in an interview. It comes as Singapore and other financial hubs around the world are exploring ways to regulate the rapidly growing sector. Quoted by Bloomberg, managing director of MAS Ravi Menon stated: We think the best approach is not to clamp down or ban these things. The MAS is Singapore’s central banking institution responsible for setting the rules for banks and financial firms. The authority is now trying to also introduce “strong r

The first limited edition of Spellfire NFT cards has already reached the shelves of OpenSea. Spellfire NFTs have a unique mix of capabilities and cannot be compared to anything else on the market. A new conception has combined time-tested gaming and modern twists to have a unique collecting experience of virtual and physical assets generating a lifetime revenue, plus a great time playing a beloved fantasy game. Is the team good at what they do? Spellfire has gained top investors within a few hours. The physical game is ~70% done. 20+ people focused on the game, creating the new Spellfire world for almost 4 years. More than 100 newly created cards are already selling at OpenSea . The digital game is rapidly growing on Unity. Augmented reality cards in the app show their moves. New characters, realms, and event cards join the game every day. Discord and Telegram communities are buzzing. Headlines at BitcoinNews , Dappradar , Zycrypto , AMBcrypto , and many more. T

At the non-fungible token (NFT)-focused conference, NFT.NYC, developers from the Metalcore Foundation and Studio 369 revealed an NFT-powered mechanized combat video game. The game’s creators have worked on projects for Activision, Disney, Lucas Films, Midway, and the Mechwarrior, Mortal Kombat, and Gears of War franchises. Metalcore Foundation, Studio 369 Reveal Blockchain-Powered Mech Battle Game A game development team behind an organization called the Metalcore Foundation and video game developer Studio 369 , announced a new multiplayer mechanized combat blockchain-powered video game title called Metalcore . The game is being built with Unreal Engine 4 and is a first-person combat game located in an open world. “Players can engage in 100-person PvP mega-battles, smaller-scale cooperative PvE fights, and faction-based, open-world clashes,” the Metalcore team’s announcement detailed. The game is being developed by a team with experience stemming from well known firms like Lucas

On November 2, 2021, the Ethereum network’s global hashrate tapped an all-time high (ATH) at 873 terahash per second (TH/s) or close to 1 petahash. Alongside Ethereum’s ATH, a myriad of hashrates have returned back to the highs the network’s once held before the crypto mining crackdown in China. Hashrates Return Following China’s Crypto Mining Crackdown This Past Summer Last summer at the end of June, a great number of cryptocurrency networks saw their hashrates decline significantly, but today many networks have recovered from the large losses. For instance, the Bitcoin ( BTC ) network hashrate plummeted to a low of 69.11 exahash per second (EH/s) on June 28, and today BTC ’s hashrate is coasting along at 169 EH/s. That’s an increase of 144.92% and a variety of other crypto protocol hashrates have also seen significant recoveries in terms of global hashrate. During the same time period the Bitcoin network’s hashrate shuddered last summer, Litecoin’s ( LTC ) hashrate dipped to a l

On Tuesday, the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, announced the upcoming launch of ethereum-based micro futures slated to be listed on December 6. The launch follows CME Group’s bitcoin micro futures listing in May, which saw 100,000 micro bitcoin futures traded during the first six days after launch. CME to Launch Micro Ether Futures Pending Regulatory Approval CME Group announced on Tuesday that the company plans to launch micro ether futures on December 6, “pending regulatory review.” According to the CME announcement, each share will account for one-tenth of one ether. “Micro ether futures will provide an efficient, cost-effective way for a range of market participants – from institutions to sophisticated, active, individual traders – to hedge their spot ether price risk or more nimbly execute ether trading strategies, all while retaining the features and benefits of CME Group’s larger-sized ether futures,” the announcement

On November 1, at block height 707,639, a blockchain parser caught two bitcoin whale transfers that moved approximately 19,876 bitcoin worth $1.2 billion in the mix of 2,819 transactions. Interestingly, the owner used a similar splitting mechanism the old school mining whale blockchain parsers caught, spending strings of 20 block rewards throughout 2020 and 2021. Bitcoin Whale Watching Bitcoin whales are mysterious animals because in a blockchain world of pseudonymity we only see them when they move. Last year and this year as well, Bitcoin.com News has hunted a specific whale entity that spent thousands of bitcoin mined in 2010. Every single time the whale spent the decade-old bitcoin that sat idle the whole time, the entity spent exactly 20 block rewards or 1,000 BTC . After the transfer, the wallets holding 1,000 BTC dispersed the funds into smaller-sized wallets. According to the creator of btcparser.com , the close to 20K BTC transferred at block height 707,639 on November

PRESS RELEASE. Education Ecosystem (LEDU), a leader in online project-based learning, is excited to announce that it is presently creating over 1000 video projects for CMC Top 100 blockchains to teach developers how to build new applications related to financial apps, decentralized markets, games, crypto wallets, and more. With more crypto exchanges releasing their APIs and SDKs, Education Ecosystem seeks to plug a gap where crypto developers do not have tutorials and resources to learn how to build crypto products. Education Ecosystem believes that creating these projects, which entail a tutorial and downloadable resources to help the learners will encourage learning and innovation of crypto products across top exchanges and platforms. According to the CEO, Education Ecosystem is rolling out this development as part of its efforts to be the leading learning platform for intermediate to expert level developers on Youtube . While announcing this big development, the CEO noted that

Ubisoft, one of the biggest gaming companies in the entertainment world, mentioned blockchain as one of the key points of focus for the future of the brand. The company said it is exploring blockchain as an innovative technology to be included in games in its latest earnings report. While blockchain’s play-to-earn trend has experienced a boom this year, the traditional gaming industry still has yet to embrace blockchain as part of a flagship product. Ubisoft to Explore Blockchain for Future Products Ubisoft, the gaming giant known for mega-successful franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, mentioned blockchain technology as a key element for the future of the company. In its latest earnings report, which corresponds to the first half of the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Ubisoft stated it has been exploring blockchain technology since its beginnings, to see how it can be used to further enhance the experience of gamers in virtual worlds. The report states: Ubisoft has been explorin

Paraguay is one of the destinations being considered by various companies for setting up their bitcoin mining operations. Last week, Chinese company Future Fintech announced formal plans to build a bitcoin mining facility in the country, explaining they were determining the best location for the upcoming farm. In June, local media declared that there were eight Chinese economic groups interested in coming to the country. Paraguay Considered for Its Bitcoin Mining Potential Paraguay, an often overlooked country of South America, has recently been in the sights of mining institutions interested in establishing operations in the country. Paraguay presents several advantages for these groups, like an abundant supply of unused hydro-electrical power that could be put to work. Bitcoin mining activity has been stigmatized as a “dirty” industry, but having this much clean energy, companies could mine without worrying about the effect on the environment. Future Fintech, a Chinese company th

Digital Currency Group (DCG), a Manhattan-based, crypto-focused VC conglomerate, has reached a $10 billion dollar valuation in a secondary sale where existing investors sold part of their shares to new ones. The funding round was led by Softbank and also included participation from Capitalg, Google’s investment firm. $700 million worth of shares changed hands via the sale. Digital Currency Group Sells $700 Million in Secondary Sale Round Digital Currency Group (DCG), a crypto-focused company, announced a secondary sale where existing investors sold part of their shares to newcomers to the company. The deal, which involved $700 million worth of shares changing hands, was led by Softbank with the participation of Capitalg, Google’s private equity investment firm. This further cements the importance that DCG has in the current crypto-focused world. With this new investment round, the valuation of the company reached $10 billion. While the name DCG might seem obscure and not recogniza

A Kenyan communications strategist, Mwotia Ciugu, has told African investors to be wary of investing in bitcoin which he claims is worth zero. Bitcoin Structurally Incapable of Delivering on Its Promise In an op-ed published by The Elephant, Ciugu insists bitcoin (BTC) is structurally incapable of delivering on its promise of becoming an alternative store of value or a hedge against inflation. In addition, the strategist also claims bitcoin fails both as a currency and an investment. Although he concedes that Africa has one of the highest cryptocurrency adoption rates , Ciugu cautions, however, that the top cryptocurrency’s volatility and scalability issues mean it cannot act as a currency. Ciugu is quoted explaining: Bitcoin fails as a currency because of two things: volatility and scalability concerns. In its 12 years of existence, bitcoin has maintained extremely high levels of volatility i.e. 60 per cent to 100 per cent annualized. To further support this point, Ciugu mak

Global investment bank Goldman Sachs is reportedly predicting that the price of ether could rise to $8,000 by year-end. The bank’s analysts explained that cryptocurrencies have traded in line with inflation breakevens since 2019. Ether Could Reach $8K by Year-End, According to Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs has reportedly explained in a research note circulated by the bank’s managing director of Global Markets, Bernhard Rzymelka, that the price of ether ( ETH ) could hit $8,000 by year-end. The note details that cryptocurrencies have traded in line with inflation breakevens since 2019, according to Zerohedge. Referencing a chart showing the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (red) on a log axis and the USD 2-year forward 2-year inflation swap (blue), Goldman’s analysts noted that “the local backdrop looks supportive for ethereum.” The analysts added: “It has tracked inflation markets particularly closely, likely reflecting the pro-cyclical nature as ‘network based’ asset. And the lastes

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has indicated that the shiba inu (SHIB) cryptocurrency will be listed on its platform on Tuesday. The dogecoin rival has gained much popularity recently, rising 97% in the past seven days and 825.5% in the last 30 days. Kraken Indicates Shiba Inu Will Be Listed on Its Platform Tuesday Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken tweeted Monday about listing the shiba inu cryptocurrency (SHIB) on its platform. According to the San Francisco-based exchange, the company’s product lead, Brian Hoffman, said if the tweet gets 2K likes, Kraken will list shiba inu Tuesday. At the time of writing, the tweet has been liked 45.1K times and retweeted 11.6K times. Founded in 2011, Kraken says it is the world’s largest global digital asset exchange based on euro volume and liquidity. Globally, its client base trades more than 60 digital assets and seven different fiat currencies, including EUR, USD, CAD, GBP, JPY, CHF, and AUD, its website details. Kraken was the first U.S. cry

This past summer the American multinational technology company, Amazon, published two job listings for a blockchain lead and a digital currency expert. Now Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking for a principal digital assets specialist that can “help drive adoption across the global digital asset community.” AWS Is Looking for a Principal Digital Assets Specialist One of the ‘Big Five’ tech companies, Amazon, has shown signs of interest in cryptocurrency solutions and blockchain technology for quite some time now. For instance, on May 26, 2020, the company patented a “distributed ledger certification” protocol. In February 2021, the e-commerce giant posted a job listing for a software development manager to lead a blockchain pilot project located in Mexico, alongside Amazon’s “Digital and Emerging Payments” division. This past June, the company’s employment portal said Amazon was seeking a blockchain expert in order to create “business use cases across decentralized finance (defi

Following a number of ASIC mining rig acquisitions from the manufacturer Canaan, the bitcoin mining operation Genesis Digital Assets announced on Monday that the firm is developing an industrial-scale bitcoin mining data center in West Texas. According to the announcement, Genesis says that the new facility will have 300 megawatts of capacity with a “low carbon footprint.” Genesis Announces New Bitcoin Mining Facility With 300 Megawatts of Capacity The mining firm Genesis Digital Assets has announced the launch of a new bitcoin mining facility that will be located in West Texas. The Genesis data center will get energy from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The entity ERCOT is a large power supplier in Texas and statistics say the firm supplies 90 percent of the state’s electric load. Genesis stresses that the new data center with 300 megawatts will showcase “sustainable infrastructure, high efficiency, and a low carbon footprint.” The Texas facility announcement f

Inflation continues to remain hot in the United States as supply constraints and higher oil prices continue, seeing barrels of crude surge above $80 per unit. Meanwhile, data released on Friday indicates that consumer expenditures have risen to 4.4%, the highest run-up of inflation the country has seen in 30 years. Inflation Continues to Rise in US Americans are dealing with higher inflation levels these days as new data indicates that personal consumption expenditures have spiked in September to 4.4%. Reuters reports that the inflation run-up is “continuing a run of inflation at levels not seen in 30 years.” Americans losing purchasing power has been attributed to supply chain shortages, sky-high oil prices , and the ongoing Covid-19 procedures mandated by the Biden administration. Reuters reporter Howard Schneider explains that the rising inflation levels in the U.S. could undermine Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s claims that inflation will be “transitory.” However, Co

Burger King is giving away 20 bitcoin, 200 ether, and two million dogecoin this month in partnership with trading platform Robinhood. “Each entrant may receive up to 21 Prize Codes” that can be redeemed for cryptocurrencies on Robinhood. ‘Burger King With a Side of Crypto’ Fast food restaurant chain Burger King has announced “Burger King with a side of crypto,” its newest offer for Royal Perks members. To be eligible to participate, customers must “make a minimum $5.00 pre-tax Burger King (‘BK’) food and/or beverage purchase” either online at BK.com, using the BK app, or at participating BK restaurants, the company explained, adding: The prize pool includes two million dogecoin, 200 ethereum and 20 bitcoin, so only 220 guests could receive a bitcoin or ethereum cryptocurrency prize. “There will be 2,000,220 Prize Codes available as of the start of the promotion,” Burger King further detailed. Participants must be Royal Perks members, for which sign-up is free. According to the

In mid-October, Bitcoin.com News reported on how decentralized finance (defi) or algorithmic stablecoins have seen significant demand in 2021. One particular stablecoin called OHM is quite different from the traditional reserve currency defi protocols today, as OHM is a free-floating currency backed only by what’s held in the Olympus DAO treasury. OHM may not be backed by a U.S. dollar in the usual fashion, but the stablecoin’s $3.6 billion market valuation makes it the fifth-largest crypto reserve currency by market capitalization. Meet Olympus DAO: An Algorithmic Currency Protocol When stablecoins were first introduced, a centralized model appeared where a blockchain network is used to distribute tokens that have fiat backing held by an audited third-party custodian. The centralized model still exists today, and the top two stablecoins in terms of market valuation, USDT and USDC are both perfect examples of that type of model. In recent times, decentralized finance (defi) or alg

Have you lost the password for a Dogechain.info wallet or have it locked behind 2FA and fear you will never get to hold your precious coins ever again? Good news, KeychainX wrote a handy guide on how to recover such wallets. This is a trusted service provider that specializes in recovering lost Bitcoin wallets from wallet.dat files, Dogecoin wallet passwords, Android wallet or spending PIN, Ethereum JSON files, presale wallets and can even decrypt blockchain.info 15,17,19 or 21 word mnemonic seed that is no longer officially supported. Dogechain.info Wallets Can Be Recovered According to a recent KeychainX article , the team has been able to recover a number of dogechain.info wallets that both had their password lost and their 2FA blocked over the course of the previous month. Dogechain.info is a self custodian doge wallet that uses the same parameters like blockchain.info used back in 2015. It has the wallet ID, 2FA security and the encrypted wallet and keys stored on a server in t

As defi continues to expand, it risks embracing the very ideology it initially sought to reject as the primary beneficiaries of this new financing paradigm are those who already own digital assets. Replacing Intermediaries Doesn’t Directly Improve Finance When it comes to financial products and solutions, almost everything comes with a catch, be it exceptional returns on investments or low financing rates. Decentralized finance (defi) is no exception. Defi has gained immense popularity because it sought to remove traditional finance’s (tradfi) inherent problems and downsides. While there is no denying that the emergence of defi has indeed lowered access barriers to financial solutions, we can’t overlook the uncomfortable reality that defi is becoming, at least to an extent, the same as tradfi, with a ‘decentralized’ tag. The Blurring Line Between Defi and Tradfi Lending In the traditional system, anyone who wants to borrow funds from banks or private lenders must furnish their cr