Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Bank of America’s chief operating officer does not see cryptocurrency as competition. Instead, he views it as an asset class, noting that “people like it for all sorts of different reasons.” Bank of America’s COO on Crypto: ‘I Don’t View It as Competition at All’ Bank of America COO Tom Montag talked about cryptocurrency Thursday in an interview with Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager at a conference hosted by the blockchain analytics firm in New York. Montag is also president of Bank of America’s Global Banking and Markets and a member of the company’s executive management team. He is responsible for all of the businesses that serve companies and institutional investors. He said cryptocurrency reminded him of derivatives in their early days. He also admitted that he does not understand stablecoins. “I don’t understand that as well as everyone in the room … Is there really a dollar behind stablecoin?” The Bank of America COO was also asked whether banks are competing with crypto. ...

Square Inc. has reported bitcoin revenue of $1.82 billion in the third quarter, an 11% increase from the same period last year. Its bitcoin gross profit was $42 million during the time period, a 29% increase year-over-year. Square’s Bitcoin Profit up 29% in Q3 In the company’s Q3 2021 Shareholder Letter, published Thursday, Square Inc. reported total net revenue of $3.84 billion in the third quarter, up 27% year-over-year. The company’s bitcoin revenue is generated from its mobile payment service, Cash App. The platform generated $2.39 billion in revenue and $512 million in gross profit in Q3, a 16% and 33% increase year-over-year, respectively. Square wrote: Cash App generated $1.82 billion of bitcoin revenue and $42 million of bitcoin gross profit during the third quarter of 2021, up 11% and 29% year over year, respectively. Bitcoin gross profit accounted for approximately 2% of Square’s total bitcoin revenue in Q3. The company explained that bitcoin revenue is the total sale...

PRESS RELEASE. Recently, LBank Exchange held an AMA session with the Polygon team, discussing Polygon’s achievements, collaborations, NFT and Gaming markets, Nightfall solution, future plans and so on. Here’s the summary of this AMA. Ethereum is the blockchain development platform of choice, but it has limitations such as low throughput, poor UX, and no sovereignty. As a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks, Polygon breaks through these limitations by aggregating scalable solutions on Ethereum and supporting a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem. Polygon Outperforms Ethereum In-terms Of Active Users As a layer 2 solutions aggregator built on top of Ethereum, Polygon has made some great achievements since its birth, its POS chain has over 2000 DApps live and processes over 7 million transactions daily. In fact, Polygon now has more daily active users than Ethereum. MATIC, the token for the polygon network, is already live on tradin...

Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a Russian national with a cryptocurrency business, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has confirmed. The man involved in the establishment of two crypto exchange platforms was apprehended earlier this month, reportedly on a request from U.S. law enforcement. Russian Founder of Cryptocurrency Exchangers Detained in Holland Denis Dubnikov, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange platforms Coyote Crypto and Eggchange, has been arrested in Amsterdam, on Nov. 1. A report by crypto news outlet Forklog quoted the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, who confirmed the news which spread on social media. The Russian citizen was initially held and placed in an isolation ward at the airport in Mexico City. He was then boarded on a flight to the Netherlands where he was eventually arrested by Dutch authorities, allegedly on a request submitted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the publication detaile...

A growing number of mayors in cities across the U.S. have said they want to be paid in bitcoin. The mayor of Miami said he is going to take his entire salary in the cryptocurrency, two other mayors will be converting their paychecks into bitcoin, and the mayor-elect of New York City will take his first three paychecks in crypto. More Mayors of US Cities Ask to Be Paid in Bitcoin A growing number of mayors in U.S. cities want to be paid in bitcoin. At the time of writing, at least three mayors and one mayor-elect have said that they will take their next paychecks in bitcoin. The first mayor to say that he will be paid in bitcoin is the mayor of Miami , Florida, Francis Suarez, who tweeted Tuesday, “I’m going to take my next paycheck 100% in bitcoin.” Responding to Suarez’s tweet, the mayor-elect of New York City , Eric Adams, tweeted that he will take his first three paychecks in bitcoin when he takes office as mayor of NYC. Following Adams’ tweet, Suarez said in an interview with...

In mid-October, the market capitalization of all the stablecoins in existence was $134 billion and during the last three weeks, the valuation has increased by 5.59% to $141.5 billion. While terrausd’s market cap jumped by 6.7% over the last month, the stablecoin DAI saw an increase of 27.3% in 30 days. The largest stablecoin by market capitalization increased by 6% this month with a grand total of 73 billion tethers in circulation today. Stablecoin Capitalization Increases by 5.59% Over the Last Month — Makerdao’s Stablecoin Rises 27% On October 13, 2021, the largest stablecoin market cap held by tether was $70.9 billion and it is now $73 billion. The stablecoin market USDC was $33.3 billion and today it’s $34.2 billion. While tether’s ( USDT ) market cap jumped last month by 6%, USDC’s increase was slightly less with a 5.8% increase in 30 days. Out of the top five stablecoins in terms of overall valuation, the stablecoin DAI, issued by Makerdao, rose the most with a 27.3% jump las...

Non-fungible token (NFT) assets have seen significant demand since the beginning of 2021 and third quarter statistics show that key indicators have continued to rise. Just recently nonfungible.com published its Q3 2021 NFT Quarterly Report which shows active wallets increased, the number of NFT buyers has risen, and the number of sellers has grown faster than the amount of buyers. NFT Action Spikes Higher in Q3 NFT market action in Q3 2021 broke previous recorded quarterly metrics as NFT demand continues into the last few months of the year. The web portal nonfungible.com’s researchers published a study that covers 2021’s third quarter and data shows that most indicators are growing. For instance, active wallets, the number of wallets that have interacted with an NFT smart contract, increased 102.52% from 203,719 active wallets in Q2 to 412,578 in Q3. NFT buyers increased by 166.73% from 97,658 in Q2 to 260,489 in the third quarter. Sellers jumped from 40,056 to 122,910 and saw a ...

PRESS RELEASE. Litentry, a decentralized identity aggregation protocol, has revealed the launch of its Crowdloan Reward Program scheduled to go live from November 4, 2021. This represents a significant development in its quest to win a slot ahead of the upcoming Polkadot parachain auction. Join the crowdloan on Binance now to enjoy 20% LIT (20,000,000 LIT) total supply with an extra $2.5M reward pool, with approx. 2760% APY as of Nov 4. An Innovative Crowdloan program Crowdloan is a growing trend taken by projects to receive enough funding to participate in Polkadot’s parachain auction. Participants contribute by staking DOT into a crowdloan vault stored on the blockchain for a designated period. Compared to other projects, Litentry has designed an innovative crowdloan system that incentivizes contributors. To this effect, Litentry has allocated 20,000,000 LIT tokens representing 20% of its token supply as basic rewards for the crowdloan campaign. Interested participants have ...

On November 5, Bakkt Holdings announced that the firm will soon let customers buy, sell, and store ethereum after offering bitcoin only since the company’s launch. The firm notes that adding ethereum comes at a time when digital currency interest and adoption continue to see significant growth. Bakkt Announces Ethereum Support Bakkt ( NYSE: BKKT ) has announced the company will “soon” offer ethereum (ETH) in addition to offering bitcoin (BTC) . The digital asset manager listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), as a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), started offering its products three years ago in August 2018. Bakkt explained on Friday that customers and the firm’s partners will soon have the ability to buy, sell, and hold ether. Adding ethereum follows the company’s recent partnership with Google “to introduce digital assets to millions of consumers.” Furthermore, the firm went public in mid-October after completing a merger with a firm called VPC Impact Acqui...

While the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continues to tout the e-naira’s credentials as a tool for fostering financial inclusion, some experts agree that this central bank digital currency (CBDC) is presently not doing this. The CBDC’s Chaotic Start This assertion as well as the e-naira app’s brief removal from Google Play Store appears to lend credence to claims the CBN may have rushed to launch what is in fact Africa’s first CBDC. Although a report by the Punch newspaper suggests that the CBN is now working towards the release of a version of the e-naira app for the unbanked, it still does not state when this is likely to be available. It is this apparent by the CBN that has left players in Nigeria’s blockchain industry questioning the central bank’s ability to manage this CBDC. As one crypto expert quoted by Cryptoassetbuyer explains, this failure by the CBN to roll out a digital currency that is accessible to all Nigerians means the central bank is unlikely to achieve its mai...

Mythical Games, a blockchain-based gaming company, has raised $150 million in its series C funding round. The round was led by A16z, who is aggressively investing in these kinds of crypto initiatives. It also had the participation of other companies like D1 Capital, Redbird Capital, The Raine Group, as well as from well known cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and FTX. Mythical Games Gets Unicorn Status in Latest Funding Round Mythical Games, a blockchain gaming company, raised $150 million in its latest funding round, which was led by VC company A16z. Other backers included D1 Capital, Redbird Capital, and The Raine Group. From the cryptocurrency exchange side, the funding round attracted the attention of Binance and FTX as well. This series C put Mythical games over the level of a unicorn company, reaching a valuation of $1.25 billion. The rise of Mythical and other similar gaming initiatives signals the interest and validity that the market has given these new technologies. ...

PRESS RELEASE. The world’s largest metaverse on blockchain and NFT platform TCG World announces partnership with a stock giant WallStreetBets. Since the start of the year, the WallStreetBets movement has been defying traditional finance with a legion of retail investors using decentralized tradable assets on the blockchain to advance the ethos of financial democracy. Now, the giant online retail investor group that shook the stock markets with the GameStop frenzy is betting big on the metaverse through a partnership with TCG World . What is TCG World? TCG World is the largest open world metaverse on Binance Smart Chain. It follows a play-to-earn approach and has its own story that progresses as a user spends more time in the game. In TCG World users can invest in virtual real estate, hunt for NFT collectibles, earn TCGCoin 2.0, or start their virtual career while exploring the metaverse. TCG World incorporates thousands of different collectible NFTs that can be sold or tr...

Electronic Arts (EA), an important gaming and entertainment-oriented company, has made insightful remarks about the importance of NFTs and the play-to-earn model in its last earnings call. Andrew Wilson, CEO of the company, addressed the subject in response to several questions posed by business analysts. Electronic Arts Open to NFTs and Play-to-Earn Electronic Arts, the company behind gaming sports franchises like FIFA and NBA, has assessed the importance of new technologies like NFTs and the play-to-earn model for the gaming industry. During the company’s latest earnings call, Andrew Wilson, Electronic Arts’ CEO, stated that while the conversation around NFTs and play-to-earn was still very early, these cannot be ignored as an important part of what might be to come in the industry. When asked about the negotiation for the FIFA license, Wilson stated: When we kind of interact with our hundreds of millions of football fans… they want more modalities at play inside the game, whi...

New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams says that he will take his first three paychecks in bitcoin. He has also promised to make NYC the center of crypto. “NYC it’s going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing innovative industries,” he said. Eric Adams’ Bitcoin and Crypto Promises New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams said he wants to turn NYC into a crypto-friendly city and will also take his first three paychecks in bitcoin. Replying to a tweet made by Miami Mayor Francis Saurez that he will take 100% of his next paycheck in bitcoin, Adams wrote: “In New York, we always go big, so I’m going to take my first three paychecks in bitcoin when I become mayor.” He added: “NYC it’s going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing innovative industries.” Many people on Twitter see Adams’ statement as very bullish. At the time of writing, his tweet has been liked 14.1K times and retweeted 2,906 times. Many simply tweeted “bullis...

The Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange Coinbase has made shiba inu cryptocurrency available to New York residents, who can now trade, buy, sell and store SHIB on Coinbase. This announcement follows the exchange adding SHIB trading pairs. Coinbase Grows Its Shiba Inu Crypto Offerings Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Friday that the shiba inu (SHIB) cryptocurrency is now available to residents of the U.S. state of New York. Coinbase tweeted Friday: It’s official, SHIB is now available to trade, buy, sell and store on Coinbase for NY residents. This announcement follows Coinbase adding some SHIB trading pairs. The official Twitter account for Coinbase Pro tweeted Wednesday: SHIB-EUR & SHIB-GBP order books are now in full-trading mode. Limit, market and stop orders are all now available. The price of SHIB soared Friday after dipping the previous day. At the time of writing, SHIB has risen 21% in the past 24 hours and 261% in the past 30 days. Over the past week, the co...

While bitcoin has been consolidating for a few days now, a number of other digital assets have seen solid seven-day gains. The two metaverse tokens sandbox and decentraland have skyrocketed over 170% during the last week. Crypto assets like loopring, crypto.com coin, and arweave have spiked in value more than 66% and up to 169% this week as well. Sandbox, Decentraland, Loopring See Triple-Digit Gains This Week The price of bitcoin (BTC) has consolidated above the $60K zone for a while now and market performance this week has been rather lackluster. While bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.5% during the last seven days, three top-ten cryptos saw double-digit gains this week. The third-largest market in terms of overall valuation is held by binance coin (BNB), which is up 24.1% this past week and swapping for $610 per BNB . Solana (SOL) swapping for $235 per unit is up 20.9% this week. Additionally, polkadot (DOT) has climbed 21.9% and is currently changing hands for $51.29 per unit. While...

CoinMarketCap, the leading authority on real-time cryptocurrency prices and data, has just updated and verified its TON Crystal (TON) listing. Now TON, the native token of the FreeTON blockchain, ranks among the top 5% of cryptocurrencies by market cap. This has been a year of remarkable development for the FreeTON project. The project started when Telegram was forced to halt the plans it had for launching its own TON blockchain network and associated token. Instead of letting the network go to the wayside, a community of people that believed in the value of the technology decided to try and launch it themselves by taking a grassroots approach to funding and a decentralized approach to governance. The result is FreeTON, a network capable of processing millions of transactions per second, with cheap transaction fees, formidable security, a meritocratic token distribution protocol and a decentralized governance structure. Around the original, open-source technology a robust ecosyst...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), America’s domestic intelligence and security service, has published a public service announcement concerning fraudulent schemes associated with cryptocurrency ATMs and QR codes. The FBI’s warning, published on November 4, highlights the presence of “scammers” directing their energy at unknowing victims. US Federal Agency Warns of Increase in Crypto ‘Scammers’ On Thursday, the U.S. government entity the FBI published a public service announcement that explains “criminal actors” are maliciously utilizing cryptocurrency automated teller machines (ATMs) in order to compromise victims’ crypto funds. The FBI’s press release stems from the Internet Crime Complaint Center which has seen an “increase in scammers.” “The FBI warns the public of fraudulent schemes leveraging cryptocurrency ATMs and Quick Response (QR) codes to facilitate payment,” the announcement notes. “The FBI has seen an increase in scammers directing victims to use physical crypt...

As the end of the year approaches, the price of bitcoin has hovered above the $60K region and with 18.8 million bitcoin in circulation, bitcoin’s market valuation is over $1.16 trillion today. Meanwhile, the number of tokenized bitcoins in existence today has swelled significantly during the last three years, climbing to 408,210 bitcoin worth $25 billion today. More Than 400,000 Wrapped, Synthetic, or Tokenized Bitcoins in the Wild Wrapped, synthetic, or tokenized bitcoin has become a growing trend during the last two years and nine months. Bitcoin.com News reported on one of the first projects on January 30, 2019, the day the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project first launched. Since then, there have been a whole lot more tokenized bitcoin projects and by July 2019, WBTC in circulation eclipsed the Lightning Network capacity. Now there’s a slew of tokenized bitcoin projects such as BEP2, HBTC, RENBTC, SBTC, PBTC, OBTC, TBTC, Mstablebtc, RBTC, and LBTC. Out of all the aforementioned tok...

Bitcoin futures open interest continues to remain high after the launch of the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) on October 22. While Binance commands $5.81 billion and leads the pack, CME Group holds the second-largest position in terms of bitcoin futures open interest (OI) with $4.1 billion or 16.84% of the aggregate OI. Top Ten Derivatives Platforms Command More Than 97% of Bitcoin Futures Open Interest Bitcoin derivatives have swelled quite a bit in recent times, and following the launch of the Proshares and Valkyrie bitcoin futures ETFs, bitcoin futures have seen significant market action. After Valkyrie’s ETF ( Nasdaq:BTF ) launched, the analytics group Skew tweeted that CME Group’s bitcoin futures OI reached a new all-time high. During the first week of November, bitcoin futures open interest across all the crypto derivatives platforms is $24.32 billion according to coinglass.com statistics. The top ten derivatives platforms offering bitcoin futures command $23.68 b...

For many people the luxury market is out of reach. However, with LuxFi, that is no longer the case. The platform combines blockchain technology, NFTs, and a luxury goods market open to anyone, anywhere. LuxFi will mark a significant shift in the way luxury goods are traded, and how people acquire them. LuxFi is at the center of this transformation in the market. The platform aims to create a transparent, open and data-driven marketplace where users can safely transact with each other. Let’s break down all the components of LuxFi. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) At the core of LuxFi are non-fungible tokens. An NFT is a type of crypto asset that is meant to reflect uniqueness. They were invented on the Ethereum network with a token design designated ERC-721. The ERC-721 was created first to reflect collectible assets on the Ethereum network. The most famous example is CryptoKitties, which became the most popular DApp on Ethereum in 2017. The ERC-721 token standard quickly migrated to dig...

Authorities in Kazakhstan have introduced restrictions on the amounts of cryptocurrency retail investors can buy on local exchanges. Officials explained the decision citing the need to protect private individuals from exposure to the risks associated with digital financial assets. Investors in Kazakhstan Can Buy up to $1,000 in Crypto a Month Without Declaring Income Kazakhstan has adopted limits for crypto purchases made by retail investors on the exchanges registered at the Astana International Financial Centre ( AIFC ), the local business news portal Capital reported, quoting the Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA). The publication notes that the respective amendments to the rules governing activities at the financial hub in Nur-Sultan were proposed by AIFC’s Financial Services Regulatory Committee in July and adopted in late October. Commenting on the changes, AFSA emphasized: The limits are introduced to protect the interests of retail investors, since transactions wi...