Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The pensioners of the state-owned oil company of Venezuela, PDVSA, have started receiving a Christmas bonus in petros (PTR), the first national cryptocurrency launched back in 2018. The petro, which is backed by Venezuelan oil and other resources, can be traded in local exchanges for these pensioners to access fiat currency, as the reach of the currency as a means of exchange is still limited according to local reports. Venezuelan Pensioners To Get 2 Petros This Christmas A group of Venezuelan pensioners stemming from the PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, will receive a bonus paid in petro (PTR), Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency launched back in 2018. The pensioners will receive this bonus as a Christmas gift via the Motherland platform, where they will be able to manage the two Petro (worth approximately $120) that started being deposited on December 23. The pensioners destined to get this bonus will receive an alert via the platform so they can move their two PTR out of it.

This week, bitcoin’s market dominance among the market capitalization of all 12,046 crypto assets in existence has been hovering above 38%, while ethereum’s overall valuation commands 19% dominance. A report published on Monday shows that since 2014, the market share of altcoins surged threefold from 21% in 2014, to today’s market share of 62%. Report Says ‘Tide Is Turning,’ Altcoins Are ‘Making Ground on Bitcoin’ A report published by tradingplatforms.com and author Edith Reads shows that altcoins have swelled in value over the last seven years. The author’s report explains that “the tide is turning” and altcoins are “making ground on BTC as their popularity continues to soar.” It is well known that since bitcoin’s inception, BTC ’s market dominance among all the other crypto assets in existence has been over 80% until February 2017. On February 26, 2017 , BTC had a market dominance rating of 86% and it’s never returned to above the 80% range since that day. “Since 2014, the m

The digital currency cardano has jumped over 8% in value during the last 24 hours and 25% over the last seven days. The price move follows an update on Charles Hoskinson’s and IOHK’s plans for the Cardano network in 2022. Charles Hoskinson’s 2022 Cardano Outlook: ‘A Formal Open-Source Project Structure Is Going to Be Formed’ Cardano ( ADA ) supporters were pleased to get two updates from IOHK, the team behind the crypto project’s development. On December 24, the founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, spoke for 30 minutes in a new video explaining some of his goals for the next year. “My goal for the second half of 2022 is to figure out how to put all the pieces together to get an end-to-end microfinance transaction on Cardano,” Hoskinson said during his video. Hoskinson further noted that a formalized open-source system would be introduced that would be similar to Linux. “A formal open-source project structure is going to be formed, kind of like Hyperledger to Linux,” the Cardano

PRESS RELEASE. GensoKishi Online, which intelligently integrates GameFi with the popular MMORPG Elemental Knights, today announced a partnership with TrustPad, who will help promote GensoKishi on its popular platform and publicise this opportunity to its broad range of investors. TrustPad is the first decentralized multi-chain fundraising platform which enables projects to raise capital whilst promising ease-of-access and safety to early stage investors. In an additional benefit of this partnership, GensoKishi will receive the full support from the DeFi Launchpad Association. GensoKishi, a game that derives from a series that has been available to play since 2008 and has already accumulated 8 million downloads in total, was due to list their MV governance token on DEXs this month (Uniswap and Quickswap). Having consulted with their launchpad partners they have decided it would be best to delay the IDO to take full advantage of the increased marketing, awareness and new players th

The Central Bank of Russia is currently reviewing various ways to prevent Russians from investing in cryptocurrency. One the options on the table is to block card payments to certain recipients such as crypto exchanges, a media report has unveiled. A recent meeting at the State Duma has indicated, however, that the authority’s hardline stance is not backed by other government institutions in Moscow. Russia’s Central Bank Considers Mechanisms to Limit Crypto Investments In talks with financial market participants, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has been discussing several approaches to restricting access to cryptocurrencies for domestic investors, the Russian edition of Forbes magazine has revealed, quoting sources familiar with the matter. According to Andrey Mikhaylishin, founder of a crypto project tested in the regulator’s sandbox, one of the options under consideration is to block card payments to crypto platforms. The monetary authority may try to oblige banks to stop transa

A Colombian real estate platform is now allowing users to purchase properties with Bitcoin. The platform, called La Haus, is promoting bitcoin payments for a new real estate project in Santa Marta, called Natura City. This is an expansion of the platform, which has already established such a service in Mexico. La Haus to Allow Colombian Citizens to Buy Real Estate With Bitcoin A Colombian real estate platform, La Haus , is enabling bitcoin investors to buy real estate with the cryptocurrency directly. To kickstart this initiative in the country, the platform is featuring a new housing project in an exclusive part of Santa Marta, called Natura City . The location is less than 200 meters from the Colombian beaches and construction of the complex is estimated for completion by 2025. La Haus partnered with payment processor OpenNode for this task and allows users to pay for the properties via Lightning Network or on-chain, depending on the needs of the buyer. The buyer can pay 100% in

2021 is coming to an end and one prominent theme this year in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology most definitely belongs to non-fungible token (NFT) assets. This year NFTs became a billion-dollar industry and many NFTs have sold for millions of dollars. The following is a look at the top ten NFTs, in terms of sale value in 2021, as they are considered the most expensive NFTs on earth. 2021’s Top 10 Most Expensive NFTs Billions of dollars in digital assets have been traded for NFTs and various collections have significantly sized market valuations. For instance, according to dappradar.com metrics , the Axie Infinity NFT collection has captured $3.81 billion across 11.4 million sales. Cryptopunks is the second-largest NFT collection in terms of overall sales with $2.32 billion. The Cryptopunks collection itself has a market capitalization of around $3 billion today, while Bored Ape Yacht Club’s market cap is $2.5 billion. There’s also a list of the most expensiv

Toward the end of this week, crypto-assets rebounded in value after meandering for two weeks and consolidating. While specific tokens like decentralized finance (defi) coins, metaverse tokens, and smart contract coins improved a great deal, the meme-token economy increased in value as well, as a number of meme coins like dogecoin, shiba inu and dogelon mars have seen significant gains during the last seven days. Meme Coins Climb Higher in Value This Past Week — Shiba Fantom and Luni Lead the Pack 21 days ago on December 5, the meme token economy was down more than 12% and hovering just above the $47 billion region . Today, the market valuation of the meme-based crypto economy is $54.1 billion , up 14.61% since that day. Out of the top ten meme-based crypto assets today, 8 out of 10 of them saw seven-day gains. The largest meme-based crypto-asset dogecoin (DOGE) jumped 9.6% last week while shiba inu (SHIB) spiked 21% during that time frame. Other top ten meme-based assets that saw g

Crypto․com CEO Kris Marszalek has an issue with coinmarketcap.com’s exchange volume rankings, according to a tweet he published on December 25. Marszalek claimed in his tweet that the popular crypto aggregation website “arbitrarily reduced” the exchange’s ranking. Crypto․com CEO Complains About Coinmarketcap․com’s Exchange Rankings A recent tweet stemming from the CEO of Crypto.com’s Kris Marszalek indicates the exchange executive is upset with the web portal coinmarketcap.com. Marszalek claims that Crypto.com’s exchange volumes are being misreported and the trading platform’s ranking was changed to the 14th position on a whim. “Merry Christmas to [the] team [at] Coinmarketcap who a week after my response to their poorly worded tweet arbitrarily reduced our exchange ranking to 14th,” Marszalek tweeted on Christmas day. “We are 2nd/3rd on Coingecko so you guys know where to look for real and market neutral data,” the exchange CEO added. According to statistics on coinmarketcap.com

Investors in Africrypt, the now-defunct South African crypto platform, were recently reimbursed a portion of their invested funds. The payments were made by Pennython Project Management LLC as part of a settlement offer that potentially ends claims against Africrypt’s runaway directors. White Knight Investor Identity Revealed Investors in Africrypt, a collapsed South African cryptocurrency investment platform, recently began receiving payouts from a so-called white knight investor, a report has said. According to an Itweb report , which named Pennython Project Management LLC as the previously unnamed party, Africrypt investors began receiving the payouts after a majority opted to accept the tabled offer. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, Pennython Project Management had proposed to pay an equivalent of 65% of each dollar invested. Although some investors were reportedly not happy with the offer, Ruann Kruger, an attorney representing Africrypt provisional liquidators, i

Everybody inside and outside of the metaverse world knows that land ownership is important, and acquiring a plot of land is a very traditional investment. What most people outside of the metaverse world don’t quite understand — or are still not convinced of — is why people want to become landowners in the metaverse, and what such virtual land ownership can actually bring them. What Can a Small Plot of Land Do in the Metaverse? Just to be clear, not all metaverse games have the same popularity level and not all of them are developed with land ready to be sold to investors. The Sandbox is one of the leading metaverse games and the Alpha release gave me a very concrete idea of how metaverse land ownership works. So I’ll take the land ownership in this game as an example. When I checked the land price on OpenSea, ranking price from lowest to highest, I could see that the smallest plot of land in The Sandbox currently costs from $11,000 to $19,000. At the same time, large plots of conne

Tap Send, the creator of a remittances app of the same name, revealed it has raised $65 million in a Series B funding round. The fintech firm plans to use the funds to build a cheaper and faster cross-border money transfer platform. Remittances to Overlooked Countries The fintech startup behind the remittances app, Tap Send, recently said it has raised $65 million in a Series B funding round. According to the startup, the funds raised will be used to bolster remittances to the most overlooked countries in Africa and Asia. As stated in a Techcrunch report , Tap Send’s latest capital raise — which surpassed the Series A total raise of $13.4 million — was led by Spark Capital. Other participants in the round included Unbound, Reid Hoffman, Canaan Partners, Slow Ventures, Breyer Capital, Wamda Capital, Flourish Ventures, and additional unnamed investors. Market Said to Be Crowded In comments following the funding round, Tap Send co-founder and CEO Paul Niehaus explained why his firm

UST, the main stablecoin of the Terra project, is being integrated into Binance and Huobi, two leading exchanges by trading volume, expanding the options that users have to trade the stablecoin. After these announcements, The price of LUNA, the governance asset of the Terra project, broke its previous all-time high, going over $100 for the first time in its history. UST Gets Attention From Huobi and Binance UST, the most used stablecoin from the Terra project, has reached a milestone now that two leading exchanges by volume traded have included it in their platforms. Huobi, an Asian exchange, announced it would include the asset in its Pioneer Zone on December 23, and launched a contest to entice the trade of the new currency, offering 210,000 UST to platform users. Binance also reported the listing of the stablecoin the same day, stating it would be offering three different UST trading pairs: UST/ BTC , UST/BUSD, and UST/ USDT . In contrast, Huobi only confirmed one trading pair

Since November 9, 2021, or 46 days ago, transaction fees on the Ethereum network have been cut by more than half the rate they were on that day. At the time, the average fee to move ethereum was $62.84 per transfer and since then, the fees have dropped 62.85% to $23.34 per transaction. From $62 to $23 per Transaction, Ethereum Fees Have Been Cut by More Than 62% Just over a month ago, it was a lot more expensive to transfer ethereum ( ETH ) onchain, let alone move an ERC20 token, swap tokens, or interact with a smart contract. On December 25, metrics show the average fee spent on the Ethereum network is $22.80 or 0.0056 ether per transaction. The day prior it was $23.34 per transaction, which is 62.85% lower than the fees recorded on November 9. A 62% savings per data transfer cost is considerable and the median ether fee is even cheaper. Statistics from bitinfocharts.com indicate that on November 9, the median ether fee was $34.28 per transaction and today, the fee is 0.0032 ET

While blockchain monitoring has increased a great deal during the last few years, cryptocurrency mixers have seen significant use from those who don’t want their financial transactions tracked. Meanwhile, two mixing applications, Tornado.cash and Cashfusion, have helped crypto owners make their ethereum and bitcoin cash less traceable. The two applications combined recorded more than $8 billion in crypto transactions that have been purposely obfuscated. Over $4.8 Billion in Ethereum Processed via Tornado.cash Digital currency privacy is a big deal to a lot of people. To some people, it’s not and they have no issues transacting on transparent ledgers that are monitored by blockchain surveillance firms. Privacy advocates, on the other hand, use a number of methods like leveraging a VPN, using the Tor browser, and accessing token mixers. As the end of 2021 approaches, the two crypto asset mixing applications Tornado.cash and Cashfusion have processed over $8 billion in digital assets

Since December 8, the stablecoin economy has grown 3.59% in 17 days as numerous stablecoin market valuations have issued more fiat-pegged tokens this month. On Saturday, December 25, the stablecoin economy’s $167 billion market valuation represents 6.68% of the entire $2.49 trillion crypto market economy. Stablecoin Issuance Jumps 3.5% There’s a great number of stablecoins in existence today that are pegged to the value of fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar is the most common stablecoin peg today, but there are others that represent the euro and the Swiss franc. On Saturday, the total value of all the stablecoins in existence is $167 billion, up 3.59% since our newsdesk’s last stablecoin report . The most dominant stablecoin today is tether ( USDT ) with a market valuation of around $77.7 billion spread across various blockchains. Tether’s sizable market capitalization is 46.52% of the entire stablecoin economy today. Usd coin (USDC) is the second largest stablec

According to the Dogecoin Foundation, the organization is working with Vitalik Buterin on constructing proof-of-stake (PoS) capabilities for the Dogecoin network. The “uniquely Doge proposal” is aimed at bolstering a “community staking” version of the protocol. Dogecoin Foundation Discusses the Project’s ‘Trailmap’ On December 23, the Dogecoin Foundation’s official Twitter account tweeted about the digital currency network’s “ Trailmap ,” a set of initiatives that essentially detail the proposed direction of the Dogecoin blockchain and ecosystem. The Dogecoin Foundation says that a traditional crypto “roadmap” is a rigid summary of a cryptocurrency network’s direction and usually it’s “led by a single company or ‘lead.’” The foundation behind the Dogecoin blockchain protocol says Dogecoin has always been “community-driven” with “many individual and organisational contributors.” “Dogecoin is a community-driven, consensus-based open-source project and its direction is formed by the

Tanzanians are embracing cryptocurrencies but more work still has to be undertaken in order to reduce the number of scams in the industry, a blockchain educator has said. In much of the year 2021, blockchain entities and proponents of the technology in Tanzania did much to bring this fintech to ordinary folks in that country. This has been either through roadshows or investment commitments. These efforts have also been bolstered by President Samia Suluhu Hasan’s apparent embrace of the technology. As a result of such efforts, more Tanzanians are becoming acquainted with cryptocurrencies than in the past. On the other hand, increased cryptocurrency trading activities have also forced the Bank of Tanzania to once again warn residents of the risks they face each time they trade. However, as Sandra Chogo — a Tanzania based blockchain educator — suggested to Bitcoin.com News, more work still needs to be done to ensure Tanzanians are aware of the risks involved in crypto trading. She

Marathon, one of the leading bitcoin mining companies in North America announced it has entered a new purchase agreement with Bitmain, a bitcoin mining machine manufacturer. This deal would allow them to acquire an undisclosed number of Antminer S19 XP models, an ASIC capable of delivering 140 TH/s while being more efficient than its previous iterations. Marathon hopes to host 199,000 miners by early 2023. Marathon Keeps Buying Miners Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest bitcoin mining companies in the world, announced today it entered a new purchase agreement with Bitmain. The agreement will allow the company to get ahold of a number of mining machines to expand its hashrate capacity next year. The machines purchased are Antminer S19 XPs, one of the newest miners developed by the Chinese manufacturer, able to deliver 140 TH/s of mining power while being more energy-efficient than its predecessors. While the manufacturer did not explain how many miners were ordered in thi

The federal government in Moscow has permitted regions to determine local electricity tariffs for the population, a measure that will affect crypto mining at homes. Subsidized household electricity in Russia is often used to mint digital currencies in basements and garages. Regions in Russia Granted Permission to Increase Costs for Home Mining Russians mining cryptocurrencies at their homes may expect higher electricity bills as a result of a reform allowing regional authorities to limit the electrical energy supplied at preferential rates. The move comes after local utilities requested powers to set thresholds for the amount of subsidized electricity available to the general population while complaining about the spread of crypto mining in residential areas. Private customers will have to pay more for consumption exceeding these thresholds, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. Most Russian regions are yet to adopt new pricing schemes, with the exception of Crimea where

SWIFT, the Belgian-based cooperative that serves as an intermediary and settlement executor of financial transactions between banks worldwide is planning to experiment with asset tokenization in 2022. In a blog post about the subject, SWIFT notes that it will be working with firms like Clearstream, Northern Trust, and SETL to explore “the feasibility and benefits” of using SWIFT as an interconnector to tokenization platforms. Financial Intermediary SWIFT to Be Used as a Tokenization Interconnector The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication ( SWIFT) , has been studying cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology for quite some time. For instance, SWIFT published a report in September 2020, that noted criminals preferred cash for money laundering in contrast to using crypto for illicit transactions. Over a year later, SWIFT is still focused on this technology and revealed in a blog post published on December 1, that it was participating in an asset tokenization te

The number of recorded non-fungible token (NFT) sales during the last 30 days consisted of roughly 362,374 sales. During the past 30 days, the leading NFT marketplace Opensea processed $2.39 billion, up 22.88% since last month. Decentraland volume jumped 192% since last month reaching more than $28 million in sales. NFT and Metaverse Steam Continues With Big Volume and Expensive Collectibles During the last month of the year, the metaverse and non-fungible token (NFT) hype has continued to remain strong. Over the last week, Decentraland and The Sandbox processed a significant amount of sales. Seven-day metrics indicate The Sandbox saw $19.3 million in sales while Decentraland did $6.6 million. 30-day stats show Decentraland’s $28 million in sales pushed it up closed to 200% more than last month. While Opensea sales spiked 22.88% this past month, Solana’s Magic Eden marketplace saw $148.86 million in monthly sales, up 86.9%. Superrare’s $26 million in 30 day sales pushed it up 15%