Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

PRESS RELEASE. In this industry, it is crucial to establish key strategic partnerships in order to ensure both longevity and prosperity. As such, LABEL Foundation has officially announced a partnership with Polygon Studios, with the further intention to chase their multichain goal and launch their Dapp additionally on Polygon Network, along with Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum Network. What is Polygon? Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution which works in tandem with the Ethereum blockchain to make transactions quicker and less expensive. Polygon is a PoS (Proof-of-Stake), Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compliant, secure, Layer-2 solution for dApps (decentralized applications) that offers rapid transactions and minimal costs. Polygon Studios is Polygon’s gaming and NFT division, dedicated to doing its part in terms of building the worldwide blockchain-based gaming and NFT space as well as bridging the gap between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 gaming via investment, marketing, and develope...

Only 5.3% of Spanish crypto investors have received a warning to declare income taxes, according to a report in local media. If accurate, this would mean that only 233,000 investors, a minuscule portion of the estimated 4.4 million Spanish citizens that have delved into the crypto world with investment ideas in mind, were contacted by the tax agency. Spanish Tax Agency Falls Flat on Crypto Vigilance Only a small portion of cryptocurrency investors and users in Spain have been contacted by the national tax agency in regards to their crypto operations from last year. The organization managed to send warnings to only 5.3% of the estimated number of Spanish citizens that have invested or made transactions with cryptocurrency, according to a report from local media. This means that only 233,000 investors of 4.4 million have been warned about their duty of declaring cryptocurrencies using the income tax and holdings models. While this fails to include a significant part of the total of ...

The top meme tokens by market capitalization saw a significant jump on Monday after being fueled by dogecoin’s recent price rise. Crypto meme coins like shiba inu, dogelon mars, and floki inu saw 2-13% gains over the last 24 hours. The entire meme token economy is worth $35.8 billion, up 9.4% today. Meme Token Assets See Double-Digit Gains on Monday Following Dogecoin’s Rise Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, digital currency markets jumped in value and crypto meme tokens saw a significant spike. 24-hour statistics at 4 p.m. (ET) on Monday had shown dogecoin (DOGE) jumped 26.3% in value against the U.S. dollar. Dogecoin (DOGE) is still up 18.8% today and is hovering just above the $0.15 zone. Many believe the rise is based on mere speculation that Musk could possibly implement dogecoin payments into some of Twitter’s operations. While dogecoin jumped in value against the dollar, a number of other popular meme coin assets followed DOGE’s lead on Mond...

Uniswap, one of the main decentralized finance exchanges in the cryptocurrency world, is now taking measures to ensure illegal funds cannot be transacted using its platform. The company has already started blocking addresses linked to “blocked activities” and will apply a filter with data provided by TRM Labs, a blockchain analysis firm that focuses on detecting illegal activities. Uniswap Scrutinizes Addresses Interacting With Its Frontend Uniswap, the decentralized finance exchange, has taken measures to curb the illegal activity conducted using its platform. The exchange has now introduced address screening procedures that log the addresses using its official frontend. These addresses are then compared to a blacklist provided by TRM Labs, a blockchain firm that provides transaction monitoring services. While the extent of these measures is still unknown, in its address-screening FAQ, Uniswap explains the kind of activities it wants to exclude from taking advantage of its servic...

PRESS RELEASE. Zug, Switzerland, April 25, 2022) – UniX Gaming , a leading crypto gaming guild, has partnered with industry giants DAO Maker and SL2 Capital to launch its own launchpad, ‘ Final Round’. UniX also announced that Delysium would be one of the first games to debut on ‘ Final Round’ . Invested in by the likes of Y Combinator, Delysium is the world’s first AAA blockchain MMO game, which in itself demonstrates UniX Gaming’s determination to see Final Round succeed. The idea behind the launchpad for UniX is not just to give investors early access to the latest games but its community as well. The launch of ‘Final Round’ also puts UniX in a unique position as the only all-in-one guild, launchpad, and DAO. The addition of a launchpad to the UniXverse not only enables it to contribute positively to the Play-to-Earn space but adds more utility and value to its UniX token. “We have been working tirelessly to make this possible for our community, and we have finally done...

Wall Street suffered Monday morning as the major U.S. stock indexes dropped further, building on losses gathered last week. Reports indicate that investors are concerned about the upcoming Federal Reserve rate hikes and China’s recent Covid-19 outbreak. As equities floundered on Monday, the crypto economy slid under the $2 trillion mark and gold prices dropped 1.6% against the U.S. dollar during the past 24 hours. However, after Elon Musk revealed he acquired Twitter at 2:50 p.m. (ET), both equities and crypto markets rebounded a great deal following the announcement. Global Markets Shake Over Fears of Covid-19 Related Supply Chain Issues and the Possibility of Aggressive Rate Hikes Four days ago, Jerome Powell, the current U.S. Federal Reserve chair, explained at an International Monetary Fund (IMF) panel discussion on April 21, that the U.S. central bank may have to move “more quickly” when it comes to bank rate hikes. Powell further noted that the U.S. central bank could impleme...

Everyone would agree that the metaverse is a novel concept that is only going to become more popular as time goes on. Even now, many international companies from a variety of backgrounds such as Samsung, Emirates Airlines, and even JPMorgan have all gotten involved with the metaverse, so it is safe to say that this idea is not going away anytime soon. As such, the Olive Corporation’s metaverse platform may best be understood as an effective communication environment which develops and shares anything players can conceive via 3D Avatar and Playground services, allowing everyone to enjoy a variety of experiences, services and features. By providing point integration services inside the ecosystem, Olive Corporation hopes to enhance its business model and produce a reliable source of income as well as a steady stream of clients. Moreover, Olive is developing a metaverse that will begin with colleges, which are significant clients for the MZ generation. The objective is to boost the us...

The CEO of the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, says Apple has not played nice with crypto, noting that the tech giant has banned a bunch of crypto features in its App Store. Apple’s anti-crypto policy raises “potential antitrust issues,” said the Coinbase executive. Potential Antitrust Issues Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong talked about Apple’s crypto policy in an episode of the Superteam podcast, which aired last week. Superteam is a podcast that explores the web3 ecosystem in India. Commenting on Apple’s anti-crypto policy, he detailed: “You try to get your app in the App Store and Apple ejected it and then they had this competing one that got approved … it’s a black box.” The Coinbase boss elaborated: Apple so far has not really played nice with crypto. They’ve actually banned a bunch of features that we would like to have in the app, but they just won’t allow it — so there’s potential antitrust issues there. Armstrong added: “There’s going to h...

Skybridge Capital, a $3.5 billion asset management firm, is “extremely bullish” on the crypto sector, says an executive of the firm. “For us, we think the cryptocurrency markets represent tremendous growth.” ‘The Cryptocurrency Markets Represent Tremendous Growth’ Two executives of Skybridge Capital — founder Anthony Scaramucci and director John Darsie — talked about the firm’s crypto outlook in an interview with Bloomberg ahead of SALT, a global thought leadership forum, this week. Scaramucci explained that almost half of Skybridge’s asset under management is linked to crypto assets, including bitcoin, the Algorand protocol, Ethereum, and publicly traded, crypto-related stocks. Noting that his firm expects the crypto focus to triple its assets under management from $3.5 billion to $10 billion, he said: We feel so strongly about this opportunity that we’ve adapted and repositioned the firm to eventually be a leading cryptocurrency asset manager and adviser. “For us, we think t...

Exmo, a U.K.-based crypto exchange with extensive presence in Eastern Europe, is pulling out of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The trading platform, Exmo.com, says it’s making the move to avoid jeopardizing its expansion in other regions by operating in high-risk markets like these. The business has been sold to a Russian vendor, alongside rights to the Exmo.me domain and branding. Crypto Exchange Exmo Transfers Russia Operations to Local Entity Major Eastern European exchange Exmo announced earlier this week it’s selling its digital asset business in Russia and Belarus. The company explained the “tough decision” with efforts to avoid risking its global expansion plans by working in these countries. Both nations have been targeted by Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “In addition, our Russian UBO, Eduard Bark, is leaving the company, transferring his stake as a part of a response to one of our directors, Serhii Zhdanov,” Exmo pointed out. “Kazakhstan clients wer...

PRESS RELEASE. SeatlabNFT has announced the date for their IDO, with full details available via their website . The 24th of May 2022 is the first opportunity people around the globe will have to invest in the innovative NFT ticketing platform’s native token $SEAT. SeatlabNFT is a revolutionary event ticketing platform built on the climate-neutral NEAR Protocol blockchain, designed to create an immersive, more connected experience for everyone involved in live events. Minting tickets as NFTs and leveraging the transparent, irrefutable ledger provided by the blockchain will eliminate fraud and drastically reduce the impact of ticket scalping (the process of reselling tickets for popular events at a price much higher than the box office listing). Current solutions for event ticketing do not serve artists, fans or event creators. The ticketing industry has been plagued by touts and dehumanised by bots in the pursuit of profit at the expense of fans and those who make live events possi...

The U.S.-based company Compass Mining plans to sell $30 million worth of bitcoin mining equipment that’s currently located in Siberia. The decision to sell the mining rigs follows the U.S. government sanctioning the bitcoin mining operation Bitriver and ten subsidiaries. Compass is hoping to offload 12 megawatts of capacity, according to a company executive. Compass Hopes to Sell 12 MW of Bitcoin Mining Capacity in Russia to Pay Clients According to Compass Mining’s CEO Whit Gibbs, the firm is selling $30 million in mining equipment that is currently located in Siberia. Speaking with Bloomberg on Friday, Gibbs explained the company is hopeful it will be able to obtain funds from the sale to pay off roughly 2,000 customers. Compass offers hosting services and the mining equipment in Siberia was owned by customers renting hosting space. During the last year before the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Russia became a preferred “hotspot” for bitcoin miners as electricity in the country is mu...

Two Japanese carmakers, Nissan and Toyota, have launched operations in the metaverse. Nissan’s virtual showroom can host vehicle launches and other events, while Toyota’s workspaces are being used to hold employee meetings. ‘Limitless Possibilities’ Japanese carmakers Nissan and Toyota have become the latest global corporations to join the metaverse after a report said the former had launched a virtual showroom while the latter had created virtual workspaces. By establishing a presence in the metaverse, the two carmakers join their European counterparts Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz in making use of the technology. As per a Nikkei Asia report, Nissan has created a digital reality version of its Tokyo gallery Nissan Crossing which can be used for vehicle launches and other events. On its website, Nissan Motor Corporation stated that through its Invisible-to-Visible — an augmented reality interface that connects to the metaverse — it has created “limitless possibilities for services a...

A16z, also known as Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital (VC) company that has invested millions in crypto-related projects, has announced the launch of its own crypto research lab. This new initiative seeks to marry academic research with producing ideas and putting them into practice in startups and organizations in which the company is heavily invested. A16z Announces It Will Conduct Blockchain Related Academic Research Andreessen Horowitz, an organization with heavy investments in crypto and Web3 startups, has announced the launch of the a16z crypto research lab, an initiative that will let the company tackle the challenges the sector presents. The company considers that the crypto and Web3 sector has “emerged as a new frontier in technology, and it has matured into an independent field of knowledge that brings together elements of computer science, economics, finance, and the humanities” This potential the VC firm sees in the blockchain environment is what is fueling its ...

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva says India is “a country that is on the frontline of digital currencies,” especially “how it handles a reduction of risk from crypto assets for the Indian people and businesses.” She met with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to discuss crypto regulation. IMF’s Chief Comments on Indian Crypto Policy IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva commended the Indian government’s approach to cryptocurrency at an IMF press conference Wednesday. Responding to a question about “what role India can play in improving the global economic situation so as to safeguard the interests of the most vulnerable,” the IMF chief said, “India already plays a very important international role.” She elaborated: And it is a country that is on the frontline of digital currencies, especially central bank digital currency and how it handles a reduction of risk from crypto assets for the Indian people and businesses. The IMF b...

Twenty-three U.S. lawmakers have called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase oversight of cryptocurrency’s environmental impacts. “We request that the EPA evaluate ‘Proof-of-Work’ mining facilities’ compliance with environmental statutes,” they said. Lawmakers Want More Oversight of Bitcoin Mining Industry U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) and 22 other Congress members jointly sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan regarding cryptocurrency mining operations Wednesday. The congressman from California is the chair of the United States House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife. He is also a member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The letter calls for “increased oversight of cryptocurrency’s environmental impacts,” Rep. Huffman’s office announced Thursday. In their letter, the lawmakers described: We have serious concerns regarding reports that cryptocurrency faci...

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been accused in a media report of agreeing to provide user data to Russia’s financial watchdog. The trading platform has refuted the allegations. It also insists it’s complying with Western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Binance Consented to Russian Request for Customer Info, Reuters Claims in ‘Special Report’ Binance, the world’s leading digital asset exchange, has agreed to hand over customer data to Russia’s financial intelligence agency, a report by Reuters suggests. The article refers to messages allegedly sent by Binance’s regional head Gleb Kostarev to a business associate revealing that the Russian officials asked for such information, including names and addresses, during a meeting last April. The Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation (Rosfinmonitoring) saw its request supposedly motivated by the need for help in the fight against crime. Quoting an anonymous source familiar with...

Forty-six European crypto businesses and organizations have asked finance ministers in 27 European countries to loosen some regulatory requirements for the crypto industry. For example, they asked for decentralized finance (defi) projects to be excluded from the requirements to register as legal entities. Crypto Industry’s Letter to EU Policymakers Forty-six European crypto businesses and organizations have sent a letter to 27 EU finance ministers regarding disclosure requirements for crypto transactions, Reuters reported this week, noting that it has seen the letter. In the letter, dated April 13, the businesses and organizations asked EU policymakers to ensure their regulations do not extend beyond the existing rules that are in line with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). They raised concerns about the rules requiring crypto firms to obtain information on parties involved in digital currency transfers. Specifically, they asked that the EU excludes dec...

Kadena, a proof-of-work-based cryptocurrency that also has the possibility of supporting smart contracts, has announced a new set of grants directed to incentivize the creation of Web3 experiences. This $100 million grant fund is part of the Kadena Eco initiative, whose objective is to offer builders a complete suite to deploy their solutions on top of the chain. Kadena Grants Seek to Attract People to Ecosystem Kadena, a top-100 cryptocurrency project that is based on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus but also offers the possibility of executing smart contracts, has revealed a new set of developer grants seeking to attract builders to its chain. The grant program, which will have $100 million available for interested teams, is part of the Kadena Eco program, which presents a set of other initiatives directed to help teams, companies, and startups to produce Web3 experiences. The Kadena Eco program includes several other aspects that are to be developed in the near future. Among them ...

PRESS RELEASE. On 22 April, Tori Zero announced the strategic partnership with Wirex. The first collaboration will focus on a new product developed by Wirex – the Wirex Wallet. Tori Zero will be the first group of NFT projects integrated into this new wallet. Tori Zero is the first virtual idol project in the blockchain industry and the first NFT project that utilises motion capture and facial motion capture technologies. The character has a great background story and comes with a unique virtual idol economic model, which empowers its long-term potential. The collaboration with Wirex is a cross-industry partnership and the first presentation of Tori in Web 2. Wirex is a digital payment platform headquartered in London. It operates globally with teams and offices in different countries and has over 5 million users in more than 130 countries. The new product – Wirex Wallet, will be a cross-chain wallet used for DeFi and NFTs. The initiation of this partnership between Tori and Wirex...

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is looking into the possibility of implementing blockchain technology across its government as well as allowing the use of cryptocurrencies. However, an official said the kingdom can only successfully build blockchain-based solutions if it hires people that are proficient in this technology. Government Needs to Hire Talented Individuals Saudi Arabia is considering putting into action the use of cryptocurrencies in the kingdom as well as the adoption of blockchain, a report quoting a government official has said. In addition, the report says the kingdom has also been discussing Web3 technologies and how these can be utilized. The official, Prince Bandar Bin Abdullah Al Mishari, an assistant to the Minister of Interior for technology, is nonetheless quoted in an Unlock Media report suggesting that more needs to be done before Saudi Arabia can successfully build blockchain-based solutions. He said: There have been several meetings, webinars that have dis...

Fidelity Investments, a major financial services firm with $11.3 trillion in assets under administration, has entered the metaverse with the opening of an eight-story learning center and the launch of a metaverse exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fidelity Stack features “a multi-level design complete with a lobby, dance floor, and rooftop sky garden for users to explore on foot – or even through teleport.” Fidelity Enters the Metaverse Fidelity Investments announced Thursday the grand opening of “The Fidelity Stack,” which the brokerage firm described as its “first immersive metaverse experience aimed at offering a new way to learn investing basics.” Fidelity is one of the largest financial services firms; it currently has $11.3 trillion in assets under administration. The Fidelity Stack is an eight-story building in the metaverse where visitors can learn about different ways of investing. One whole floor is dedicated to providing information about Fidelity Metaverse ETF (FMET), the...

Tesla and Spacex CEO Elon Musk has revealed his priorities for improving Twitter if he successfully takes over the social media platform. Among his promises are to eliminate crypto spam bots, ensure free speech, implement edit functionality, and simplify the account verification process. Elon Musk’s Twitter Improvement Priorities Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Spacex, has shared how he plans to improve Twitter if his bid to buy the social media giant succeeds. Musk agreed to a tweet Friday stating that he will focus on solving “real problems.” The tweet specifically mentions making Twitter’s algorithm open source, eliminating scam bots, adhering to free speech, and simplifying the account verification process. The Tesla boss has previously addressed each of these improvements in greater detail. Crypto Spam Bots Problem A major problem on Twitter concerns spam bots. Earlier this month, the Tesla boss said that in his opinion, crypto spam bots are the “single most annoying proble...

On April 22nd Michael Cameron the CEO and Co-founder of Game Space announced that it has released one of the first GaaS “GameFi as a Service” Platform. Game Space also announced that it had received more than US $7 million in financing. This round of financing is jointly led by top-tier VCs, Listed Gaming companies and top-tier Exchanges. Game Space provides a one-stop GameFi as a Service for large gaming companies and AAA titles, one line of code SDK integration, as well as an NFT exchange engine that can be embedded in games, helping the GameFi project shorten the launch time by up to half a year and greatly reducing the threshold for game companies to enter into Web3. Game Space focuses on being a one-stand solution for AAA gaming studios, making sure there are no limitations for the Gaming companies Game Space works with. Game Space ensures this by having a flexible Tech Stack and compatibility with both EVM and non-EVM Public chains. Also, the Game Space system allows SDK inte...