Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The International Monetary Fund is predicting that Latin America (Latam) will keep growing this year, reaching a growth rate of 3% even with all of the difficulties that the region is facing. The institution believes that the economic recovery that Latam is enjoying after the Covid-19 pandemic will be decelerated by several factors, including the macroeconomic conditions, rising inflation, and increasing social tensions amidst energy and food insecurity. IMF Predicts Latam Will Keep Growing The International Monetary Fund has issued a series of predictions on the growth and the possible difficulties that Latam will be facing in the second half of 2022. After examining all of the variables, the institution predicts that the region will grow by 3% in 2022, fueled by the economic recovery and the reopening of many industries that were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This upgraded forecast is higher that the earlier prediction the International Monetary Fund had made, expecting the regi...

Meta, the social media company, has reported that its metaverse division, the Reality Labs Unit, is shedding lots of money. In its recent earnings call, the company informed that, while the Reality Labs unit managed to pull more than $400 million in sales, its losses reached $2.8 billion, mainly due to research and development costs associated with metaverse and VR products. Meta’s Metaverse Push Is Making It Lose Funds Meta, one of the first companies that announced a pivot from social media to the metaverse, is battling to make its new focus profitable. In its most recent earnings call , which reports on the economic performance of the company during Q2, the company announced that its metaverse division, the Reality Labs unit, had lost more than $2.8 billion dollars in the mentioned period, even when it manages to register more than $400 million in sales. Reality Labs is in charge of the metaverse strategy of the company, including the development of virtual reality and augmented...

A director with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of further selloffs in both crypto assets and equities. He further warned that more crypto tokens could fail. IMF Foresees More Crypto Selling Pressure Tobias Adrian, director of Monetary and Capital Markets for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned about further selling pressure in the crypto market and more crypto token failures in an interview with Yahoo Finance Wednesday. He said: We could see further selloffs, both in crypto assets and in risky asset markets, like equities. “There could be further failures of some of the coin offerings — in particular, some of the algorithmic stablecoins that have been hit most hard, and there are others that could fail,” he detailed. The IMF director also expects crypto to drop even further amid a recession. In May, cryptocurrency terra (LUNA) and stablecoin terrausd (UST) imploded, prompting SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to warn that a lot of crypto tokens will fail . ...

Global investment banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have predicted an imminent recession in the euro area. “The risks to our forecast are skewed toward a sharper recession in the event of an even more severe disruption of gas flows, a renewed period of sovereign stress or a U.S. recession,” said the economists at Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs’ Predictions Two major global investment banks, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, released reports Wednesday, independently predicting an impending recession in the euro area. Goldman Sachs’ analysts, led by chief European economist Jari Stehn, expect a euro-area recession in the second half of this year that will last until the end of the year. They are also predicting a contraction of 0.1% in the third and 0.2% in the fourth quarter, expecting growth to return in 2023. “Looking across countries, we have Germany and Italy in clear recession in the second half, while Spain and France continue to grow,” the Goldman Sachs economists detailed, elaborati...

After the crypto lender Celsius filed for bankruptcy protection on July 13, the company recently contacted customers and explained that an employee from one of the firm’s vendors accessed a list of Celsius client emails, and the email addresses were “transferred to a third party.” Furthermore, Celsius customers have written to the court begging to get their crypto assets back as one client said he had less than $1K in the bank and his situation was a dire emergency in order to “keep a roof over my family and food on their table.” Celsius Customers Informed About an Email Breach, Retail Investors Say They Were ‘Severely Impacted’ by Crypto Lender’s Fallout It seems Celsius has been contacting customers by email, and explaining that a list of client emails were reportedly transferred to a third-party. The email says it was after an employee from one of Celsius’s vendors had accessed the list. The story became a topical conversation on social media, even though the crypto lender Cels...

A crypto winter has come. With BitCoin ( BTC ) falling over 70% from its all time high along with Ethereum, and a steady drumbeat of news involving crypto-related funds, companies, and projects collapsing, it is clear that the last round of cryptomania has come to a close. Even juggernauts of GameFi such as Axie Infinity (and its AXS coin) have seen prices tumble; without an endless flow of new money, only those with sustainable business models will survive.   Against the Current: Karmaverse Zombie In this kind of bear market, GameFi faces unprecedented headwinds and negative sentiment, but there are also new projects full of opportunities. However, Yield Guild Games SEA (YGG SEA) has moved thousands of players from Axie Infinity to Karmaverse Zombie, with other leading guilds including Path DAO, Ola GG, and Avacado also showing their confidence in the future of the project by establishing themselves and investing their time and effort. Investment Backing for Stability Karmav...

Roughly six years ago in July 2016, an Ethereum hard fork was used to address the infamous DAO hack. This specific fork saw the chain split into two factions, and a new crypto asset called ethereum classic was introduced to the crypto community. For years now both chains have co-existed using the same proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm, and with The Merge coming up, speculators assume Ethash PoW miners will transition to ethereum classic mining. During the last two weeks, ethereum classic has climbed more than 124% against the U.S. dollar, and the network’s hashrate has spiked a great deal as well. Ethereum Classic Catches Triple-Digit Gains During the Last Two Weeks Ethereum classic (ETC) is six years old this month and it’s seen some significant gains during the last 14 days. In fact, ever since the penciled-in date for The Merge was revealed, ETC has risen in value alongside its counterpart ethereum (ETH) . While ETH has seen a significant double-digit ​​45.7% gain in ...

Ripple’s chief executive has shared his views on possible outcomes of the lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the sale of xrp, which the regulator claims to be an unregistered securities offering. Ripple’s CEO Discusses Implications of SEC Winning the Lawsuit Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse discussed the lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over XRP earlier this month in an interview with Axios at the Collision 2022 event. The SEC sued Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen in December 2020, alleging that the XRP sale was an unregistered securities offering. Ripple disagreed with the SEC and has since been fighting a legal battle with the securities regulator. During the interview, Garlinghouse was asked what would happen if he does not get a ruling in his favor and XRP is deemed a security. The Ripple executive quickly emphasized that in that situation, XRP would only be considered a securit...

Hedge fund manager Michael Burry, famed for forecasting the 2008 financial crisis, believes that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) neither has the resources nor the IQ points needed to correctly investigate crypto listings on Coinbase. Michael Burry on SEC Investigating Crypto Listings on Coinbase Famous investor and founder of investment firm Scion Asset Management, Michael Burry, briefly commented on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigating crypto exchange Coinbase Tuesday. He is best known for being the first investor to foresee and profit from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010. He is profiled in “The Big Short,” a book by Michael Lewis about the mortgage crisis, which was made into a movie starring Christian Bale. Commenting on a Bloomberg article titled “Coinbase Faces SEC Probe on Crypto Listings,” Burry tweeted: Pretty sure the SEC does not have the resources or the IQ points to do this correctly. ...

PRESS RELEASE. Pocket Network , a decentralized Web3 infrastructure provider that services blockchain data requests for applications and developers, is implementing key protocol changes after its community DAO voters rallied to boost network efficiency and bring costs down. As of late June, the Pocket DAO has passed two proposals with significant impacts on the incentive structure for nodes participating in Pocket Network’s protocol. Pocket’s protocol is serving approximately 1 billion RPC requests every day , and is on course towards a goal of supporting 100 blockchains before year-end. At the same time, as Pocket Network has seen explosive growth in the number of active nodes on the network (all the way up to almost 50,000 nodes in May of this year), infrastructure costs of the protocol have risen as well. Thanks to some of the highest levels of engagement out of any past proposals in the Pocket DAO, voters and commenters took on this economic challenge on two separate fronts: b...

Russia could be a large player in the crypto mining space, experts in the field have established in research naming the most attractive regions for coin minting operations in the country. The capital Moscow is among the popular mining destinations alongside the places offering the cheapest power. Cost of Electricity, Logistics Determine Russian Miners’ Choice of Location for Crypto Farms Russia has everything necessary to become a leader in the crypto mining industry, including low-cost electricity, surplus generating capacity, and well-developed energy infrastructure in many of its regions. That’s one of the conclusions in a study conducted by Intelion Data Systems, an importer of mining equipment, quoted by RBC Crypto. The company’s researchers say that interest in setting up new data centers for digital currency extraction has increased across the vast country. The primary task for businesses is to choose the right location for their facilities, crucial for the effectiveness of ...

PRESS RELEASE. XRPayNet has been making major progress in the DeFi space this year. Their recent launch of a versatile mobile application has allowed users to trade with freedom. The app tautes the flexibility to trade with 90,000 trading pairs available for use. This vast expansion of technology and availability has been a widely positive first impression from its customers. XRPayNet makes major strides towards the goal of converting crypto payments made to businesses that use existing processing systems to give the business their payment back in their conventional currency. With another new exchange listing in the pipeline this week on Bitmart and their flashy new crypto cards coming out later this year that will allow consumers to spend any crypto in stores globally, XRPayNet is redefining the future of financial transactions. They are making the Crypto to Fiat payment process seamless and furthering global adoption as less than fifty thousand businesses accept crypto out of 250 ...

Cryptocurrency investors are perceived to be more attractive, smarter, and wealthier than non-investors, the latest survey by Cryptovantage has found. Just over three-quarters of respondents said they are likely to go on a date with someone if their dating app profile mentions crypto. However, some 69% of crypto investors surveyed admitted that they had a relationship end because they invested in a cryptocurrency. Crypto Investors Perceived More Favorably Than Non-Investors A new survey seeking to determine if investing in cryptocurrency makes one attractive has found that crypto investors are “seen as more attractive, smarter, and wealthier than non-investors.” According to the survey findings in which 1,002 Americans were interviewed, 50% of the female respondents perceive crypto investors to be more attractive than non-investors. About 46% of the respondents perceive crypto investors to be more desirable while 42% think they are smarter. Some 34% perceive crypto investors to be ...

The University of Tokyo will offer a series of engineering courses using metaverse tech. The courses, which are projected to start being offered later this year, will introduce students to the subjects of engineering and will combine this knowledge with the skills to handle metaverse-based worlds, to manage the digital transformation that work and educational environments are undergoing. University of Tokyo to Introduce Metaverse-Based Courses Later This Year Educational institutions are starting to recognize the power of metaverse platforms as tools to leverage in educational and instructional processes. The University of Tokyo, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in Japan, has recently announced a plan for imparting metaverse-based engineering courses. While these courses in the metaverse won’t confer degrees, they will be set up by the engineering faculty of the university and will have two goals. The first is to introduce high school students to the possi...

About 53% of South Africans have little to no knowledge about cryptocurrency, while only 14% thought or felt they had a better understanding of the subject, a report has said. Nearly half of the respondents said they would only invest in cryptocurrency if or when their respective banks are involved. South Africans Weigh In on Crypto Knowledge According to the findings of Merchant’s consumer survey study, just over half of South Africans (53%) have little to zero knowledge about cryptocurrency. The study also found that out of the surveyed South Africans, only 14% believed they had a strong hold on the subject of cryptocurrencies. Some 23% of the respondents said they were “neutral.” As per a report by IOL, young people aged between 18 and 24 were likely to be more knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies than those aged 25 and above. The results of this study appear to back the findings of an earlier research study which said only 11.3% of South Africans are cryptocurrency owners or ...

The Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), the second largest of the three biggest banks in Japan, has announced it is planning to expand into digital asset businesses, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3 platforms. The company will partner with Hashport, a group that offers tokenization and listing services in Japan, to launch a token business lab to experiment with these new technologies. Second Biggest Japanese Bank to Introduce Token and NFT Services Many traditional banking companies around the world are now considering entering the crypto and digital assets business. SMBC, the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, an institution with more than 463 branches and a presence all over the world, has announced it is going to enter the cryptocurrency asset business, taking NFT services and Web3 as its main priority in the field. To achieve this goal, SMBC has partnered with Hashport, a company that specializes in offering tokenization solutions and listing services. T...

Shark Tank star and the owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, has warned that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will come up with rules for token registration that will be “the nightmare that’s waiting for the crypto industry.” Mark Cuban Foresees SEC Coming Up With ‘Nightmare’ Crypto Regulation Billionaire Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank star who owns the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, warned in a tweet Saturday about how the SEC will regulate crypto tokens. His warning was in response to a tweet by U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) who slammed the securities watchdog over its enforcement action against a former Coinbase employee where nine crypto tokens were identified as securities. Coinbase quickly disputed the allegation that it listed crypto securities. Toomey noted that the enforcement action “is the perfect example of the SEC having a clear opinion on how and why certain tokens classify as securities. Yet, the SEC failed to disclose their view before la...

A new bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate that would simplify the use of cryptocurrency for everyday purchases by creating tax exemption for personal crypto transactions under $50 as well as when the capital gains are less than $50. New ‘Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act’ A new bipartisan bill , known as the “Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act,” was introduced in Congress Tuesday by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). According to the announcement by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the bill aims to “simplify the use of digital assets for everyday purchases” by creating “tax exemption for small personal transactions.” Senator Toomey commented, “While digital currencies have the potential to become an ordinary part of Americans’ everyday lives, our current tax code stands in the way.” He added: The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act will allow Americans to use cryptocurrencies more easily as an everyday method of paym...

On Tuesday, a newly published report details that the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is under federal investigation for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions, according to five people familiar with the matter. The unknown sources explained that the inquiry into Kraken started in 2019, and it’s accused of allowing users from sanctioned countries like Iran access to the digital currency trading platform. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control Is Allegedly Investigating Kraken The San Francisco-based crypto exchange Kraken is allegedly under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), according to a report published by the New York Times (NYT) on July 26, 2022. Kraken founded in July 2011 by Jesse Powell is one of the oldest digital currency exchanges in the world. The NYT report cites “five people affiliated with the company or with knowledge of the inquiry.” Furthermore, the report also says the anonymous sources did not want to be n...

Quik.com is offering NFT domains as a gateway pass for users to establish their very existence on the web of tomorrow and the metaverse. A wide range of top-level domains, including .metaverse, .web3, .vr, and many others, are available on this NFT domain marketplace , Quik.com, enabling users to unleash their creative side on the web of the future. Mint your first Metaverse NFT Domain . Mint your first Web3 Domain . As the industry is rapidly expanding and also expanding ways of obtaining the most traditional aspects of the web and operationalizing the way the internet of today is working, which will also create a virtual expansion of the material world. These domains are primarily the gateway for users to access the technological advancements along with the evolving Quik ecosystem, which is sure to introduce many future uses and perks for the owners of Quik.com. Quik.com also provides a P2P NFT domains marketplace where users may communicate, exchange, trade, and purchase dom...

A new report is predicting that the total value of the NFT market will reach $200 billion in 2030. The report, issued by Grand View Research, a multinational market insights company, found that the rising demand for this kind of instrument — due to its growing number of applications — will fuel growth of the market. NFT Market to Reach $200 Billion, Fueled by Growing Demand Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming more popular due to their wide array of applications in different industries. A recent report issued by Grand View Research, a market insights company, predicts that the NFT market will reach a value of $200 billion in 2030, fueled in part by the growing demand behind them due to their applications. The report, which calculates today’s NFT market value at a little more than $15 billion, examined the movement and the evolution of the NFT market between 2018 and 2020. The document predicts the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.9% from 2022 to 2030, wit...

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, believes that the future of crypto is bright in Latam. In a recent interview, Bankman-Fried recognized the rising adoption and demand that cryptocurrencies are experiencing in Latam, stating that use is expected to grow for remittances and payments in the future. Sam Bankman-Fried Talks Crypto in Latam Latam is one of the areas globally that has become a cryptocurrency adoption hotbed due to its particular traits and circumstances, and the crypto industry is starting to notice. Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX and one of the richest men in crypto, has recognized the influence crypto has in the region, and he believes this will keep growing in the future. In an interview with Bloomberglinea, Bankman-Fried declared the region will experience a rise in crypto adoption rates for different purposes. Bankman-Fried stated : I think that the volume is going to increase over time and that we are going to see more and more adoption for remittances in Latam and t...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned crypto investors about a scam using an investment strategy called liquidity mining. “This scam has been responsible for over $70 million in combined victim losses,” said the law enforcement agency. FBI Warns of Crypto Liquidity Mining Scam The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an investor alert Thursday warning crypto owners of a scam targeting them. The law enforcement agency announced: The FBI is issuing this public service announcement to warn American citizens about a cryptocurrency scam using an investment strategy called Liquidity Mining in which scammers exploit owners of cryptocurrency, typically tether ( USDT ) and/or ethereum ( ETH ). “Liquidity mining is an investment strategy used to earn passive income with cryptocurrency,” the FBI explained. “In legitimate liquidity mining operations, investors stake their cryptocurrency in a liquidity pool to provide traders with the liquidity necessary to conduct tra...