Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The Central African Republic’s token sale appeared to have gotten to a slow start after less than 13 million out of the 210 million Sango coins were sold since the commencement of the sale on July 25. The country has claimed its decision to adopt bitcoin has won praise from “other African countries exploring the possibilities of adopting a similar system.” Just Over $1.2 Million Raised Since Token Sale Commenced The sale of the Central African Republic (CAR)’s Sango crypto token, which commenced on July 25, has reportedly started off slowly with just under 13 million coins having been sold to date. With the initial selling price set at $0.10 per coin, it means the CAR has now raised approximately $1.26 million since the commencement of the sale, a website tracking the token sale has shown. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, investors that wish to acquire their share of the 210 million Sango coins on offer must fork out a minimum of $500. Prospective buyers can pay using ...

Ripple’s general counsel has urged U.S. lawmakers to pass “sensible crypto legislation” amid a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over the sale of xrp. “Rather than providing regulatory clarity through rulemaking, the SEC is bullying crypto markets by filing unproven allegations masquerading as regulation,” he opined. Ripple’s Counsel Calls for ‘Sensible’ Crypto Regulation Stuart Alderoty, general counsel for Ripple, stressed the importance of sensible cryptocurrency legislation in an opinion piece published Wednesday. Referencing a House Financial Services Subcommittee hearing on Investor Protection where Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) pushed the SEC to go after major cryptocurrency exchanges that traded XRP , Alderoty emphasized: Sherman’s off-base remarks underscore the urgent need for sensible crypto legislation from Washington. The SEC sued Ripple Labs, CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen in December 2020, alleging that the XRP sale was an u...

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has published a video explaining how the agency plans to regulate crypto exchanges. “I’ve asked our staff to work directly with the platforms to get them registered and regulated,” the SEC chief revealed. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s Video About Regulating Crypto Exchanges U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler published a video Thursday explaining how the securities watchdog plans to regulate crypto exchanges and provide investor protection. Gensler explained in the video the similarities and differences between crypto trading platforms and traditional exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). “When you trade on a stock market, you have certain protections,” he began, adding that investors are “protected against fraud, manipulation, running, and the like.” Noting that crypto platforms serve “millions, sometimes tens of millions” of retail customers who are directl...

A U.S. lawmaker has demanded answers from Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai about their measures against fake cryptocurrency apps appearing in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. “Millions of Americans use mobile apps to invest in unregulated digital assets,” said Senator Sherrod Brown. “Reports have emerged of fake crypto apps that have scammed hundreds of investors.” U.S. Senator Questions Chief Executives of Apple and Google on Fake Crypto Apps Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and the CEO of Alphabet and Google, Sundar Pichai, regarding their measures against fake cryptocurrency apps on their platforms. He stressed that it is “imperative that app stores have the proper safeguards in place to prevent against fraudulent mobile application activity.” Senator Brown’s letters followed a warning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) against fake cr...

PRESS RELEASE. July has seen a jump in crypto prices, and none more so than the utility token of Alchemy Pay, ACH. ACH saw a 43% increase in just 24 hours on July 20th, making it crypto’s biggest gainer. ACH has also broken into the TOP 10 most searched tokens on almost every crypto site over the past two weeks, including Coingecko and Coinmarketcap. The ACH token has seen so much interest that Binance is now supporting it for margin trading – unusual for a project of Alchemy Pay’s size. Alchemy Pay is a Singapore-based payment provider addressing some of the industry’s biggest barriers to entry with its crypto on/off ramp payment plugins, as well as its crypto acceptance for merchants and businesses. ACH Listed On Binance US, Crypto.com & KuCoin Part of the reason for the impressive price action is the token’s recent listings on Binance US, Crypto.com (website and app), KuCoin, and Kraken. As well as its availability across the world’s largest exchanges, ACH can now be stak...

A group of economists evaluating the potential effects of a digital euro have insisted that restricting access to the upcoming currency is necessary to preserve the current financial system. Their study follows an earlier proposal to limit digital euro deposits at the European Central Bank (ECB) to €3,000 per person. Limited Availability of Digital Euro Expected to Prevent It From Becoming Too Popular Europeans’ access to a digital euro should be restricted to prevent a flight of capital from deposits at commercial banks, according to a report published by the European Central Bank. The paper has been produced by a team of experts led by Frank Smets who heads the regulator’s Directorate General Economics. The economists have tried to predict the impact of a central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) on Europe’s banking sector. In the absence of empirical data, they have taken into account public reactions to news about ECB’s plans to issue a digital version of the common European curr...

Authorities in Iran have revised some rules for the crypto mining industry in order to facilitate its access to green power. Licensed miners will now be able to purchase electricity produced from renewable sources from across the country at lower rates. Cryptocurrency Miners in Iran Allowed to Source Green Energy From Across Country Iran’s Ministry of Energy has changed certain crypto mining regulations to ease access to renewable power for entities authorized to mint digital currencies in the Islamic Republic. A recently issued decree relieves miners from the obligation to use on-site power generation capacities and permits them to buy electricity from renewables from across the country and through the national grid, Bargqnews unveiled. Until now, mining enterprises could only sign contracts with renewable power plants located in the same province, pointed out Mohammad Khodadadi, an official at the Iran Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Company (Tavanir). Quoted by...

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...