Author: CNBC News
Victims of the $200 million BitMart hack say that five weeks have passed since the crypto exchange vowed to return their money, but many still haven’t seen a dime. “I’m not one to bitch and moan a lot,” said Paul DeLong, a business owner in Austin. “BitMart, from a communication perspective, they said that they were going to give us more updates. We have not received any updates at all.” DeLong says he has reached out to the exchange multiple times, and each time, he’s received a canned response from a bot to inform him that BitMart and their attorneys…
Siraj Raval has tried just about every way there is to mine for cryptocurrencies from his 2018 Tesla Model 3. He’s run free bitcoin mining software on his Apple Mac mini M1 and powered the computer by plugging an inverter into the 12-volt power socket located in the center console of his car. He’s also hooked up interconnected graphics processing units or GPUs to the “frunk” of his Tesla, running these machines off the car’s internal battery. Though it risks voiding his car warranty, Raval says it’s worth it. When the price of ether peaked in 2021, he claims he was netting…
The Ethereum Name Service (ENS), a protocol that sells nonfungible tokens (NFTs) of domains representing wallet addresses, generated buzz within the crypto community in November after it airdropped tokens to its users. Those who claimed the tokens earned governance rights over the ENS and can vote on future decisions regarding the protocol. It was so well received that it prompted other Ethereum projects to airdrop tokens too. Though airdrops aren’t new, they’ve recently become increasingly common. In an airdrop, projects distribute tokens to specific investors’ wallets. In some situations, like with the ENS, projects airdrop tokens to those who have used their product. Other…
China’s central bank has launched a pilot version of a wallet app for the digital yuan in a push to expand its usage to more people. The app is available on China’s Android app stores and Apple’s app store. It allows users to open a digital yuan wallet and spend the currency. The digital yuan or e-CNY is a digital version of China’s sovereign currency and has been in the works since 2014. It is not a cryptocurrency like bitcoin but is instead issued and controlled by the People’s Bank of China. So far, China has done a number of trials around the…
Bitcoin could see further upside and surge as high as $100,000 by the middle of 2022, according to Antoni Trenchev of cryptocurrency lender Nexo. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading at $46,170.43 as of 8:42 p.m. ET Monday, according to data from Coin Metrics. “I think [bitcoin’s] going to reach $100,000 this year, probably by … the middle of it,” Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner at Nexo, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday. The firm claims to be the world’s largest lending institution in the digital finance industry, according to its website. The company has issued more…
Thirteen years ago today, Bitcoin officially launched after what’s known as the Genesis Block was mined. Though the bitcoin whitepaper was released by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by bitcoin’s creator or creators, on October 28, 2008, many say its mint date of January 3, 2009 represents the cryptocurrency’s birthday. Despite another ban from China, increased regulatory scrutiny and wild volatility, bitcoin had a record year in 2021 on many accounts. This past year marked the start of mainstream adoption for bitcoin with several firsts, including all-time highs in its price and hashrate, among other things. Trust in bitcoin grew with the support of institutional and retail investors throughout 2021.…
China’s biggest city is getting serious about the metaverse, the technology that’s drawn mass attention this year for its potential to form the next generation of the internet. Chinese government departments and local authorities have issued five-year development plans this year to show how they aim to implement the central government’s five-year plan issued in March. One released by Shanghai on Thursday contained the first mention of the metaverse, according to Chinese media reports. The technology extends human interactions to a virtual world of three-dimensional avatars. The metaverse is one of four frontiers for exploration, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of…
Crypto giant Binance is bolstering its presence in France after a choppy year of regulatory scrutiny. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is financing a 100 million euro ($113 million) initiative with industry group France FinTech in an effort to support the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector in France. The initiative, announced in November and dubbed Objective Moon, will see Binance establish a research and development office in France and collaborate on an incubator program for start-ups and training programs. “The aim of Objective Moon is really to develop an ecosystem and to nurture and accelerate an ecosystem. You cannot do it…
2021 was a wild year for cryptocurrency. Despite bitcoin’s recent plunge, for example, its price has still risen by more than 70% in the past 52 weeks. More important, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have made tremendous strides, not just in valuation — today the cryptocurrency market capitalization is estimated at $2.5 trillion, more than double a year ago — but also in growing acceptance. One midyear survey estimated that there were 221 million cryptocurrency holders, more than twice the number in January. And this year, El Salvador declared Bitcoin to be legal tender, and several countries including the U.S. have issued some form of Bitcoin-based ETFs. At the…
While metaverse hype has swept the world this year, one of China’s tech giants in the game has revealed a version of the virtual ecosystem that’s underwhelming so far. The metaverse can be loosely defined as the next generation of the internet — a virtual world in which humans interact through three-dimensional avatars. Social network giant Facebook jumped into the trend in October, changing its name to Meta and announcing plans for $10 billion in related investments in the next year. China is similarly abuzz with metaverse headlines. Beijing-based Baidu plans to hold its annual developers’ event Monday in the virtual world of its metaverse app,…