Author: Staff Writer
Kazakhstan’s Bitcoin-mining boom ended even quicker than it started. A squeeze in the central Asian nation’s power supply has pushed the government to place big limits on the energy-intensive industry. The rapid reversal has eliminated one of the cheapest places to mine the cryptocurrency just as Bitcoin’s rise this year has made the process more profitable. “It’s like night and day,” said Almas Chukin, partner at Almaty-based private equity firm Visor Kazakhstan, which has invested in the construction of renewable energy and data centers. “There’s zero potential for Bitcoin mining at the moment in Kazakhstan.” Kazakhstan emerged earlier this year as one of the world’s winners…
Paradigm — a player in the crypto derivatives market — is the latest digital asset trading firm to tap into the wave of capital pouring into the market. On Thursday, the firm announced the close of a funding round that values it at $400 million. Launched in 2019, Paradigm provides a platform for dealers and market makers to execute large trades in options and futures to settle across a wide-range of venues. As per Thursday’s announcement, the firm has raised $35 million in a funding round led by crypto trading giants Jump Capital and Alameda Research. In total, 25 investors…
According to Michael Novogratz – the CEO of Galaxy Digital and a prominent advocate of the cryptocurrency industry – Ethereum currently stands as a more attractive investment option than Bitcoin. In his view, BTC acts mainly as a hedge against inflation, while its rival has more advantages, such as being a technology bet. Bitcoin Lagging Behind Ethereum The idea of Ethereum sitting on the throne of the digital asset industry one day has been circling in the space for a while. Although there was no real challenge until recently, the tides seem to be changing this year. While Bitcoin is…
The Ethereum network is poised to get an upgrade Thursday that will install a feature that could slow or halt mining of the cryptocurrency. The Arrow Glacier update won’t impact investors, but it will delay the “difficulty bomb,” a planned exponential increase in the proof-of-work difficulty setting, long enough for developers to transition Ethereum mining from a proof-of-work model to a proof-of-stake (POS) model. Ethereum miners currently are forced to solve complex math problems to reap rewards in the form of coins. This requires phenomenal amounts of computing power and has a large environmental footprint, something that has led to widespread criticism of the…
Outraged Coinbase users have launched an online campaign demanding the cryptocurrency exchange refund their losses after a technical problem led the company to freeze accounts for weeks, potentially locking in large losses for many customers. Coinbase told customers a glitch in trading of two cryptocurrencies in mid-November was due to “technical reasons.” Now many of those customers are blasting the exchange for locking them out of their accounts and, they say, improperly taking their funds. The issue occurred in mid-November when Coinbase customers were able to buy GYEN, a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of one Japanese yen. Also involved…
Passbase, the identity verification infrastructure company, announced $10M in Series A, plus a previously unannounced $3.5M Seed-2. The round was led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Lakestar, Eniac Ventures, and Cowboy Ventures. The startup will use this capital infusion to scale their product suite and simplify policy management for cryptocurrency, fintech and other businesses using Passbase for identity verification services to meet rapidly changing global compliance requirements. In the last year, Passbase has grown revenue 8x by helping companies solve their digital identity verification challenges in a compliant, privacy-oriented, and user-centric way. Their intuitive verification flow and back office…
The cryptocurrency market has seen a spike in volatility over the past two weeks. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is at about $52K after falling to nearly $45K days ago. This crash has caused many to be concerned that the bull market for Bitcoin has reached its end. Indeed, given that Bitcoin has made a “double-top” pattern over the year, twice failing to break well above $60-$65K, the asset’s momentum has faded. That said, Bitcoin remains up over 75% on the year, so it is not yet sure whether or not the death knell has rung. See below: Data…
International cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp will be enabling trading US Dollars and Euros in exchange of Shiba Inu cryptocurrency. The move is noteworthy as it adds to the list of brands that are warming up towards the meme-based dog coin that was launched as a Dogecoin copycat. Bitstamp will now allow users to deposit and withdraw funds in Shiba Inu. Presently, SHIB is trading at $0.00003672 per token, which is held by 1,044,066 wallets, as per the data on CoinMarketCap. Supporters of the Shiba Inu mem cryptocurrency, who refer to themselves as the SHIB army, have expressed excitement about this development on Twitter. https://twitter.com/Shib_xWarrior29/status/1468737236166393863?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1468737236166393863%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgadgets.ndtv.com%2Fcryptocurrency%2Fnews%2Fcrypto-exchange-bitstamp-lists-shiba-inu-as-trading-option-2643558…
Indonesia’s MUI has deemed ‘using’ cryptocurrency to be haram, but the ruling does not chime with Islamic scholars and regulators around the world. In early November, Indonesia’s National Ulema Council (MUI), the country’s top Muslim clerical body, ruled that “using” cryptocurrency is haram (not permissible), due to its “uncertainty” and “potential for wagering and harm”. The 11 November ruling, which was not accompanied by any public clarification of MUI’s position on what constitutes “using” cryptocurrency, sent ripples through the Islamic world and reignited discussions about the role of the rapidly expanding digital assets sector in Sharia-compliant finance. Whether or not…
In 2012, few people in Washington, D.C., were thinking about cryptocurrency. Cleve Mesidor first heard about it around that time, while she was working for the Obama administration, but didn’t give much thought to it. A few years later, she was fully “down the rabbit hole” and has been at the forefront of the movement ever since, as cryptocurrency has grown from an outlandish idea to a sprawling — not to mention, profitable — ecosystem of digital assets. And like other early Black cryptocurrency advocates, Mesidor has seen that crypto isn’t just popular among the types of people who usually…