Author: Reuters
From cartoon apes to video clips, sales of NFTs reached some $25 billion in 2021 as the speculative crypto asset exploded in popularity, data from market tracker DappRadar shows, although there were signs of growth slowing towards the end of the year. Prices of some non-fungible tokens, crypto assets representing a digital item such as an image, video, or even land in virtual worlds, rose so fast last year that speculators sometimes ‘flipped’ them for a profit within days. read more The art world has been quick to cash in, with auction houses selling NFTs representing simple cartoons for millions of…
A small river in the middle of coffee plantations, sugar cane fields and a forest provides energy to a hydroelectric power plant in Costa Rica that feeds hundreds of computers wired up to the cryptocurrency mining business. 71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider More than 650 machines from 150 customers operate non-stop from eight containers powered by the plant next to the Poas River, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from San Jose, the capital of a country that generates nearly all its energy from green sources. The plant was forced to reinvent itself after…
Cryptocurrency investment products and funds had net outflows last week totaling a record $207 million, a report from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday, as prices continued their tumble in the first trading week of the year. The sector has experienced four consecutive weeks of outflows since mid-December, reaching a total of $465 million, or 0.8% of total assets under management. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, posted outflows of $107 million in the week to Jan. 7. CoinShares investment strategist James Butterfill said the outflows were a “direct response to the FOMC (Federal Open…
A weak start to 2022 and a host of looming macro and technical headwinds are setting cryptocurrencies up for a rough ride in the weeks to come. The biggest of them, bitcoin , has not managed to hold above the $50,000 mark since its Dec. 4 crash and is down 12% this year. Far from being the hedge against inflation or the uncorrelated alternative asset it was sometimes plugged as, bitcoin has suffered disproportionately, losing 40% from its peak in November, as the Federal Reserve and other major central banks spelt out plans to raise rates and remove monetary stimulus.…
GameStop Corp’s (GME.N) plans to expand its non-fungible tokens (NFTs) marketplace and partner with crypto firms boosted the video game retailer’s shares by 17.5% in premarket trading and also lifted other meme stocks. GameStop shares have been languishing for a while, like several other meme stocks, as interest from retail investors dwindled. The lot, which coordinated on online forums such as Reddit to talk up the shares and hurt bearish hedge funds, was responsible for massive gains in the stocks in early 2021. GameStop is building an online hub for trading NFTs for virtual game collectibles and is close to signing partnerships…
GameStop is launching a division to develop a marketplace for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and establish cryptocurrency partnerships, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday, boosting the video game retailer’s shares 27% in extended trading. GameStop declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news citing people familiar with the matter. The video game retailer is undergoing a revamp, with Chairman Ryan Cohen tapping executives from companies including Amazon to turn GameStop away from brick-and-mortar and toward e-commerce. The company is asking select game developers and publishers to list NFTs on its marketplace when it launches later this year, the WSJ report said. An…
Cryptocurrency-linked crime surged to a record high last year in terms of value, with illegal addresses receiving $14 billion in digital currencies, up 79% from $7.8 billion in 2020, according to a blog from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis released on Thursday. As of early 2022, Chainalysis said illicit addresses already hold over $10 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, with the majority of this held by wallets associated with crypto theft. Illicit addresses are defined as wallets tied to criminal activities such as ransomware, Ponzi schemes and scams. That said, illicit activities’ share of total crypto transaction volume remained low at just…
When Valeri checked the Abkhazia garage where he had set up a small and illegal bitcoin mining operation one autumn morning, he found the door bust open. Thieves had broken in overnight, taking with them 20 mining servers worth about $10,000. “They cleaned up the place completely,” said the 31-year-old from the Black Sea region, who preferred not to use his real name, adding the robbery left him feeling “angry and frustrated”. His was no isolated case. Cryptocurrency miners say Abkhazia has been hit by a wave of burglaries – some of them violent – since authorities banned the power-intensive…
Bitcoin fell below $43,000 on Thursday, testing multi-month lows after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed it leaning toward more aggressive policy action, which sapped investor appetite for riskier assets. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last at $42,700, down 1.7%, having lost 5.2% on Wednesday. A break below last month’s trough of $42,000 would make it the weakest since September. The token hit a record high of $69,000 in November. The fall “correlated with the ‘risk off’ move across most traditional asset classes,” said Matt Dibb, COO of Singapore-based crypto fund distributor, Stack Funds, pointing to the declines…
The final week of 2021 saw a third straight week of investment outflows from cryptocurrency funds, even as it capped a year of strong inflows into digital asset investment products, data from digital currency manager CoinShares showed. Outflows from the sector totaled $32 million last week, taking the tally for the last three weeks to $260 million, although the trend was diminishing following record weekly outflows in mid-December, CoinShares said. For 2021 as a whole inflows hit $9.3 billion, a 36% jump from 2020 as the launch of bitcoin futures ETFs lured big institutional investors. By comparison, the increase in…