Ethereum (ETH) gained 12.76% over the past 24 hours, soaring past $1,200. Ethereum’s bullish price movement can most likely be attributed to the successful testing of one of the last tests before the Merge by Ethereum core developers yesterday. The event itself is expected to happen in August. The highly anticipated upgrade will transition Ethereum from a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain…
Amid the soaring inflation, the European Central Bank (ECB) has found time to sum up its concerns about the “significant carbon footprint” of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies, which require vast amounts of computational power. ECB published the report titled “Mining the environment – is climate risk priced into crypto-assets?” on July 12. In the report, the ECB research group reinforces the…
Investment company NYDIG signed a multi-year partnership with MLB outfit New York Yankees to allow the team’s players to convert part of their salary into Bitcoin. “We’re proud to partner with our hometown team and an iconic sports franchise, the Yankees, to further our mission of bringing bitcoin to all,” Kelly Brewster, chief marketing officer at NYDIG, said in a…
The deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) recently said the institution has changed its position on cryptocurrency, and now regards it to be a financial asset which must be regulated as such. The SARB expects to have a cryptocurrency regulatory framework in place by the end of 2023. A Safer Crypto Ecosystem The deputy governor of the…
As on-chain activities slow down during the crypto winter, usage of cryptocurrency mixers has doubled in 2022, with addresses classified as “illicit” being the top contributor. Cryptocurrency mixers, also called “tumblers,” provide anonymity to transactions, making the sender or receiver of the transaction completely unidentified. While this has a valid use case for everyday users, hackers have used it to hide…
The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) has shown its support for the “crypto rule book” idea and called for regulating exchanges instead of crypto assets. In May, the Australian Law Reform Council (ALRC) proposed to tackle crypto regulation through a rule book-style framework which sets out a series of gradually updated compliance principles for local crypto firms to adhere…
The crypto exchange Bitfinex announced on Thursday that the trading platform plans to donate 36 bitcoin and $600K worth of tether tokens to help bolster communities and small businesses located in El Salvador. According to Bitfinex, the funds will initially target small businesses in Salvadoran communities located in Apopa, Ilopango, and Soyapango. Donated Funds to Target Small Businesses in the…
An ambitious sustainability-based blockchain project has secured $100 million in a Series A funding round to drive its development. Indian entrepreneurs Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi have spearheaded the foundation of a fifth-generation blockchain network known as 5ire, which looks to incentivize the implementation of United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) for users of its system. The project has now…
A bottle of 52-year-old whisky made at Japan’s famous defunct Karuizawa distillery is being auctioned off as an NFT. The starting price for the nonfungible token (NFT) and bottle of whisky is a dizzying $75,000, or about 62 Ether (ETH). Direct-to-Customer NFT wine and spirits marketplace BlockBar is handling the auction. To whisky collectors, the ultra-rare bottle of whisky from…
Despite the decentralized finance (DeFi) market suffering a 74.6% market cap decline in Q2, user activity has remained relatively resilient, says CoinGecko. In a report published by the crypto data aggregator on July 13th, CoinGecko reported that the overall DeFi market cap fell from $142 million to $36 million over the second quarter, due mainly to the collapse of Terra…
