Mic Drop
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Kazakhstan's government has issued new reporting rules for cryptocurrency mining companies, with a focus on how the industry's energy use affects the local power infrastructure.
The order published by the country’s Minister of Digital Development earlier this week requires new miners and hosting centres to register company names as well as physical and IP addresses and contact information for responsible parties 30 or more days before beginning operations.
Expected power usage, hardware needs, and investment are also included in these reports. Miners will also be required to produce proof of Kazakhstan residency. Existing miners must also provide quarterly updates on this information, according to the order. Crypto miners that want to shut down their activities will also have to report it.
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According to the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) (the French financial market regulator), Binance can now operate its digital asset trading platform in France, which means it can facilitate digital asset custody, let users buy and sell crypto, and help users exchange digital assets for each other.
This is the exchange's first major approval from a G-7 member country, indicating that the company's development into other European markets is possible. Last week, CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao praised the country as a "crypto-friendly" government and announced a $100 million investment in the country's blockchain ecosystem.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Wednesday to start implementing a crypto framework in the state.
The state will create a "transparent and consistent business environment" for blockchain-related enterprises, including crypto-asset asset projects and those of related financial technology, under the order, as well as the California Consumer Financial Protection Law passed in 2020.
According to Newsom,
"California is a global hub of innovation, and we’re setting up the state for success with this emerging technology – spurring responsible innovation, protecting consumers and leveraging this technology for the public good. Too often government lags behind technological advancements, so we’re getting ahead of the curve on this, laying the foundation to allow for consumers and business to thrive"
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Polkadot has announced the launch of its cross-chain messaging system called ‘Cross-Consensus Messaging format (XCM)’. With this arrival, Polkadot has finally implemented the function of interoperability between its parachains.
The newly launched XCM messaging system is intended to promote Polkadot’s multichain ecosystem and enable communication between parachains themselves as well as smart contracts. The system will eliminate the need for bridges and facilitate the movement of data and crypto-assets across Polkadot's parachains.
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The popular fashion label Gucci has announced that it will begin accepting crypto payments from customers in select store locations across the United States. The fashion label has been quite active in the crypto, web3 and metaverse space for a while now by acquiring land in The Sandbox and launching its own NFT collections.
Gucci plans to accept crypto payments starting with five store locations with one each in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas by the end of this month. Eventually, the label hopes to implement crypto payments across all its 111 locations in North America.
Customers will be able to make cryptocurrency payments simply by scanning a QR code given by Gucci via email with their crypto wallet. Gucci has already begun training its employees through cryptocurrency and NFT education.
https://decrypt.co/99504/gucci-begin-accepting-bitcoin-some-stores industry's energy use affects the local power infrastructure.
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Michael Saylor: Bitcoin and the current situation around it.
On the MicroStrategy earnings Michael Saylor shares his opinions on the current macro situation and events around bitcoin. Is worth a read. Emphasis mine
"In Q1, we saw some fairly seminal events, the trucker crisis in Canada, the Ukrainian war, Russian sanctions, continued inflation, supply chain chaos, concerns about food and energy shortages, all of those things have been combined with a weakening currency environment, the Chinese currency, the Japanese currency, South Africa -- South America and African currencies, and a lot of Asian currencies were all collapsing against the dollar. In fact, just about every currency in the world, except for two, I think, are collapsing against the dollar right now. This is creating a very challenging macroeconomic environment.
It's going to continue to create uncertainty and challenges for all businesses. I think that it has had the impact of increasing awareness of and the understanding of the need for a digital asset like Bitcoin and so the silver-lining is that hundreds of millions, if not billions of people are now becoming aware of the need for non-sovereign store value digital asset like Bitcoin. The negative is it creates a very challenging operating environment. Over the last few months in the world of Bitcoin, the interesting developments worth highlighting are the executive order coming out of the Biden White House on March 9th, which was really a first as long as anyone can remember, the first time that we had the executive branch in the United States in essence highlighting and endorsing an asset class as being critical to the future of the nation.
And so I thought that, that was extraordinarily auspicious. Janet Yellen gave a speech on April 7th at American University, equally auspicious. We had the secretary of the treasury of the United States, laying out the case for decentralized networks, the theory of digital property, talking about the need for digital currencies. What the innovations in the crypto economy and suggesting that the administration is going to do enthusiastically move forward to provide responsible regulations to allow this economy to grow.
I thought that was very critical, too. I think if you put all of these macroeconomic developments together with the regulator signal, what you have is a world that's a bit insecure about currencies and insecure about property rights and then, secure about 20th century banking systems and 20th century payment systems and aware that they need to find a solution. But you also have another big development, which is that the deniers of Bitcoin and digital assets in general are now being silenced by the administration of the United States. One of the early crippling criticism was this is just a panty scheme, where this is intangible or there's nothing here.
And I think that, with now the head of the SEC, the head of treasury, the president of the United States acknowledging that there is something here. And it's an important priority for the entire government. I think that, that really isolates the deniers and if not making them look silly at this point, because, it's pretty clear that 250 million people know that there is something here. And it's growing like wildfire.
And it's pretty clear that the government recognizes this. So, we have another classification of Bitcoin investors after deniers that will be the skeptics. The skeptics acknowledge that it exists. They acknowledge that it's good.
They may even acknowledge that, it's better than gold and it's better than other sorts of money or property and then they follow-up with the observation that since it's so good the politicians will ban it or the government will ban it. And that was -- that's been articulated by a number of fairly well-known credible sources over the past two years. But of course, with the March 9th executive order and the Yellen speech of April 7th, it gets increasingly difficult to maintain the skeptical stance, because you would have to, in essence, put yourself in opposition to the White House, right? It's not the policy of the United States demand Bitcoin. So in fact, it's not the policy of anyone in the Western world to band Bitcoin.
So the deniers and the skeptics are being silenced, and now the entire Bitcoin market is evolving to be controlled by the traders, the technocrats, and the maximalist. And clearly, the volatility of the market right now is driven by the fact that the traders are trading Bitcoin as a correlated asset to the NASDAQ. And technology investors that are NASDAQ heavy are selling or shorting technology assets as a risk off trade, as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. So I would say that, if we look at the last three months, although the macroeconomic environment is difficult and macroeconomic winds are blowing in the face of all risk assets and all operating companies.
I would say the fundamental developments, the political developments and the market awareness of Bitcoin has made enormous strides – and if you compare where we were today on where we are today versus two years ago, the asset class has matured dramatically, awareness has matured dramatically and the risk of holding the asset class has decreased. And specifically, I think the skeptics in the past 24 months are increasingly disappearing and everyone is migrating to either a trader or a technocrat or a maximalist. I had a chance to attend the Bitcoin conference in Miami Beach this April. I noted a massive surge of interest in bitcoin among politicians, among media and among investors.
And there are a lot of politicians that hadn't heard of it and weren't interested in it a year ago, both international and domestic, and now it's on their radar, and they realize they need to pay attention to it. It's probably not uncorrelated to the executive order of March 9. I think there's a lot more media coverage and we've seen a change in the media tone. I think the media tone two years ago was nonexistent.
In fact, people used to lament that Bitcoin was not being covered by mainstream media at all. It wasn't until February of 2021 after Tesla bought Bitcoin that Bitcoin got on to the radar of mainstream media. But I think that over the past few months, the tone has evolved from skeptical or amused to respectful. And in fact, I almost noticed now that that mainstream journalists across the major papers and the major cable news networks are all much, much more aware of the entire crypto economy, much, much more aware of bitcoin in its value proposition and much less skeptical, much more interested in engage.
And I think the environment has moved from disinterested, through skeptical to now neutrally intrigued or even, I would say, intrigued, intrigued would be the right word in the media. Also seen a bunch of investors, credible investors that are well respected in the space, speaking much more freely about Bitcoin in the marketplace. And actually, becoming much more vocal and much more supportive in their words. And I think that, that's a big move forward over the past 12 months. Examples of that, we see our Carlos, Salinas, Piaggio becoming much more vocal, [Inaudible] becoming much more vocal.
Paul Tudor Jones becoming much more vocal. And Orlando Bravo becoming much more vocal. So, I think you'll continue to see this develop over the next 12 months. I think advances in the Lightning Network are pretty relevant, maybe one of the bigger developments in the past 12 months is lightening is maturing.
And Lightning is the open permissionless non-custodial Layer 2 network. In essence, if Bitcoin represents protocol for sound money, Lightning represents a protocol for transaction and money transfer that's open permissionless. And since it's -- it could, in theory, scale to hundreds of millions or billions of transactions an hour. This is, in essence, the Internet of money.
Two years ago, the Lightning network was really just developmental. In the past year, it's come to life. And so we're now entering into early part of the year two of the Internet for money coming to life. Major milestones there, block integrating, lightning into the Cash App was a major milestone.
The release of specifications for the Taro protocol on top of Lightning is a major milestone.What it means is that Lightning will in time not just move Satoshi's back and forth at the speed of light to billions of people, Lightning will also move other digital assets like stable coins, Tether or a circle or any other digital currency or any other digital token could or an NFC or another asset could move over the Lightning network at extraordinary high speeds, extremely scalable, while taking advantage of the security assurances of the Bitcoin network. So that's pretty compelling. Kraken also incorporated Lightning into their exchange, and that's a very compelling breakthrough.
So I think in time, all the competitive digital assets, exchanges and all the competitive applications of money transfer and the like are going to have to build Lightening as a protocol into their applications. And we've got a number of years of development there, but the significance of Lightning is it takes Bitcoin from being viewed just as an asset and as a low frequency, high volume -- a low-frequency, high-value settlement network and it takes it to the next level, which is becoming a high frequency, high volume, very, very functionally rich, scalable transaction network. And there will be, I think, an explosion of applications on top of the Bitcoin network that are empowered by Lightning. Another big development in Bitcoin this last quarter is the launch of Fidelity's 401k offering.
We're very enthusiastic about that. And of course, we're an early anchor partner with them on that launch. Bitcoin is better than gold. To call it digital gold is an understatement.
It really is the hardest money in the history of the world. But if you're thinking about generational wealth and if you wanted to leave something for your grandchildren or if you wanted a retirement fund, it's obviously a very, very compelling element of a 401k. We just saw just on television today, one of the world's great macro investors, Paul Tudor Jones said, in the current economic environment, I certainly wouldn't be owning stocks and bonds. I mean, people are very skeptical of owning equities and owning bonds in an environment where you have hyperinflation and macroeconomic wins.
So if I can't on stocks, and I can't own bonds, and what am I supposed to put in a 401k? And this is where Bitcoin comes. What have I wanted to hold some kind of commodity money that's better than a commodity because no one can make any more of it. And Bitcoin is that thing. So I do think that -- the world is evolving rapidly.
It's probably evolving faster than regulators and the mainstream media can keep up with it kind of like a shock wave. When you start moving through the civilization at a faster rate than people can educate themselves on the consequences, you'll see sparks, but the 401k launch was kind of the shot heard around the world here because what's going on here is people are going to have to stop and think about this and either this is the least risky thing you can put in a retirement portfolio or it's too risky to put in a retirement portfolio. And of course, as soon as you think about it and study it, you'll realize that it's the least risky thing you could put in a retirement portfolio. At least that's the opinion of people that have studied Bitcoin for a while.
So the 401k offering from Fidelity is a massive educational event. It's going to put this front and center on the table for financial advisors, retirement planners, the entire big finance industry and I think, ultimately, it's going to introduce Bitcoin to an entirely new class of investors and broaden fill the asset class. So, I'd like to move on to talk about our Bitcoin strategy. We're going to continue to pursue a strategy which offers our investors spot exposure with leverage to Bitcoin.
So if you want to buy a security and you would like that security to own Bitcoin. And then you would like to -- and you think it would be a reasonable idea to borrow money at 1.8% interest and buy that Bitcoin then MicroStrategy looks like a rational company to invest in. We're going to work to increase our Bitcoin holdings over time in an accretive fashion. So we're not trading Bitcoin, we're not selling Bitcoin we're holding Bitcoin.
And from time to time, when we can, we'll buy more Bitcoin. If we focus upon the strategy, then we believe that we can offer a security to the market and be an operating company that, in essence, is superior to the security that you would get if you were to buy a spot ETF. We won't be an ETF. We're an operating company, and we have the software business.
But for an investor that's thinking about buying an ETF that holds spot Bitcoin, they'll think about that. It will probably have no leverage, they'll probably pay a fee. And our goal will be to offer them the same Bitcoin holding, but without charging that fee and to use intelligent leverage from time to time when the opportunity presents itself. I was very, very pleased with the Bitcoin backed loan that we were able to acquire this quarter.
We'll obviously use that mechanism sparingly because generally, we're not going to want to develop a large set of obligations where we might have to post additional collateral on a price fluctuation of Bitcoin. So managing our balance sheet versus the risk in the volatility of Bitcoin is primary concern we're always thinking about. We will slow down our Bitcoin acquisitions when market conditions don't present us with any good opportunities. And when the market presents us with lots of good opportunities, we may speed up.
And you'll just have to tune in quarter-by-quarter to see what we do there. We have the option to do nothing. And if the market doesn't give us a good option or we have the option to do things. You can see at this point, we've now bought Bitcoin with senior secured debt.
We bought Bitcoin with a tender offer. We bought Bitcoin with cash flows from the core business. We bought Bitcoin with convertible debt. We bought Bitcoin with at-the-market equity issuance and we bought Bitcoin with an asset-backed financing.
And we pursued each of those initiatives at the time we did it because we thought that they would be accretive to our common stock shareholders and beneficial to our long-term strategy. My last point I'll make before we take questions are; we will continue to pursue a mission of education and advocacy on behalf of Bitcoin to the general market. As the largest public holder of bitcoin, it makes sense for us to educate regulators. It makes sense for us to educate other corporations, it makes sense for us to educate anyone in the media or any politicians that are interested and what this means to the world, and why it's good for the world, why it's good for the United States, why it's good for their corporation, their institution and then how they can benefit and plug Bitcoin into their P&L or plug it into their balance sheet.
If you don't follow me on Twitter, please do. I now just cross 2.4 million followers. And I try to share thoughts about the current environment on a pretty routine basis. I'm pleased to say that by the end of the day today or tomorrow, a podcast I did with Lex Friedman on YouTube will have crossed 2 million views.
So I sat down with Lex in my study at my home in Miami Beach, and we talked for four hours about digital transformation and the bitcoin imperative. And our strategy and, of course, macroeconomics and geopolitics. And it's not easy to put 2 million people into your living room. But 2 million people listening for four hours is a lot of education, and we'll continue to do more of it.
I feel that where there's an enormous thirst for knowledge about digital assets. There's enormous thirst for knowledge about the implications of Bitcoin to the world and the entire crypto economy. There's a lot of education to do. We're nowhere near done.
We're really just starting, but we have established a platform to do that and we will get more and more opportunities to communicate this message and educate the world. I'll continue with our efforts working with Bitcoin miners through the Bitcoin Mining Council and the entire Bitcoin community to address misperceptions about mining to explain the benefits of Bitcoin, the benefits of coin mining. We just had another quarterly release of Bitcoin mining information where we were able to show the world for the fourth quarter in a row, Bitcoin mining is running on more than 50% sustainable energy, in fact, 58%. 58% sustainable energy usage makes the Bitcoin mining industry, the cleanest, most sustainable industry in the world of all industries.
And that was a surprise to many people. It continues to be a surprise to many people, but it's a delightful surprise. Bitcoin mining in general, is 63% more efficient year over year. And a lot of people don't realize that the Bitcoin network is secured, not just by energy, but by technology and that technology is getting exponentially more efficient overtime.
So I'm really pleased that we're able to educate the world on the efficiencies of the Bitcoin network and the benefits of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining. I think that there is a lot more education to do. Our leadership role in acquimiamiring and holding bitcoin as a publicly traded company. It's afforded us a platform to do a lot of that education and we'll continue to do that in the coming year."
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A recent report by the European Union Commission, published last month, analyses the implications and avenues with which DeFi could be regulated.
According to Patrick Hansen, Head of Strategy at Unstoppable Finance and widely followed for his analysis of European crypto regulation, the report shows that the officials have a good grasp on DeFi and how it works, including individual protocols.
The report recognising the blunder of applying traditional financial laws to DeFi stated,
“Adapting the EU financial services regulatory framework to a decentralised environment will require a rethink; and regulatory cooperation with the main jurisdictions relevant to the DeFi ecosystem might prove indispensable. To benefit from the inherent data transparency on public blockchains, the Commission announced that it would launch a pilot project on embedded supervision in 2022.”
https://www.coinbureau.com/news/european-commission-looks-at-defi-regulation-in-latest-report/
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Decrypt, a crypto media firm previously owned by blockchain incubator ‘ConsenSys Mesh’, has raised $10 million at a $50 million valuation.
The new funding and separation from ConsenSys Mesh is a result of Decrypt’s goal to become a "truly independent news organisation”. The round saw participation from 22 organisations which include venture capital firms Canvas Ventures, Hack.vc, Hashkey Capital, IOSG Group Limited, SKH Group and XBTO Humla Ventures, as well as a group of angel investors, strategic partners and DAOs like Global Coin Research DAO and Honey DAO.
According to Decrypt CEO and co-founder Josh Quittner,
"It's an extremely tribal world of crypto (...) Being actually independent is very different than knowing we are 100% paid for by ConsenSys (Mesh)."
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Riot Blockchain (RIOT), one of the world's largest publicly traded bitcoin miners, announced that it sold 250 Bitcoin out of the 508 Bitcoin it mined last month, generating nearly $10 million in revenue.
The sale comes as a result of the company’s recent announcement of its ambitious expansion plan which includes two new facilities in Texas.
The miner had revealed plans to build a 1-gigawatt plant in Navarro County, Texas. The first part of the project is expected to cost $333 million and will be completed over the next two years, according to the company. Riot is also expanding its Whinstone facility in Rockdale, Texas, with a 400-megawatt infrastructure upgrade.
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Today, the Hawaii State Senate has unanimously approved the launch of a specialised task force to explore the use and regulation of the crypto ecosystem through bill SB2695. The bill was co-signed by Sens. Donovan Dela Cruz and Rosalyn “Roz” Baker.
Hawaii's bill seeks to determine how the state could regulate, oversee, and potentially use blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The task force is to study data from other states and develop "a plan to expand blockchain adoption in both the private and public sectors," among other things.
The task force will be comprised of government officials and members of the Web3 space, plus professors from the University of Hawaii that specialise in digital currency. The task force will be dissolved after reporting its findings before the 2024 legislative session commences.
https://decrypt.co/99372/hawaii-becomes-latest-state-to-approve-crypto-taskforce
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Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulator VARA has reportedly bought virtual land in ‘The Sandbox’ metaverse to set up a virtual office called the ‘MetaHQ’. This makes VARA the first national regulator to do so. This news comes in the backdrop of many crypto firms and organisations increasingly making moves to the country due to its friendly crypto regulations.
According to the statement issued by VARA, MetaHQ intends to provide digital users with virtual access to regulatory resources, something that will become vital as the metaverse and Web3 ecosystem develop.
Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum stated,
“By expanding VARA’s resources to a borderless audience through the Metaverse, Dubai is creating a prototype Decentralised Regulator Model, inviting international thought leaders – global authorities, governance custodians, and industry shapers – to participate, exchange knowledge, and problem-solve collectively so that we enable the dynamic virtual assets sector to build economic resilience, accelerate social inclusion, and address environmental sustainability,”
https://blockworks.co/dubais-crypto-regulator-buys-land-in-the-metaverse-for-headquarters/
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According to a blog post yesterday, Kraken has opened the waitlist for its upcoming custodial NFT marketplace.
Kraken’s marketplace seeks to democratise the experience of NFTs to a wider audience by allowing gas-free trades through its custodial model. Users of the platform can also view the rarity score of their NFTs directly on the platform and take out collateralised loans using the NFTs.
According to the blog post,
“This helps you build your dream collection with near-instant transfer speeds and the peace of mind that spikes in network activity will not impact the cost of your purchases and trades,”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/kraken-nft-marketplace-opens-waitlist-for-beta
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In a recent announcement, Asset management giant VanEck (with over $82 billion in assets under management) stated that it’s releasing a 1,000 NFT collection on Ethereum meant to showcase the real-world utility inherent in the NFT structure.
The NFTs are being designed in a partnership with NUMOMO, a Korean-based NFT agency. According to the press release, the project will trace the journey of a fictional character named Hammy, who is modelled after American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
The first release, dubbed “Episode One: Printing Press” can be viewed on VanEck’s signup page
https://www.coinbureau.com/news/investment-giant-vaneck-release-new-nft-collection/
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In a meeting between core developers of Ethereum last Friday, the team decided to refocus efforts on the upcoming merge operations and delay making a decision on when to deal with the ticking ‘Difficulty Bomb’ of Ethereum.
Tim Beiko, who leads the Ethereum Foundation's All Core Devs meetings, argued that the difficulty bomb should be re-evaluated at the next meeting on May 13 or possibly May 27, stressing that the existing Ethereum experience was not being degraded and wouldn't be for several weeks. He said that the best course of action was to keep testing and evaluate where things stand later.
Some critics state that this will however cause unnecessary stress on developers as time inches closer to the difficulty bomb.
https://decrypt.co/99247/ethereum-core-developers-hard-fork-focus-proof-stake-merge
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Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has been sued by Dfinity Foundation, a Switzerland-based non-profit behind the Internet Computer blockchain. According to the lawsuit, Dfinity’s legal team contended there was trademark infringement when Meta Platforms attempted to register the ‘infinity symbol’ for its logo.
According to Dfinity’s legal team, Meta had only filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in March 2022, whereas the same office granted Dfinity registration in October 2018. Dfinity further stated that the infinity symbol has been used on the company's website since March 2017.
According to Dfinity’s contentions in the lawsuit,
“Meta and Dfinity seek to attract the same users, namely those who are looking for an innovative and different internet experience, created by users, for users. Further, both Meta and Dfinity utilise the same marketing channels such that consumers will likely encounter the marks through those same channels [...] Despite knowledge of Dfinity’s mark, Meta chose to proceed with its application to obtain registration in some of the same or similar areas in which Dfinity has already obtained registration for its mark.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/dfinity-foundation-files-lawsuit-against-meta-over-infinity-logo
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Square Enix, the Japanese video game developer behind Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest has announced a deal with Embracer Group to sell nearly $300 million in IP and gaming studios to the latter.
The funds from the deal will be used to invest heavily in blockchain gaming and other ventures in Web3. The deal will see properties such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, and Thief, as well as game studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal being sold to the Swedish gaming firm Embracer.
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Banco Galicia, Argentina’s largest private bank, and Brubank, an Argentine digital bank, have both integrated and enabled the trading of crypto assets on their website.
The announcement comes after a recent survey by Banco Galicia revealed that nearly 60% of their customers wanted access to easy trading of digital assets via the banking platform. Both banks have been able to enable this feature due to a partnership with Argentine crypto wallet Lirium, which allows digital assets to be purchased through the same platform that clients use to buy bonds or stocks.
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According to an official press release, FIFA has officially partnered with Algorand. As per the release, Algorand will now be an official sponsor of the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 and a regional supporter in North America and Europe for ‘FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022’.
Algorand will also become FIFA's official blockchain platform and will offer the association its ‘official blockchain-enabled wallet solution’. FIFA will supply sponsorship assets like advertising, media exposure, and promotional possibilities, while Algorand will assist FIFA in establishing its digital assets strategy.
According to Silvio Micali, founder of Algorand,
“This partnership with FIFA, the most globally recognised and distinguished organisation in sports, will showcase the potential that the Algorand blockchain has to transform the way we all experience the world’s game.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/algorand-becomes-first-us-blockchain-sponsor-of-fifa-world-cup
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It’s no secret that traditional gamers have hated NFTs in gaming for a while now. Recently, a group called Climate Replay (which is made up of a large number of Minecraft developers) released an online guide and ‘pledge’ to increase awareness about the potential dangers of NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
However, a week since its release, the pledge has only seen signatures from 72 individuals and 5 companies thus far. The pledge and guide highlighted the environmental concerns of using blockchain technology and of the various security issues faced by such games citing the recent Ronin Bridge hack.
The Pledge reads,
“By ignoring key risk factors and glaring issues, adopters of NFTs and other forms of digital ownership that embrace these problematic aspects erode efforts to create an equitable and sustainable existence for all. NFTs in gaming do not bring any meaningful value to the players.”
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Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organisation which manages Wikipedia, has decided to halt the acceptance of crypto donations after a community vote on a poll revealed that 71.17% of respondents wanted to discontinue all cryptocurrency donations. The poll which had a total of 400 respondents, was the result of a three-month-long community discussion on the environmental implications of cryptocurrency mining.
The discussion revealed concerns about how accepting crypto could damage the foundation’s reputation and commitment to environmental sustainability in the long run. The Foundation has now shut down the BitPay account through which it was accepting crypto donations.
Bitcoin Miner Argo Takes Out $70 Million Loan For Texas Mining Operation
in Topics
Posted
Argo Blockchain has received more than $70 million in loans to expand its Bitcoin mining business in Dickens County, Texas.
Helios, the company's flagship crypto mining operation in Texas, is borrowing an aggregate principal amount of $70.6 million from New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG). This is the second 8-figure loan that Argo has taken out from NYDIG in the last month. The funds from the loan are expected to be utilised in “fitting out Phase 1 of the Helios site”.
CEO Peter Wall stated,
“With our mining operations at Helios expected to commence in May, along with the development of custom mining machines using Intel’s next-generation Blockscale ASIC chips, Argo is well-positioned to continue its growth with a focus on delivering for our shareholders,”
https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitcoin-miner-argo-takes-out-70-million-loan-for-texas-mining-operation/