crypto
Kazakh government resigns, shuts down internet amid protests, causing Bitcoin network hash rate to tumble 13.4%
On Wednesday, Kazakhstan, the second-largest country in the world when it comes to Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash rate, experienced unprecedented political unrest due to a sharp rise in fuel prices. As a result, the country’s presiding cabinet resigned, but not before the state-owned Kazakhtelecom shut down the nation’s internet, causing network activity to plunge to 2% of daily heights. The move dealt a severe blow to Bitcoin mining activity in the country. As per data compiled by YCharts.com, the Bitcoin network’s overall hash rate declined 13.4% in the hours after the shutdown from about 205,000 petahash per second (PH/s) to 177,330 PH/s. The country accounts for 18% of the Bitcoin network’s hash activity. Just days prior, the Kazakh government removed price cap...
Kevin O’Leary-backed WonderFi to buy Bitbuy parent company for $162M
Kevin O’Leary-backed decentralized finance (DeFi) platform WonderFi Technologies is increasing its footprint in Canada by buying the first regulated crypto exchange in the country. WonderFi agreed to pay close to $162 million (206 million Canadian dollars) to acquire First Ledger Corp., the parent company of Bitbuy. WonderFi aims to become an end-to-end consumer platform for crypto and DeFi, according to the official announcement. Founded in 2016, Bitbuy became a fully regulated crypto exchange in Canada after being licensed by the Ontario Securities Commission last November. The platform has over 375,000 users who have transacted more than $3.4 billion. The announcement states that Bitbuy had generated over $24 million in revenue in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2021. The tran...
Rave On: World’s First Decentralized EDM Festival Planned for 2022
2021 saw the electronic dance music landscape erupt into a technological inferno, as artists and event organizers tore hell for leather into the NFT gold rush. And as more industry pros adopt blockchain technology, the fabric of the scene is changing at a torrid pace. Now, a new event has big ambitions to host what organizers are calling the world’s first community-driven, decentralized music festival. The fest, Project Rave, was recently announced by RaversUniverse, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). DAOs are entities that allow platforms to operate as member-owned communities, which are devoid of a consolidated leadership structure. A decentralized future of the creator economy has been embraced by many reputable electronic music artists an execs, such as deadmau5,...
Evedo seeks to bring event planning to the blockchain
Evedo, a platform consisting of business-to-business, or B2B, & business to consumer, or B2C, marketplaces, seeks to provide blockchain solutions for businesses and participants involved in organizing events. In an exclusive ask-me-anything, or AMA, session with Cointelegraph Markets Pro, Stoyan Angelov, founder & CEO of Evedo & Fragmint, discussed the business dynamics and tokenomics of Evedo. Evedo tokenomics | Source: Evedo Technical Deck CT Markets Pro User: How does Evedo use blockchain technology for the events sector? Will the ecosystem be available for everyone or just artists and big events organizers? Stoyan Angelov: The EVED token is a utility token used to generate smart contracts between ticket buyers and sellers. Even now, we have 1,000+ clients that ar...
Cardano became the most developed crypto project on GitHub in 2021 — Santiment
According to data compiled by CryptoRank and Santiment, Cardano was the most developed crypto project on GitHub in 2021, with over 140,000 events. Rounding out the top three were Kusama and Polkadot at second and third places, respectively, with roughly the same number of events over the year. Cardano beat Ethereum’s development activity by a wide margin, with the latter coming in fourth place. Santiment defines a GitHub event as either creating an issue, creating a pull request, commenting on an issue or pull request, or forking/starring/watching a code repository, among others. The Most Developed Cryptos on @Github in 2021 According to @Santimentfeed, @Cardano, has become the most developed project in the industry, followed by @Kusamanetwork, and @Polkadot. https://t.co/gjKPm...
Centralized systems are here to stay, says Binance CEO CZ
In a tongue-in-cheek hot seat video to round off 2021, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, or “CZ,” responded to a series of curated Tweets from the Binance community. The Chinese-Canadian business executive’s standout message was that centralized exchanges such as Binance would remain relevant in 2022 and beyond. Riposting to a loaded tweet about centralized finance’s dark side as well as the future of decentralized finance, CZ said, “Today, we still need the centralized systems to integrate with the traditional financial industry so that we can bring the money into and out of crypto.” He caveated the sentiment with reference to the cryptocurrency market as still being a nascent industry, prone to “hackers, Ponzi schemes and scammers.” Keen readers will remember one of 2021’s legendary rug pulls,...
2021 in Review: 10 Biggest Stories You Clicked On
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$2.5T crypto market will not wait for nations to onboard: WazirX CEO
Indian entrepreneur and the CEO of crypto exchange WazirX Nischal Shetty envisions a race between countries to launch their local versions of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in the coming year. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Shetty said that the year 2022 would be an extension of the ongoing discussions around crypto regulations, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the emergence of the metaverse: “We’re optimistic that we’ll get regulatory clarity, see institutional participation fuel retail adoption. We also expect to see more metaverse projects making an entrance.” Shetty pointed out that the crypto industry today — directly or indirectly — employs about 50,000 people in India, which according to NASSCOM research, is expected to grow 2X faster with the potential to create over 800,...
Speed, scaling, regulation to play key role for crypto in 2022: FTX CEO
FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as “SBF,” rounded off 2021 on an optimistic note. SBF waxed lyrical about the crypto market’s state in 2021 while revealing the roadmap for FTX in 2022 in a Twitter flood. In his view, there are three keystones to industry progress in 2022: regulation, scaling and transaction speeds. He proposes solutions to each puzzle piece, referencing his exchange’s involvement. On regulation, SBF states stablecoins could be better reported and audited. In line with FTX stablecoin policies, he said more transparency would solve “80% of the problems while allowing stablecoins to thrive onshore.” Meanwhile, better markets oversight and an anti-fraud-based regime for token issuances could address other regulatory gaps. Secondly, while crypto users number s...
Binance gets green light from Canada and Bahrain
Binance is celebrating the new year with approvals from two different sides of the world. The crypto exchange has been granted an in-principle license by the Central Bank of Bahrain to operate as a crypto asset service provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain. According to the announcement, the in-principle approval a first for a Binance entity in the Middle East and North Africa region. In a statement, Binance CEO CZ said that approval from national regulators is “essential to build trust in crypto and blockchain and help further improve mass adoption.” When it comes to licensing, it is “a matter of formalities,'” according to Abdulkarim Haji, director for licensing at the country’s central bank. He highlighted Bahrain as the ideal location for Binance to establish...
Industry experts reveal a possible method for Bank of Russia to block crypto
Amid the ongoing uncertainty about the future of cryptocurrencies in Russia, one local industry executive has disclosed a potential method for the Bank of Russia to block crypto transactions. Andrey Mikhaylishin, CEO of the local crypto payment startup Joys, said that the Russian central bank is now considering several potential options to make its crypto ban possible, Forbes Russia reported Friday. One of the possible restriction methods includes blocking debit card payments to crypto exchanges or wallets using merchant category codes (MCC), Mikhaylishin said. The report notes that the executive became aware of this blocking method from Bank of Russia employees. MCC codes are four-digit numbers used by credit card processors such as Visa or Mastercard to describe a merchant’s primary...
Here’s how Polygon is challenging the limitations of Ethereum, as told by co-founder Sandeep Nailwal
Polygon (MATIC), a layer-two network designed for scaling and application infrastructure development on Ethereum (ETH), has been making the rounds among blockchain enthusiasts as of late. From its $1 billion investment into zero-knowledge technology to co-launching a $200 million Web 3.0 social media initiative up to integrating with Opera’s web browser to make its decentralized apps accessible to 80 million Android mobile users, the network’s momentum is going strong. But partnerships and business aside, the technological capacities of the network, especially when compared to Ethereum, are also attracting the attention of many blockchain developers. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal talked about the extent of the n...
