Cryptocurrency & Mining News - Page 12

The number of Bitcoins mined has just passed another milestone on its way to the final one.

Only 21 million Bitcoins can ever be mined, a hard cap that the cryptocurrency was designed with. More than a decade after the first Bitcoin was mined, the milestone of 19 million Bitcoins mined has been reached, just over 90% of all those that will ever exist.

It is expected that the final Bitcoin won't be mined for over a hundred years, as the rate of new Bitcoins being mined becomes slower with time. When it is inevitably mined, miners will no longer be rewarded with Bitcoin. Despite 19 million coins having been mined, it's not clear there are that many in circulation, as analysis has found about 3.7 million Bitcoins that haven't been involved in any transactions for at least five years.

Sotheby's expects it will get anywhere between $330,000 and $551,000 for a receipt that transfers ownership of an imaginary art piece.

The 1959 receipt comes from French artist Yves Klein who conceived the idea of allowing lovers of art to own "zones of immaterial pictorial sensibility" or "zones de sensibilite picturale immaterielle", as translated in French. Sotheby's explains on its website that on April 28, 1958, "The Void" art exhibition was held at the Irs Clert Gallery in Paris, which had all of its contents removed for the opening. The French artist said that despite the gallery being empty, it was "saturated with 'pictorial sensibility in its pure state.'"

Sotheby's explained, "A few months later, the finalization of the receipts and the ritual accompanying the 'transfer' made it possible to inscribe this 'sensibility' in the field of visual arts for good, and for each collector to become the definitive owner of a 'zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility." Sotheby's compared the receipt concept and NFTs/blockchain technology, saying that Klein's receipt could be viewed as a precursor to the emergence of a new multi-billion-dollar market.

The emerging Web 3 space has been prone to hackers, with multiple cryptocurrency blockchains having millions of dollars stolen from them in just the first three months of 2022.

A new report from Atlas VPN reveals that hackers have stolen nearly $700 million in cryptocurrency assets from crypto blockchains such as the Binance Smart Chain, Solana blockchain, and Ethereum. More specifically, the stolen funds were accrued over 72 attacks within the first three months of the year. Furthermore, the Solana network had nearly $400 million stolen over four hacks, with Binance's network having $100 million stolen over 12 hacks.

"An attacker exploited a signature verification vulnerability in the network to mint 120K Wormhole-wrapped ether on Solana, worth about $334 million," Atlas VPN said.

The network the famous cryptocurrency game Axie Infinity is built on has been hacked for more than $600 million in one of the biggest cryptocurrency hacks ever.

The Ronin Network created by Axie Infinity publisher Sky Mavis has recently been infiltrated by hackers who managed to steal $625 million worth of Ethereum and USDC. According to Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin who took to stage at an NFT conference held in Los Angeles, "It is one of the bigger hacks in history" and that the team behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network "believe in a future of the internet that is open and owned by the users."

The Ronin Network elaborated on the hack in a newsletter posted to its Substack, where it explained that on March 23, 173,600 Ethereum and $25.5 million in USDC were stolen after the attacker used "hacked private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals". In response to the hack, the Ronin Network has announced that it's currently working with law enforcement officials as well as forensic cryptographers to recover the stolen funds.

Bitcoin's price has been on an overall downwards trajectory since it reached its all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2021.

Since BTC topped out at $69,000 in November, it has been on a slow decline in price, eventually bottoming out at $33,000 in late January, which was followed by a sharp climb to $45,000 in early February. From February onwards, Bitcoin has traded anywhere between $37,000 and $45,000, failing twice at breaking through the $45,000 resistance.

While BTC's price is seemingly moving sideways on the chart, it is gaining in overall price as there have been continuous higher lows that have now led to a sharp price increase. For six days in a row, Bitcoin has closed higher than the previous day and is now currently sitting at $47,000 at the time of writing this post. The uptick in price marks the first time Bitcoin has broken through the $45,000 mark since January.

A cryptocurrency island is being constructed in the south pacific off the coast of Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The island is being marketed as a paradise for cryptocurrency users. All payments will be made in cryptocurrencies, and citizenship, land ownership, and more come in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). Satoshi Island is located in Vanuatu, between Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and New Caledonia in the south pacific coast. It is a 32 million-square-foot island that aims to be "a real-world crypto economy and blockchain-based democracy," according to its website.

So far, more than 50,000 people have applied for citizenship and residency on the island, with citizenship to Satoshi Island costing $130,000. The website for the project explains that the idea has been in development for years and has recently been green-lit by the Vanuatu Ministry of Finance. Construction on the futuristic modular homes has already begun, and residents can expect to begin living there sometime in 2023.

Ukraine has launched the Meta History Museum of War, an official NFT collection by the country's Ministry of Digital Transformation.

The Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, took to Twitter to announce the "NFT-Museum," where users can purchase NFTs created to preserve moments from every day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine so far. The funds from sales of any NFTs from the collection will go directly toward supporting the country's army and civilians.

"A chronology of events of the Ukrainian history of modern times, set in stone. The NFTs are facts accompanied by personal reflections. The formula of each NFT is clear and simple: each token is a real news piece from an official source and an illustration from artists, both Ukrainian and international," the Meta History Museum of War website reads.

Exxon Mobil has partnered with Crusoe Energy Systems Inc. to create a new cryptocurrency mining project powered by excess natural gas.

A surplus of 18 million cubic feet of natural gas produced by Exxon Mobil per month is being used to power mobile Bitcoin mining servers. Exxon produces too much gas from shale oil to transport through its pipelines, so the company has sought to profit from the has that would otherwise be burned off without serving any purpose.

Cryptocurrency mining currently is relatively unfriendly to the environment, requiring significant amounts of power, mostly generated from fossil fuels, resulting in a large carbon footprint. This pilot project makes cryptocurrency mining slightly more environmentally friendly by not using excess fossil-fuel-derived power while natural gas continues to be wasted.

Pavel Zavalny, the chairman for the Congression energy committee has announced that the Kremlin is open to accepting cryptocurrency as payment for Russia's natural resources.

Zavalny announced at a press conference on Tuesday that Russia is open to accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for natural resources such as natural gas. The chairman explained that the payment method would depend on the buyers preference and will also depend on the current relations between Russia and that country. The recent comments from the chairman come after Russia's President Vladimir Putin requested all "unfriendly" countries trading Russian natural gas to pay for it rubles.

"When it comes to our 'friendly' countries, like China or Turkey, which don't pressure us, then we have been offering them for a while to switch payments to national currencies, like rubles and yuan. With Turkey, it can be lira and rubles. So there can be a variety of currencies, and that's a standard practice. If they want bitcoin, we will trade in bitcoin," said Zavalny.

The United States has formally declared that Russia has committed war crimes after a "careful review" of the events taking place in Ukraine.

The announcement has come from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said on Wednesday that since Russia has attacked apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shopping centers, and critical infrastructure, it has left thousands of innocent civilians dead. With the death of so many civilians, Blinken said Russia has committed war crimes and that the U.S. is "committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions."

According to the United Nations (UN), there have been 977 confirmed civilian deaths which include 81 children and another 1,594 injured individuals. However, the U.N. states that the actual figures are likely "considerably higher". The comments from Blinken come after President Joe Biden called Putin a "war criminal", which sparked a heated response from the Kremlin that revealed that relations between the U.S. and Russia are now "on the verge of rupture".