Cryptocurrency & Mining News - Page 18

The publisher behind one of the biggest game franchises of all-time Grand Theft Auto has recognized the massive potential in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive has acknowledged the growing NFT space, and according to Take-Two Interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick, who to spoke to Nintendo Life, the company is "highly convinced there's an opportunity for NFTs to fit with Take-Two's offerings in the future". The publisher's CEO continued to explain that Take-Two believes in collectibles, but the current NFT space is plagued with "speculation" which is causing the publisher to "stay away" for now.

Take-Two Interactive has now joined other companies such as Ubisoft into slowly moving into the NFT space, with Ubisoft pioneering the move by being the first major gaming company to launch in-game NFTs, even despite the public disapproval from many gamers. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

A billion-year-old black rock that was expected to be purchased for millions was bought at an online auction on Wednesday.

The black rock is a 555.5-carat black diamond called "The Enigma," and it was recently sold at an online auction held by Sotheby's on Wednesday for $4,292,322. Sotheby's decided to keep the buyer anonymous, but disclosed that the purchase of the extremely expensive black diamond was made in cryptocurrency. After the auction, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Richard Heart claimed on Twitter that he was the individual who purchased the ancient black diamond, saying that it would be renamed to the "HEX.com diamond".

The Guinness World Records declared The Enigma the world's largest cut diamond, and it's even larger than the Golden Jubilee that's 545.67 carats. So, what makes it so expensive? The Enigma is a carbonate, the toughest type of diamond when it comes to hardness, and extremely rare as they are believed to have originated from space due to them containing a mineral called osbornite that is only found in meteors.

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange when it comes to trading volume has made a very large investment into media.

According to a report from CNBC, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has invested $200 million dollars into becoming one of the two biggest owners of Forbes. The strategic investment has gained Binance two new directors out of nine total board seats, and according to Forbes CEO Mike Ferdele, "With Binance's investment in Forbes, we now have the experience, network, and resources of the world's leading crypto exchange and one of the world's most successful blockchain innovators."

The move is just one of many cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance are making towards bringing more awareness to the cryptocurrency space. Crypto.com is a better example of spending large quantities of money on marketing to raise awareness as the crypto exchange has already spent millions on sports sponsorship's, acquisitions, and even re-branding the Staples center to the Crypto.com center.

According to a trademark attorney, the fast-food chain, McDonald's has added Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to its menu.

RT reports that trademark attorney and founder of Gerben Intellectual Property, Josh Gerben, has tweeted that McDonald's has filed to register ten trademarks within virtual reality, some of those trademarks are for operating a virtual restaurant that features home delivery, and "providing on-line actual and virtual concerts and other virtual events." Gerben also writes that the applications request approval to provide "downloadable multimedia files" that include artwork, audio, video as well as NFTs.

It seems that McDonald's is joining other companies and big brands such as Nike, Walmart, Adidas, and others in taking the steps to prepare for the explosion that will be the virtual world or metaverse. McDonald's, as well as Panera Bread, are moving towards trademarking their products for virtual use. It's possible that as the metaverse becomes adopted and more people are within the virtual space, we could see virtual avatars going to a virtual McDonald's restaurant and getting food as an in-game activity.

The World Wildlife Fund UK (WWF-UK) has back-pedaled its recent NFT project launch.

The WWF-UK launched an NFT collection dubbed "Tokens for Nature" last week in an effort to support conservation work, and following immediate controversy and backlash, the group has since decided to "bring [the NFT] trial to a close." The NFT project used the Polygon blockchain, based on Ethereum, but supposedly more environmentally friendly.

"We thank all of those who have generously supported our conservation work by purchasing NFTs. We have now agreed with our partners to bring this trial to a close this evening (Friday 4th February). We recognise that NFTs are a much debated issue and we all have lots to learn about this new market, which is why we will now fully assess the impact of this trial and reflect on how we can best continue to innovate to engage our supporters," the WWF-UK wrote in a statement.

AAA-game publishers and developers are looking towards the emerging NFT and cryptocurrency space as a place of expansion and it seems that Ubisoft has taken the big leap of faith.

Ubisoft has announced a new partnership with Ethereum-based metaverse game The Sandbox, and the partnership features Ubisoft having its own plot of virtual land within The Sandbox metaverse. The publisher is free to monetize its plot of land however it wants, and will be launching an interactive space for gamers to enjoy, while also allowing for users to play around with Rabbids in the VoxEdit and Game Maker tools.

Decrypt reports that Ubisoft isn't going to stop at Rabbids invading The Sandbox, as it plans on introducing many more characters from its numerous franchises into the up-and-coming metaverse. It's possible that gamers could see characters from the Assassin's Creed franchise, Far Cry, or Rainbox Six Siege, enter The Sandbox metaverse throughout 2022.

The great-grandson of the famous painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso has created a collection of NFTs inspired by his grandfather's work.

Florian Picasso, a DJ and music producer, and his mother Marina Picasso announced that they were producing an NFT collection that included 1,011 purchasable NFTs based on a never-before-seen ceramic bowl crafted by Picasso in 1958. This announcement from Florian and Marina sparked a family debate between Florian, Marina, and The Picasso Administration, which is in control of the branding of the Picasso name and its affiliations.

It was concluded that the NFTs wouldn't be deemed as official Pablo Picasso works and instead would be a created of Florian's, as they would be "his own creation, independent of any claim vis-a-vis Pablo Picasso and his works." The rebranding of the Picasso NFTs to Florian's didn't stop them from being sold as one NFT that included an original piece of Pablo Picasso's pottery sold for $41,500, with an additional 10 NFTs (that didn't include any pottery) sold for anywhere between $4,000 to $5,655.

Billions of dollars in stolen Bitcoin (BTC) have been seized by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a recent statement issued on Tuesday.

In 2016 the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex announced that it was hacked, and $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin had been stolen from its wallets. Now, authorities have announced that $3.6 billion has been seized by the DOJ, and a couple living in Manhattan has been arrested for an alleged conspiracy of laundering the stolen Bitcoin. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, "Today's arrests, and the department's largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals."

The DOJ states that it was able to seize the Bitcoin through court-approved searches into the individual's online accounts, which later revealed the couple's private keys to the wallets containing the stolen BTC. Law enforcement was able to claim 94,000 Bitcoin, worth about $60 million at the time of the hack and representing about one-sixth of the total trading volume in 2016.

FTX, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced an addition to its planned Super Bowl advertisement.

The cryptocurrency exchange took to Twitter to announce that it will be giving away free Bitcoin to four lucky winners who retweet the pinned post on the FTX Twitter account. FTX details that the four randomly selected winners will split a total number of Bitcoins when the ad airs at the Super Bowl in the Eastern Time (ET) zone. The exchange notes that it doesn't actually know how much Bitcoin it will be giving away as the price, at the time of writing this, is increasing quickly.

According to the official guidelines by FTX, "Each winner will receive Bitcoin deposited into their FTX account. The amount of Bitcoin to be deposited will be equal to the ET time (hour and minute) that Sponsor's February 13, 2022 television commercial begins to be aired on NBC." For example, FTX's Super Bowl advertisement is scheduled to play during the second, and if it plays at 9:15, it will give away 9.15 Bitcoins to the winners, where they split the total four ways.

India's finance minister has announced a plan to tax all income from cryptocurrency and NFT transactions as the cryptocurrency space grows exponentially throughout the nation.

According to India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman who made announced this past Tuesday that the country will be introducing a tax on all income from cryptocurrency and NFT. Sitharaman proposed that regulatory agencies will be introducing a flat 30% on all cryptocurrency income and a 1% tax deduction on all purchases of virtual assets.

The proposal from the nation's finance minister follows an exponentially growing cryptocurrency and NFT space, as Binance-owned WazirX announced last month that the yearly trading volume throughout its platform on 2021 has grown "1,735%" to $43 billion, compared to 2020. Additionally, India's central bank will be proposing a federally backed digital currency throughout the next financial year. India seems to be taking steps towards legalizing cryptocurrency as a whole.