Cryptocurrency & Mining - Page 21

A new survey has been published that explores how much cryptocurrency has been adopted throughout the United States.

The survey comes from NYDIG, which is a technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin. NYDIG has conducted a survey, and according to its results, more than 46 million Americans have purchased Bitcoin. The average quantity across all US Bitcoin holders was not found, but the survey does state that "more than 22% of adults over the age of 18" are holding Bitcoin.

The survey also explored other aspects of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, such as "As a Bitcoin holder, would you move your Bitcoin to your bank if they had secure Bitcoin storage?" Results were 80% of survey participants sayings "Yes", and 19% saying "No". To read some more news on Bitcoin, check out this link here. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out the survey for yourself here.

SpaceX will be transporting an Ethereum (ETH) node to the International Space Station (ISS) this week, marking the first time an ETH node has entered space.

SpaceX has been contracted by the company SpaceChain and will be using its Falcon 9 rocket to get to the ISS. According to SpaceChain, the launch of the ETH node with the be company's fourth blockchain payload to enter space and will be the "demonstration of the integration of Ethereum technology into its hardware on the ISS".

The ETH node will be installed into the ISS, and according to SpaceChain, the security of the installations will be essential to keep the ETH node network secure. Nexus Inc, a client of SpaceChain, will be providing the ISS installation solution for the ETH node. The ETH node launch is scheduled for June 3, 2021.

Just yesterday, Elon Musk replied to a tweet that suggested that a hot tub should be created that gets its heat by mining Dogecoin.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk replied to this tweet saying that it was a "great idea", and now a video has surfaced online of a man that has actually done it, but with a Bitcoin miner. The video was published on Twitter by Jesse Peltan, and it shows a Bitcoin miner submerged in water, seemingly heating his hot tub up for a nice dip.

Peltan has even managed to hook up Alexa to the hot tub dubbed SPA-256 HotTub, so its jets can be activated via voice command. Peltan goes on to say that the pump for the jets is on a Wi-Fi-controlled switch, which is why Alexa can be connected to it. Elon Musk was tagged in the post by Documenting Bitcoin, and he applauded the work done by Peltan by saying, "Nice".

The West Midlands Police Department thought they were busting an illegal weed operation, but instead found themselves discovering a bitcoin mining farm instead.

The operation was part of around 50 or so warrants for cannabis-related operations, but the authorities discovered a bitcoin mining farm. The regular themes between the two were discovered: heat and electricity consumption were sky high, if you'll pardon the pun.

The West Midlands Police Department explained: "We executed a drugs warrant on the 18 May at a premises on a #Sandwell industrial unit - and uncovered a cryptocurrency 'mine' that was stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the mains supply".

Apple is rumoured to be considering accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. How would that Apple accepting cryptocurrency influence the market value?

The rumor originates from Apple posting a job listing for "Business Development Manager - Alternative Payments", which is a job position that Apple says candidates need to be adept in handling cryptocurrency. Additionally, Apple says the candidate that is successful would be joining the Apple Pay and the iPhone Wallet app development team.

Qualifications for the role included; "5+ years experience working in or with alternative payment providers, such as digital wallets, BNPL, Fast Payments, cryptocurrency and etc." And, "We are looking for a candidate who is comfortable with ambiguity, enjoys thinking about edge cases and asking 'what is an alternative way of doing this'."

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said that it is looking forward to cooperating with lawmakers to add regulation and protection to cryptocurrency investors.

According to Gary Gensler, the US top financial regulator chairman at the SEC, regulators are attempting to provide protection for cryptocurrency investors because the exchanges where these tokens (cryptocurrencies) are sold can cause significant harm to investors through fraud and manipulation. " Many of these tokens are investment contracts under the securities law. Over the years, the SEC has brought 75 cases in this area," Gensler stated.

Additionally, the Hester Peirce, a Commissioner at the SEC made the urgent call back in February to introduce a form of regulation to the cryptocurrency market amid its growing popularity. Gensler also said that the SEC plans on gathering comments from crypto custody arrangements by broker-dealers. "There are many challenges and gaps for investor protection in these markets. Tokens currently on the market that are securities may be offered, sold, and traded in non-compliance with the federal securities laws." said Gensler.

The founder of TechCrunch will be auctioning off his apartment in Kiev, Ukraine, on a real estate platform as a non-fungible token (NFT).

Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch will be offering us his modern, brand new, one-bedroom apartment as a purchasable NFT on June 8. The NFT will be sold on the Propy real-estate platform, and will mark the first time in history an apartment has been sold as an NFT. Propy has already carved itself into NFT with the first-ever blockchain-based real estate sale back in 2017.

As for the apartment auction, it will run for 24-hours, and the listing price begins at $20,000. With the purchase of the apartment is an NFT of the art piece that is one the wall, and a printed cyberpunk picture that comes with licensed rights. Once the cryptocurrency payment has gone through to Propy, the auction winner will receive legal papers already signed by Arrington and that have been drawn up by Propy's lawyers for the transfer of the physical ownership of the apartment as well as the NFT.

A new report has raised a question about Elon Musk's involvement in leading the green Bitcoin debate with the announcement of the Bitcoin Mining Council.

In a recent report from Bloomberg, Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, a venture capital firm exclusively focused on public blockchains, said that he doesn't think Elon Musk is the right person to lead the "clean Bitcoin" debate. Adding, "possibly not as far as the Bitcoin community is concerned." Carter also said that, "Bitcoiners are still intensely skeptical of Musk, and they view him as conflicted, given that his business partially involves the sale of offsets."

While Carter was critical of Musk, he did stress that any effort towards lowering the energy cost for mining Bitcoin, and Bitcoin miners being more transparent about the cost of energy is a step in the right direction, regardless of who is making the effort. Another point that Carter made was that Bitcoin miners located in North America are cleaner than most other industrial consumers of electricity, and due to that metric, he feels that Bitcoin miners will be pleased when they are asked about being more transparent about their energy consumption.

We can expect PayPal to announce its own stablecoin soon, with a tease of PayPalCoin sparking at the CoinDesk Consensus 2021 conference.

PayPal's Vice President, General Manager Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies, Joe Fernandez da Ponte responded to rumors of PayPal launching its own stablecoin, where he said: "This is way too early". I guess we're still a few months away from PayPalCoin and its official announcement.

What the company did make clear is that users will be able to transfer cryptocurrency out of their PayPal crypto wallet, and over into third-party wallets in the near future. There was no timeframe provided, but PayPal made it clear that the feature is coming.

PayPal has plans to let users withdraw their cryptocurrency from their PayPal wallet, and send it to third-party wallets coming very soon.

The global payment giant announced the news of letting people move their crypto to another wallet from their PayPal account at CoinDesk's Consensus 2021 conference. PayPal's Vice President, General Manager Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies, Joe Fernandez da Ponte said: "We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice".

There's not much else on this right now, with no ETA of when PayPal will make the move and let people move their crypto around. We should expect more on this as PayPal starts flipping those crypto switches, with rumors of their own "PayPalCoin" now circulating with the company saying "this is way too early"... yeah but you didn't say no, PayPal... so expect a PayPalCoin announcement sometime this year I'm sure.

One of Mark Cuban's websites has revealed that he has backed Polygon, a cryptocurrency that aims to transform Ethereum into a multi-chain ecosystem with secured Layer 2 chains.

Cuban has confirmed the news to Coindesk in an email where he said that he found himself using Polygon more and more, "I was a Polygon user and found myself using it more and more". Cuban also mentioned that he will be integrating Polygon into Lazy.com, which is one of Cuban's companies that allows users to show off their non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

However, Cuban did say, "Having more TPS and lower gas fees is not enough. There must be a CURRENT network effect and significant user growth. This is a challenge for most L1s and L2s because [with] few exceptions, marketing in the crypto universe is beyond awful." Polygon recently saw its user-base grow exponentially as investors are avoiding the painfully high gas fees that come with trading on the main Ethereum network.

The world of cryptocurrencies has been very turbulent following the news news of Tesla no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment, and China announcing its own crackdown on Bitcoin.

The price of Bitcoin dived by more than 40% following the announcements from both Elon Musk and China, and now expert investors are warning people shouldn't be investing into cryptocurrency purely based off Elon Musk's tweets. William Quigley, Managing Director of Magnetic, a cryptocurrency investing firm, said in a recent interview on CNN Business said, "Do not pay attention to Elon Musk's comments about anything in crypto at least over the longer term."

Quigley went on to say, "Tesla until very recently was going to accept bitcoin as a payment. That alone told me he didn't really understand how to think about bitcoin" and "please don't pay attention to what Elon Musk says about crypto because he is simply not an expert". Many people have taken to Twitter to express their anger with Musk, some even going as far to say that they hate him. In response to these angry comments, Musk has said that "the true battle is between fiat & crypto. On balance, I support the latter."

A man who spent more than 100,000 Bitcoin on just pizza over the summer, which is now worth $3.8 billion today, says he doesn't regret his decision.

Back in 2010, California student Jeremy Sturdivant, 19, saw a post on a cryptocurrency forum that was asking for two large pizzas in exchange for 10,000 Bitcoin. Little did Sturdivant know that this transaction between himself and Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz, 28, would later become a pivotal moment in Bitcoin's life history as it was the first physical purchase made with Bitcoin in the history of the currency.

Now, the coins that Sturdivant received for delivering the pizza is worth more than $365 million. Sturdivant also didn't save any of the coins for the future, he spent them all on traveling. However, Sturdivant doesn't say he regrets his decision at all and instead says that he is "proud to have played a part" in the "global phenomenon."

A new message on the GameStop website has revealed the company is planning on launching its own NFT platform and cryptocurrency token.

According to the announcement GameStop is currently looking to hire developers, marketers, gamers, designers and other specialists to work on the project which will eventually be brought to market for consumers to enjoy. Additionally, GameStop representatives have posted a link to a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain called "Game On Anon".

The smart contract reveals a GameStop token being issued, and this token would be directly linked to the price of GameStop's stock GME. Since this announcement, the price of GME stock has risen 18%, and the volume of trading has increased drastically. The project is an ambitious one, but since GameStop is in a losing battle to digital media, they are in dire need to flex into a different market. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Bitcoin (BTC) has really taken a hit since Elon Musk announced that Tesla would no longer be accepting BTC as payment for its electric vehicles, as well as China announcing its crackdown.

Now, Musk has taken to his Twitter account to reply to a comment that asked him what he thinks about the people who are mad at him because of what happened with the cryptocurrency market. Musk replied to the comment by saying, "The true battle is between fiat & crypto". For those that don't know, fiat is government-issued currency such as the US dollar or the EURO.

Musk is suggesting with the reply to this comment that the true battle isn't between him and the people who are investing in cryptocurrencies, but instead, the battle is between government-backed currencies and cryptocurrencies. Additionally, Musk also said that he supports cryptocurrencies over fiat, stating, "On balance, I support the latter."

Chia is in the headlines for all the right and wrong reasons right now, with the storage-focused cryptocurrency created by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen burning through HDDs and SSDs like there's no tomorrow.

If you've heard about Chia cryptocurrency mining and want to get into it... you might want to think twice, especially if you use an SSD as you could kill it in as soon as 40 days, or 6 weeks.

Chia crypto mining requires your SSD or HDD in order to mine, versus needing a high-end graphics card to pump out that ETH mining power. Because of the constant work on your SSD, mining Chia coin isn't the brightest thing to do if you want your storage to last a long time as the constant writing to them is killing them faster than anything you can throw at it.

Elon Musk is on fire on Twitter this morning, first off blasting a tweet about Dogecoin and that developers who want to help with Doge can submit ideas to GitHub and the /r/dogecoin subreddit.

The second tweet was that the SpaceX and Tesla boss had spoken with US-based Bitcoin miners, and said that they committed to publishing their current and planned renewable usage for Bitcoin mining operations in the US. Musk along with US-based Bitcoin mining operations are now pushing worldwide Bitcoin miners for the same.

Musk added that this would be "potentially promising". Given the fact that Ethereum will soon be 7000x more efficient than Bitcoin, much of it related to energy costs. Bitcoin also saw a nice bump in its price, rising from $38,000 or so through to $39,800 or so with Musk's tweets while it dropped down to $38,400 at the time of writing.

Elon Musk has tweeted out a new piece on Dogecoin, with the SpaceX and Tesla boss saying that if you'd like to help out in developing Doge to submit your ideas to GitHub and on Reddit on /r/dogecoin.

The price of Dogecoin instantly skyrocketed close to 20% at the time of writing, from around $0.33 to $0.37 in minutes. I'm sure that /r/dogecoin will be blowing up in the next few hours, as it has been for the last few months with this skyrocketing towards the moon (and huge dip, but Dogecoin was at $0.05 just months ago and is still at $0.37 now post-plunge).

Elon Musk recently said he held a "large amount" of Dogecoin, and that he "won't sell" that Dogecoin anytime soon. Dogecoin holders will be joyous at the news of Elon asking for help with Doge development, and the highlighting of the Dogecoin subreddit and GitHub.

A blockchain and analytics firm has published a new study that reveals Iran is using Bitcoin (BTC) mining to bypass economic sanctions imposed by the US.

The United States has implemented a close to total economic embargo on Iran, as well as banning all imports from the country. To get around these sanctions, Iran has seemingly decided to turn towards Bitcoin mining as a way of converting the country's energy potential into a commodity it can then sell for profit.

According to estimates from Elliptic, a blockchain, and analytics firm, Iranian BTC miners sell their BTC to Iran's central banks. Miners are paid in BTC, which can then be used to purchase other things such as imported goods. Iran is using this process as a way to get around official sanctions and essentially sell the country's energy potential, but is it legal?

An announcement from a Domino's Pizza franchise located in the Netherlands has revealed that employees of the fast-food chain will have the choice of being paid in Bitcoin (BTC) or normal currency.

The announcement comes from Immensus Holding, which is the franchise behind sixteen Domino's Pizza stores. According to the announcement, employees will now be able to choose between being paid in normal currency (euros) or BTC. Dutch law states that employees' minimum wage must be paid in fiat currency (euros), but if an employee earns more than the minimum wage, they can now choose to be paid the excess of their earnings in BTC.

Immensus co-owner Jonathan Gurevich said, "We are a modern company, and we work with a lot of young employees. We hear them talking about Bitcoin and we want to offer the opportunity to own cryptocurrency." Additionally, BTC Direct's Jerrymie Marcus said, "A monthly Bitcoin salary can be compared to dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin. So all the benefits are the same, you don't have to time the market, and in the long run you cancel out short and mid term volatility. This actually benefits the employee, they save value automatically in an ever-increasing asset."