Cryptocurrency & Mining - Page 5

Following Meta's announcement of a new virtual clothing store, Mark Zuckerberg has sat down for an interview to discuss the metaverse.

Meta announced this week that it would be releasing the Meta Avatar Store on Facebook, where users can purchase outfits for their avatar. Meta has partnered with big-name brands such as Prada, Balenciaga, and Thom Browne. The prices for the clothing are yet to be revealed, but the store will eventually become a marketplace where developers will be able to create their own clothing lines/brands and sell them.

Zuckerberg believes that digital goods will be an "important way to express yourself in the metaverse", and people are going to want different ways to express themselves in the metaverse. Zuckerberg explained in the recent CNBC interview with Jim Cramer, that people will want to express themselves with digital content and goods for their virtual home or conference room.

The cryptocurrency market has taken a turn for the worst throughout June, and reports indicate the price of Bitcoin has fallen below its cost of production.

In the first week of June, the price of the world's most valuable cryptocurrency fell 30%, taking the already trickling-down price from approximately $30,000 to $20,000 - with some days it dipping as low as $17,800. As many seasoned traders or hodlers would have expected, there were many buy orders in place for the $20,000 support, giving way to three days of green buy candles that have formed (what seems to be) a mini-support.

The bloodbath of red candles may not be over, and with the new on-chain analytics being talked about by data analytics company MacroMicro, there may still be some bleeding to come in the future. According to MacroMicro, who has found the average cost of mining Bitcoin with data provided by Cambridge University, the average cost to mine a Bitcoin is about $24,000, and the price of Bitcoin is currently at $20,000.

If you are involved in the cryptocurrency market and haven't looked at your portfolio in quite some time, now might be the time, as prices are reaching catastrophic lows.

The price of Bitcoin has been bleeding since it reached its all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2021, and since then, it has been on a slow decline. From January to April 2022, Bitcoin's price fluctuated between $45,000 and $35,000, and what seemed to be a reasonable price range. Then May rolled around, and the selling began, driving the price from an approximate $35,000 to $26,000 by the beginning of June.

Now June has arrived, and the blood simply hasn't stopped but has continued to gush out faster as more sell-offs occurred, causing the world's most valuable cryptocurrency to plummet a further 30% to its current level of approximately $20,000. Notably, Bitcoin's price broke the $20,000 mark, which is the lowest support the market has seen since December 2020.

The cryptocurrency market is currently a bloodbath, with a sea of red candles splattering the charts as the price of Bitcoin continues to tumble.

In the first week of June to the 20th of June, the price of Bitcoin has plunged 30%, taking the already declining price from approximately $30,000 to its current price of $20,000. The sharp decline resulted in the total global market cap for all cryptocurrencies to dip below $850,000 billion, with coins such as Ethereum being half its value than it was a month ago. The world's second largest cryptocurrency is currently trading at around $1,000, marking the first time it's traded at that price point since January 2021.

The bloodbath may not be over, as billionaire investor "Bond King" Jeffrey Gundlach, the CEO of asset management firm DoubleLine Capital recently stated that he believes Bitcoin's price could tumble further. Gundlach said he wouldn't be "surprised at all" if Bitcoin's price dropped a further 50% from its current price, putting the once valued at $60,000-cryptocurrency at $10,000.

Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to publicly say that he is still a big supporter of the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

The tweets from Musk come just after reports surfaced that revealed an individual has filed a lawsuit against Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX that claim all three were involved in a racketeering scheme that manipulated the price of Dogecoin. The lawsuit claimed that Musk "falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all," and went on claim that Dogecoin has no inherent use and is a form of gambling.

Musk took to his personal Twitter account to write that he still supports Dogecoin, which was met with a reply from Altcoin Gordon, who wrote, "Keep buying it then." Musk quickly responded with, "I am", indicating that the billionaire is picking up some Dogecoin at the approximate current value ($0.058c).

The cryptocurrency market has been in a slow decline since Bitcoin's price reached its all-time high in November, 2021, but now things have started to heat up - in a bad way.

The price of Bitcoin was in an overall steady decline for many months, from January to April, 2022 the Bitcoin's price bounced between $45,000 and $35,000. In May the world's most popular cryptocurrency experienced a mass sell off, driving the price from approximately $35,000 at the beginning of May to $26,000 by the beginning of June.

Now, June as been a bloodbath of red sell candles as the price plummeted a further 30%, to what seemed to be a support level at $20,000. Looking at some of the hourly trading metrics you can see swaths of Bitcoin being purchased at $20,000, but not enough to outpace the selling that was occurring. As of writing the price has since broken the lowest support the market has seen since December 2020, and is fluctuating at around $19,000.

A bill to ban fossil-fuel-powered cryptocurrency mining has passed the Senate in New York state.

Assembly Bill A7389C passed in the Assembly in late April, but days before the cutoff for any new legislature on June 2nd, it had failed to be assigned a date to be examined further before it could be voted in the state Senate, and go on to become law. However, an influx of phone calls supporting the bill ensured it reached the Senate and subsequently passed on June 3rd.

Russian-born Anna Sorokin is a convicted scammer that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, friends, and businesses while posing as a German heiress known as Anna Delvey.

The name "Anna Delvey" made headlines around the world when she was convicted of her crimes and then was shot into stardom when Netflix made a dedicated mini-series called "Inventing Anna" on the events of her life and her exploits. The show was one of Netflix's best series' and has caused Sorokin to develop a fan base that sends mail to her, with some fans even proposing to her.

Now Sorokin is in an ICE detention center as she appeals to being deported for violating her VISA agreement. NBC sat down with Sorokin for an exclusive interview where she expressed that she is reinventing herself and wants to move away from this "scammer persona", which she believes "has been pushed upon me by the prosecution and by the following media and by the Netflix show, but I'm trying to move away from that definitely."

Elon Musk along with his two companies SpaceX and Tesla have been hit with a lawsuit that totals a staggering $258 billion.

The lawsuit has been filed by Keith Johnson, who claims that Musk, SpaceX and Tesla were involved in a racketeering scheme that manipulated the price of the Dogecoin, and promote the coin as a legitimate investment. "Defendants falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all," the lawsuit reads. Notably, Johnson is going for class-action status on the suit and has intended to represent other investors who also believe that they have been illegally impacted by Musk.

Musk has been very public about his support of Dogecoin, which was originally created in 2013 as a "meme coin". Musk's support of the cryptocurrency brought major attention to the project, and between 2020 and 2021, its price pumped after Musk posted about it on Twitter. The attention brought to Dogecoin has secured it the 11th place on the charts for the highest market cap cryptocurrency, and when the project was at its highest value, it sported a $88 billion market cap.

Bill Gates spoke at the TechCrunch climate conference on June 14th, 2022.

Gates has previously been vocal about his misgivings about cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), questioning their viability and opposing the massive carbon footprint associated with mining them and processing their transactions on the blockchain.

Gates joked during an interview at the conference that "obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely, we all know that, and that's so incredible," referencing the notorious Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs.

Coinbase is slicing and dicing 18% of its global workforce as its stock price, and the ground falling out from the price of Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency exchange staffs around 5000 people, meaning that Coinbase culling 18% of its workforce will result in around 1100 people losing their jobs in an already messy economic situation worldwide. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said: "We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period".

"While it's hard to predict the economy or the markets, we always plan for the worst so we can operate the business through any environment. Our employee costs are too high to effectively manage this uncertain market. While we tried our best to get this just right, in this case it is now clear to me that we over-hired".

I'm sure the day of June 13, 2022, will be a day that crypto investors, experts, traders, and everyone in between will mark as a day of reckoning for not just Bitcoin, but most cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin has tumbled down from its $29,000 support down to $23,000 to start the week -- dropping to $21,000 today -- meaning Bitcoin has dropped to its lowest level since December 2020. With BTC down to $23,000 it means that a huge $200 billion in market cap was wiped away, with Bitcoin sitting at $22,000 at the time of writing. There's now a "crypto winter"

It was only in November 2021 that Bitcoin breached a new all-time high price of over $68,000 but those days are over (for now) with Bitcoin dropping from its $29,000 support down into $21-$22,000 we're looking at a bigger plunge down 80% from its ATH to $14,000 or so. The headlines and panic will only get worse if that happens, more so than the end of days headlines, there are now.

A year ago, El Salvador became the first country in the world to officially adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. The country then invested multiple millions of dollars into the cryptocurrency, and that investment isn't looking like it has paid off (yet).

The price of Bitcoin is currently in freefall, dropping more than 20% in value over a 24-hour period. El Salvador, one of the leading countries with cryptocurrency adoption, purchased 420 Bitcoins for more than $60,300 each, which was then backed up by another mass purchase on May 9 when the country's president Nayib Bukele announced an additional 500 Bitcoin was purchased for average price of $30,744.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is teetering between the $20,000 and $22,000 range, meaning that El Salvador's hefty investment has reduced by close to half of its total purchasing value. Mashable points out that the country holds 2,301 Bitcoin that is currently valued at approximately $53 million, which is about half of the $105.6 million the country initially invested.

A study on bitcoin titled "Cooperation among an anonymous group protected Bitcoin during failures of decentralization" has yet to be peer-reviewed.

Researchers have assessed blockchain data from the early days of Bitcoin, finding "wealth, income, and resources in the bitcoin community were highly centralized." Mining activity between 2009 and 2011, when Bitcoin was first introduced and when it was of equivalent value to the U.S., respectively, showed that the majority of Bitcoin was mined and owned by only 64 "agents."

These early adopters mined a collective 2,676,800 Bitcoin, valued at about $81 billion at the time of writing. Despite being intended to be decentralized, the network was kept alive by the small group that possessed the "computational resources" to continue mining.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and legendary rapper and artist Jay-Z have announced the creation of "The Bitcoin Academy".

Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter and Jack Dorsey have teamed up to fund The Bitcoin Academy that will give financial education to residents of Marcy House located in Brooklyn, New York. For those that don't know, Marcy House or Marcy Projects is a public housing complex that holds approximately 4,286 residents. The Bitcoin Academy is an educational program that is designed to help individuals develop financial independence, literacy skills, self-confidence, long-term thinking strategies, and more.

Notably, Jay-Z grew up in the area, which explains his involvement and intentions to give back and better the community he was once a part of. Furthermore, all of the courses are completely free to all Marcy residents, and according to Dorsey, residents will also be receiving "devices and data plans for all who need it". Classes begin on June 22 and will go until September 7, with the lessons being available in person and online. Lastly, enrollees who participate in two classes a week will receive dinner.

Family Guy star Seth Green has reportedly paid a massive sum of money to an individual for the return of his star in his upcoming TV show.

At the end of May, Green announced that the star of his upcoming TV show "White Horse Tavern" had been stolen from him through a phishing scam. The star of the show is Bored Ape Yacht Club #8398, or Fred Simian, who Green said was "literally kidnapped" days before he was meant to reveal the show to the world. Bored Ape #8398 wasn't the only NFT that was stolen from Green, as two Mutant Apes and one Doodle NFT were also stolen.

Now, according to reports from BuzzFeed News, the stolen star was purchased from the scammer for approximately $297,000 worth of Ether by an unnamed wallet that is reportedly Green's. If true, it means Green has paid not only a large sum of money for the original purchase of the NFT but also nearly $300,000 to retrieve it.

Bitcoin's price continues to operate in the $28,000 to $32,000 range, but some analysts believe there is something in store for Bitcoin throughout the summer.

As reported by CoinTelegraph, social media analyst Wolf has provided correlated evidence that if the S&P 500 flips its 21-month exponential moving average (EMA) support and continues an uptrend, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market as a whole will follow in an upwards fashion as well. Wolf explained that Bitcoin slowly follows behind then S*P, but if the stocks 21EMA is held, Bitcoin is due to "recover pretty soon".

Furthermore, commentator Bob Loukas took to Twitter to give his point of view on the cryptocurrency market, saying that the coming summer in crypto will likely be "boring," as the "heavy selling is done" and now is the "period where only smart money accumulates". Loukas added that now that all of the "weak hands have turned over, higher prices will be needed," and a new cycle can start. Loukas projects that the new cycle will begin later in 2022.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club recently announced that it has fallen for a hack that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of NFTs being stolen.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) took to its Twitter account to announce that its Discord servers suffered from an exploit that Fortune reports were a phishing attack. Hackers reportedly got a hold of Boris Vagner's Discord account, who is the community manager for Yuga Labs, the developers behind projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club. The hackers used Vagner's account and posted links into the official BAYC Discord channel and the metaverse project called Otherside.

Yuga Labs confirmed that the hack occurred and that approximately 200 ETH worth of NFTs were stolen. One Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT and two Mutant Ape tokens. Notably, this isn't the first time Yuga Labs has been hacked, and expensive NFTs have been stolen. Only in April this year, the Bored Ape Yacht Club Twitter account announced that the BAYC Instagram account had been hacked. Hackers used a phishing scam to steal 91 NFTs worth approximately $2.8 million.

Chipotle has announced it will be adopting cryptocurrency payments across thousands of its stores throughout the United States.

The massive Mexican-style fast-food chain announced that it will be accepting cryptocurrency payments through the digital payment platform Flexa, which supports nearly 100 different cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Reports indicate that Chipotle will be accepting payments via the Flexa app across its 3,000 restaurants.

According to a Medium article by Flexa, in celebration of Chipotle adopting digital currency payments, Flexa will be giving everyone 10% off their next Chipotle order through the Flexa app. For individuals interested in claiming their free 10% off, you will need to download the Gemini or SPEDN app, head to your nearest Chipotle restaurant, and proceed to pay with the app.

A new report from Reuters has revealed that Russia is open to accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for international payments.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in contracting heavy sanctions from numerous countries that condemned the Russian Federations' actions, the Russian economy has been crippled, and officials are looking at alternative ways of keeping it afloat. There have been rumors of Russia accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment, but now we are hearing from the First Deputy Governor of The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Ksenia Yudaeva, who said Russia's bank is open to implementing digital currencies.

"In principle, we do not object to the use of cryptocurrency in international transactions," said Yudaeva. Notably, that open-mindedness from Russian bank officials only stretches so far as Yudaeva and other banking officials still believe that adopting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes with considerable risk to Russia's financial infrastructure that may negatively impact Russian citizens.