Cryptocurrency & Mining News - Page 6

James Howells claims he was one of the first five people running the Bitcoin algorithms, and since 2013 he has been searching for a hard drive that he mined 7,500 Bitcoin on for next to nothing.

The British computer engineer recently sat down for an interview with James Hammond, where he recounted his journey of recovering a computer hard drive worth more than $150 million at the current price of Bitcoin (approximately $23,000). Howell accidentally threw out the hard drive and has been searching for it ever since, with many requests made to the local Newport government to dig through its landfill site. All of his requests so far have been denied, but a new one may be considered with the inclusion of artificial intelligence.

Howell's plan includes human sorters, Boston Dynamics "Spot Dogs", automated sorting systems paired with a special conveyor belt, and an artificial intelligence system that is believed to significantly speed up the identification process. This method would take anywhere between nine to twelve months to complete and would cost an estimated $11 million. Howell also believes a scaled-down model of the same design could be created for $6 million, but would take up to 18 months to complete.

The co-founder of the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has commented on the metaverse and what companies are currently developing.

Vitalik Buterin took to his personal Twitter account to state that the metaverse "is going to happen," but none of the current projects being developed by big-name corporations such as Meta, formerly Facebook, will go anywhere. Notably, Buterin explains that there isn't yet a unanimous definition for "metaverse" as he believes it's still "far too early to know what people actually want". Furthermore, Buterin wrote that "anything Facebook creates now will misfire".

For those wondering, Facebook changed its name to Meta back in October last year and has been pushing into the virtual reality space for quite some time, with the company purchasing Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. Since the acquisition of Oculus, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has been touting the metaverse as the future of technology adoption, with Zuckerberg stating last year that he believes the "metaverse is the next chapter of the internet".

The price of Bitcoin has seen some growth, with the world's most valuable cryptocurrency moving up from the $20,000 price point to its current position of $23,000.

If you haven't been following the cryptocurrency market, the price of Bitcoin has been in decline since it reached its all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2021, and now traders are seeming a flicker of hope as it seems the price is climbing. One analyst named TechDev has put forward his prediction for Bitcoin's price over the coming months, and it's citing the price trend of the digital asset from 2011 to 2027.

TechDev points to the True Strength Index (TSI), which is a metric that is used to determine how much of the cryptocurrency is overbought or oversold. The analyst states that the downtrend traders are currently experiencing is on track with past years of Bitcoin bear markets (where the price goes down), and that by 2023 the top price of Bitcoin will fall between $80,000 and $120,000.

As the price of Bitcoin continues to teeter around the $20,000 mark, it was revealed that Elon Musk's Tesla has sold the majority of its BTC holdings.

Tesla announced that it had purchased a whopping $1.5 billion worth of the world's most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, back in February 2021 while simultaneously announcing it would be working towards accepting BTC as a form of payment for its vehicles.

The announcement caused the price of Bitcoin to skyrocket, and when Musk pulled back from integrating BTC, much of the positive sentiment surrounding Musk and Tesla flipped to negativity as the price of the world's most popular cryptocurrency began to tumble.

The creator behind one of the biggest games to ever come out, Minecraft, has taken a firm stance on adopting Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the blockchain.

Minecraft developer Mojang has taken to the Minecraft website to discuss NFTs and blockchain integration with their community, writing that the studio wished to provide players with some transparency and clarity about what's to come.

According to the article, Mojang wants Minecraft players to continue to have a "safe and inclusive" experience, and to ensure that standard is maintained, the developer has chosen not to allow any blockchain technologies to be integrated inside the Minecraft client or server applications.

The world's largest NFT marketplace has fired 20% of its staff following a crypto market downturn and wider economic problems.

The news comes from OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer, who took to Twitter and Discord to explain that the company will be letting go 20% of its staff and that each employee fired from their position will receive a "generous severance". Notably, Finzer says that the reality OpenSea is facing is a "crypto winter" and broad "macroeconomic instability," which references rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine, and more factors that are causing fear, uncertainty, and doubt to plague the global economy.

TechCrunch has learned that 230 employees will be let go from OpenSea and that all of those employees will receive health insurance "into 2023", as well as 12 weeks of severance. Finzer explains that OpenSea has made the decision to run leaner to give it "multiple years of runway" that will, according to Finzer, put the company in a position to bear the weight of crypto winter scenarios presenting themselves. Adding, "Winter is our time to build".

Energy authorities have requested Texas residents to reduce energy consumption to prevent blackouts following temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

A Texas heatwave has caused a major strain on the electricity grid, causing state energy officials to ask Texas residents to reduce energy consumption to stop blackouts and power outages. Notably, Bitcoin mining companies have voluntarily halted operations, which has freed up approximately 1,000 megawatts of power, per the Texas Blockchain Council. The volunteer halting of mining operations has given back 1% of the grid's total electricity capacity.

Furthermore, Lee Bratcher, the president of the Texas Blockchain Council, said there are also other reasons that miners are stopping operations as the price of electricity severely increases when there is high demand. According to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency miners in Texas have increased energy costs by up to 6 gigawatts by the middle of 2023.

Reports indicate that cryptocurrency investors that have felt the wrath of the market downturn are going to an online screaming therapy group.

The Guardian has reported that several thousand cryptocurrency investors are banding together in a group called the "Bear Market Screaming Therapy Group", run by the founder named Giulio, who refused to provide his last name. Giulio spoke to the publication and said that the Telegram group has many members who are simply crying, sobbing, expressing grief or howling at their investment loss. According to Giulio, he "decided not to ban them. I felt bad".

The group currently has 3,315 members and is an example of the extreme pain some cryptocurrency investors feel as the price of Bitcoin barely holds on to the $20,000 price point. The world's most valuable cryptocurrency collapsed in June by diving by 47% to the current average price point of approximately $20,000, which has led to groups such as the Bear Market Screaming Therapy Group forming as investors didn't withdraw before the downward began.

Bitcoin's price has been on a slow decline since November last year, when it reached its current all-time high of $69,000.

The price of Bitcoin has been trickling down for all of 2022, but fell off a metaphorical cliff in June when it dived by 47% to reach the $20,000 price point. With many investors and traders pulling their money out of the seemingly collapsing market, the price is still continuing to decline, causing fear-uncertainty and doubt to plague the space.

According to a recent report by Bloomberg, which surveyed 950 Wall Street investors, the price of Bitcoin is more likely to fall to $10,000 than to rally back up to $30,000, says 60% of those investors. The remaining 40% of surveyed investors believe that Bitcoin is more likely to have a slight bull run-up to the $30,000 mark.

If you are currently holding any Bitcoin and have been watching the price of the world's most valuable digital currency, you have been witnessing a bloodbath.

The price of Bitcoin has been in a downward spiral for many months now, with Bitcoin reaching its all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2021. Since then, the digital cryptocurrency has been slowly declining in price and fell off a hypothetical cliff in early when the price dropped from approximately $35,000 at the beginning of May to $26,000 by the beginning of June. Within the first two weeks of June, the price dropped by an additional 30% to $20,000.

On June 26 the price climbed to $21,000 after massive price fluctuations that flicked the price of BTC between $20,000 and $18,000. After reaching approximately $21,000 on June 26, a sea of red candles emerged, and from June 26 to July 2, the price declined back down to below $20,000. On July 4, large swaths of buy orders came through, and the price of BTC spiked from $19,300 to $20,300, an increase of 5% in 24 hours.