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The Nigerian Federal government said on May 3 it had passed what it called the “national blockchain policy.” The Nigerian minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Pantami, said the new policy is a product of consultations with 56 institutions and personalities. Lucky Uwakwe, the founder of the technology service delivery company Sabi Group, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is unlikely to reverse its stance on privately issued digital currency.

On 30 April, 2023,, as the U.S. government worked behind the scenes with two major banks to engineer the latest financial rescue plan, the Bitcoin network hit a new all-time high for the number of daily transactions processed. There were more confirmed transactions than it ever had in its 14-year history, beating the previous record set during the 2017 bull run. Today, JPMorgan Chase has acquired First Republic after the distressed bank’s assets were seized by regulators, becoming the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

In the midst of the banking upheaval in the United States, Google Trends has revealed a notable surge in searches related to the acquisition of gold, with the search query reaching a perfect score of 100 during the first week of April 2023. Similarly, the search term “how to buy bitcoin” reached the same score two weeks earlier, on March 20, 2023.

Based on present data, within the last four months, a mere three block rewards from the year 2010 have been transferred after 13 years of dormancy. This is due to the fact that dormant wallets from that era are becoming a rarity to behold. The latest expenditure of a 2010 block took place on April 22, 2023, at 11:14 p.m. (UTC), when a miner spent 50 bitcoin that was valued at approximately $1.3 million. A historic moment occurred today, as a transfer of 400 bitcoin from 2011 took place, marking the first time in over a decade that these digital assets had been moved.

Following the transfer of $60 million worth of bitcoins on April 19, after more than nine years of dormancy, another whale has made its move. The whale, who acquired 1,129 bitcoins in 2012 and 2013, has transferred 464 bitcoins worth $13 million for the first time in nine years.

April 18 (Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) said on Tuesday it has discontinued production of its bitcoin mining chip series, just a year after its introduction. A rout in the cryptocurrency market hurt some chip companies including Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), whose high-end graphics chips became popular for crypto mining. Intel expects to stop taking orders for the series, called Blockscale, by October 20 this year and end shipping by April 20 next year, according to a document on the company's website.

On April 6, 2023, Bitcoin’s difficulty rose 2.23% higher at block height 784,224, touching another all-time high. It’s the fourth consecutive difficulty increase on the Bitcoin network since Feb. 24, and the protocol’s current difficulty is 47.89 trillion, which is only 2.11 trillion away from reaching the 50 trillion range.

 

According to data from the cryptocurrency automated teller machine (ATM) aggregation website Coin ATM Radar, over 3,600 crypto ATMs went offline in March. Since the end of 2022, the number of crypto ATMs has declined by 13.91% in the last three months.

 

KazTransOil, the national oil transporter of Kazakhstan, plans to ship 125,000 tons of oil from Kazakhstan through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in April, Trend reports, citing KazTransOil.This constitutes a significant increase compared to the 20,000 tons estimated to be shipped in March.

 

Bitcoin's past six months of price action closely resemble its 2014 Mt. Gox bear market. This pattern suggests Bitcoin has entered the next bull phase of its global monetary adoption process.

 

Nigerians have increasingly turned to a once-spurned digital currency to transact, after a chaotic demonetisation policy gave rise to a shortage of banknotes and bolstered demand for alternative payment methods.

 

In the ongoing banking crisis in the United States, the US Dollar (USD) appears to correlate directly with Bitcoin.Bitcoin Positively Correlates With USD According to Kaiko, a digital assets market provider, Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency, appears to be moving synchronously with the USD as the market adopts a wait-and-see approach amid fear of further turbulence in the United States financial markets.

 

The Galaxy Digital CEO predicts tough times ahead for the United States economy but continues to be bullish on crypto.The United States is headed for a credit crunch and now is the right time to buy gold, silver and Bitcoin ,BTC tickers down $24,709, says Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Michael Novogratz.

 

XSpring Digital (XD), a Bangkok-based initial coin offering (ICO) portal service provider, is upbeat about its business outlook this year after the cabinet recently decided to waive value-added tax (VAT)... The company aims to become a leader in the ICO portal business by more than doubling the number of customers using the service this year, said acting chief executive Tanasak Krishnasreni.

 

Thailand is offering companies raising funds through initial coin offerings exemptions from income and value-added tax.

The country has shown promise, with a recent report pegging the country as the nation with the highest global level of crypto adoption. However, it needs to compete with a recent Web 3 accelerator program launched by the Hong Kong.



El Salvador’s Mi Primer Bitcoin learning initiative recently released a new student workbook that covers Bitcoin-related topics suitable for learners of different ages. Commenting on the recent changes to the curriculum, Dalia Platt, the Chair of Mi Primer Bitcoin

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's administration announced that the Central American nation will begin offering bonds backed by Bitcoin, making El Salvador the first nation to do so. 

Previously in 2021, El Salvador shocked the world when the Bukele administration announced they would recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender, despite the cryptocurrency's volatility.

Bitcoin allows you to be your own bank, giving you complete control over your finances and assets, without relying on traditional financial institutions.

Bitcoin transactions are highly secure, with blockchain technology ensuring protection against hacking and other malicious activities.

Owning Bitcoin can offer a path toward financial autonomy and security, providing an alternative to traditional banking systems often prone to failures and collapses.

It's a paradise for globe-trotting libertarians
Driving along El Salvador’s Pacific coast, I’m greeted by a sign: “Bitcoin Beach. The future is here.” As I turn onto a dirt road, another appears: “Pay in Bitcoin, $10 Pupusas and Beer”. Finally, I arrive at the beach — with its volcanic black sand, thunderous waves, and vendors selling refreshments for both cash and cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin logo of two lines through a “B” is plastered all over the resort, even spray-painted on plastic dustbins.

A new link between the Central American nation and Texas has been borne out of Bitcoin.After opening its first Bitcoin Embassy in Lugano, Switzerland, El Salvador is opening a second one in Texas.

According to DappRadar, the total worth of the NFT ecosystem went from $9.3B to $3.7B in 2022 —a 59.6% drop. On February 9th, DappRadar published a report showing that the Ethereum NFT market cap value fell by 59.60% from $9.3 billion in 2022 to around $3.7 billion in early 2023.

The Chinese authorities distributed over $26 million worth of e-CNY to the residents of Shenzhen, Jinan, Lianyungang, and Hangzhou. Major Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Jinan, and Lianyungang, have reportedly launched approximately 200 activities involving the digital yuan during the Spring Festival.

Bitcoin hit the highest since August as investors interpreted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments about progress on inflation as a sign that a less harsh monetary policy backdrop lies ahead. 



According to a new study, out of the estimated 55.3 million cryptocurrency holders that are spread among 33 African countries, three countries — Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya — account for approximately 36.14 million or nearly two-thirds of this total. In contrast, the study found that Seychelles, which is home to several cryptocurrency exchanges, has approximately 1,000 cryptocurrency holders.

As the new year approaches, more than a dozen bitcoin mining pools still dedicate a total of 238 exahash per second (EH/s) toward the Bitcoin blockchain in order to secure the network and reap mining rewards. Statistics indicate that the mining pool Foundry USA discovered the most block rewards this year, as the operation found 11,779 bitcoin blocks out of the 53,240 rewards mined during the last 365 days.

China is launching its first state-backed non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, the latest sign of embrace for a technology that’s occupied a legal gray area within the country’s notoriously strict regulations on cryptocurrency.The platform will be run by a trio of state-owned and private entities: China Technology Exchange and Art Exhibitions China, both of which are government-backed, and Huban Digital, a private company, according to a report by Chinese state media outlet China Daily.

Despite the market conditions that prevailed in much of 2022, decentralized finance (defi) still demonstrated its greater scaling potential than that of the traditional financial industry, a new report has said. Even though the total value locked dropped from the peak of $180 billion in Dec. 2021, to just over $50 billion by end of Oct. 2022, certain sectors of the defi market still “show a very optimistic trend.”

In Nov. 2021, bitcoin’s market valuation managed to make it into the top ten list of assets ranked by market capitalization, as it was the eighth largest market cap last year on Nov. 9. Since then, bitcoin is 75% lower in value against the U.S. dollar and the leading crypto asset’s market capitalization has dropped down to the 26th largest position among the most valuable assets and companies worldwide.

A new study has ranked Nigeria as the country most curious about cryptocurrency post the April crypto market crash. The same study findings show Kenya as the second-highest ranked African country. According to Bobby Ong, co-founder of Coingecko, the countries topping the list seem more interested in buying the dip and this highlights “their long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.”

 

A court in the Chinese city of Hangzhou has determined that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, represent virtual property protected by the laws in the People’s Republic. The ruling comes from a case over a dispute between a customer and a platform hired to sell a collection of tokens.

 

Binance has committed $1 billion to a crypto industry recovery initiative to restore confidence following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Several other crypto companies have joined Binance’s efforts and committed capital for the recovery fund.

 

New data has shown that as many as 6,100 crypto and bitcoin automated teller machines were installed in the first eleven months of 2022. The latest figure is approximately three times less than the ATMs that were installed in 2021. The data shows that the United States, which has over 34,000 crypto ATMs, accounts for nearly 90% of all the installed machines.

 

Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has issued a business suspension order to FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of FTX.com. The financial watchdog has also ordered the crypto exchange to submit a business improvement plan by Nov. 16.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is forming an industry recovery fund to “reduce further cascading negative effects of FTX,” said CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “As an industry, we need to increase transparency,” the executive stressed. “We need to work very closely with regulators all around the world to make this industry more robust.”

 

According to a study jointly published by KPMG China and Aspen Digital, about 58% of Singapore and Hong Kong’s family offices and high-net-worth individuals have invested in digital assets. Reports suggest the info shows the crypto market downturn has not diminished the super-rich’s interest in digital assets, and is unlikely to dissuade them from increasing their holdings of these assets.

About 14% of Saudi residents are either current crypto investors or have traded crypto in the past six months, the latest Kucoin study has found. The study has also found that 76% of investors have less than one year of experience and thus may be in need of relevant crypto education.

America’s oldest bank, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, has announced the financial institution can now custody cryptocurrencies. A report published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, says BNY Mellon was approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), and the bank said it was the first of eight financial heavyweights to start crypto asset custody services.

Of the $566 billion in cryptocurrency transaction volume for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region between July 2021 and June 2022, nearly 40% went to Turkey, which kept its place as the region’s biggest cryptocurrency market, according to the latest Chainalysis data. In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s takeover has seen the value of cryptocurrencies sent to the country drop from a peak of $68 million to less than $80,000 per month.

13 years ago today(12th Feb), the creator of the Bitcoin network, Satoshi Nakamoto published the inventor’s first forum post on the P2P Foundation website. The forum post called “Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency” introduced the e-cash system to the members of the advocacy and research forum focused on peer-to-peer dynamics in society.

Major financial services firm PWC has conducted a study and found that the majority of crypto fund managers surveyed believe that the price of bitcoin would be between $75K and $100K by the end of this year.

The Chinese metaverse industry has reportedly raised about $780 million in funding and there are expectations this will grow to be a $5.8 trillion industry by 2030. So far there are 160,000 virtual human enterprises in China while 20 provinces or cities in the country are reportedly supporting the metaverse.

​​On September 2, the crypto market aggregation web portal Coingecko.com published a study that identifies the top ten states in America that are most interested in the two leading digital currencies, bitcoin and ethereum. The team leveraged Coingecko’s page traffic data and found that California captures 43% of the traffic visiting the site’s bitcoin and ethereum web pages.

One in every 10 households in six eurozone countries has acquired cryptocurrencies, the European Central Bank (ECB) has found with a new survey. While the richest are most likely to own crypto assets, poor families are not far behind, the poll indicates.

Power needs of cryptocurrency miners in Russia have grown significantly since 2017, with consumption of electrical energy seeing a 20-fold increase over the five-year period. In 2021, the minting of the coin with the largest market cap, bitcoin, required 1.25 gigawatts in the country. Experts say, however, that Russia has the spare capacities to satisfy much larger demand.

The number of ether locked in the Ethereum 2.0 contract has exceeded 9 million ethereum or more than $28 billion using today’s exchange rates. The amount of ethereum locked into the contract has increased 22.29% since the first week of September 2021, when the contract held 7.4 million ether.

A new report issued by Mastercard, the payment processing giant, has found that most consumers in Latam have knowledge of what cryptocurrency is. The report states that more than half of the consumers in Latam have at least made a transaction involving cryptocurrency. Also, a third of the surveyed declared having used a stablecoin to make a payment.

The Brazilian central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital real, will be more of a wholesale asset instead of a public retail-focused token, according to statements from the president of the Central Bank of Brazil, Roberto Campos Neto. Campos Neto indicated that private banks in the country will be able to issue their own stablecoins that will be collateralized with digital real deposits.

El Salvador’s tourism has grown more than 30% after adopting bitcoin as legal tender, according to the country’s ministry of tourism. “Cryptocurrency multiplies the opportunities to do business with more partners anywhere in the world,” the Salvadoran government explained.

Chainalysis has found that illicit crypto volumes are down this year, with total scam revenue sitting at $1.6 billion, 65% lower than where it was through the end of July last year. “Those numbers suggest that fewer people than ever are falling for cryptocurrency scams,” the blockchain data analytics firm wrote.

One of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s leading airlines, Emirates Airline, said it has plans to add “bitcoin as a payment service.” The airline is planning to recruit personnel to create applications that monitor client needs.

Russia could be a large player in the crypto mining space, experts in the field have established in research naming the most attractive regions for coin minting operations in the country. The capital Moscow is among the popular mining destinations alongside the places offering the cheapest power.

Ripple, the cryptocurrency and payments company, has issued an article examining the opportunities that Latam brings for crypto companies as its regulated payments rails come to crypto. While the region faces some obstacles due to its economic traits and the dominance of centralized banks, the organization believes there is a lucrative opening for companies partnering with these banks to bring crypto to the masses.

A survey conducted by Deloitte in collaboration with PayPal found that over 85% of merchants “are giving high or very high priority to enabling cryptocurrency payments.” In addition, “nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reported plans to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next 24 months.”.

A recent report states that freelancing is experiencing a boom in Argentina, and also comments on how Argentinians are among workers in the region that most actively use cryptocurrencies to receive part of their paycheck. The report further states that workers accepting their paychecks in crypto favor traditional cryptocurrencies such as ether and bitcoin, which together amount to almost 90% of the payments made in crypto.

In recent times, the impact of bitcoin mining on the environment has been a topical discussion as climate change activists believe proof-of-work (PoW) mining is too energy-intensive. However, a recent report written by the ESG analyst Daniel Batten explains that bitcoin mining could eliminate the world’s carbon emissions by 5.32%. Batten’s study notes that if bitcoin mining entities “aggressively” targeted leaked methane, bitcoin mining has the potential to avoid 0.15% of warming by 2045.

According to findings stemming from a report published by Arcane Research, Bitcoin’s hashrate is steadily going public as an increasing share is deployed by publicly listed companies. Current data shows that the publicly listed miners’ share of Bitcoin’s hashrate is roughly 19% today, up 3% since January 2021.

A majority of the financial pyramids identified in 2022 used cryptocurrencies in one way or another, Russia’s central bank announced in a new report. Amid Western sanctions, Russian scams have stepped up their activities, often claiming to be licensed by foreign authorities to offer access to crypto assets.

An executive at Wisdomtree, an asset management firm with $78 billion under management, says that “Cryptocurrencies have firmly established themselves as a new asset class and it truly is something that people can’t ignore.” He added: “We are past the point where there is speculation around whether or not this is a trend that’s here to stay.”

According to a recent study analyzing Google Trends data, the cryptocurrency dogecoin’s search volume in the United States was highest in the most states as compared to other cryptos. The research also details that the leading crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, bitcoin, was the second most popular crypto asset, with ten different states.

A new Bank of America survey shows that 91% of more than 1,000 current and prospective U.S. crypto investors plan to buy more digital assets in the next six months. Moreover, nearly 40% of respondents revealed that they use cryptocurrency as a means of payment.

Following the confusion that surrounded initial reports, a senior staffer in the Central African Republic (CAR)’s presidency has now confirmed that bitcoin will become the country’s reference currency.

The processing power backing the Bitcoin network has continued its upward momentum tapping another all-time high (ATH) on February 15, 2022, at 249 exahash per second (EH/s). Following the latest ATH, the network’s mining difficulty increased on Thursday morning (EST), up 4.78% and reaching a value of 27.97 trillion. The mining difficulty has increased six times in a row since November 28, 2021, which makes it 23.34% harder for bitcoin miners to find bitcoin block rewards since then.

15 months ago the price of one ounce of fine gold was $1,790 per ounce and since then, it has increased in value 3.51% to today’s $1,853 per ounce exchange rate. While gold has risen in value, the top two tokenized gold coins have grown significantly since then. Pax gold (PAXG), for instance, has seen its market capitalization grow 407% since February 26, 2021, and Tether’s XAUT market valuation swelled by 248% since that day. Presently, PAXG’s and XAUT’s market capitalizations combined equate to just over $1 billion in value.

The U.K. government has unveiled a detailed plan to make the country a global crypto hub and “a hospitable place for crypto.” The plan includes establishing a dynamic regulatory framework for crypto, regulating stablecoins, and working with the Royal Mint to create a non-fungible token (NFT) to be issued by the Summer.

The U.S. Secret Service has launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub. The new platform “will feature the latest in the agency’s work combating illicit use of digital assets as well as provide public awareness information on digital asset security and how to ensure it remains secure.”

New data stemming from the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report on bitcoin mining indicates that China still holds the second position in terms of global hashrate. While China commands close to 22% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, the United States currently dominates with 37.69%, according to CCAF researchers.New data stemming from the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report on bitcoin mining indicates that China still holds the second position in terms of global hashrate. While China commands close to 22% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, the United States currently dominates with 37.69%, according to CCAF researchers.

While bitcoin has risen in value in recent times, jumping 8% during the last seven days, statistics show that the number of addresses holding bitcoin has surpassed 40 million addresses. Metrics from the analytics web portal intotheblock.com show addresses that hold any fraction of bitcoin tapped a 30-day high on March 24, reaching 40.25 million addresses.

A recent report states that freelancing is experiencing a boom in Argentina, and also comments on how Argentinians are among workers in the region that most actively use cryptocurrencies to receive part of their paycheck. The report further states that workers accepting their paychecks in crypto favor traditional cryptocurrencies such as ether and bitcoin, which together amount to almost 90% of the payments made in crypto.

The number of global crypto owners is expected to exceed one billion by the end of the year, according to a report by Crypto.com. “Nations can no longer afford to ignore the growing push to crypto by the public. We may in many cases expect a friendlier stance towards the crypto industry,” the company said.

A survey by FTI Consulting, Inc. reached out to 150 America-based decision makers in finance companies that are in this very position, to better understand their outlook. The data was illuminating, to say the least.

 

At the end of December 2021, the stablecoin economy’s market valuation was around $168.3 billion and since then, it has increased 9.92% to $185 billion in value. A number of stablecoins have issued more assets during the last seven days, as some of the top dollar-pegged coins have swelled by more than 20% since February 22, 2022.

The Shanghai High People’s Court has declared bitcoin to be a virtual asset protected by Chinese law despite the ban cryptocurrency trading in China.

The metaverse will become the most popular place to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency, according to a recent survey. In addition, 70% of respondents agreed that “cryptocurrency and blockchain technology advancements will be critical to shaping the future of the metaverse.”

An Islamic scholar, Irshad Ahmad Ijaz, has asserted that digital currency is not fake currency and that it should be legitimized once certain conditions are met. Ijaz’s viewpoint is echoed by other scholars that attended a seminar examining the status of digital currencies from the perspective of Islamic law.

While April 20 or 420 is synonymous with cannabis culture, the day is also considered “Doge Day,” by a great number of dogecoin supporters. The day prior on Twitter, the Doge network’s co-founder Billy Markus asked what people should expect on Doge Day and for dogecoin’s price action. 12 months ago dogecoin was swapping hands for $0.44 per unit on Doge Day and today the meme-based crypto asset is down 65.3% from that value.

A study — published by askgamblers.com — has covered similar data, but concentrated on the U.K.’s and Europe’s Google searches.

According to the report, while bitcoin is the most popular crypto asset in Europe, the study of the trends shows that the meme token shiba inu is the most popular in the United Kingdom.

According to a recent study published by the online investing news and education platform Invezz, Switzerland currently has the most profitable bitcoin traders worldwide. That’s according to data stemming from Chainalysis, Worldometers, and Triple A, which helped Invezz assign each country a score in terms of the most profitable bitcoin trading by country.

A survey by crypto trading platform Bitstamp shows that 80% of institutional investors believe crypto will overtake traditional investment vehicles. Furthermore, 70% of institutional investors said crypto was a trustworthy investment, with 68% actively recommending this asset class in investment strategies.

Cryptocurrency donations have poured into a nonprofit organization that provides support to Ukrainian soldiers after Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine. More than $5 million in bitcoin has already been raised.

According to a document produced by a Pakistani policy advisory board, the country is likely to earn billions of dollars from crypto-asset holders. Yet for this to happen, the country first needs to create the appropriate regulatory framework for crypto assets.

 

According to eToro’s data, Bitcoin trumped other crypto investments to take out the top spot as the most open position, both globally and in Australia. Moreover, opened Bitcoin positions increased 223% year on year as the cryptocurrency climbed in price from A$41,790 to A$65,670.
On the global stage, Bitcoin’s position was unchanged at number one. Whereas, in Australia, Bitcoin lifted from the third spot to number one

On April 1, 2022, records show that 19 million bitcoin have been mined into circulation. With the max supply set at 21 million, there’s only two million bitcoins left to be found by mining participants.

A U.S. consumer survey shows that 25% of respondents who currently do not own cryptocurrency plan to start investing in crypto. “2021 was a good year for crypto. Of the respondents that own crypto, more than half reported that they had just started investing in the space within the last year.”

To this day, Satoshi Nakamoto is one of Bitcoin’s biggest mysteries as people have searched far and wide to uncover the creator’s identity. 11 years ago, on December 12, 2010, the pseudonymous blockchain programmer (or programmers) left a final message to the crypto community stressing that “there’s more work to do on [denial-of-service] DoS.”

Interest in cryptocurrencies has been growing in Russia, not least among non-qualified investors. According to recently quoted estimates, Russians have already put more than $67 billion into the crypto market, the capitalization of which has increased significantly this year.

Russia’s monetary authority will allow users not residing within its jurisdiction to open and use digital ruble wallets and will facilitate the CBDC’s conversion to foreign currencies by non-residents.

While the cryptocurrency economy has seen significant losses across the board — losing billions during the last two weeks — a recent CNBC millionaire survey indicates that millennial millionaires have a lot of crypto. Furthermore, millennial millionaires plan to add more digital assets to their portfolios in 2022.

The number of cryptocurrency ATMs around the world has grown exponentially in 2021, with over 20,000 new installations made since last December. That’s more than the total of all crypto teller machines put into operation in the previous seven years.

A new report issued by LAVCA, the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America, the region registered investments of more than $15 billion, more than three times the amount registered in 2020. However, crypto and blockchain investments grew almost tenfold.

On Nov. 20, President Bukele said that the country is going to build an entire city based on bitcoin, during a presentation at Bitcoin Week in El Salvador.

As 2021 nears its end, the firm Harpercollins, the publisher behind the printed and online Collins English Dictionary, has revealed “The Collins Word of the Year.” According to collinsdictionary.com, the word of the year is the abbreviation for non-fungible token, otherwise known as “NFT.”

Most people assume that there will be a maximum circulating supply of 21 million Bitcoins. However, the maximum circulating supply of Bitcoins is not really 21 million. In reality, this number is a little lower at 20,999,987.4769 BTC.

 

In Sep. 2017, 35-year-old coder turned Bitcoin millionaire Peter Saddington cashed in 45 bitcoins to drive away with a $200,000 2015 Lamborghini Huracan. Thanks to an early interest in cryptocurrencies, buying those 45 bitcoins cost him less than $115.

A few years ago, the FBI shut down the Silk Road which was a big black market website where Bitcoin was frequently used. The FBI controls more than 144,000 bitcoins that reside at a bitcoin address that consolidates much of the seized Silk Road bitcoins. Those bitcoins are worth close to $158 million at today’s exchange rates.

Bitcoin hit the highest since August as investors interpreted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments about progress on inflation as a sign that a less harsh monetary policy backdrop lies ahead.

According to a new study, out of the estimated 55.3 million cryptocurrency holders that are spread among 33 African countries, three countries — Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya — account for approximately 36.14 million or nearly two-thirds of this total. In contrast, the study found that Seychelles, which is home to several cryptocurrency exchanges, has approximately 1,000 cryptocurrency holders.

As the new year approaches, more than a dozen bitcoin mining pools still dedicate a total of 238 exahash per second (EH/s) toward the Bitcoin blockchain in order to secure the network and reap mining rewards. Statistics indicate that the mining pool Foundry USA discovered the most block rewards this year, as the operation found 11,779 bitcoin blocks out of the 53,240 rewards mined during the last 365 days.

China is launching its first state-backed non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, the latest sign of embrace for a technology that’s occupied a legal gray area within the country’s notoriously strict regulations on cryptocurrency.The platform will be run by a trio of state-owned and private entities: China Technology Exchange and Art Exhibitions China, both of which are government-backed, and Huban Digital, a private company, according to a report by Chinese state media outlet China Daily.

Despite the market conditions that prevailed in much of 2022, decentralized finance (defi) still demonstrated its greater scaling potential than that of the traditional financial industry, a new report has said. Even though the total value locked dropped from the peak of $180 billion in Dec. 2021, to just over $50 billion by end of Oct. 2022, certain sectors of the defi market still “show a very optimistic trend.”

In Nov. 2021, bitcoin’s market valuation managed to make it into the top ten list of assets ranked by market capitalization, as it was the eighth largest market cap last year on Nov. 9. Since then, bitcoin is 75% lower in value against the U.S. dollar and the leading crypto asset’s market capitalization has dropped down to the 26th largest position among the most valuable assets and companies worldwide.

A new study has ranked Nigeria as the country most curious about cryptocurrency post the April crypto market crash. The same study findings show Kenya as the second-highest ranked African country. According to Bobby Ong, co-founder of Coingecko, the countries topping the list seem more interested in buying the dip and this highlights “their long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.”

 

A court in the Chinese city of Hangzhou has determined that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, represent virtual property protected by the laws in the People’s Republic. The ruling comes from a case over a dispute between a customer and a platform hired to sell a collection of tokens.

 

Binance has committed $1 billion to a crypto industry recovery initiative to restore confidence following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Several other crypto companies have joined Binance’s efforts and committed capital for the recovery fund.

 

New data has shown that as many as 6,100 crypto and bitcoin automated teller machines were installed in the first eleven months of 2022. The latest figure is approximately three times less than the ATMs that were installed in 2021. The data shows that the United States, which has over 34,000 crypto ATMs, accounts for nearly 90% of all the installed machines.

 

Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has issued a business suspension order to FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of FTX.com. The financial watchdog has also ordered the crypto exchange to submit a business improvement plan by Nov. 16.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is forming an industry recovery fund to “reduce further cascading negative effects of FTX,” said CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “As an industry, we need to increase transparency,” the executive stressed. “We need to work very closely with regulators all around the world to make this industry more robust.”

 

According to a study jointly published by KPMG China and Aspen Digital, about 58% of Singapore and Hong Kong’s family offices and high-net-worth individuals have invested in digital assets. Reports suggest the info shows the crypto market downturn has not diminished the super-rich’s interest in digital assets, and is unlikely to dissuade them from increasing their holdings of these assets.

About 14% of Saudi residents are either current crypto investors or have traded crypto in the past six months, the latest Kucoin study has found. The study has also found that 76% of investors have less than one year of experience and thus may be in need of relevant crypto education.

America’s oldest bank, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, has announced the financial institution can now custody cryptocurrencies. A report published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, says BNY Mellon was approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), and the bank said it was the first of eight financial heavyweights to start crypto asset custody services.

Of the $566 billion in cryptocurrency transaction volume for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region between July 2021 and June 2022, nearly 40% went to Turkey, which kept its place as the region’s biggest cryptocurrency market, according to the latest Chainalysis data. In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s takeover has seen the value of cryptocurrencies sent to the country drop from a peak of $68 million to less than $80,000 per month.

13 years ago today(12th Feb), the creator of the Bitcoin network, Satoshi Nakamoto published the inventor’s first forum post on the P2P Foundation website. The forum post called “Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency” introduced the e-cash system to the members of the advocacy and research forum focused on peer-to-peer dynamics in society.

Major financial services firm PWC has conducted a study and found that the majority of crypto fund managers surveyed believe that the price of bitcoin would be between $75K and $100K by the end of this year.

The Chinese metaverse industry has reportedly raised about $780 million in funding and there are expectations this will grow to be a $5.8 trillion industry by 2030. So far there are 160,000 virtual human enterprises in China while 20 provinces or cities in the country are reportedly supporting the metaverse.

​​On September 2, the crypto market aggregation web portal Coingecko.com published a study that identifies the top ten states in America that are most interested in the two leading digital currencies, bitcoin and ethereum. The team leveraged Coingecko’s page traffic data and found that California captures 43% of the traffic visiting the site’s bitcoin and ethereum web pages.

One in every 10 households in six eurozone countries has acquired cryptocurrencies, the European Central Bank (ECB) has found with a new survey. While the richest are most likely to own crypto assets, poor families are not far behind, the poll indicates.

Power needs of cryptocurrency miners in Russia have grown significantly since 2017, with consumption of electrical energy seeing a 20-fold increase over the five-year period. In 2021, the minting of the coin with the largest market cap, bitcoin, required 1.25 gigawatts in the country. Experts say, however, that Russia has the spare capacities to satisfy much larger demand.

The number of ether locked in the Ethereum 2.0 contract has exceeded 9 million ethereum or more than $28 billion using today’s exchange rates. The amount of ethereum locked into the contract has increased 22.29% since the first week of September 2021, when the contract held 7.4 million ether.

A new report issued by Mastercard, the payment processing giant, has found that most consumers in Latam have knowledge of what cryptocurrency is. The report states that more than half of the consumers in Latam have at least made a transaction involving cryptocurrency. Also, a third of the surveyed declared having used a stablecoin to make a payment.

The Brazilian central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital real, will be more of a wholesale asset instead of a public retail-focused token, according to statements from the president of the Central Bank of Brazil, Roberto Campos Neto. Campos Neto indicated that private banks in the country will be able to issue their own stablecoins that will be collateralized with digital real deposits.

El Salvador’s tourism has grown more than 30% after adopting bitcoin as legal tender, according to the country’s ministry of tourism. “Cryptocurrency multiplies the opportunities to do business with more partners anywhere in the world,” the Salvadoran government explained.

Chainalysis has found that illicit crypto volumes are down this year, with total scam revenue sitting at $1.6 billion, 65% lower than where it was through the end of July last year. “Those numbers suggest that fewer people than ever are falling for cryptocurrency scams,” the blockchain data analytics firm wrote.

One of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s leading airlines, Emirates Airline, said it has plans to add “bitcoin as a payment service.” The airline is planning to recruit personnel to create applications that monitor client needs.

Russia could be a large player in the crypto mining space, experts in the field have established in research naming the most attractive regions for coin minting operations in the country. The capital Moscow is among the popular mining destinations alongside the places offering the cheapest power.

Ripple, the cryptocurrency and payments company, has issued an article examining the opportunities that Latam brings for crypto companies as its regulated payments rails come to crypto. While the region faces some obstacles due to its economic traits and the dominance of centralized banks, the organization believes there is a lucrative opening for companies partnering with these banks to bring crypto to the masses.

A survey conducted by Deloitte in collaboration with PayPal found that over 85% of merchants “are giving high or very high priority to enabling cryptocurrency payments.” In addition, “nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reported plans to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next 24 months.”.

A recent report states that freelancing is experiencing a boom in Argentina, and also comments on how Argentinians are among workers in the region that most actively use cryptocurrencies to receive part of their paycheck. The report further states that workers accepting their paychecks in crypto favor traditional cryptocurrencies such as ether and bitcoin, which together amount to almost 90% of the payments made in crypto.

In recent times, the impact of bitcoin mining on the environment has been a topical discussion as climate change activists believe proof-of-work (PoW) mining is too energy-intensive. However, a recent report written by the ESG analyst Daniel Batten explains that bitcoin mining could eliminate the world’s carbon emissions by 5.32%. Batten’s study notes that if bitcoin mining entities “aggressively” targeted leaked methane, bitcoin mining has the potential to avoid 0.15% of warming by 2045.

According to findings stemming from a report published by Arcane Research, Bitcoin’s hashrate is steadily going public as an increasing share is deployed by publicly listed companies. Current data shows that the publicly listed miners’ share of Bitcoin’s hashrate is roughly 19% today, up 3% since January 2021.

A majority of the financial pyramids identified in 2022 used cryptocurrencies in one way or another, Russia’s central bank announced in a new report. Amid Western sanctions, Russian scams have stepped up their activities, often claiming to be licensed by foreign authorities to offer access to crypto assets.

An executive at Wisdomtree, an asset management firm with $78 billion under management, says that “Cryptocurrencies have firmly established themselves as a new asset class and it truly is something that people can’t ignore.” He added: “We are past the point where there is speculation around whether or not this is a trend that’s here to stay.”

According to a recent study analyzing Google Trends data, the cryptocurrency dogecoin’s search volume in the United States was highest in the most states as compared to other cryptos. The research also details that the leading crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, bitcoin, was the second most popular crypto asset, with ten different states.

A new Bank of America survey shows that 91% of more than 1,000 current and prospective U.S. crypto investors plan to buy more digital assets in the next six months. Moreover, nearly 40% of respondents revealed that they use cryptocurrency as a means of payment.

Following the confusion that surrounded initial reports, a senior staffer in the Central African Republic (CAR)’s presidency has now confirmed that bitcoin will become the country’s reference currency.

The processing power backing the Bitcoin network has continued its upward momentum tapping another all-time high (ATH) on February 15, 2022, at 249 exahash per second (EH/s). Following the latest ATH, the network’s mining difficulty increased on Thursday morning (EST), up 4.78% and reaching a value of 27.97 trillion. The mining difficulty has increased six times in a row since November 28, 2021, which makes it 23.34% harder for bitcoin miners to find bitcoin block rewards since then.

15 months ago the price of one ounce of fine gold was $1,790 per ounce and since then, it has increased in value 3.51% to today’s $1,853 per ounce exchange rate. While gold has risen in value, the top two tokenized gold coins have grown significantly since then. Pax gold (PAXG), for instance, has seen its market capitalization grow 407% since February 26, 2021, and Tether’s XAUT market valuation swelled by 248% since that day. Presently, PAXG’s and XAUT’s market capitalizations combined equate to just over $1 billion in value.

The U.K. government has unveiled a detailed plan to make the country a global crypto hub and “a hospitable place for crypto.” The plan includes establishing a dynamic regulatory framework for crypto, regulating stablecoins, and working with the Royal Mint to create a non-fungible token (NFT) to be issued by the Summer.

The U.S. Secret Service has launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub. The new platform “will feature the latest in the agency’s work combating illicit use of digital assets as well as provide public awareness information on digital asset security and how to ensure it remains secure.”

New data stemming from the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report on bitcoin mining indicates that China still holds the second position in terms of global hashrate. While China commands close to 22% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, the United States currently dominates with 37.69%, according to CCAF researchers.New data stemming from the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report on bitcoin mining indicates that China still holds the second position in terms of global hashrate. While China commands close to 22% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, the United States currently dominates with 37.69%, according to CCAF researchers.

While bitcoin has risen in value in recent times, jumping 8% during the last seven days, statistics show that the number of addresses holding bitcoin has surpassed 40 million addresses. Metrics from the analytics web portal intotheblock.com show addresses that hold any fraction of bitcoin tapped a 30-day high on March 24, reaching 40.25 million addresses.

A recent report states that freelancing is experiencing a boom in Argentina, and also comments on how Argentinians are among workers in the region that most actively use cryptocurrencies to receive part of their paycheck. The report further states that workers accepting their paychecks in crypto favor traditional cryptocurrencies such as ether and bitcoin, which together amount to almost 90% of the payments made in crypto.

The number of global crypto owners is expected to exceed one billion by the end of the year, according to a report by Crypto.com. “Nations can no longer afford to ignore the growing push to crypto by the public. We may in many cases expect a friendlier stance towards the crypto industry,” the company said.

A survey by FTI Consulting, Inc. reached out to 150 America-based decision makers in finance companies that are in this very position, to better understand their outlook. The data was illuminating, to say the least.

 

At the end of December 2021, the stablecoin economy’s market valuation was around $168.3 billion and since then, it has increased 9.92% to $185 billion in value. A number of stablecoins have issued more assets during the last seven days, as some of the top dollar-pegged coins have swelled by more than 20% since February 22, 2022.

The Shanghai High People’s Court has declared bitcoin to be a virtual asset protected by Chinese law despite the ban cryptocurrency trading in China.

The metaverse will become the most popular place to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency, according to a recent survey. In addition, 70% of respondents agreed that “cryptocurrency and blockchain technology advancements will be critical to shaping the future of the metaverse.”

An Islamic scholar, Irshad Ahmad Ijaz, has asserted that digital currency is not fake currency and that it should be legitimized once certain conditions are met. Ijaz’s viewpoint is echoed by other scholars that attended a seminar examining the status of digital currencies from the perspective of Islamic law.

While April 20 or 420 is synonymous with cannabis culture, the day is also considered “Doge Day,” by a great number of dogecoin supporters. The day prior on Twitter, the Doge network’s co-founder Billy Markus asked what people should expect on Doge Day and for dogecoin’s price action. 12 months ago dogecoin was swapping hands for $0.44 per unit on Doge Day and today the meme-based crypto asset is down 65.3% from that value.

A study — published by askgamblers.com — has covered similar data, but concentrated on the U.K.’s and Europe’s Google searches.

According to the report, while bitcoin is the most popular crypto asset in Europe, the study of the trends shows that the meme token shiba inu is the most popular in the United Kingdom.

According to a recent study published by the online investing news and education platform Invezz, Switzerland currently has the most profitable bitcoin traders worldwide. That’s according to data stemming from Chainalysis, Worldometers, and Triple A, which helped Invezz assign each country a score in terms of the most profitable bitcoin trading by country.

A survey by crypto trading platform Bitstamp shows that 80% of institutional investors believe crypto will overtake traditional investment vehicles. Furthermore, 70% of institutional investors said crypto was a trustworthy investment, with 68% actively recommending this asset class in investment strategies.

Cryptocurrency donations have poured into a nonprofit organization that provides support to Ukrainian soldiers after Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine. More than $5 million in bitcoin has already been raised.

According to a document produced by a Pakistani policy advisory board, the country is likely to earn billions of dollars from crypto-asset holders. Yet for this to happen, the country first needs to create the appropriate regulatory framework for crypto assets.

 

According to eToro’s data, Bitcoin trumped other crypto investments to take out the top spot as the most open position, both globally and in Australia. Moreover, opened Bitcoin positions increased 223% year on year as the cryptocurrency climbed in price from A$41,790 to A$65,670.
On the global stage, Bitcoin’s position was unchanged at number one. Whereas, in Australia, Bitcoin lifted from the third spot to number one

On April 1, 2022, records show that 19 million bitcoin have been mined into circulation. With the max supply set at 21 million, there’s only two million bitcoins left to be found by mining participants.

A U.S. consumer survey shows that 25% of respondents who currently do not own cryptocurrency plan to start investing in crypto. “2021 was a good year for crypto. Of the respondents that own crypto, more than half reported that they had just started investing in the space within the last year.”

To this day, Satoshi Nakamoto is one of Bitcoin’s biggest mysteries as people have searched far and wide to uncover the creator’s identity. 11 years ago, on December 12, 2010, the pseudonymous blockchain programmer (or programmers) left a final message to the crypto community stressing that “there’s more work to do on [denial-of-service] DoS.”

Interest in cryptocurrencies has been growing in Russia, not least among non-qualified investors. According to recently quoted estimates, Russians have already put more than $67 billion into the crypto market, the capitalization of which has increased significantly this year.

Russia’s monetary authority will allow users not residing within its jurisdiction to open and use digital ruble wallets and will facilitate the CBDC’s conversion to foreign currencies by non-residents.

While the cryptocurrency economy has seen significant losses across the board — losing billions during the last two weeks — a recent CNBC millionaire survey indicates that millennial millionaires have a lot of crypto. Furthermore, millennial millionaires plan to add more digital assets to their portfolios in 2022.

The number of cryptocurrency ATMs around the world has grown exponentially in 2021, with over 20,000 new installations made since last December. That’s more than the total of all crypto teller machines put into operation in the previous seven years.

A new report issued by LAVCA, the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America, the region registered investments of more than $15 billion, more than three times the amount registered in 2020. However, crypto and blockchain investments grew almost tenfold.

On Nov. 20, President Bukele said that the country is going to build an entire city based on bitcoin, during a presentation at Bitcoin Week in El Salvador.

As 2021 nears its end, the firm Harpercollins, the publisher behind the printed and online Collins English Dictionary, has revealed “The Collins Word of the Year.” According to collinsdictionary.com, the word of the year is the abbreviation for non-fungible token, otherwise known as “NFT.”

Most people assume that there will be a maximum circulating supply of 21 million Bitcoins. However, the maximum circulating supply of Bitcoins is not really 21 million. In reality, this number is a little lower at 20,999,987.4769 BTC.

 

In Sep. 2017, 35-year-old coder turned Bitcoin millionaire Peter Saddington cashed in 45 bitcoins to drive away with a $200,000 2015 Lamborghini Huracan. Thanks to an early interest in cryptocurrencies, buying those 45 bitcoins cost him less than $115.

A few years ago, the FBI shut down the Silk Road which was a big black market website where Bitcoin was frequently used. The FBI controls more than 144,000 bitcoins that reside at a bitcoin address that consolidates much of the seized Silk Road bitcoins. Those bitcoins are worth close to $158 million at today’s exchange rates.

On October 29, 2013, a Robocoin machine opened in the Waves coffee shop in downtown Vancouver, Canada. This machine is the world's first publicly available Bitcoin ATM.

On Aug 15, 2010, an unknown hacker nearly destroyed Bitcoin. The hacker generated 184.467 billion Bitcoin out of thin air in what has become known as the Value Overflow Incident. Satoshi Nakamoto quickly hard forked the blockchain to remove the 184.467 billion Bitcoins, which saved Bitcoin from dying an early death.

The study, released by blockchain conference BlockShow Europe looked at 48 European countries, analyzing factors such as regulations set in place for the growing blockchain sector, ICO regulations, regulations on cryptocurrency as payment, or the taxation of cryptocurrencies.

According to Decrypt, around 18.5 million Bitcoins have already been minted and around 20% of them are probably gone forever by being lost or intentionally burned.

Bitcoin has had a very volatile trading history since it was first created in 2009. The highest price Bitcoin ever reached until today was $20,089 on December 18th, 2017.

American tech giant IBM has made waves in the space for filing a multitude of patents that use blockchain technology. The company has been a leader in adoption since 2014, putting it well ahead of most when it comes to developing and using blockchain-based solutions. 

Passing the phase of initial skepticism, governments all over the world are gradually realizing that having their very own crypto can be very beneficial. It does not take much to launch crypto as against physical currencies. They are safe, secure and environment-friendly as well. Many countries have either resorted to launching their own national cryptocurrencies or have at least started thinking in that direction.

According to the census, it is found that only 0.5% of the world’s population are using Blockchain today, but 50% or 3.77 billion people use the internet. In terms of its development, blockchain is where the internet was 20 years ago. So, there is a great opportunity to walk ahead of the world and learn Blockchain now!

 

The first Bitcoin transaction between Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator, and computer programmer Hal Finney happened on Jan. 12, 2009. Hal Finney, a developer, and cryptographic activist received 10 BTC as a test. 

The satoshi is the smallest unit of the bitcoin cryptocurrency. It is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the protocol used in blockchains and the bitcoin cryptocurrency. The satoshi to bitcoin ratio is 100 million satoshis to one bitcoin.

The last Bitcoin is estimated to be mined in 2140, when the block reward would drop below 1 satoshi. Of course, this would require Bitcoin miners to be around 122 years from now, which is far from a certainty. At that point, miners would be incentivized to maintain the network because they would still collect fees for securing transactions even though there would be no more block rewards.

On March 17, 2010, Bitcoinmarket.com went live. Like all platforms that sprung up in those early days, the exchange was rickety, and holes were often patched following feedback from Bitcointalk forum members. The site accepted Paypal initially as its means of exchanging BTC for fiat. This system worked for a while, but as Bitcoin grew, so did the number of scammers. Following a string of fraudulent trades, Paypal was removed from the exchange on June 4, 2011.

AT&T is the first major U.S. mobile carrier to provide a cryptocurrency payment option to customers. Customers are able to pay using cryptocurrency either on AT&T’s website or through its myAT&T app.

Address “35hK24tcLEWcgNA4JxpvbkNkoAcDGqQPsP” is the richest Bitcoin address, which belongs to the cryptocurrency exchange giant Huobi. If you are interested, check rich-list here: https://btc.com/stats/rich-list

A genesis block is the first block of a block chain. In 2009, a developer named Satoshi Nakamoto created the Genesis Block. Modern versions of Bitcoin number it as block 0, though very early versions counted it as block 1. The Genesis Block forms the foundation of the Bitcoin trading system and is the prototype of all other blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain.

It’s one of the best-known cryptocurrency legends: 10 years ago, on May 22, 2010, a programmer, Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two large Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, worth about $30 at the time. It’s widely believed to be the first purchase of a product with bitcoin, proving the then-nascent cryptocurrency’s potential as a means of payment.

Bitcoin forks are divided into two categories: soft and hard.

A soft fork occurs when there is a change to the software protocol. This type of fork makes previously valid blocks invalid. However, soft forks are backward-compatible as old nodes will recognize the new blocks as valid.

A hard fork, on the other hand, is incompatible with previous versions. This means that all nodes must agree to upgrade to the new protocol or they won’t be able to process transactions. Hard forks can be used to change an existing protocol or create an entirely new chain with a new protocol.

Hackers stole over $534 million worth of XEM in January 2018. The stolen tokens were reportedly exchanged for Bitcoin (BTC) or Litecoin (LTC) and dispersed over 13,000 wallets.

Tokyo police allocated approximately 100 investigators to the case. Authorities are continuing investigations on other alleged buyers of the stolen NEM. On March 11, 2020, Tokyo police arrested two men in connection to the Coincheck hack. The men are accused of purchasing stolen NEM (XEM) through a dark web market, in violation of a law designed to tackle organized crime.

However, the time an average Bitcoin transaction takes to complete is just 10 minutes. When you make a Bitcoin transaction, it needs to be approved by the network before it can be completed. The Bitcoin community has set a standard of 6 confirmations that a transfer needs before you can consider it complete.

The Bitcoin sign is part of Unicode 10.0 (released June 2017) with code point U+20BF (₿). As of June 2017, font support for the Bitcoin sign is in macOS Sierra, iOS, Android O beta, Windows 10 Creators Update and several Linux releases. After being rejected in 2011, the Bitcoin sign was accepted for Unicode in November 2015 and first appeared in Unicode 10.0 in 2017.

To begin with, it dispensed 5 BTC per visitor, each of whom was required to do nothing more than complete a captcha. The notion of receiving a king’s ransom in BTC for little more than visiting a webpage seems outlandish today, but back then, 5 BTC was worthless in dollar terms. By the time the faucet had dispensed its last coins in early 2011, 19,715 BTC had passed through Andresen’s wallet. 

Bitcoin mining pools are a way for Bitcoin miners to pool their resources together and share their hashing power while splitting the reward equally according to the amount of shares they contributed to solving a block. Slush Pool was announced on November, 27, 2010 under the name Bitcoin Pooled Mining Server and operated on a share strategy that involved an artificially low difficulty method that has since been determined to be vulnerable to cheating.

When Nakamoto left the project, he gave ownership of the domain to additional people, separate from the Bitcoin developers, to spread responsibility and prevent any one person or group from easily gaining control over the Bitcoin project. Today the site is an independent open source project with contributors from around the world.

In the event, four players participated in the world’s first bitcoin poker game which took place at 3PM EST on March 20, 2010. User “dwdollar,” creator of the first bitcoin exchange, won the tournament, walking away with 600 BTC. Bitcointalk and later bitcoin moderator Theymos finished second, earning 325 BTC.

Today, namecoin is effectively a dead coin, despite still being listed on Poloniex and Livecoin. In its seven-year history, NMC has had its moments of glory, like the time it pumped to $15.41 per coin or 0.014 BTC in Nov. 2013. Or the time it hit $8.64 in January of this year, one final burst of nostalgia at a time when every shitcoin under the sun was pumping. By then, namecoin was already a dead coin, with its bitcoin value reaching just 0.0006 BTC per coin.

“The Internet has made it easier for nonprofits to operate by enabling them to increase geographic reach and reduce the overhead required to fund-raise,” the company said. “Adding Bitcoin as a donation option is a natural next step for nonprofits.” In its first week of accepting bitcoin, Wikipedia racked up $140,000 in new funds, according to Coinbase.

A wave of YouTubers received notifications that their videos were in breach of the platform's terms of service in December 2019. The move appeared to target smaller channels and publishers that focused on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency content.

Several days later, YouTube said in a statement that it had "made the wrong call" and confirmed that any content mistakenly removed would be restored.

"With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call," it said.

The abbreviation XBT originated from a special ISO certification for currencies and for uncovered assets, such as gold. According to this certification (ISO 4217) the first two letters must contain the country code and the last letter must be the first letter of the currency. That is why the US dollar consists of the abbreviation USD (United States Dollar).

BTC cannot be used, because the country code BT is used by the country Bhutan. Known uncovered assets start with the letter X followed by the symbol of the chemical element, so gold is XAU and silver is XAG. Therefore the alternative abbreviation XBT has been chosen. Very confusing, but there is no difference between BTC and XBT (except for the letters).

However, it is not officially recognized by the ISO (yet).

“The Internet has made it easier for nonprofits to operate by enabling them to increase geographic reach and reduce the overhead required to fund-raise,” the company said. “Adding Bitcoin as a donation option is a natural next step for nonprofits.” In its first week of accepting bitcoin, Wikipedia racked up $140,000 in new funds, according to Coinbase.

The poll was announced on May 14, 2011 to come to an agreement of the most commonly used name. With the market exchange rate nearing $10 USD per BTC, a name for the sub-BTC unit was needed. The subunit later steered toward simply millibit. Other commonly used names are millibitcoin, millicoin, and millie.

Over the years, there were many people who have publicly come out as Satoshi. However, most of them failed to support their statements with solid facts. Probably the most well-known case of someone claiming to be Satoshi is that of Craig S. Wright, an Australian academic. He has tried multiple times to provide evidence, however, he hasn’t been successful to this day. All the “proof” turned out to be fabricated.

Many people agree that the creator of the first decentralized currency should probably remain anonymous due to the nature of their creation. After all, removing the one single identity that can be associated with Bitcoin removes every influence on politics, rules, and decision-making of the community.

Major Bitcoin mining hardware producer Bitmain can remotely shut down almost all active Antminer machines. Dubbed the "Antbleed" backdoor, abuse of the vulnerability could probably knock half of all hash power on the Bitcoin network offline.

Bitmain can use this data to cross check against customer sales and delivery records making it personally identifiable. Once connected, the server the Antminer connects to - Bitmain's server - sends a message back. If that message is "true", the machine will continue mining. But if that message is "false", the code produces a piece of text that reads: "Stop mining!!!"

It seems obvious that this piece of text would make the machine stop mining, which is indeed confirmed.

Approximately ten months after the first BTC transaction, Martti Malmi, a Finland-based developer, sold 5,050 BTC for only $5.02 (on October 12th, 2009). This was notably the first known crypto to fiat sale, and it was completed by transferring the fiat amount via PayPal. The number of BTC sent corresponds with the fact that the only way bitcoin could be obtained back then was by mining it, when the coinbase reward was set at 50 BTC.

Evidence shows that the bulk of the first 36,000 blocks was mined by one computer, which can only have been Satoshi. At the time, the reward per block was 50 BTC and of the 1,814,400 awarded, 63% was never spent, leaving Satoshi with a fortune of over 1.1 million BTC.

In today’s money translates to about $55 billion, making them by far the richest person in crypto.

According to the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, 19% of people globally have purchased cryptocurrency. According to the report, 81% of the global population have never purchased cryptocurrencies, while only 10% of respondents said they “fully understand how cryptocurrencies work.” Meanwhile, just 14% of those who haven’t ever used cryptocurrencies would like to do so in the future, the report notes.

 

Due to the mining power having increased overall over time, as of block 367,500 - assuming mining power remained constant from that block forward - the last Bitcoin will be mined on May 7th, 2140.

Unless a protocol change is enacted that will raise the maximum amount of Bitcoins that can exist (a very unlikely scenario), the supply of new BTC will eventually run out permanently. When that happens, miners will only be compensated with transaction fees and stop receiving block rewards. When there's no Bitcoin left to mine, there's also the chance that transaction fees would increase sharply to account for the fact that there's no more block rewards.

Bitcoin halvings are important events for traders because they reduce the number of new bitcoins being generated by the network. This limits the supply of new coins, so prices could rise if demand remains strong. While this has happened in the months before and after previous halvings – causing bitcoin’s price to appreciate rapidly – the circumstances surrounding each halving are different and demand for bitcoin can fluctuate wildly.

 

SHA-256 is part of the SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) family, which is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and first published in 2001. The SHA-2 hash function is implemented in some widely used security applications and protocols. SHA-256 partakes in the process of authenticating Debian software packages and in the DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) message signing standard; Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use SHA-256 for verifying transactions and calculating proof of work or proof of stake.

Bitcoin ATMs look like traditional ATMs, but they do not connect to a bank account and instead connect the customer directly to a Bitcoin exchange.

The number of Bitcoin ATMs installed worldwide since March 1, 2020 is approaching 10,000. According to Coin ATM Radar data, there are currently 16,835 Bitcoin ATMs around the world. This number increased by 57.5%, up 9,683 compared to last year, when there were only 7,152 ATMs.

Roughly 10.6% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is currently held on just five centralized exchanges, according to data published by Chain.info. More than 1.96 million BTC is currently held between the major exchanges Coinbase, Huobi, Binance, OKEx, and Kraken. Likely owing to its custody services, Coinbase holds by far the most, with 944,904 BTC currently spread across approximately 4.39 million different wallet addresses. Huobi ranks second with 323,665 BTC held in roughly 901,600 unique wallets, followed by Binance with 289,961 BTC across nearly 2.7 million addresses. OKEx has 276,184 BTC in 339,000 wallets, while Kraken holds 126,510 Bitcoin among 672,000 addresses.

Bitcoin can detect typos and usually won't let you send money to an invalid address by mistake, but it's best to have controls in place for additional safety and redundancy. Additional services might exist in the future to provide more choice and protection for both businesses and consumers.

There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending. Higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions. Fees are unrelated to the amount transferred, so it's possible to send 100,000 bitcoins for the same fee it costs to send 1 bitcoin.

All Bitcoin transactions are stored publicly and permanently on the network, which means anyone can see the balance and transactions of any Bitcoin address. However, the identity of the user behind an address remains unknown until information is revealed during a purchase or in other circumstances. This is one reason why Bitcoin addresses should only be used once. Always remember that it is your responsibility to adopt good practices in order to protect your privacy.

No Individual or Organization Can Control or Manipulate The Bitcoin Protocol Because It Is Cryptographically Secure. This allows the core of Bitcoin to be trusted for being completely neutral, transparent and predictable.

Interestingly, the Chinese yuan no longer figures in the list of top fiat currencies used to trade bitcoins. Around 2014-15, as the Chinese yuan was devalued, it surged to the top rank beating both the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar. It maintained its lead till late 2017. However, amid increasing state-imposed regulations and crackdown on illegal bitcoin trade, the dealings have rapidly moved other venues, including Japan and Hong Kong, leaving the yuan out of the top list.

In the fall of 2017, the price of bitcoin began to rise. In October of that year, the price broke through $5,000 and doubled again in November to $10,000. Then, on December 17, the price of one bitcoin reached $19,783. Several commentators and critics called this a price bubble, many of whom made comparisons to the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 17th century.

Howells had made a serious mistake: he did not keep his private keys in a safe place. In fact, it is not advisable to simply keep them on a hard disk. Everyone can own as many public addresses as they want, so it is necessary to carefully store all the private keys of all public addresses on which bitcoin is held.

 

Virtual currency is a type of unregulated digital currency. It is not issued or controlled by a central bank. Examples of virtual currencies include Bitcoin, Litecoin, and XRP. Digital currencies are stored in and transacted through designated software, applications, and networks in digital form.

BTC is the oldest and most known digital asset and most everything else has been typically referred to as an “altcoin.” The term refers to any of the thousands of prevalent cryptocurrencies that aim to work alongside bitcoin and each other, or are competing for ultimate domination.

This can be calculated by multiplying average blocks mined per day (144) x a block has 6.25 bitcoins, so 144×6.25 is 900.

The Bitcoin blockchain is a permanent ledger which is transparent. If anyone knows your Bitcoin public address, they can see how many bitcoins you hold and what transactions you have made. It’s how the FBI was able to bust the owner of the Silk Road.

If users of Bitcoin want to hide their public address or IP, it can be done by using services like Bitmixer.io or a VPN. That said, this just makes it difficult to trace; difficult, but not impossible.

 

NEO is a Chinese open-source blockchain project that has gone by several different names in its short history. One of the most common is not an official name, however, but rather a nickname: “China’s Ethereum.”

Ethereum remains the second-largest digital currency by market cap today. While bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, ethereum is both a digital currency and the foundation for decentralized applications that make use of smart contracts.

 

Dogecoin (DOGE) surged more than 800% on Jan 28th, 2021 to about $0.082 per coin, giving the meme-based cryptocurrency a market value of about $7 billion and apparently prompting a congratulatory tweet from DOGE lover Elon Musk.

The Bitcoin price at that time was equal to $350, and people were afraid that this large sell order could move the Bitcoin price down to the value from a few years back. “BearWhale”’s coins were bought super quickly and after that, Bitcoin price faced fluctuations for 6 hours to return to “normal” price after this period of time.

Institutional traders have long known the benefits of derivatives trading, including leverage and hedging. By trading options markets, one can predetermine maximum gains and losses, even with volatile assets like Bitcoin (BTC).

Leverage works by using a deposit, known as margin, to provide you with increased exposure. It enables you to get a much larger exposure to the market you’re trading than the amount you deposited to open the trade.

The bitcoin network is underpinned by the blockchain technology, which is very difficult to hack. Since bitcoin came into existence in 2009, the entire network hasn't yet been hacked. There have been instances of exchanges or wallets being hacked, but not the entire network.

The world famous cryptocurrency exchange Binance is China-based. However, as a result of the restrictions made against the crypto money sector in China, Binance moved to Japan in 2018. After leaving Japan, the exchange was accepted by the government of Malta.

But a recent report claims that Binance is not operating in Malta whatsoever. It has led to a heated controversy over where the exchange is actually located, with even the Binance CEO weighing in.

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao really doesn’t want to tell you where his firm’s headquarters is located. He said: Binance doesn’t have a headquarters because Bitcoin doesn’t.

Proof of Stake (PoS) is an alternative to Proof of Work (PoW) where mining power is based on how many coins a person holds. Essentially, new coins are created as interest paid on existing coins.

PoS works like this: instead of mining power being based on how much CPU/GPU you have, PoS mining power is based on how much coin you hold. In order for your coins to count toward your mining power, you have to “lock them up.”

You commit coins to mining for a time, and you get a chance to get paid what can essentially be described as interest on your coins over time. In other words, like with traditional PoW mining, but unlike with a savings account, with PoS you typically get a chance to get paid new coins rather than a guarantee (you aren’t guaranteed “interest”).

Since March 1987, Forbes has been publishing a list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires compiled in a list for the public to view. The 12 crypto billionaires noted in this year’s list work with digital currency exchanges or are venture capitalists who invest heavily in crypto startups.

Elon Musk could be considered a crypto billionaire, but most would say he’s more of a proponent than someone infused within the blockchain industry.

Another person not mentioned among 2021’s crypto billionaires is Satoshi Nakamoto. Using today’s exchange rates, Nakamoto could be worth more than $59 billion.

Satoshi had nursed Bitcoin through its formative years, and now it was capable of surviving without him solo mining, solo-fixing critical bugs and pushing out new Core releases. Perhaps Satoshi left because he had done all he had to do. Staying around would only tarnish his legacy and heighten the risk of him being doxxed as the world began to take a keen interest in his creation.

If so, the timing of Satoshi’s exit was to prove as impeccable as his arrival in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Despite internecine conflict, chain splits, and factions, Bitcoin hasn’t just survived – it’s thrived, morphing into an unstoppable organism that cannot be controlled by any one man.

The name was derived from the first two letters of Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi and Motorola.

Samsung: SA

Toshiba:TOSHI

Nakamichi:NAKA

Motorola: MOTO

What do you think?

Such decline could have a number of causes, but the main ones could be: The drop in bitcoin prices —or at least its slower price trend— is discouraging accumulation, making it unattractive to hodl tokens that lose value over time —especially in a manner as volatile as bitcoin does.

Assets with established pedigree such as Ethereum and BNB are reporting clear and sustained uptrends, gaining the attention of many investors. Many investors could be selling their BTC in order to bet on the price of some Dogecoin clones —like Shina Inu (SHIB) which has spiked 1700% in the last week and a whopping 28600% in the last month.

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency network, in terms of market capitalization, Ethereum, saw a chain split today as a software bug affected a large quantity of full node clients. In mid-August, developers discovered a vulnerability and distributed an update called “Hades Gamma” to resolve the problem. However, a large number of full node clients did not leverage the patch and the network forked. “A chain split has occurred on the Ethereum mainnet,” the Go Ethereum Twitter account said. “The issue was resolved in the v1.10.8 release announced previously. Please update your nodes, if you haven’t already.”

Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornet outlined the first product based on a cryptographically secured series of blocks in 1991. However, the technology we know today became popular almost two decades later, as blockchain statistics show. In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto announced the Bitcoin whitepaper. It is still unknown if this pseudonym stands for one person or a group of people.

In any case, the whitepaper gave a solid incentive to the development of blockchain for different uses.

According to a note shared by JPMorgan with clients, the recent increase in price for BTC was predominantly attributed to institutional investors looking for a hedge to inflation.

“The re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge,” the analysts said, arguing there has been a shift in perception as to the merits of BTC in relation to gold.

The Bitcoin network was estimated to consume about 67TWh of electricity in 2020, and its total consumption has already surpassed this in 2021. By the end of this year, it looks set to have used 91TWh of energy - as much as Pakistan. As the price of Bitcoin increases, more miners with less energy-efficient machines join the network, driving up energy use. This means that it is essential to improve the efficiency of crypto-mining and move to low-carbon energy sources for electricity.

The United States has become the world's largest market for Bitcoin mining, according to new data from Cambridge University.The United States now holds a share of 35.4% of the market, following a mass exodus of miners from China after the Chinese government banned mining earlier this year.

 

On October 22 at 4:52 p.m. (EDT), a miner that acquired 50 bitcoin on May 17, 2010, spent the funds that sat idle for 11 years and five months. There hasn’t been a 2010 block reward spent in three months and the last time a 2010 miner spent their ‘sleeping bitcoin’ was on July 4, 2021.

Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornet outlined the first product based on a cryptographically secured series of blocks in 1991. However, the technology we know today became popular almost two decades later, as blockchain statistics show. In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto announced the Bitcoin whitepaper. It is still unknown if this pseudonym stands for one person or a group of people.

In any case, the whitepaper gave a solid incentive to the development of blockchain for different uses.

 

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency network, in terms of market capitalization, Ethereum, saw a chain split today as a software bug affected a large quantity of full node clients. In mid-August, developers discovered a vulnerability and distributed an update called “Hades Gamma” to resolve the problem. However, a large number of full node clients did not leverage the patch and the network forked. “A chain split has occurred on the Ethereum mainnet,” the Go Ethereum Twitter account said. “The issue was resolved in the v1.10.8 release announced previously. Please update your nodes, if you haven’t already.”

The Bitcoin network was estimated to consume about 67TWh of electricity in 2020, and its total consumption has already surpassed this in 2021. By the end of this year, it looks set to have used 91TWh of energy - as much as Pakistan. As the price of Bitcoin increases, more miners with less energy-efficient machines join the network, driving up energy use. This means that it is essential to improve the efficiency of crypto-mining and move to low-carbon energy sources for electricity.

 

Institutional investors appear to be returning to Bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold."

The momentum toward Bitcoin is in contrast to a JPMorgan report in May when analysts noted big investors at the time were switching out of Bitcoin and into traditional gold.

The United States has become the world's largest market for Bitcoin mining, according to new data from Cambridge University.

The United States now holds a share of 35.4% of the market, following a mass exodus of miners from China after the Chinese government banned mining earlier this year.

On October 22, 2021 at 4:52 p.m. (EDT), a miner that acquired 50 bitcoin on May 17, 2010, spent the funds that sat idle for 11 years and five months. 

After waiting patiently for more than a decade, the miner who spent the ‘sleeping bitcoin’ saw a percentage gain of 76,249,900% if the individual cashed out into U.S. dollars today.

Currently, 12.9% of the circulating Bitcoin supply, or roughly $163 billion, is sitting on exchanges, according to recent Glassnode analysis. The trend started in August, when Bitcoin started gaining some upward momentum after a summer of slumped prices.

According to the latest Finder Cryptocurrency Adoption Index, in October 2021, Nigeria had the highest rate of cryptocurrency ownership globally, at 24.2%.

According to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research Center, the vast majority of US adults (86%) have heard at least a little about digital currencies. However, only 16% of the participants admitted they have personally invested in some of them.

Just 13% of the American residents have never heard of bitcoin, ether, or any other cryptocurrencies.

A growing number of fund managers and institutional investors now prefer bitcoin over gold.

They see the cryptocurrency as a better store of value and a better inflation hedge. “I think it’s probably going to be ten times better than gold over a long period of time,” said the founder of one asset management firm.

BLOCKCHAIN FUNFACTS

The Nigerian Federal government said on May 3 it had passed what it called the “national blockchain policy.” The Nigerian minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Pantami, said the new policy is a product of consultations with 56 institutions and personalities. Lucky Uwakwe, the founder of the technology service delivery company Sabi Group, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is unlikely to reverse its stance on privately issued digital currency.

On 30 April, 2023,, as the U.S. government worked behind the scenes with two major banks to engineer the latest financial rescue plan, the Bitcoin network hit a new all-time high for the number of daily transactions processed. There were more confirmed transactions than it ever had in its 14-year history, beating the previous record set during the 2017 bull run. Today, JPMorgan Chase has acquired First Republic after the distressed bank’s assets were seized by regulators, becoming the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

In the midst of the banking upheaval in the United States, Google Trends has revealed a notable surge in searches related to the acquisition of gold, with the search query reaching a perfect score of 100 during the first week of April 2023. Similarly, the search term “how to buy bitcoin” reached the same score two weeks earlier, on March 20, 2023.

Based on present data, within the last four months, a mere three block rewards from the year 2010 have been transferred after 13 years of dormancy. This is due to the fact that dormant wallets from that era are becoming a rarity to behold. The latest expenditure of a 2010 block took place on April 22, 2023, at 11:14 p.m. (UTC), when a miner spent 50 bitcoin that was valued at approximately $1.3 million. A historic moment occurred today, as a transfer of 400 bitcoin from 2011 took place, marking the first time in over a decade that these digital assets had been moved.

Following the transfer of $60 million worth of bitcoins on April 19, after more than nine years of dormancy, another whale has made its move. The whale, who acquired 1,129 bitcoins in 2012 and 2013, has transferred 464 bitcoins worth $13 million for the first time in nine years.

April 18 (Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) said on Tuesday it has discontinued production of its bitcoin mining chip series, just a year after its introduction. A rout in the cryptocurrency market hurt some chip companies including Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), whose high-end graphics chips became popular for crypto mining. Intel expects to stop taking orders for the series, called Blockscale, by October 20 this year and end shipping by April 20 next year, according to a document on the company's website.

On April 6, 2023, Bitcoin’s difficulty rose 2.23% higher at block height 784,224, touching another all-time high. It’s the fourth consecutive difficulty increase on the Bitcoin network since Feb. 24, and the protocol’s current difficulty is 47.89 trillion, which is only 2.11 trillion away from reaching the 50 trillion range.

 

According to data from the cryptocurrency automated teller machine (ATM) aggregation website Coin ATM Radar, over 3,600 crypto ATMs went offline in March. Since the end of 2022, the number of crypto ATMs has declined by 13.91% in the last three months.

 

 

KazTransOil, the national oil transporter of Kazakhstan, plans to ship 125,000 tons of oil from Kazakhstan through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in April, Trend reports, citing KazTransOil.This constitutes a significant increase compared to the 20,000 tons estimated to be shipped in March.

 

 

Bitcoin's past six months of price action closely resemble its 2014 Mt. Gox bear market.This pattern suggests Bitcoin has entered the next bull phase of its global monetary adoption process.

 

 

Nigerians have increasingly turned to a once-spurned digital currency to transact, after a chaotic demonetisation policy gave rise to a shortage of banknotes and bolstered demand for alternative payment methods.

 

 

In the ongoing banking crisis in the United States, the US Dollar (USD) appears to correlate directly with Bitcoin.Bitcoin Positively Correlates With USD According to Kaiko, a digital assets market provider, Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency, appears to be moving synchronously with the USD as the market adopts a wait-and-see approach amid fear of further turbulence in the United States financial markets.

 

 

The Galaxy Digital CEO predicts tough times ahead for the United States economy but continues to be bullish on crypto.The United States is headed for a credit crunch and now is the right time to buy gold, silver and Bitcoin ,BTC tickers down $24,709, says Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Michael Novogratz.

 

 

XSpring Digital (XD), a Bangkok-based initial coin offering (ICO) portal service provider, is upbeat about its business outlook this year after the cabinet recently decided to waive value-added tax (VAT)... The company aims to become a leader in the ICO portal business by more than doubling the number of customers using the service this year, said acting chief executive Tanasak Krishnasreni.

 

 

 

Thailand is offering companies raising funds through initial coin offerings exemptions from income and value-added tax.The country has shown promise, with a recent report pegging the country as the nation with the highest global level of crypto adoption. However, it needs to compete with a recent Web 3 accelerator program launched by the Hong Kong.

 

 

 

El Salvador’s Mi Primer Bitcoin learning initiative recently released a new student workbook that covers Bitcoin-related topics suitable for learners of different ages. Commenting on the recent changes to the curriculum, Dalia Platt, the Chair of Mi Primer Bitcoin

 

 

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's administration announced that the Central American nation will begin offering bonds backed by Bitcoin, making El Salvador the first nation to do so. 

Previously in 2021, El Salvador shocked the world when the Bukele administration announced they would recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender, despite the cryptocurrency's volatility.

 

 

Bitcoin allows you to be your own bank, giving you complete control over your finances and assets, without relying on traditional financial institutions.
Bitcoin transactions are highly secure, with blockchain technology ensuring protection against hacking and other malicious activities.
Owning Bitcoin can offer a path toward financial autonomy and security, providing an alternative to traditional banking systems often prone to failures and collapses.

 

 

It's a paradise for globe-trotting libertarians
Driving along El Salvador’s Pacific coast, I’m greeted by a sign: “Bitcoin Beach. The future is here.” As I turn onto a dirt road, another appears: “Pay in Bitcoin, $10 Pupusas and Beer”. Finally, I arrive at the beach — with its volcanic black sand, thunderous waves, and vendors selling refreshments for both cash and cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin logo of two lines through a “B” is plastered all over the resort, even spray-painted on plastic dustbins.

 

 

A new link between the Central American nation and Texas has been borne out of Bitcoin. After opening its first Bitcoin Embassy in Lugano, Switzerland, El Salvador is opening a second one in Texas.

 

 

The Chinese authorities distributed over $26 million worth of e-CNY to the residents of Shenzhen, Jinan, Lianyungang, and Hangzhou. Major Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Jinan, and Lianyungang, have reportedly launched approximately 200 activities involving the digital yuan during the Spring Festival.

 

Bitcoin hit the highest since August as investors interpreted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments about progress on inflation as a sign that a less harsh monetary policy backdrop lies ahead.

 

According to a new study, out of the estimated 55.3 million cryptocurrency holders that are spread among 33 African countries, three countries — Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya — account for approximately 36.14 million or nearly two-thirds of this total. In contrast, the study found that Seychelles, which is home to several cryptocurrency exchanges, has approximately 1,000 cryptocurrency holders.

As the new year approaches, more than a dozen bitcoin mining pools still dedicate a total of 238 exahash per second (EH/s) toward the Bitcoin blockchain in order to secure the network and reap mining rewards. Statistics indicate that the mining pool Foundry USA discovered the most block rewards this year, as the operation found 11,779 bitcoin blocks out of the 53,240 rewards mined during the last 365 days.

China is launching its first state-backed non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, the latest sign of embrace for a technology that’s occupied a legal gray area within the country’s notoriously strict regulations on cryptocurrency.The platform will be run by a trio of state-owned and private entities: China Technology Exchange and Art Exhibitions China, both of which are government-backed, and Huban Digital, a private company, according to a report by Chinese state media outlet China Daily.

Despite the market conditions that prevailed in much of 2022, decentralized finance (defi) still demonstrated its greater scaling potential than that of the traditional financial industry, a new report has said. Even though the total value locked dropped from the peak of $180 billion in Dec. 2021, to just over $50 billion by end of Oct. 2022, certain sectors of the defi market still “show a very optimistic trend.”

In Nov. 2021, bitcoin’s market valuation managed to make it into the top ten list of assets ranked by market capitalization, as it was the eighth largest market cap last year on Nov. 9. Since then, bitcoin is 75% lower in value against the U.S. dollar and the leading crypto asset’s market capitalization has dropped down to the 26th largest position among the most valuable assets and companies worldwide.

 

A new study has ranked Nigeria as the country most curious about cryptocurrency post the April crypto market crash. The same study findings show Kenya as the second-highest ranked African country. According to Bobby Ong, co-founder of Coingecko, the countries topping the list seem more interested in buying the dip and this highlights “their long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.”

 

A court in the Chinese city of Hangzhou has determined that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, represent virtual property protected by the laws in the People’s Republic. The ruling comes from a case over a dispute between a customer and a platform hired to sell a collection of tokens.

 

Binance has committed $1 billion to a crypto industry recovery initiative to restore confidence following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Several other crypto companies have joined Binance’s efforts and committed capital for the recovery fund.

 

New data has shown that as many as 6,100 crypto and bitcoin automated teller machines were installed in the first eleven months of 2022. The latest figure is approximately three times less than the ATMs that were installed in 2021. The data shows that the United States, which has over 34,000 crypto ATMs, accounts for nearly 90% of all the installed machines.

 

Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has issued a business suspension order to FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of FTX.com. The financial watchdog has also ordered the crypto exchange to submit a business improvement plan by Nov. 16.

The Brazilian Tax Authority RFB registered a new record in the number of Brazilians that invested in crypto, in the month of September. The institution informed through its monthly reports that almost 1.5 million people had purchased crypto during Sept. The number of crypto investors in Brazil increased since August when a little more than 1.3 million people declared holding crypto.

Google Cloud has announced a partnership with Coinbase to drive Web3 innovation that includes using the crypto exchange to accept cryptocurrency payments. “We are excited Google Cloud has selected Coinbase to help bring Web3 to a new set of users and provide powerful solutions to developers,” said Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.