Day: November 6, 2018

Blockchain.com Wallet Adds Stellar, Announces $125 Mln XLM Airdrop to ‘Drive Adoption’

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Cryptocurrency wallet provider Blockchain.com has launched full support for altcoin Stellar (XLM), accompanied by a hefty airdrop of $125 million worth of XLM to its user base. The news was announced in an official blog post today, Nov. 6. Blockchain.com pitched the mammoth offering as “the largest airdrop in the history of crypto and likely the largest consumer giveaway ever,” suggesting that airdrops are “a great way to drive decentralization and adoption for new networks.” The firm underscores that the benefit of crypto airdrops for consumers are that they are…

Crypto Seas Are Calm With Record Low Bitcoin Futures Volatility

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Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading on the U.S. Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) hit record low volatility levels in October, in stark contrast to the rocky global equity markets, MarketWatch reported Nov. 5. As Kevin Davitt, senior instructor for The Options Institute at Cboe Global Markets has outlined in a video Nov. 1, the average weekly volatility for the week ending Oct. 26 was just 3 percent for XBT-CBOE Bitcoin futures, the lowest ever level since they launched for trading Dec. 10, 2017. As of Nov. 1, the average weekly XBT…

Mining Giant Bitfury Raises $80 Million in Closed Funding Round as Mining Market ‘Matures’

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Bitcoin mining infrastructure provider Bitfury has raised $80 million in a closed funding round, the company revealed in a press release shared with Cointelegraph Nov. 6. The round, which comes weeks after rumors Bitfury was considering an IPO, was led by European venture capital fund Korelya Capital. Other participants included South Korean internet giant Naver Group, Asian institutions Macquarie Capital and Dentsu Japan, as well as Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital. “This private placement will take our corporate governance to the next level, broaden our financial strategic options, and ideally position…

Bitcoin Mining Behemoth Bitmain Releases New 7nm Antminer Hardware

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Bitcoin (BTC) mining giant Bitmain has officially released two new 7nm (nanometer)  “Antminer” crypto mining machines, according to an official tweet posted Nov. 5. Bitmain indicated in September that it would be equipping its new Antminer models with next-generation Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chips. ASIC chips are geared to compute optimally for a specific hashing algorithm and, as Bitmain’s tweet confirms, these latest “acceleration” chips use an SHA256 algorithm, which is based on 7nm Finfet semiconductor manufacturing technology. Today’s tweet from the company reads: “We are officially announcing the release…

The Number of Bitcoin Short Positions Just Hit a 3-Month Low

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The bearish sentiment around bitcoin sank to three-month lows earlier today as short positions placed on crypto exchange Bitfinex fell to their lowest level since August 5th. At approximately 11:00 UTC, the number of short positions dropped to 21,434, which represents a 33 percent drop in the past eight days alone. During the same time, longs – or positions that are betting on an increase in bitcoin’s price – also witnessed a notable increase of 10 percent, the current number of which (24,410) marks a three-week high. Indeed, the sentiment here seems…

Andrew Fleming, Former Dow Jones Executive, Joins BTC Inc as Head of Media

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BTC Inc, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, is excited to announce the hiring of Andrew Fleming to be the new head of its media division. The addition of Fleming to BTC Inc’s management roster is the latest example of an emerging trend of big-name talent leaving institutions in order to join the crypto and blockchain industry. Before coming to BTC Inc, Fleming was the Head of Content Platforms at Dow Jones, parent company of the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron’s and many other leading publications. Prior to Dow Jones,…

15 Banks Join DTCC Post-Trade Blockchain as Project Enters Testing

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The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has advanced its main blockchain project to a testing phase with 15 global banks, one of the last steps before taking the tech live.  Announced today, U.K.-based Barclays is among the global banks participating in the test, while the other 14 were not named. Together they will be kicking the tires of DTCC’s distributed ledger and cloud-based platform for its credit derivatives Trade Information Warehouse (TIW). Upon successful completion, DTCC expects to move to an “open” testing phase by the end of the year,…

Ripple (XRP) Briefly ‘Flippens’ Ethereum to Become 2nd-Largest Cryptocurrency

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Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Ripple (XRP), long the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency, capped off an impressive single-day rally with a foray onto the market’s silver podium, briefly evicting ethereum (ETH) from the market cap ranking it has long called home. Ripple (XRP) Challenges Ethereum for Silver Podium The rally, as CCN reported, saw the ripple price rise an astounding 14 percent on a day when bitcoin (BTC) traded sideways, and no other large-cap cryptocurrency rose more than 4 percent. In fact, XRP’s single-day return was triple that of Metaverse ETP, whose 4…

Thailand’s Tax Authority Taps Blockchain to Fight Tax Evasion

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Twitter Facebook LinkedIn In its fight against tax evasion Thailand’s tax collection agency will turn to blockchain technology among other measures to fight the vice. According to the director-general of the Revenue Department, Ekniti Nitithanprapas, the government agency will employ blockchain technology in verifying whether owed taxes were paid in the correct amounts. Per the Bangkok Post, distributed ledger technology will be used in hastening the tax refund process by the department which falls under the country’s Ministry of Finance. The director-general of the Revenue Department, who was appointed to…