51 crypto firms withdraw licensing applications in the UK

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crypto bitcoin chip

Strict Anti-Money Laundering laws in the United Kingdom appear to be constituting a major operational hurdle for crypto firms in the country. According to the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), several crypto businesses in the country might be preparing for an exit. In a release issued on Thursday, the regulatory agency revealed: “A significantly high number of businesses are not meeting the required standards under the Money Laundering Regulations. This has resulted in an unprecedented number of businesses withdrawing their applications.” According to a report by The Guardian, 51 companies…

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Iran bans Bitcoin mining after power outages

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Teherán Írán

Iran has banned mining for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, after blackouts hit major cities. The move follows restrictions on crypto mining in China. Iran’s power cuts are blamed on droughts, but the ban, announced on state TV, will require miners to shut down for four months. All crypto miners in Iran have to pay a license fee and a higher electricity tariff, but the majority are unlicensed, according to Bloomberg. President Hassan Rouhani announced the ban on state TV, saying that the ban will last at least until September 22.…

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Digital Yuan can be set up on Ethereum

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Digital Yuan Ethereum

Yao Qian, Director of the Science and Technology Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, has shared his views on the future of the digital currency developed by China. One might think of Yao Qian as an SEC commissioner. Furthermore, with a friendly attitude towards cryptocurrencies, he’s been equated to ‘crypto mom’ Hester Peirce. Since the inception of the digital yuan back in 2014, Qian has been involved with the CBDC. In a recent conference, he has revealed that there will be more to the digital yuan than a…

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Banking system consumes two times more energy than Bitcoin

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Bitcoin Energy Consumption

According to Galaxy’s estimates, the annual energy usage of Bitcoin stands at 114 TWh, while the banking industry consumes over 260 TWh each year. Amid the ongoing concerns over Bitcoin’s (BTC) energy consumption, a new study states that the traditional banking system consumes much more energy than the Bitcoin network. Michael Novogratz’s cryptocurrency firm Galaxy Digital released a report Friday titled “On Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption: A Quantitative Approach to a Subjective Question,” providing open-source access to its methodology and calculations. Compiled by Galaxy’s mining arm, the study estimates Bitcoin’s annual…

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Vitalik burns $6.7B of Shiba to reward generous hodlers

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Vitalik SHIBA INU (SHIB)

Vitalik Buterin has burned nearly half of Shiba’s supply in response to the “generosity” of the ‘dog token communities.’ Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has burned nearly half of the supply of the popular Dogecoin clone, Shiba Inu (SHIB). In a statement embedded into the transaction on May 16, Vitalik Buterin explained why he decided to burn $6.7 billion worth of SHIB tokens, emphasizing the “generosity” of the “dog token communities.” “I’ve actually been impressed by how the dog token communities have treated the recent donations! Plenty of dog people have…

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City in North Dakota now accepts cryptocurrency for utility payments

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City of Williston

A city in North Dakota is joining the cryptocurrency adoption race in the United States by starting to accept crypto payments. Hercules Cummings, finance director for the City of Williston, announced Thursday that the city administration has partnered with crypto payment firm BitPay to start accepting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as payment for utility bills. “We have partnered with BitPay, the largest virtual payment merchant whose partners include Microsoft and Facebook. We are the first municipality in the State of North Dakota, and the third in the nation, to offer…

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Chia cryptocurrency comes for the hard drive

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hard drive Chia cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency mining surges have caused GPU shortages and price spikes, helped resurrect fossil fuel power plants, and consumed more energy than some countries. Now, it’s targeting the storage industry. Cryptocurrency Chiacoin has pitched itself as a green alternative to compute-intensive currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. Instead of requiring computational power, it primarily requires ‘proof-of-space’ in hard drives and SSDs to be mined. Now, as Chiacoin’s popularity spikes, hard drives are in high demand. Chia uses 100GB clusters on a hard drive called plots. The more plots, the higher chance…

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PayPal Is Building A Super App To Offer Customised Services

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PayPal Mobile Cash

PayPal Holdings Inc. is working on building a super app, encompassing payments, finance, crypto-currencies and shopping services all in one “personalised” app. Paypal reported a net profit of $1.6 billion in the first quarter of the current calendar year, up by 28% year-on-year, it said in its financial results. “Over the coming year, we will accelerate our customers’ digital engagement through the rapid innovation of our digital wallet and merchant commerce platform,” said Dan Schulman, President and Chief Executive Officer, PayPal Holdings Inc during an earnings call. “It will be…

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Ethereum price shoots past $3,000 for the first time

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Ethereum cz money

Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency, was worth $207-per-token just one year ago. Bitcoin and Dogecoin both hit new all-time highs in April, but May appears to be Ethereum’s month. The cryptocurrency, second biggest in the world and the most widely used, hit $3,000 for the first time on Sunday. As is customary with headline-grabbing cryptocurrencies, it’s been a meteoric rise for Ethereum over the last year. It’s price on this day one year ago? Just over $207. The cryptocurrency now has a marketcap of just under $350 billion. It’s been growing…

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PRTI makes cryptocurrency from old car tires in Northern Carolina

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PRTI factory crypto

A waste processing specialist in North Carolina is decomposing old tires to create energy which it is then using to mine cryptocurrency. Product Recovery Technology International (PRTI), is processing discarded tires at a site in Franklinton, north of Raleigh, to create oil, syngas, carbon char, and steel. It is then using the gas to generate electricity which it uses in bitcoin miners in its on-site office. The process is scalable, the energy could be used for other purposes, and the company is planning to roll it out in other sites…

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Hackers move $760 million from the 2016 Bitfinex hack

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Bitfinex hack transactions

More than $760 million worth of Bitcoin, stolen from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016, were moved on Wednesday to new accounts. The funds were moved in tens of transactions ranging from 1 to as much as 1,200 bitcoin (BTC) at a time. According to a summary of recent transactions put together by The Record using data from blockchain tracking services like Whale Alert and BTCparsers, the transferred sum ranges from 10057.5798 BTC (per Whale Alert) to 12230.08861 BTC (per BTCParsers). The moved funds represent around 10% of the sum stolen…

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A Single Grey Pixel Sells For $1.36 Million At A Sotheby’s NFT Auction

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NFT Single Grey Pixel

As NFT sales in established art houses become something of the norm, there are still record-breaking, and even shocking auctions that rock the art and crypto world alike. At auction house Sotheby’s ‘The Fungible Collection’ sale, a single grey pixel created by digital artist Pak sold for $1.36 million. The digital art sale included a series of digital cubes that collectors were able to purchase for a fee of $500 to $1,500 for which they would receive a number of NFTs, depending on how many cubes they purchased. As part…

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Coinbase IPO values hits $99.6bn valuation with shares up 52% on debut

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coinbase screenshot

Coinbase, the US-based cryptocurrency exchange, launched its initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq on Wednesday, hitting at valuation of $99.6 billion. Shares debuted at $381, a 52.4% increase on the $250 reference price – the benchmark for performance when Coinbase stock started trading. Shares closed below $330, up a lesser 32%. The firm listed its stock directly on Nasdaq. This meant employees and existing shareholders could sell their Coinbase shares immediately at the market-level price. Just a day earlier, Bitcoin hit a new high of more than $63,000. “The Coinbase…

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MicroStrategy now pays its board of directors in bitcoin

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Bitcoin payment

The Nasdaq-listed company said non-employee directors would receive all fees for their service in bitcoin instead of cash. “In approving bitcoin as a form of compensation for Board service, the Board cited its commitment to bitcoin given its ability to serve as a store of value, supported by a robust and public open-source architecture, untethered to sovereign monetary policy,” said MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy further said that it would convert directors’ fees from the U.S. dollar to bitcoin at the time of payment via a payment processor and deposit into directors’ digital…

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German federal bank runs successful blockchain system without a CBDC

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Deutsche Bundesbank

Executives at the Deutsche Bundesbank are eager to launch a blockchain-based system without the need for a CBDC — and they just might succeed. Germany’s federal bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, has run successful tests on a project which bridges the traditional finance infrastructure with blockchain technology. Despite the current global rush by central banks to familiarise themselves with central bank digital currency technology, the testing carried out by the Bundesbank, in conjunction with the Deutsche Börse Group and the German Finance Agency, required the issuance of no CB, or any…

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