Month: August 2021

Matrixport, the digital currency financial services company co-founded by the former Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu, has revealed the company has raised $100 million in a Series C financing round. The funding has propelled Matrixport’s valuation to unicorn status as the firm now has a valuation of over $1 billion. Matrixport Now Valued at $1 Billion, Company Raises $100 Million in Series C On Sunday, the company Matrixport, a financial services firm that specializes in cryptocurrency solutions, management, and custodial services, Read more …

One of the largest bitcoin mining companies in North America, Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc., announced today it will purchase 30,000 additional Antminer S19J Pros for $120.7 million. The new machines are expected to ship between January and June of next year, per a press release from Marathon. If deployed today, those ASICs would produce about 13.3 EH/s and represent about 12% of the network’s hash rate (as of August 1 the Bitcoin network represents 109 EH/s). The new machines would Read more …

Mastercard’s CEO has outlined the company’s plans to develop products and services around cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). “We want to be playing a role across all of them … It’s obviously a vibrant space around digital currencies,” said the CEO. Mastercard Wants a Role in All 3 Crypto Areas Payments giant Mastercard provided an update of its cryptocurrency plans during the company’s earnings call Thursday. CEO Michael Miebach explained that his company wants a role in Read more …

In a new shareholder letter published Sunday, payments giant Square revealed customers bought $2.72 billion worth of bitcoin in Q2 of this year. Square’s total Q2 net revenue was $4.68 billion, up 143% year over year, for a gross profit of $1.14 billion, up 91% since 2020. “As we have offered individuals the ability to instantly send bitcoin free, unlock unique Boosts, direct deposit their paychecks, and more, customers have continued to find increased utility on the platform,” the letter Read more …

Established in 2013, the firm Grayscale Investments has managed to become the world’s largest asset manager for digital currency. While initially starting with bitcoin, the company has since added a myriad of different crypto assets as Grayscale commands $36.34 billion in assets under management (AUM) between 13 different digital currencies. While the asset manager has a large sum of bitcoin, ethereum, and ethereum classic, lately Grayscale has been stacking a great number of other coins. Grayscale’s Attention Is Seemingly Focused Read more …

Buda, a Chile-based cryptocurrency exchange, has started requesting selfie verification every time a user needs to withdraw funds to a new bitcoin address. This new measure now introduces a new layer of security for users to avoid getting their accounts hacked, but it will only be mandatory for those that don’t have 2FA activated. Buda Exchange to Request Selfie to Make Withdrawals to New Addresses Buda, a Chile-based exchange formerly known as Surbtc, will now implement new security measures to Read more …

A Kenyan insurance executive, Julius Kipng’etich has compared cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to Ponzi schemes and has urged his countrymen not “touch this.” In addition, Kipng’etich warned those already involved in crypto trading to be prepared for the consequences as this always “ends in tears.” Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange Interestingly, when addressing attendees of a business seminar, Kipng’etich does acknowledge that bitcoin already meets one of the conditions for it to be treated as currency. He said: Currency represents Read more …

Ethereum outperformed bitcoin and rallied above the $2,550 resistance against the US Dollar. ETH price tested $2,700 and it is now correcting gains. Ethereum rallied towards the $2,700 level before it started a downside correction. The price is still trading above $2,500 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is a major bullish trend line forming with support near $2,450 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). The pair is likely to start a fresh increase Read more …

 Amazon crypto rumors send BTC over $40000, Tether executives facing criminal charges and more people traded Ether than Bitcoin this year?  These stories and more this week in crypto. Reports emerged early this week that Amazon was allegedly looking to accept cryptocurrency for payments in the future. Following the news, Bitcoin rose beyond $40,000, though trading excitement later calmed down once it was revealed that the initial reports were based on rumors and that Amazon is not yet looking Read more …

press release PRESS RELEASE. Binstarter Protocol; the first and only Insurance Policy Protected IDO Launchpad Protocol is proud to announce to the crypto world that their highly anticipated public sales date has been scheduled on Aug 4th. According to former data collected on the seed sales, the upcoming public sales will have the biggest number of participants. During the seed sales, upwards of 14,500 individuals participated in whitelisting and only 1000 successfully whitelisted to buy BSR tokens. With 13,500 people Read more …

Square has had a busy weekend. The company made headlines for it’s purchase of Australia-based fintech firm, Afterpay, in an all-stock deal. Square then went on to release it’s Q2 2021 Shareholder Letter, filled to the brim with company insights – including some strong growth numbers in crypto transactions on Square’s mobile product, Cash App. Breaking Down The Numbers Square’s gross profit in Q2 was a healthy $546M, reflecting a 91% increase year-over-year. Bitcoin gross profit on Cash App specifically accounted Read more …

Payments giant Paypal is hiring more than 100 crypto-related positions as demand for cryptocurrencies grows. Paypal’s CEO recently revealed the company’s expansion plans, stating, “We continue to be really pleased with the momentum we’re seeing on crypto and we’re obviously adding incremental functionality into that.” Paypal’s Crypto-Related Job Postings Paypal is hiring more than 100 crypto-related positions as the company prepares to expand its crypto services. According to Job postings on the company’s website, there are at least 102 job Read more …