The wind is certainly blowing in favor of the global blockchain-cryptocurrency community.In 2021, the crypto bull is running hard, with Bitcoin’s price soaring higher than $60,000. Old records are being broken and new ones created, while big-time influencers are increasingly turning to cryptocurrencies.Considering Elon Musk’s activities on Twitter to Micro Strategy’s radical BTC acquisition, the wind is certainly blowing in favor of the global blockchain-cryptocurrency community.On the inside, as well, innovations and research of the technology’s betterment are faring better than ever. As blockchain ecosystems become more diversified, and simultaneously, more robust, they also become more reliable in terms of value.Sidechains and Parachains, among others, are substantially mitigating scalability and interoperability concerns.Sidechains and Parachains, among others, are substantially mitigating scalability and interoperability concerns.Gradually, privacy and user autonomy are being etched in the fundamentals of business processes, making them more relevant for the digital future.Long story short, the blockchain-cryptocurrency industry is rapidly proliferating. It’s witnessing parabolic growth, as some might argue, and with good reason.Not just Bitcoin, but the value of altcoins such as Ethereum has risen 50% higher, while yet others have witnessed a two-fold boost.In more ways than one, now is the time to enter this domain, in case you haven’t already. To help, this article discusses some ways in which you can start your crypto journey right away.In this article, we will focus on the buying aspect, but what’s less obvious is that you might also get paid in crypto. Furthermore, you can win cryptocurrencies as rewards from bounties, raffles, and so on.Such alternatives, however, involve substantial contingency and risk, which restricts their relevance to a niche and technically-competent subset of crypto users.Another aspect to consider before we proceed — what can you do with cryptocurrency? In other words, why should you even care? Even half a decade…
Bitcoin
Increased AML Risks In The Real Estate Sector
Also, the criminal organizations, singular and own that operate in the single States have suffered important economic losses, for example, the Italian criminal organizations, like the Ndragheta, Camorra, etc…, because of the limits of circulation and to the frequent police controls carried out with greater intensity, control measures disposed of the previous waves of lockdown. A criminal business that has economically lost a lot in pre-covid19 times could get their earnings in a month even to hundreds of thousands of euros through illegal activities such as international drug trafficking, prostitution, child trafficking, etc.According to economists, a particular period like this one where markets are still skeptical mainly due to the lack of confidence in new investments and slow economic recovery (although in less than a year, they have already compensated for the economic and financial losses of March 2020), this has meant almost automatically that some business categories such as logistics, energy services, e-commerce, health care and pharmaceuticals have instead increased their gains. With the issuance of vaccines to combat the pandemic, the international market is beginning to see hopeful signs of a recovery in the coming months.In particular, thanks to this reopening, the financial police authorities (such as the national FIUs, the FATF-FAFT, and the FinCen) constantly monitor all those sectors where there could be dangers and risks of conduct aimed at generating illicit flows of money. The real estate sector is one of those sectors under observation since productivity growth has been seen, made possible, above all, thanks to the very low-interest rates and to the greater issuance of economic liquidity by the Central Banks, measures necessary to face the current pandemic. Thanks to these two advantages, buying a new house more easily and at a lower cost than in the pre-covid19 period became possible.The anti-money laundering function…
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson slams Bitcoin and Ethereum
Is the criticism justified or just a tired PR campaign?While the testnet preparations for the smart contract-based Cardano upgrade Alonzo are running in the background, founder Charles Hoskinson has taken off from the competition. In an interview with future zone, the Ethereum co-founder had, in addition to Bitcoin, a scolding for his old blockchain place of activity.“Blind, deaf and stupid” Bitcoin is “the least developed and slowest cryptocurrency” and completely unsuitable as a means of payment.Despite a two-year lead over Cardano, the developers “didn’t do their homework.” The 2.0 launch is permanently postponed and Ethereum is “built on quicksand”: If a prototype does not work, “you have to start all over again.”So Hoskinson does not skimp on criticism. All tokens could be distributed across the globe via the Cardano hub, in real-time and at low fees. In the future, banking transactions would increasingly rely on Cardano and thus financially include disadvantaged population groups.If you hear Hoskinson talking about Cardano, it seems that the network has long since ousted Ethereum. The “Ethereum Killer” is still far from it. With the next upgrade, “Alonzo” Cardano is introducing smart contracts. But until when an entire ecosystem will connect to Cardano, as it took years for Ethereum, can hardly be predicted. No question about it: there is no shortage of potential. But the hype is still mainly based on advance praise — much of Cardano is still in the subjunctive.It is doubtful whether Hoskinson’s blanket scolding will help the project. Hoskinson recently drew a damning Ethereum judgment. “The entire Ethereum ecosystem is not sustainable,” DeFi and NFT on Ethereum are “useless.” He rounded off the criticism with the threat that the entire crypto space will fail if Cardano fails. “Because we’re doing everything right,” says Hoskinson.Just stupid that many points of criticism can be…
Everything Costs Energy, Including Bitcoin or any other Cryptocurrency
Ongoing features in the New York Times and other news sources have discredited the considerable energy cost of bitcoin mining, which requires complex computational force and is fundamental to the security of the Bitcoin blockchain.As the first cryptographic money’s value arrives at new highs and institutional financial backers swim into bitcoin, the safety of its trillion-dollar market cap and the business around it is a higher priority than at any other time. Then again, it’s unquestionably reasonable additionally to have a discussion about the energy cost of mining bitcoin and the fossil fuel byproducts that outcome from it.However, the current discussion, to a great extent, falls into two classifications. One is centered around the energy costs and what might be done (or not) to alleviate them. The other is on invalidating those cases, plunging into the minutia of energy utilization, scale, and the massive range of intricacies that are electrical matrices, mining gear, and well, bitcoin, by and large.These central focuses are fundamental, yet what’s missing is arranging bitcoin mining and energy in a more significant setting. In addition to the fact that this means thinking about what power costs the state of affairs sees as naturally essential and essential, yet additionally perceiving there are far-reaching influences from bitcoin that work out positively past the “number go up” value watchers and onlookers, and stretch out to posing principal inquiries about the association of the present reality.“When taking a gander at bitcoin and contrasting its energy use with all of Argentina for instance, what, as far as I might be concerned, that ought to do is urge the following inquiry, which is, the thing that’s the energy utilization of the Internet of Things (IoT) or even [artificial intelligence]. What are the other enormous, computationally determined practices that are getting increasingly more…
Japanese gaming giant buys Bitcoin
The fact that investments in Bitcoin protect against inflation-related loss of value is one of the cornerstones of the BTC narrative. The Japanese-South Korean company Nexos has given it new credibility.The major video game publisher Nexon has stocked up on Bitcoin. The Japan-based company acquired 1,717 BTC and spent approximately $ 100 million on it, which is less than two percent of its cash on hand.Nexon made the investment public on April 28th. The company paid an average of around $ 58,000 per bitcoin. According to CEO Owen Mahoney, this is the way to protect your own cash assets from inflationary losses:Our purchase of Bitcoin reflects a disciplined strategy to protect shareholder value and maintain the purchasing power of our cash wealth. In the current economic environment, we believe that Bitcoin guarantees long-term stability and liquidity while maintaining the value of our cash for future investments.Nexos specializes in the development and distribution of online games. The company has been listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange since 2011. Since 2020 it has also been part of the Japanese leading index Nikkei 225. The company’s more than 50 multiplayer games currently active include Maplestory and KartRider.Meanwhile, Nexos isn’t the only company using Bitcoin as a store of value. In addition to prominent examples such as the IT giant MicroStrategy, Time Magazine recently discovered the benefits of BTC. With the help of Grayscale, the renowned journal now wants to build up Bitcoin reserves, and customers can also use the most important cryptocurrency to buy media content.The case of Tesla also caused a stir. After Elon Musk’s car company acquired Bitcoin with publicity, Tesla recently sold 10 percent of its own reserves. The car manufacturer improved its balance sheet result, according to Musk they also wanted to prove the suitability of BTC as a…
European Investment Bank to issue €100mn ‘digital bond’ on Ethereum!
Bitcoin marches onBTC/USD trades above $54,800 as it inches closer to pivotal levels mentioned in Monday’s newsletter. The general thesis remains the same: bitcoin needs to overcome these pockets of liquidity before printing new all-time highs. A decisive daily close above $58,000 gives credence to a high-probability move above $64,000 and towards $70,000.Still, there’s no major rush to pile into the BTC/USD trade so long as the above conditions are not met. In fact, Bitcoin is technically still re-testing high time-frame support-turned-resistance.If the bears are correct — which I don’t for a moment think that they are — the first sign of a fake recovery would be a drop below $52,000, printed on the 4-hourly. In this case, the bullish picture would be postponed, and the 20-weekly EMA would once again bear a lot of significance for bulls looking for high-time-frame support.For the uninitiated, support and resistance (s/r) levels are not magical arbitrary lines. They are meaningful levels because the market dictates that they are. Left-over spot buy/sell orders, derivatives, options, and futures, and forced liquidations make these levels important. S/R levels are a description of probable & consequential market behaviour. As such, they are neither static nor absolute but evolving with time.But I digress.No brakes on the Ether trainMeanwhile, ETH/USD is relentlessly pushing higher towards the measured move price target of $2,883.The pair has been essentially immune to Bitcoin-led weakness, and nothing has really changed since Monday aside from bullish news hailing from the European Investment Bank. Various articles have emerged attempting to connect ETH/USD price-action to this news, which might be partly true. But as any seasoned analyst worth his salt will tell you, show me the charts, and I’ll tell you the news.As this wave of investor strength intensifies, ETH/BTC targets the ₿0.05 level, which, if conquered,…
How Much Did Cryptocurrency Crime Thrive On The Dark Web?
Considering the previous year, the rate of cryptocurrency crime had massively increased both on the clearnet and the dark web. However, it has been seen that 2020 bears the highest record for the hidden and unreported crypto crime.Statistics show that 80% of the cryptocurrency relegated black hat hacking and fraud cases have never been reported to law enforcement in that year. There is no global government repository of the cryptocrimes that may combine the information from the law enforcement agency from the local zones, private sector forensic financial investigators, and legal offices.An analysis of the cryptocurrency crime reveals that the total crypto crime occurring in 2020 has amounted to only below 10.52 billion USD. This is just enough to purchase 70,726,934 AK-47s (148 USD per locally produced Pakistani model). When these AK-47s are stacked end to end, it is capable of circumnavigating the Earth’s equator 1.6 times. However, this amount fades in comparison to the complete traditional financial crime.The Central bankers have continued to accept the negative view of the Bitcoin (BTC) cryptocurrency and the other crypto assets. The president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, had stated last month that Bitcoin is used chiefly for rigorous money laundering. That being said, the crimes associated with fiat currency is a much bigger problem. Last year, the FinCen files had laid bare bearing an annual cost of money laundering alongside the associated crimes being 1.4–3.5 trillion USD, as EY had mentioned.Considering the lower band of the 1.4 trillion USD worth of financial crime in the traditional markets, those funds are enough to purchase AK-47s that could be stacked end to end and could make 21 trips to the Moon.47½ of the world’s estimated gun supply, or 9.5 billion AK-47s, is a lot for well-armed terrorists.Irrespective of most of the billion dollars crypto…
Cardano CEO: Cardano Is 1.6 Million Times More Energy Efficient Than Bitcoin
IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson, in a recent interview with Forbes, spoke about Cardano’s eco-friendliness, claiming that the Cardano blockchain is 1.6 million times more energy-efficient than Bitcoin. Hoskinson’s comment shows the advantages of Proof of Stake over Proof of work.The primary difference between proof of work and proof of stake is that first stage-the picking of somebody to be in charge. With a proof of work system, it’s a meritocratic MINING process; basically, you’re mining hashes, and those are like lottery tickets. You just keep going until you hit the lucky numbers. Then you say, “I have a golden ticket.” And that gives you the right to make a block. The higher the value of the asset, the more competition you get, the more energy expenditure.He Added:The advantage of proof of stake is that you dont need expensive equipment and lot of energy to decide who will mine the Block. Avoiding extreme mining competition can save lot of energy and help environment.Hoskinson is not the only personality that targets Bitcoin’s energy consumption. As reported by TheCryptoBasic recently on Earth Day, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen urges Bitcoin miners and core developers to consider abandoning the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. Chris Larsen urges people who create and contribute to the Bitcoin code, key miners, exchanges, and core developers to consider opting out of PoW. He praised Ethereum for its decision to switch to Proof-of-Stake.Bitcoin lovers were quick to dismiss comments about Bitcoin’s carbon emissions. A study conducted jointly by Square and Ark Invest shows that BTC can actually accelerate the adoption of green energy, and profit mining will make it affordable.
Elon Musk Response After Tesla Sold $272 Million Worth of BTC: “I Never Sold Bitcoin I Own”
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that he has never sold his personal Bitcoin. Elon Musk’s statement came after Tesla sold $272 million worth of Bitcoin.Tesla announced in its first quarter report that the company earned $272 million from “selling digital assets.” In February, the company announced that it bought $1.5 billion of BTC from Coinbase in a document submitted to the SEC.Earlier, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla-branded vehicles can be purchased directly with Bitcoin.Elon Response To Pump and Dump CommentFamous investor Dave Portnoy made a pump & dump comment on Elon Musk after learning that Tesla was selling Bitcoin.Portnoy said:Do I understand the situation correctly? First Elon Musk buy Bitcoin, pumps up the PRICE and then he dump Bicoin to makes a fortune.Elon Replied:No, you do not. I have not sold any of my Bitcoin. Tesla sold 10% of its holdings essentially to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on balance sheet.- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2021
The New York times said we all are crypto people now
Is this a terrible dream?The sort of discussion occurring in bunch messages, Twitter strings, Zoom rooms, and Clubhouse boards the nation over as the once-specialty universe of computerized monetary standards has attacked the bar utilizing craftsmanship, sports, diversion, and media.All the while, Bitcoin and other digital forms of money have gone from interest to zinger to practical speculation. They have made many individuals extremely rich — making the whole class harder than any time in recent memory to overlook.The outcome? Dogecoin, a joke cash dependent on an image about a Shiba Inu, is an intriguing issue on CNBC. Coinbase, a crypto trade, is currently an openly recorded organization worth $58 billion. WeWork plans to acknowledge crypto for lease. Money Street banks are offering computerized cash assets to their high total assets customers. There is a blockchain class for youngsters. The accompanying things can be purchased and sold as NFTs: a collection by Kings of Leon, a few pictures of Rob Gronkowski playing football, advanced ponies for reproducing and dashing, virtual shoes, a chronicle of farts, a tattoo on Croatian tennis player Oleksandra Oliynykova’s arm, that image of a photobombing seal, the world’s most bright tone, the researcher George Church’s genome, U.S. Patent №10,025,797, “pornography,” and some way or another, a house. Furthermore, Lindsay Lohan continues to tweet about Bitcoin.It’s all-important for our wild new YOLO FOMO LOL economy, where stonks go up, images consider monetary counsel, and shimmies purchase Hemis. It’s not especially levelheaded, yet nor is a time of pandemic separation and burnout, a cash printing Fed and a K-formed recuperation with the likely new Roaring ’20s not too far off.Meanwhile, the genuine devotees and veterans of the 12-year-old advanced cash industry demand that the fundamental tech is honest and groundbreaking lastly — at last! — prepared to overturn…