Cointelegraph

Powers On… Don’t worry, Bitcoin’s adoption will not be stopped

In a series of  recent interviews and speeches, United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has called the cryptocurrencies market the “Wild West” due to its unregulated and allegedly fraud-filled atmosphere, predicting that the coins were doomed to fail. Powers On… is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches

White hat hacker paid DeFi’s largest reported bounty fee

Belt Finance, an automated market maker (AMM) protocol operating a yield optimization strategy on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), claims to have paid the largest bounty in the history of decentralized finance (DeFi) to a whitehat hacker who averted a $10 million bug crisis. Industry whitehat programmer Alexander Schlindwein discovered the vulnerability in Belt Finance’s protocol this week and reported the news to the team. For his efforts, Schlindwein received a generous compensation of $1.05 million, the majority of which ($1 million) was granted by Immunefi, with the additional $50,000 offered by

Visa working on blockchain interoperability hub for crypto payments

Global payments giant Visa has introduced a project that aims to be a “universal adapter” of blockchains that can connect multiple cryptocurrencies, stablecoins as well as central bank digital currencies (CBDC).According to an official announcement on Thursday, Visa’s research team is working on a “Universal Payment Channel” (UPC) initiative, a blockchain interoperability hub connecting multiple blockchain networks and enabling transfers of digital assets from different protocols and wallets.“Imagine splitting the check with your friends, when everyone at the table is using a different type of money — some using CBDC like

Switzerland national postal service to debut crypto stamp on Polygon

The national postal service of Switzerland is working to bridge the gap between physical stamps and the digital cryptocurrency industry by introducing tradable digital stamps.On Sept. 20, the Swiss Post officially announced the upcoming launch of the “Swiss crypto stamp,” a digital collectible linked to a physical stamp issued by the postal service worth 8.9 Swiss francs.The Swiss crypto stamp will provide a digital representation for a physical stamp and will be stored on a blockchain. “Each design forms a nonfungible token and is stored in the Polygon Blockchain,” a spokesperson

100 years ago, Henry Ford proposed ‘energy currency’ to replace gold

In 1921, American industrialist Henry Ford proposed the creation of an “energy currency” that could form the basis of a new monetary system — offering striking similarities to the peer-to-peer electronic cash system outlined in Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 Bitcoin (BTC) whitepaper. Front page of the New York Tribune dated Sunday, December 4, 1921. Source: Library of CongressBitcoin as an energy currencyOn Dec. 4, 1921, the New York Tribune published an article outlining Ford’s vision of replacing gold with an energy currency that he believed could break the banking elites’ grip on

Bitcoin bullish cross on weekly chart paints $225K BTC price target if history repeats

Bitcoin (BTC) is wowing the market by holding $50,000, but a bullish metric is pointing to much larger potential gains.Data from TradingView now clearly shows that the weekly moving average convergence/ divergence (MACD) indicator for BTC/USD has flipped from red to green.Time for another 5.5X BTC price surge?There is no shortage of bullish BTC price indicators this month, with everything from exchange balances to network fundamentals infirmly optimistic mode.MACD, which produced a rare crossover earlier in August, nonetheless adds the potential for upcoming gains to be an order of magnitude

Visa invests $150,000 in NFT CryptoPunk Asset

Credit card giant Visa has made a substantial splash on its emergence into the nonfungible token (NFT) space with a $150,000 acquisition of a CryptoPunk, the collective of digital artworks that pioneered the mainstream culture of the space back in 2017.In a blog post announcement released on Monday, Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa and self-proclaimed NFT enthusiast, shared his views on the value of purchasing NFT assets in the digital economy, the vast growth of the market in the past few years, as well as Visa’s commercial incentives in this

This time it’s different: When DeFi meets NFTs

With decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens seeing a meteoric, rise it’s easy to believe crypto apps are finally breaking through. But is there actually real user growth, or is it just the same influencers moving from one hyped market to the next? We sought to answer this puzzle and identify what it means for the future of innovation. So, let’s take a closer look at the growth of DeFi and NFTs.DeFi is arguably the most prevalent application of smart contracts today. Automated market makers, algorithmic stablecoins and yield farming strategies

Chinese province to cut off Bitcoin miners from hydropower stations

Regulators from Yingjiang County in Yunnan, China have issued strict warnings to hydroelectric plants against supplying power to enterprises involved in Bitcoin (BTC) mining. A recent report claimed that the Office of the People’s Government of Yingjiang County issued notice to hydropower plants to strengthen oversight on Bitcoin mining operations. According to the announcement, the power plants have been given until Tuesday, Aug. 24, to delist mining companies from their grid’s “illegal” supply. After the given deadline, the county reportedly plans to “forcibly dismantle” the power supply to Bitcoin mining establishments