Every week we make a digest about the most significant news in crypto with bloggers and crypto community members, but this week we decided to find out what companies’ representatives and media think about all things crypto.
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Projects And Updates
?? Bybit to Launch Cloud Mining to Democratize Ethereum Mining
Bybit Cryptocurrency exchange is launching Baybit Cloud Mining —v a mining-as-a-service product (Maas) that will allow more users to join ether (ETH) mining from just $100. Hassle-free approach to mining is going to be done to help users who can’t or don’t want to afford a full set of equipment to be able to pay as less as $100 and get a hash rate to a remote data center with shared computer power to mine the ether. Users can choose from 7, 21, and 42-days customizable plans to get the greatest profitability and to minimize the effect of the price inconsistency. Moreover, Bybit will cover any downtime so the users can mine with greater confidence.
“We are really excited to introduce Bybit Cloud Mining, and think it is an ideal solution for users who are interested in crypto mining, but don’t want to be bogged down by the hassle of operations and hardware maintenance.” — Bill Xing, Head of Financial Products at Bybit
?? Maker Foundation Returns Development Fund Tokens to MakerDAO
The Maker Foundation sent back 84,000 MKR tokens worth around $480 million to MakerDAO to let the protocol become fully decentralized. The tokens will be transferred to the community and that was exactly the goal of the Foundation — to build DAO protocol, grant its self-government, and get to the last step left now — dissolution that is going to happen before the end of this year. The tokens belonged to the Development Fund which is not needed anymore as the protocol achieved most of the initial objectives and now the reins of the credit platform protocol are in hands of the users. Now the Maker Governance will decide what to do with the tokens as there were no terms or conditions according to return. Foundation held 1% of the tokens though to finance its dissolution the end of which will mark the protocol as fully decentralized and self-governing.
?? Galaxy Digital to acquire crypto custodian BITGO for $1.2 billion
As announced on Wednesday Crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital is planning to buy custodian BitGo for $1.2 billion, from which $265 million will be paid in cash and the rest in the shares of Galaxy Digital. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021 and once is done BitGo shareholders will own about 10% of Galaxy Digital. Upon completing Bit-Go co-founder and CEO Mike Belshe will join Galaxy digital as Deputy CEO and become a member of the company’s board of directors.
"The power of the technology, solutions, and people we will have as a result of this acquisition will unlock unique value for our clients and drive long-term growth for our combined business." — Mike Novogratz, CEO & Founder of Galaxy Digital.
?? Anyswap Bridge Connects Orbs to The BINANCE Smart Chain (BSC)
Israeli blockchain Orbs’s tokens (ORBS) are available on Binance Smart Chain from May 5. This achievement will allow Orbs users to leverage their tokens to participate in DeFi applications along with getting access to Binance’s ever-growing ecosystem with cheaper transactions and high scalability. This step also improves ORBS liquidity across multiple chains and prepares the possibility of other assets to live on Orbs network. Orbs is now utilizing the cross-chain infrastructure to make new applications compatible with new legacy systems and users can already swap ORBS tokens from Ethereum mainnet to BSC and back. Once it’s done, tokens will be visible in the Binance wallet and available for trade, exchange, swap, and other interaction. Formerly Orbs was hosted only on the Ethereum blockchain which lost in popularity due to the high gas fees.
“For Orbs, the main motivating factor for integrating Binance Chain is to give users new ways to use ORBS on various DeFi applications within the nascent ecosystem.” — Newsbtc
?? Coinbase to Close Its San Francisco Headquarters in 2022
Coinbase Global Inc will close its San Francisco headquarters in 2022 to move towards a no-headquarter way of operating that will bring it closer to decentralization. The company believes that such a step will express the commitment to the decentralization tenet of not having any specific location as the central office. This follows the no-headquarters trend as Binance exchange also works without the main office, but also this will reduce the real estate cost, operating expenses and most likely to improve employees comfort.
“Closing our SF office is an important step in ensuring no office becomes an unofficial HQ and will mean career outcomes are based on capability and output rather than location. Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to.” — Coinbase
Regulations
?? New OCC Head Could Influence US Crypto Regulations
Michael Hsu, a senior Federal Reserve Official is expected to be appointed as a head of the Office of the Controller of the Currency and this can force the development of crypto regulations in the US and the implementation of the digital dollar. The related announcement is expected to be made in the coming weeks by Jannet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary. The OOC division of the treasury operates independently and is a prominent force in a regulation. If Hsu gets this post he will play a significant role in overseeing the operations of the national bank’s and the experts also think he will affect the US decision to launch a CBDC (digital dollar).
“Analysts state that Democrats believe the new leadership will help address wealth inequality.” — Beincrypto
Mass Adoption
?? E-Commerce Giant eBay Is Considering Cryptocurrency Payments And NFT Marketplace
In a recent interview with CNBC eBay CEO Jaminne Iannone said that an e-commerce giant company is considering adding cryptocurrencies as a payment method as well as launching an NFT-trading platform. He also mentioned that NFT was already traded on the platform, but in some cases, the transactions were made off-site. According to the company’s CEO, eBay is now looking for an easy way to enable NFT on the platform, as it's exactly about all types of collectibles that had always been there and the company wants to keep it this way.
“We are always looking at the most relevant forms of payment and will continue to assess that going forward, we have no immediate plans, but cryptocurrency is something we are keeping an eye on.” — Jaminne Iannone
?? VeChain’s New Patent Could Help Offset Carbon Emission
US Federal agency Patent and Trademark Office has published the document confirming that VeChain Global Technology has petitioned to register a patent for methods, devices, blockchain nodes, and systems for carbon recording and trading. The main subject — is the method of obtaining the data related to carbon behaviors on different objects and then converting the info into the carbon data that will be stored in a blockchain based platform and can be traded as a transaction. So the users maintaining their carbon consumption below average will be granted a credit attached to their ID. The mechanism will also provide the enterprises with the platform to store their carbon emission data.
Hacking
?? Binance Smart Chain’s Spartan Protocol attacked, $30M stolen
On Sunday, Spartan Protocol was attacked by exploiting a flawed liquidity share calculation in the protocol and around $30 million of the digital assets were drained from one of the pools. For now, it is the sixth-largest theft in the DeFi space. The project admitted the exploitation happened due to a flaw in the coding. PeckShield Inc., a leading blockchain security company and the Spartan team managed to identify the wallet where the stolen funds are held and are monitoring it for any further movement as it will help to pinpoint the malefactors. Per the official Twitter notice, the project is planning to bounce back and rebuild itself. Investors applied for help to Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao, though there is not much the company can do. With all the advantages, fast transactions and low fees on the Binance attracted lots of attackers considering vulnerable less-secure protocols and easy picking.
?? Crypto Exchange Hotbit Hacked With 2M Users Affected
Hotbit, a cryptocurrency exchange with over 2 million registered users around the world and more than 200 online services, suffered a cyber-attack on April 29 that caused the paralyzation of many basic services. As per a report posted by the Hotbit team, the invaders also tried to hack the wallets but were identified by the risk control system and stopped. The teams shut down the service for the now being and going to completely rebuild the system to avoid further hacks. The recovery will take not less than 7-14 days. As soon as the attack happened crypto transfers were detected from Hotbit’s addresses, but as said in the exchange official service that was the result of creating a new cold wallet to secure the funds.
People
?? Vitalik Buterin Becomes The Newest Billionaire After Ethereum Crosses $3K
On May 3rd after Ethereum crossed $3000 reaching its all-time-high, 27-years old Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the network became the youngest self-made billionaire in the crypto space. Such an outbreak of the cryptocurrency price is explained by the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade which was coming successfully in every phase so far. Ethereum has also experienced a burst of DeFi space causing 200% market growth from the beginning of the year. This achievement of Buterin, who was introduced to Bitcoin in 2011 and announced Ethereum in 2014 was widely celebrated in the crypto community as it considered a win for all of those who believe in the industry.
?? Norway Minister of Climate Holds Bitcoin; Says its “well-suited for store of value”
Sveinung Rotevatn, Norwegian Minister of Climate and the environment in the recent podcast appearance admitted that Bitcoin’s negative impact on the environment is highly overestimated, as most of the critics forget to mention that most of the energy the network uses comes from renewable sources. He also said that holds the cryptocurrency himself and called it a “well-suited store of value.” As Norway is considered among the most renewable-energy-focused countries around the globe, the fact that its environment minister advocating Bitcoin shows that the talks about the hazardous impact of Bitcoin are far-fetched.
Prices
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