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    Marathon Digital announces immersion crypto mining operations in Abu Dhabi

    In a May 9 notice, Marathon Digital said the joint venture will be based in Mina Zayed and Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates, comprising two mining sites with a combined 250-megawatt capacity. According to the firm, Marathon and Zero Two plan to power the facilities with excess energy from Abu Dhabi’s grid, claiming it will increase its base load and sustainability.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More

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    Cryptoverse-Tether gets a lift from stability doubts

    https://www.reuters.com/graphics/FINTECH-CRYPTO/WEEKLY/klvyglqgqvg/chart.png

    (Reuters) – Digital stablecoin tether is winning the race for the title of the crypto world’s “least risky” asset.As a regional U.S. banking crisis widens and a regulatory crackdown on crypto firms deepens, investments within the cryptosphere are moving into tokens and coins perceived as relatively safe.Tether is already the top performer among stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to some fiat asset like the dollar — and has seen its market value soar since March.Its value is anchored by a 1-to-1 peg against a cache of dollars and a supply cap at around 85 billion tokens. Demand for the coin has been so strong that its peg has held above 1 since mid-April, hitting 1.002 last week.”The banking crisis is fuelling ‘hyper-bitcoinisation’ – the inevitable endgame that the dollar will be worthless,” said Anders Kvamme Jensen, Oslo-based founder of the AKJ global brokerage and digital asset specialist. That has spurred a flight to top cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, Jensen said. GRAPHIC – Tether’s trust Pegged stablecoins such as tether, meanwhile, are seen more as a store of value and as a tool to facilitate transfers between cryptocurrencies and also serve as collateral for derivative trades. Conor Ryder, research analyst at digital assets data provider Kaiko, says tether’s premium reflects emerging trust in both the peg and in its perceived safety from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).Tether is owned by iFinex Inc, a company registered in British Virgin Islands which also owns the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange. Tether’s main rival USDC, managed by Boston-based Circle, has been hurt by the revelation of its exposure to collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and the SEC’s scrutiny of fintech and crypto firms.Another major stablecoin, BUSD, or the Binance USD token, has seen a decline since its developers said they would cease issuing new tokens after U.S. regulators labelled the asset an unregistered security.The DAI token has been bogged down because of its unusual peg to reserves that include other stablecoins and crypto currencies.”Tether is seen as less U.S.-oriented, meaning lower regulatory risk. Buying tether and bitcoin is really a vote against the U.S. system,” says Jensen.On CoinMarketCap’s database of 23,891 tokens, tether has risen to number 3 with a market cap of $82 bln and a share of 6.83%.NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWSTo be sure, tether has long been dogged by doubts about its peg being backed by dollar reserves. All stablecoins were hurt last year during a series of events such as the collapse of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which followed the de-pegging of Terra USD and the failure of crypto exchange FTX.”The interesting paradox here is that tether has become the industry’s most trusted stablecoin,” says Ryder. “Tether’s safe haven status differs from bitcoin in that it is providing a safe peg to $1, one of the only stablecoins in the space that can make that claim at the minute. Bitcoin on the other hand is seen as a safe haven from monetary debasement as a form of money that is ‘outside’ the banking system.”Bitcoin too has rallied some 73% this year, after hitting resistance around $31,000 last month. More

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    ChatGPT and other AIs could play a big role in driving more users to crypto

    So, as we navigate the market climate, which is showing glimmers of hope for an upward trajectory, what innovations do we see on the horizon? At the top of the list sits artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to take ​Web3 into its most valuable and exciting period of change, a new era that will unlock a goal we’ve been chasing since day dot: onboarding 1 billion users.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More

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    Shaquille O’Neal claims process servers ‘tossed’ FTX legal papers at his moving car

    In a May 8 filing for the United States District Court in the Southern District of Florida, O’Neal’s legal team said following “a failed motion to serve” the NBA star, two process servers “tossed” papers for a legal complaint in front of his moving car. According to the filing, O’Neal did not stop to pick up the papers but left them in the road.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More

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    BRC-20 tokens surpass $1B market cap as wallet providers prepare integration

    According to analysts at multichain wallet BitKeep, the BRC-20 token standard is a novel form of fungible token that “employs Ordinals and Inscriptions to create and manage token contracts, token minting, and token transfers, which are stored on the Bitcoin base chain.” Ordinals is a numbering system that assigns a unique number to each satoshi, or 0.00000001 Bitcoin (BTC), enabling its tracking and transfer. Meanwhile, the “inscription” process adds a layer of data to each satoshi, allowing users to create unique digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More