Bitcoin Price: U$43,042.40 (+1.19%)
Ethereum Price: U$3,305.60 (+2.01%)
Tesla launches Dogecoin payments for merch, but there’s a catch
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla now accepts Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment for the company’s merchandise. DOGE-eligible products in the Tesla store can be purchased by sending DOGE to Tesla’s Dogecoin wallet.
- Although it now accepts DOGE, the firm also clarified that it is not taking any other crypto. The company stated that it cannot receive other assets but DOGE on its website. The business told customers that “non-Dogecoin digital assets sent to Tesla will not be returned to the purchaser.”
- Additionally, items purchased with DOGE “cannot be returned, exchanged or canceled.” Tesla considers all sales made through DOGE as final and cannot be exchanged for cash.
Robinhood hits new low as FTX.US and Bitstamp USA move into stocks
- Crypto exchanges FTX.US and Bitstamp USA are working on offering stock trading, which would be a further blow to Robinhood as its share price slumps to new lows.
- FTX.US president Brett Harrison tweeted on Tuesday that the crypto exchange is “hard at work on stocks,” commenting that a launch would be coming in “a couple months.”
- This isn’t FTX’s first dalliance with stocks. Back in October 2020, the global arm of the crypto exchange launched a feature to allow its customers to access fractionalized trading in tokenized stocks.
- And Bitstamp USA CEO Robert Zagotta said in a Friday interview with Bloomberg that the exchange is considering entering stocks, nonfungible tokens and crypto derivatives.
- Offering low-cost equities trading would allow the two crypto exchanges to attract a similar user base of meme stock-style investors as Robinhood, which offers both crypto and stock trading.
North Korean hackers stole $400M in 2021, mostly ETH: Chainalysis
- North Korean crypto hackers siphoned off nearly $400 million in crypto through cyberattacks in 2021, according to new data from Chainalysis.
- The type of crypto stolen has also seen a sea change according to the Thursday report from the blockchain analytics firm. In 2017, Bitcoin (BTC) accounted for nearly all the crypto stolen by North Korea, but it now accounts for just one-fifth:
- “In 2021, only 20% of the stolen funds were Bitcoin, whereas 22% were either ERC-20 tokens or altcoins. And for the first time ever, Ether accounted for a majority of the funds stolen at 58%.”
- The report stated that attacks in 2021 from North Korea (DPRK) primarily targeted “investment firms and centralized exchanges, and made use of phishing lures, code exploits, malware, and advanced social engineering” to maliciously acquire the funds.
Iota selected for Phase 2A of EU blockchain initiative
- On Thursday, the Iota Foundation, which oversees developments in the namesake Internet-of-Things transactions blockchain (IOTA), announced that it had been selected as one of five contractors by the European Commission to develop blockchain and distributed ledger technology in the region. According to the announcement, phase 2A aims to advance European Blockchain Services Infrastructure, or EBSI, in five areas:
- It will investigate the feasibility of sharding as to exponentially scale the Iota network on EBSI.
- Develop an approval weight consensus mechanism that will be highly flexible and allow both permissionless and permissioned use cases.
- Ensure any Iota-based solution for cross-border transfers abides by EBSI governance structures and any regulatory requirements from EU member states.
- Integrate its GDPR-compliant identity solution with the new framework for EU digital identity on EBSI.
- Prepare on and off-chain bridges to other protocols in and outside EBSI, including support for Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Aside from Shark Tank, Mark Cuban says 80% of his new investments are in crypto
- Comedian and former Daily Show host Jon Stewart said Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban broke down the intricacies of the crypto space in practical terms.
- Speaking to Stewart on a Thursday podcast, Cuban said he didn’t focus on the price speculation around cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE), comparing it to “gamesmanship” akin to that of stocks. The Dallas Mavericks owner explained some of the basics of the space to Stewart, calling it “decentralized and trustless,” with token holders having a “typically equal vote” to determine the direction of each project — characteristics that appealed to the billionaire investor.
- “The investments I’m making now are not in traditional businesses,” said Cuban. “Eighty percent of the investments I make that are non-Shark Tank are in and around cryptocurrencies.”
Bitcoin cycle is far from over and miners are in it for the long haul: Fidelity report
- Fidelity Digital Assets — the crypto wing of Fidelity Investments, which has $4.2 trillion assets under management, shared their “two sats” on the future of the digital assets space. The key takeaways touched upon miners’ behavior and Bitcoin (BTC) network adoption.
- The report stated that the recovery in the hash rate in 2021 “was truly astounding,” particularly when considering that the world’s second-largest economy, China, banned Bitcoin in 2021. The rebound in hash rate since the ban thanks to BTC’s hash power being “more widely distributed around the world,” showed miners are set on long-term profits.
- The statements aligned with miners’ recent selling performance. Key on-chain metric indicate Bitcoin miners are in “massive” BTC accumulation mode, as miners show no desire to sell.
