Autor Cointelegraph By Joseph Hall

Michael Saylor can’t stop: MicroStrategy now holds 130,000 Bitcoin

Michael Saylor can’t stop: MicroStrategy now holds 130,000 Bitcoin

Uverejnil používateľ | sep 20, 2022 |

MicroStrategy now owns 0.62% of all the Bitcoin (BTC) that will ever be mined. The company’s executive chairman, Michael Saylor, announced that the company bought another 301 BTC for roughly $6 million at an average price of $19,851 per BTC. In sum, the company is one of the planet’s largest holders of the asset, owning 130,000 BTC. Apparently, Saylor likes round numbers, buying 301 BTC to reach the 130,000 milestone. MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 301 bitcoins for ~$6.0 million at an average price of ~$19,851 per #bitcoin. As of 9/19/22 @MicroStrategy holds ~130,000 bitcoins acquired for ~$3.98 billion at an average price of ~$30,639 per bitcoin.https://t.co/5kYW98ij4I— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) September 20, 2022Due to plunging price action, the company’s investment is down substantially in U.S. dollar terms. MicroStrategy’s entry price is roughly $30,639 per BTC, and the Securities and Exchange Commission filing states that the firm has bought 130,000 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of approximately $3.98 billion. If MicroStrategy started stacking sats (buying Bitcoin) at today’s prices, it would have spent $2.48 billion on 130,000 BTC. Saylor is currently at a paper loss of over a billion dollars.According to the SEC filing, the company made the purchase with “excess cash.” Saylor recently stepped down as CEO of the company to focus on buying more Bitcoin, while Washington, DC has taken aim at the billionaire in a tax evasion lawsuit. Bitcoin enthusiasts were quick to commend Saylor’s buy. Referred to as the “Chad” or “Gigachad,” Saylor’s conviction and commitment to buying Bitcoin despite the investment being underwater has garnered both a devout following and numerous critics. Related: Bitcoin better than physical property for regular folks, says Michael SaylorOther large wallet addresses include that of crypto exchange Bitfinex, which holds 170,000 BTC, and a Binance reserve wallet that holds 125,000 BTC. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange and has several wallets holding six figures of Bitcoin. Regarding individuals, Saylor has stated that he holds Bitcoin, and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao are also “hodlers” — a meme that became popular jargon for holding crypto.

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$160 million stolen from crypto market maker Wintermute

$160 million stolen from crypto market maker Wintermute

Uverejnil používateľ | sep 20, 2022 |

Wintermute, a cryptocurrency market maker based in the United Kingdom, became the latest victim of decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks for approximately $160 million, according to Evgeny Gaevoy, the company’s founder and CEO.Short communication on the ongoing Wintermute hack— wishful cynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) September 20, 2022According to Etherscan, over 70 different tokens have been transferred to “Wintermute exploiter,” including $61,350,986 in USD Coin (USDC), 671 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), which is roughly $13,030,061, and $29,461,533 Tether (USDT). The largest token sum appears to be USDC. The company’s over-the-counter and centralized finance operations were not affected, as the hacker(s) drained funds from its DeFi operations. Gaevoy stated that the market maker is solvent with twice over the stolen amount in equity left, stressing that users’ funds are safe. Wintermute is an algorithmic market maker working with digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. The group is a registered company in the United Kingdom, located in Cheshire, and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. According to Companies House, Evgeny Gaevoy is Director with “more than 25%, but not more than 50%” shares. In the short, ongoing tweet thread, the Dutch national suggested that the hack could be treated as a white-hat hack. The perpetrator may contact Wintermute to share the vulnerabilities they discovered to avoid repeat hacks in the future. Related: Polygon CSO blames Web2 security gaps for recent spate of hacksWhite hat hacks are common in crypto.  Exchanges, market markers and sometimes companies reward hackers bounties in the form of cash or job positions. As the Ether address for the Wintermute Exploiter is public, the address has been spammed by crypto enthusiasts, stating messages like “plz give. I’m very poor. Even $5k would be amazing.” People spamming the wintermute exploiterAlways fun going through these messages pic.twitter.com/a8ZSoQKFT1— Paul (@Frapees) September 20, 2022

Cointelegraph has reached out to Wintermute for a response and will update when possible.

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Solitaire, Counter-Strike, Snake: How casual gaming could be a ‘huge’ Bitcoin on-ramp

Solitaire, Counter-Strike, Snake: How casual gaming could be a ‘huge’ Bitcoin on-ramp

Uverejnil používateľ | sep 19, 2022 |

You can now play Solitaire, Snake and even Counter-Strike to earn Satoshis, tiny fractions of Bitcoin (BTC). Cointelegraph spoke to executives at Thndr Games, a play-to-earn (P2E) company built around Bitcoin and Zebedee, a gaming platform that will “Transform gaming with the power of Bitcoin.”Thanks to the Lightning Network (LN), a layer-2 payment solution built on top of Bitcoin, instant microtransactions of Sats can pay out to gamers across the globe quickly. “This genuinely fixes a need in gaming,” Ben Cousens, chief strategy officer at Zebedee, told Cointelegraph. Zebedee offers Bitcoin and LN support for popular games such as Counter-Strike: Go. They promote casual gaming and the creation of inviting environments that could “Bring people into Bitcoin in a way that surprises them,” Cousens explained. For THNDR, which released a Solitaire-style mobile game on Monday, the rollout of popular, casual gaming types is also about onboarding people into Bitcoin. They actively target gamers in emerging markets as well as female audiences. Looks familiar? In-game footage from CS:Go. Source: ZebedeeDesiree Dickerson, CEO & co-founder of Thndr Games, shared some statistics with Cointelegraph during a call: “Sixty percent of all women worldwide play games, and 60% of these women play mobile games every day.” On top of that, the gaming industry is bigger than the movie industry: Around “2.6 billion people worldwide play games,” and within that segment, mobile gaming is the most popular. “It makes up 60% of the entire gaming market, and it’s only increasing,” Dickerson explained.The release of Club Bitcoin: Solitaire specifically taps into the growing female audience segment: “The mission is to onboard people into Bitcoin, but we are never going to make a game that is not a good game. We don’t want just to target Bitcoiners non-stop. It’s about making an excellent game that has Bitcoin in it.”Around 60% of Thndr Game’s users are located in the global south, a popular touchpoint for Bitcoiner companies. Emerging markets suffer from unstable regimes, volatile currencies and weaker socio-economic development. In this environment, Bitcoin the asset can provide an economic lifeline to many and thanks to near-instant payment rails and Bitcoin-centric games, Bitcoin the protocol now offers a means of escapism as well as small economic rewards. At Zebedee, for example, the average transaction size is tiny, just $0.02. Cousens told Cointelegraph, “Gaming and Bitcoin and Lighting is a huge onramp for Bitcoin [adoption],” sharing that Brazil is an important territory of their user base, followed by the Philippines — both countries with an emergent crypto adoption that is thriving. Club Bitcoin: Solitaire. Source: apps.apple.comFurthermore, both Dickerson and Cousens illustrated that gaming is a way of onboarding people into Bitcoin without “ideology.” The Bitcoin and crypto spaces are rife with infighting, dunking and told-you-so’s, whereas gaming — particularly idle gaming — is a laidback environment in which users can start stacking sats. Related: Bandai Namco, SEGA among gaming giants eyeing blockchain gamingThndr has successfully sent over 1.5 million rewards over the LN and has garnered a growing audience of devoted fans. All of its games on the Apple App Store boast a 4.5-star or more rating. “We are almost first and foremost thinking about the pure joy of play,” Dickerson explained. For Cousens, who is well aware of the risk of “Hyperfinancialisation” of gaming products, he explains it’s hard to underestimate the role that casual gaming could play in Bitcoin adoption. “A bad casual mobile game has like 10 million downloads […] You get one or two games, you dwarf El Salvador.” El Salvador could onboard a total population of 6.4 million people into earning, saving and spending Bitcoin, thanks to the Bitcoin Law. Solitaire, by comparison, has 35 million monthly users, according to Microsoft. And that’s just one game.

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Norwegian town wants 'noisy' Bitcoin miners out, experts respond

Norwegian town wants 'noisy' Bitcoin miners out, experts respond

Uverejnil používateľ | sep 15, 2022 |

There’s a new Bitcoin (BTC) energy FUD in town: noise. In Sortland, a Norwegian municipality, locals are waging war on Bitcoin miners to thwart further BTC mining developments. Their latest protest against proof-of-work (PoW) mining is that it’s loud. It’s not enough that Bitcoin miners in Sortland use 100% renewable energy sources, create jobs and even use waste heat from the PoW process to dry out timber and seaweed for local businesses; they must do so quietly. Sortland (red) in the extremes of Norway. Source: GoogleKjetil Hove Pettersen, CEO at local KryptoVault, explained that it could be another case of media spin aiming at Bitcoin. He explained the situation to Cointelegraph:“It is usually the negative voices that get the most media attention; this does not reflect on all local opinions.”Pettersen detailed that grid owners are, in fact, happy to host Bitcoin miners–as Bitcoin miners help to balance grids (as recently shown in Texas)–and that “There is a political or social cost for being outspoken about that in today’s climate.” The false narratives that media create are not new, according to Pettersen:”[…] The narrative that we are suppressing other industry establishments by using (the skeptics use the word “wasting”) so much energy, while in fact, the opposite is true. Sometimes we are accused of driving up the energy price, which also is not true.”Arcane Research analyst Jaran Mellerud and regular Cointelegraph contributor explained: “Northern Norway has a massive electricity surplus due to little local demand and limited transmission capacity.” In the north of Norway, where Sortland is located, energy costs are very low, and stranded hydropower is, in fact, abundant. Pettersen listed the benefits of Bitcoin mining as adding more revenue to local municipalities’ power grids while supporting grid balance; lowering the overall grid fees for consumers; creating jobs; earning income for the Norwegian treasury as Bitcoin miners pay taxes and finally, contributing to Norway’s national trade balance. That’s without mentioning the direct consequence of Bitcoin mining, securing the world’s largest cryptocurrency. CSO at the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein visited Kryptovault and spoke of “positive externalities.” Source: TwitterPettersen conceded that the Bitcoin industry has “A lot of work to do in telling our story, and dispelling myths and misconceptions.” Bitcoin provides a lifeline to many around the world–particularly in the global south–but the narrative that Bitcoin mining uses more energy than neighboring Finland continues to compel mainstream media publications. Related: Seven times Bitcoin miners made the world a better placeSimilar to Pettersen, for Mellerud, it’s a question of storytelling and narratives. He sums it up succinctly, “Municipalities in northern Norway should appreciate Bitcoin mining as a way to refine the electricity locally.” He continued:Bitcoin mining facilities create local jobs and increase the income for the municipalities as they often own the local power-generating companies.”Unfortunately, narratives that demonize Bitcoin mining and energy consumption continue to make headlines. Noise could be next.

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Bitcoin might be down but interest in crypto and NFTs is here to stay: Ledger CEO

Bitcoin might be down but interest in crypto and NFTs is here to stay: Ledger CEO

Uverejnil používateľ | sep 12, 2022 |

The future for crypto remains very bright. That’s according to the CEO of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier who sat down for a tête-à-tête with Cointelegraph in his home country, France. Gauthier, who enters his eighth year working at Ledger, explained that the recent downward price action in Bitcoin has not brought interest in crypto to a standstill:“Bitcoin might be down, but people are buying NFTs and you know, they’re participating in communities.”[embedded content]Gauthier voiced his opinion while sitting in front of the doors to the Biarritz Grand Casino, home to France’s largest Bitcoin conference, Surfin Bitcoin. The conference was a Bitcoin maxi-style affair, where royalty and Bitcoin hobbyists rubbed shoulders to nurture Bitcoin adoption in France.Commenting on the “religious war of Bitcoin maxis versus the rest of the world,” Gauthier explained that it’s a question of product fit. While competition is good as it drives innovation, it’s also a question of use case: “It’s also interesting to see that people just use the product. And when they use the product, they use Bitcoin and sometimes they use other things.”In response to the crypto contagion, in which Hodlonaut, Zipmex, Vauld, and countless other exchanges experienced difficulty managing–or went as far as freezing–customers’ funds, Gauthier told Cointelegraph that Ledger’s sales are “Way up.” Gauthier lamented that the increase in sales is bittersweet as people have to learn “The hard way.” He made a stark warning during the interview about the importance of holding one’s keys.On a lighter note, however, Gauthier is optimistic and hopeful for the future of crypto. From metaverse to crypto gaming to more participation in Web3 technology, Gauthier admitted that it’s early days for the space but a lot of things in the future make him go “Wow!”

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