Autor Cointelegraph By Tom Mitchelhill

Crypto ownership among Norwegian women doubles, mirroring global trends

The number of women in Norway who own some form of cryptocurrency doubled during 2021, according to a new survey. The survey, conducted by Arcane Research and Ernst & Young found that the rate of female ownership of crypto assets in Norway, surged from 3% in early 2021 to 6% by Mar. 30 of this year. The online survey interviewed 1000 Norwegians aged 15 and older and was conducted in partnership with NORSTAT one of the leading data collectors for market research services in Northern Europe. Almost two thirds of all female respondents said that they first purchased cryptocurrency in 2021. Up until this recent survey was conducted, the gender gap in Norwegian crypto ownership had been widening, with female ownership steady at 3% from 2019 to early 2021. Over the same period male ownership increased, from 6% in 2019 to 14% in 2022.The survey also found that overall, approximately 10% of the Norwegian population — which would equate to 420,000 people — now own some type of cryptocurrency, representing a doubling in overall Norwegian crypto ownership since 2018.Norway isn’t the only country to witness increasing female involvement in cryptocurrency — Cointelegraph reported in December that a study by Australian-based cryptocurrency exchange, Independent Reserve found that the number of Australian women who invested in crypto had also doubled from 10% in 2020, to 20% by late-2021. A 2022 survey in Turkey, released in March by KuCoin indicated a more even distribution between male and female crypto users in the country, with women accounting for almost half (47%) of all crypto investors and representing 63% of the “crypto-curious” demographic. While the trend toward more equal participation in crypto is looking positive, there are still significant gaps in specific areas of the cryptocurrency industry. In the NFT sector female creators account for just 5% of all sales in the total market. Related: The Sandbox partners with World of Women to drive female education and mentorshipOverall global ownership of crypto continues to grow. Approximately half of the German population has indicated that they are ready to invest in crypto with women accounting for 53% of that total, according to a survey released last week from KuCoin. As reported by Cointelegraph, Florian Döhnert-Breyer, the managing director of German crypto fund F5 Crypto stated that Germany will be come to be seen as a role model for the wider adoption of crypto investing: “As the largest country in the EU with a notoriously risk-averse view of financial assets, Germany has a special role to play.” “The high number of women interested in crypto is particularly encouraging as this target group is, on average, less active in the financial market (e.g., stock market).”Research by Grayscale from 2019 shows that women tend to be more risk-averse investors, a reason often cited as a partial explanation for the gender gap between the number of female and male crypto investors.

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Bengal Energy to mine Bitcoin using ‘stranded wells’ in Aussie outback

Canadian oil and gas company Bengal Energy, is dipping its toes into Bitcoin (BTC) mining as a way of utilizing the untapped energy from its gas wells in the far reaches of the Australian outback. According to a report from The Australian, Bengal Energy is set to conduct a pilot program where roughly 70 Bitcoin mining rigs will be set up inside a portable building — known in the local mining industry as a “donga” — which will be assembled near a series of previously out-of-operation gas wells in the Cooper Basin. According to Bengal Energy’s chief operating officer, Kai Eberspaecher, the company acquired the gas wells from its local oil and gas extraction partners, Santos Energy and Bridgeport Energy. Eberspacher added that the recently acquired gas wells posed an interesting problem to the energy company because they are what is known as “stranded wells.” This means that while the company can technically produce power from the gas on site, the current distribution pipelines are too far away to reach. A pipeline that can service Bengal’s remote gas wells is currently under construction, however the delays in development have been further exacerbated by Covid-related supply chain issues.“We were basically looking at six months of having wells ready but without an outlet. We were dealing with stranded assets.”Portable Bitcoin mining rigs in dongas were hit upon as a solution to the problem. A trial donga will be outfitted with 66 mining rigs that can generate approximately 0.005 BTC per day which equates to roughly $235.If the trial is successful, Bengal Energy is reportedly seeking to multiply its Bitcoin mining output by a factor of 10 to 20 times, meaning that total income could reach anywhere from $2000 to $5000 per day. Related: ExxonMobil is using excess natural gas to power crypto miningBengal Energy adds its name to a growing list of mining companies including ConocoPhilips and Exxon Mobil, that are seeking to harness the full potential of typically wasted or stranded energy through portable Bitcoin mining operations. In response to the widely-published criticisms of Bitcoin mining on environmental grounds, fossil fuel companies have become increasingly concerned with finding new ways to limit the harmful byproducts of mining operations as well as harnessing any sustainable alternatives where possible. The Bitcoin Mining Council estimated a sustainable energy mix of 58.5% for the global industry in the fourth quarter of 2021. Miners in Norway are even using waste heat to dry out lumber.

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LG Electronics adds blockchain and crypto as new areas of business

South Korean tech giant LG Electronics has officially added blockchain and cryptocurrency as new business areas in its corporate charter. According to a local South Korean news report, LG added two distinct crypto-related objectives during its annual general meeting on Thursday, March 24. The objectives include “the development and selling of blockchain-based software” and “the sale and brokerage of cryptocurrency,” which led to conjecture whether LG would establish some form of crypto exchange. When asked about the company’s intention to start its own exchange or platform, an LG spokesperson tempered any speculation, stating, “Nothing has been decided yet. We just mentioned business areas in a broad manner.”Rumors concerning LG creating a crypto-related marketplace emerged earlier this year when Bithumb CEO Heo Baek-young confirmed that the exchange was working with “a large company” to develop an NFT marketplace. The tech manufacturer has been on a warpath of NFT adoption and integration, announcing earlier this month that it was working with blockchain tech company Kakao’s Ground X to introduce a line of smart TVs that are fully NFT-capable. LG also announced a partnership with Seoul Auction Blue, an online art auctioneer to carry out further projects related to NFT-based artworks. Related: South Korea’s leading blockchain facing greater competition in NFT marketLG’s announcements come as fellow tech giants and South Korea, more broadly, continue to adopt cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related tech. Earlier this year, fellow South Korean tech giant Samsung, announced that it would be launching an NFT platform for its smart TVs as well as launching its own store in the Decentraland metaverse. Most notably, the country elected crypto-friendly President Yoon Suk-yeol earlier this month, with Yoon’s election campaign being centered around deregulating South Korea’s crypto industry as well as establishing initiatives to make the country a future home of blockchain technology “unicorns.”

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President Bukele hits out at Bitcoin Bond 'FUD' as CZ jets in to El Salvador

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter on Wednesday evening, hitting out at a Reuters report claiming Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) was flying in to save El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bond.“Please don’t spread Reuter’s FUD,” Bukele tweeted to his 3.6 million followers, rebuking the claim that CZ was flying in to assist after the $1 billion bond offering, originally scheduled for mid-March, was postponed until September. He was responding to a tweet on the subject by Bitcoin Magazine, which has now deleted the post.I’m a fan of @BitcoinMagazine, please don’t spread @Reuters FUD.The #Bitcoin Volcano Bonds will be issued with @bitfinex.The short delay in the issuance is only because we are prioritizing internal pension reform and we have to send that to congress before. https://t.co/chUGgdDBDc— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 23, 2022Bukele stated that the delay in the “volcano bond” offering was primarily due to legislative delays in Congress, that his meeting with CZ has nothing to do with the bond offering and that the pair intends to discuss “other issues”.Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex — the company underwriting the bond — came to Bukele’s aid stating that the delays were largely due to laws concerning the bond issuance tha still needed to be passed by Congress. Samson Mow, former chief strategy officer Blockstream — El Salvador’s partner in the bond launch — also joined in, tweeting that “nothing has changed”.Earlier in the week, El Salvador’s Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya said that the $1 billion bond, originally scheduled for mid-March would be delayed until September, citing geopolitical instability as the primary reason behind the delay. Three hours after hitting out at Reuters reporting, Bukele was back on Twitter complaining about the US Government, responding to a proposed bill that seeks to minimize American exposure to El Salvador’s financial system following its adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. The Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act was passed out of committee on Wednesday, and it is set to be voted on by the full U.S. Senate. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the U.S. Government would be afraid of what we are doing here,” Bukele tweeted in response to the news, adding, “The US Government DOES NOT stand for freedom and that is a proven fact.”Related: 14% of Salvadoran businesses have transacted in BTC: Chamber of CommerceThe Bitcoin-backed bond is being issued by El Salvador as a way of amassing larger BTC reserves and to fund the construction of “Bitcoin City”, a development dedicated entirely to Bitcoin and associated blockchain technology. It will reportedly use geothermal power from nearby volcanoes to power Bitcoin mining as well as the city’s infrastructure. Half of the $1 billion proceeds will go to construction costs and the remaining $500 million will be invested directly into Bitcoin.

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Stargate Finance attracts $1.9B in six days

Stargate Finance, a cross-chain protocol designed to assist users in transferring assets between different blockchains, has accrued over $1.9 billion in total value locked (TVL) in less than a week after launching.Stargate markets itself as a liquidity transport protocol that allows users to transact native assets cross-chain, offering decentralized finance (DeFi) users the option of staking stablecoins in pools where they are paid out in the native Stargate token (STG).The rapidly growing TVL is probably down to the “up to 26% APY” being offered farming stablecoin deposits.By attracting nearly $2 billion in TVL at the time of writing, Stargate has cemented itself as one of the top 10 DeFi projects, according to comparative data from DeFi Pulse.Stargate has a high-profile supporter in quantitative crypto trading firm Alameda Research CEO Sam Trabucco.In a Twitter thread to his 150,000 followers, Trabucco announced that Alameda Research had purchased all available Stargate tokens (STG) that were auctioned off during Stargate’s launch on March 17. There’s been some chatter about the recent @StargateFinance auction, and I wanted to clarify a few things about Alameda’s involvement.— Sam Trabucco (@AlamedaTrabucco) March 22, 2022According to LayerZero, the protocol that Stargate runs on, 10% of the total supply of STG or 100 million tokens, were auctioned off to generate liquidity across the seven blockchains that Stargate is launching on. LayerZero protocol markets itself as an “Interoperability protocol that actually works”. According to a blog post from LayerZero Labs Co-founder and CTO, Ryan Zarick, the Stargate protocol solves something known as the “Bridging Trilemma” by using unified liquidity pools between chains, instant guaranteed finality of transactions and the use of native assets for cross-chain swaps. Stargate plans to make it possible for any user to transfer assets from one blockchain to another one in a single transaction, skipping over the need for using complicated and convoluted methods such as locking, minting and burning and redeeming assets. Related: Vitalik Buterin gives thumbs down to cross-chain applicationsThe LayerZero team also announced that they had hired Maki, the co-founder of SushiSwap, to lead business development at Stargate.Stargate is currently live on seven primary chains including Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, Optimism and Arbitrum. The LayerZero team plans to add support for other chains like Solana, Terra and Cosmos.

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