Elon Musk tweets an Milady NFT
Twitter CEO Elon Musk boosted the collection of NFT Miladys on Wednesday, sharing a meme that featured an NFT avatar with the words “No meme, I love you.” This led to the collection becoming the biggest trend in the OpenSea NFT market, with the lowest price peaking at 7.3 ETH (about $13,700), before dropping to 5.6 ETH. The collection of 9,823 NFTs of wide-eyed photos of children’s faces faced controversy surrounding the creator, known as Charlotte Fang, who admitted to creating an offensive Twitter account and other posts and leaving the project.
Bitcoin above $28K after CPI data
Bitcoin (COIN:BTCUSD) reacted instantly to the printout of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April, rising around 2.24% in the last 24 hours. The consumer price index, which measures the cost of a wide range of goods and services, rose 0.4% in April, despite more than a year of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. The annual increase came in at 4.9%, below the 5% estimate. Core CPI excluding volatile food and energy categories rose 0.4% and 5.5% year-on-year, in line with expectations. BTC/USD reached local highs of $28,328 on Bitstamp before consolidating above the $28,000 mark. Bitcoin has been trading above the 200-week MA since mid-March. “Fed data reliance off to a good start, strong employment data and now inflation as expected… pause in June at this stage”, wrote financial commentator Tedtalkmacro in part of a response on Twitter.
EY launches blockchain platform to track carbon emissions based on Ethereum
Ernst & Young has launched an Ethereum-based platform for tracking carbon emissions and carbon credits. The system uses carbon emission tokens developed by the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) backed InterWork Alliance. The platform is now available in beta on the EY Blockchain SaaS platform. “By using carbon credit tokens, created or purchased in the marketplace, companies can now have visibility into their actions towards decarbonization,” said EY global blockchain lead Paul Brody.
Ethereum Validators Earn a Record Weekly $46 Million
Increased Ethereum staking reward rate resulted in $46 million in earnings for validators in the first week of May. The increase in rewards is attributed to the Pepe memecoin commercial craze, which has boosted average fees on the network to over 100 gwei. Validators earned 24,997 ETH in the first week of May, up 40% from the previous week. The ETH Store identifies two types of rewards: consensus and transaction fees. Since the Shapella upgrade and Ethereum (COIN:ETHUSD) staking in 2022, there has been increased interest from institutions.
Tether reports $1.48 billion profit in Q1
Stablecoin issuer Tether (COIN:USDTUSD) reported net income of $1.48 billion for the first quarter of 2021, double the previous quarter. In its report of consolidated reserves, Tether revealed that it held $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and $3.4 billion in gold on its balance sheet. The report comes after a turbulent period for the stablecoin market, with several tokens losing their dollar shares. Tether’s USDT, the largest stablecoin with an offer of $81.8 billion on May 9, has increased its market capitalization by $16 billion since the start of the year, a 24% increase. Tether held about $2.44 billion in excess reserves of Tether-issued tokens of $79.4 billion in circulation as of March 31. The company also reduced the amount of secured loans in its reserves, reducing them by about $500 million to $5.3 billion in the first quarter.
Binance VIP launches Capital Connect
Cryptocurrency platform Binance has introduced a service platform that pairs VIP users with investment fund managers. The service is free but exclusive to Binance VIP users. The platform will allow institutional investors seeking exposure to the crypto market to do so safely and efficiently, the company said. It will provide you with information on assets under management (AUM) of different funds, their performance records, minimum investment amounts and other important information. Interested investors can initiate contact. “With Capital Connect, we can help create information disclosure standards for market participants with different investment and fundraising needs”, said Catherine Chen, Head of Binance VIP and Institutional, as reported in a press release.
ParaSpace team clashes with CEO over protocol funding
ParaSpace’s CEO is being accused of mismanaging NFT funds after exploiting a price drop in March. The ParaSpace team alleges that Yubo Ruan, the company’s CEO and CTO, failed to return around 50% of the 2,909 ETH recovered and that the assets were transferred to various unknown wallets, as well as CEXs and Circle redemptions, totaling $1 million. Ruan denied the allegations and claimed that two former consultants illegally gained control of one of the company’s multisig and social media accounts. ParaSpace stated that “our top priority is to resolve this situation quickly and effectively.” Meanwhile, Ruan wrote, “Please be aware of the legal ramifications behind these illegal takeover actions.”
Unstoppable Domains joins OMA3 board of directors to standardize Web3 land domains
Unstoppable Domains, a domain and digital identity platform, has confirmed its membership on the board of OMA3 (Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3), a consortium of companies working together to establish standards for the decentralized metaverse. OMA3 is made up of several members including Alien Worlds, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Metametaverse, Sandbox, Space, Superworld and Upland. “As metaverse platforms become more interoperable, it will be important to provide users with an easy and universal way to uniquely identify metaverse land,” said Sandy Carter, COO and head of business development at Unstoppable Domains.
Chinese province adopts digital yuan in education and public transport
Jiangsu Province of China plans to launch a platform that will allow payment of education fees and scholarships with the digital yuan by the end of the year. Jiangmen City in Guangdong announced that all buses now accept digital yuan payments through CBDC wallets. The province’s goal is to widely promote the use of the digital yuan in various sectors, including education and transportation, and make it an industry-wide payment tool by 2025.
UK hacker extradited to US
Joseph O’Connor, known as “PlugwalkJoe” and responsible for the 2020 Twitter hack, was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to two counts, according to the District Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. O’Connor “used his sophisticated technological skills to malicious ends – conducting a complex SIM-swapping attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, conducting computer hacks to take over social media accounts and even stalking two victims, including one minor victim,” said US Attorney Damian Williams.
Marathon Digital teams up with Zero Two to operate mining facilities in Abu Dhabi
Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ:MARA) announced on Tuesday that its joint venture with Zero Two will establish the first large-scale Bitcoin mining operation using immersion in the Middle East. The newly formed Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity will operate two digital asset mining sites with a total capacity of 250 megawatts. Zero Two will have an 80% stake in the ADGM entity, while Marathon will own 20%. Equity contributions, in accordance with equity participation, are expected to reach $406 million during the development period in 2023. “For this project, our team co-developed and successfully implemented a complete immersion solution, as well as developed a proprietary mining software from the ground up to provide flexibility, resiliency and optimization. At Zero Two, we found a valuable contributor,” commented Fred Thiel, President and CEO of Marathon.
New EU crypto regulations could influence US
Hester Peirce, commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said that the European Union cryptocurrency regulation (MiCA) could serve as a model for the US. She praised the UK’s regulatory approach, which allows people to choose whether or not they want to take risks, and tries to find a regulatory model that allows for innovation. The EU officially approved MiCA last month, with the hope that the rules will become a global standard-setter and an enticement for digital asset businesses. “I share with you the approach of saying to people ‘look, there are risks here, you can choose to accept these risks or not’. And then trying to figure out a regulatory model that allows for innovation,” said Peirce.
Irish Central Bank governor calls unbacked cryptocurrencies Ponzi Schemes
Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Gabriel Makhlouf, has labeled unbacked cryptocurrencies Ponzi schemes, warning of the need for caution when dealing with them. While the bank is open to backed crypto assets, it stressed that poorly backed crypto should be treated with skepticism, and that buying it is like buying a lottery ticket. Makhlouf noted that last year’s crypto winter events should not be forgotten and that regulation and oversight must be put in place to protect investors and consumers. “Companies operate without regulatory oversight and it is clear that some of them have chosen to operate with little regard for consumers or investors. What started as the crypto winter in 2022 still reverberates.”, he said. For Makhlouf, the crypto market needs to be regulated like other financial markets, with similar rules for the protection of client funds, transparency in disclosures, good governance, risk management and information sharing.
Biden calls for end to ‘tax loopholes’ on $18 billion cryptocurrency
US President Joe Biden called for an end to cryptographic tax loopholes, sharing an infographic on Twitter, as the community questioned the numbers shared by the president. According to Biden, cutting these loopholes would save about $18 billion, but he did not provide information on what loopholes exist and what reforms would lead to the economy. Community members responded to the tweet, questioning the existence of these loopholes and mentioning other tax issues. Crypto analyst Fatman highlighted that the crypto market shrank by $1.4 trillion in 2022, while corporate earnings in the US were $11.8 trillion. “The cryptocurrency market is much smaller and has dropped heavily. We both know where the gaps really are,” he tweeted.