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2021-11-03 13:01:30 ​​Microsoft muscles into the metaverse with Teams updates and Xbox upgrades

“The metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world, and to embed the real world into computing. Bringing real presence to any digital space,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

United States tech giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the metaverse via updates to its Teams and Xbox gaming console services, along with a new product called “Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the firm’s metaverse plans for Teams and Spaces on Tuesday during the Microsoft Ignite conference.

“The Metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world and to embed the real world into computing. Bringing real presence to any digital space. What’s most important is that we are able to bring our humanity with us, and choose how we want to experience this world,” Nadella said.

The update for Microsoft Teams is dubbed “Mesh” and its initial rollout in 2022 will provide users with personalized digital avatars and immersive spaces to meet in the metaverse “that can be accessed from any device, with no special equipment needed.”

Later down the road of Mesh’s development, organizations will also be able to build custom spaces to support contexts such as meetings or “social mixers.” Open / Comment

2021-11-01 12:37:10 ​​Investors rug-pulled after pouring $57M into dog-themed OlympusDAO fork

Hong Kong police have reportedly been notified of the incident, with the primary suspect having filed a police report and handed a computer over to authorities.

After launching via a Discord channel on Oct. 28, AnubisDAO went on to raise roughly 13,256.4 ETH using Alchemistcoin’s liquidity bootstrapping protocol (LBP) Copper. However, the funds were unexpectedly sent to a different address roughly 20 hours into the LBP.

CNBC spoke to one investor who claims to have lost almost $470,000 to AnubisDAO. The investor, Brian Nguyen, conceded to subscribing to a “buy first, do research later mentality,” describing the loss as “pretty painful.”

Nguyen noted that he was attracted to AnubisDAO because of its canine-themed branding amid the meteoric gains recently reaped by some dog-token investors after seeing Anubis promoted on Twitter by prominent pseudonymous DeFi advocate “0xSisyphus.”

Anubis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god of death and the underworld, with Egyptian imagery depicting the god as donning the body of a human and the head of a dog.

Investors appear to have lost roughly $57 million worth of Ether in what many are describing as a rug-pull executed by the upstart canine-themed OympusDAO fork, AnubisDAO.

0xSisyphus has published a detailed timeline outlining AnubisDAO’s formation and launch, and claims to have engaged law enforcement in both the United States and Hong Kong. 0xSisyphus has also offered to cease the civil proceedings should the perpetrator return the stolen finds minus a 1,000 ETH bounty. Open / Comment

2021-10-29 12:50:15 ​​Ethereum hits new ATH after Altair upgrade shows clear path to the merge

The price of ETH has been on a bullish tear recently. After dropping to around $1,780 on July 21, it has since gained 147% to sit at around $4,400.

The price of Ether (ETH) has bounced to a new all-time high (ATH) on Friday as it hit $4,400.97 at around 1:02 am UTC, according to the ETH/USD price indexes on Coinbase and CoinMarketCap.

At the time of writing, ETH is currently priced at $4,380, with the asset surging around 46.6% since the start of October. CoinMarketCap’s price index indicates that the previous ATH was only eight days ago, with the asset reaching a price of $4,308.48 on Oct. 21.

ETH has been on a bullish tear since dropping to around $1,780 on July 21 and has since gained 147% to rise to a new point of price discovery.

Cointelegraph reported on Thursday that the Ethereum 2.0 Altair Beacon Chain update had a successful start, with 98.7% of the nodes upgraded at the time. A successful Altair upgrade to the Beacon Chain was seen as an important factor clearing the way to the merge with the Ethereum mainnet and the transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in Ethereum 2.0.

Ethereum’s success is also being driven by the platform’s use in the booming decentralized finance and nonfungible token sectors. They highlight ongoing rising demand for Ether in the future, thus ensuring additional tailwinds to its bullish outlook in Q4 2021 and possibly into 2022. Open / Comment

2021-10-27 13:18:25 ​​Citi's bullish Coinbase target: 'Buy crypto's general store'

Multinational investment bank thinks Coinbase stock is worth 30% more than its current price.

Financial services multinational Citi initiated coverage of U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase’s stock this week with a very bullish price target.

Citi analyst Peter Christiansen told investors that they could “buy crypto’s general store,” in a research note published on Tuesday, Oct. 26. Citi has given COIN a bullish price target of $415 which is substantially higher than Monday’s closing price of $319.

The analyst stated that the stock offers investors “direct exposure to increased retail and institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.”

The multinational banking giant sees the potential in Coinbase as the company makes continued efforts to expand its operations beyond just a crypto exchange and into other areas such as NFTs and cold wallet storage.

The company accrued more than a million applications for its NFT platform waiting list within a day or so of its announcement on Oct. 13. Christiansen recommended the company, “for its position within the crypto value chain, a ‘networking-based’ business model and strategy, the undeniably very large opportunity set … yes, we believe COIN is investable.”

He also considers Coinbase’s “lean forward approach to regulatory compliance” a competitive advantage.

“To a degree, we think rising regulations could be a positive for Coinbase’s competitive positioning, particularly versus business models that predominantly rely on markets being unregulated.”

Christiansen added that the stock is in place to make “higher highs and higher lows” as crypto asset adoption increases. U.S. investment bank Piper Sandler also raised their target price for the stock to $360.

Not every analyst is on board with JPMorgan's Kenneth Worthington raising his price target on COIN only slightly to $375 from $372. However Lisa Ellis, senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson said COIN was a "must-own stock" that could go to $600 in light of its recent partnership with Facebook on its Novi crypto wallet.

Coinbase went public in April with an opening IPO price of $381, it surged to a peak of $430 on the day before retreating. COIN hit a monthly high of $326 on Monday this week but has fallen 4.3% since to an after-hours trading price of $312 according to MarketWatch. Open / Comment

2021-10-25 14:33:01 ​​SHIB plummets 20% as Elon Musk reveals he owns none

SHIB quickly crashed 20% as Tesla CEO and dog-token proselytizer Elon Musk announced he owns none of the canine-themed coins.

Shiba Inu (SHIB), the recently surging Dogecoin-inspired ERC-20 coin, suffered a 20% retracement in two hours as Tesla founder and hypothetical DOGE CEO Elon Musk announced to Twitter that he doesn’t hold any Shiba Inu tokens.

The retracement came after SHIB surged past its previous all-time high to tag a local top of $0.000044 on Sunday following a more-than-500% rally since the start of October.

Amid the token’s bullish price action, Twitter user ShibaInuHodler asked Musk how much SHIB he was holding, to which Musk responded, “None.”

While SHIB sellers had already stepped in to take profits at the token’s local all-time high, SHIB would quickly lose a further 10% to trade for $0.000035 within roughly half an hour of Musk’s reply. SHIB has since been oscillating between $0.000035 and $0.00004.

Reactions to Musk’s comments from SHIB investors have been varied, with ShibaInuHodler suggesting Musk should invest in some Shiba Inu tokens.

Others criticized ShibaInuHodler for engaging Musk, with Shibalaskan imploring them to “plz stop pestering celebrities when the community is doing fine without this sort of foolishness.”

The dog token drama comes as Musk has returned to Twitter to espouse the virtues of Dogecoin (DOGE).

On Sunday, the SpaceX founder tweeted, “Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at SpaceX own Doge. They aren’t financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That’s why I decided to support Doge – it felt like the people’s crypto.” Open / Comment

2021-10-20 12:18:43 ​​Mashinsky says USDT is minted for crypto as $1M bounty offered to unpick reserves

Hindenburg Research is offering a $1 million bounty for information on Tether’s reserves, with the firm stating that Tether is yet to disclose virtually anything “about its counterparties.”

A bounty of up to $1 million has been offered up to anyone who can cast light on the precise backing of Tether’s reserves.

That backing just got a little bit murker, after Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky reportedly said that Tether mints new USDT in exchange for crypto assets — which appears to conflict with Tether’s own terms and conditions.

"Forensic financial research" firm Hindenburg Research tweeted on Oct. 20 to its 171K followers that it holds "doubts about the legitimacy of Tether," and offered a reward of up to $1 million for important details on Tether’s reserves which it claims could pose a threat to investors on a “systemic” scale.

“Tether is a key underpinning of the multi-trillion-dollar crypto market. Yet despite its repeated claims of transparency, its disclosures around its holdings have been opaque.”

“The company claims to hold a significant portion of its reserves in commercial paper yet has disclosed virtually nothing about its counterparties,” Hindenburg Research added.

But, as more than a few observers noted, $1 million isn’t a lot of money to dish the dirt on a token with a $70 billion market cap.

Tether has been the subject of intense scrutiny, with regulators taking action against the firm on multiple occasions over the composition of its reserves. In May Tether published a loose reserve breakdown in May which showed a large amount of unspecified commercial paper, along with minimal cash or bank deposits.

On Oct. 15 Tether and its sister company Bitfinex reached a settlement to pay $42.5 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which claimed Tether did not have sufficient cash reserves for two thirds of the period between 2016 and 2018.

Tether settled but it denied the claims noting there was “no finding that Tether tokens were not fully backed at all times—simply that the reserves were not all in cash and all in a bank account titled in Tether’s name, at all times.” Open / Comment

2021-10-18 13:36:37 ​​Grayscale hints at plans to convert Bitcoin trust into BTC-settled ETF

Grayscale looks to be seeking to restructure its Bitcoin Trust into a physically-backed fund after the SEC approved a Bitcoin futures ETF.

Institutional investment giant Grayscale is reportedly considering converting its Bitcoin Trust into a physically settled exchange-traded fund (ETF).

On Oct. 17, Barry Silbert, the CEO of Grayscale’s parent company Digital Currency Group, hinted that Grayscale is making plans to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot-settled Bitcoin fund.

After having taken to Twitter to criticize the cash-settled Bitcoin futures ETF recently approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bitcoin commentator Preston Pysh chimed in to ask Silbert when Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust would be converted into a BTC-settled ETF. “Stay tuned,” Silbert responded.

However, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust investors appear to have been unsettled by Silbert’s remarks, with Twitter user “svrgnindividual” questioning what a restructure would mean for investors holding shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust.

“What happens to us Grayscale investors once the spot ETF is approved? Is our investment converted into ETF shares?” they tweeted.

Rumors of Grayscale’s purported ambitions for a Bitcoin ETF began circulating late week after a CNBC report citing anonymous insiders claimed that Grayscale was waiting for the Securities and Exchange Commission to finally approve a Bitcoin ETF.

On Oct. 15, the SEC announced it had accepted the registration of securities from ProShares Trust’s futures-based Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund. ProShares’ ETF offers investors exposure to contracts that speculate on the future price of BTC that are settled in cash.

Despite the ETF’s approval being cited as the primary catalyst for Bitcoin’s recent bullish market action, many analysts have criticized the fund for its cash-settled structure, instead advocating for the SEC to approve a Bitcoin ETF that is backed by and settled in BTC.

According to Grayscale’s latest holdings update on Oct. 15, the firm boasts $52.6 billion in assets under management (AUM) — 73% of which is held in the Bitcoin Trust. The data suggests that Grayscale’s Bitcoin stash comprises roughly 620,000 BTC or 3.3% of Bitcoin’s total supply. Open / Comment

2021-10-13 12:34:07 ​​SEC Chair Gary Gensler actually is pro-Bitcoin, Vault Equity CEO argues

Vault recently received approval for an ETF that includes stocks in various crypto-related companies.

The founder of Vault Equity believes that United States regulators have a fair reason to be slow in approving a pure Bitcoin (BTC)-related exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Vault Equity CEO and founder Tad Park voiced support for the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the regulator’s unwillingness to approve an ETF that would track Bitcoin directly.

In a Tuesday Fox Business interview, Park argued that SEC chair Gary Gensler “actually is pro-Bitcoin” but is also “a little bit misunderstood” regarding his perspective on crypto regulation in the U.S.

Park specifically referred to the SEC’s investor protection concerns, namely that crypto custody providers have yet to assure the commission that they can actually ensure proper asset protection:

“I can say ‘I have a gold ETF or a Bitcoin ETF’ but I’m storing that gold in my basement. Is the SEC gonna allow that? Probably not. Unless companies can show they can custody it and actually address a lot of the issues Gansler specifically mentioned, it’s not gonna work.”

The CEO added that “at least half” of current crypto ETF applications with the SEC “are not even valid” because “they are not addressing what Gary Gensler is saying.”

Park emphasized that Vault Equity’s crypto ETF does not provide direct exposure to Bitcoin, but instead tracks major Bitcoin-correlated companies including MicroStrategy, Tesla, Twitter, Square as well as Bitcoin mining companies like Bitfarms.

“We try to get at what people are actually looking for, which is correlation to Bitcoin’s price movement. These companies are really focusing on Bitcoin and get the majority of their income and revenues from Bitcoin. It makes sense that they tend to move along with Bitcoin’s price,” Park noted. Open / Comment

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