Chill Crypto | News | Bitcoin

2021-11-26 12:48:08 ​​Axie Infinity virtual land slot sells out for 550 ETH

According to the game's developers, it's the largest sum ever paid for virtual real estate.

In a tweet posted by Axie Infinity late Thursday, a lucrative land plot within the monster-battle fantasy nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, game sold for 550 ETH ($2.3 million). Axies are creatures that users command to duel other players, battle enemies and complete daily quests. They are also NFTs that can be bred (minted), bought and sold freely.

The game takes place in the world of Lunacia, which is inhabited by Axies. It is a 301 x 301 square grid where each section represents a tokenized plot of land called Terra, which players can also buy, sell or rent out to other players at will. The land that was sold yesterday is classified as Genesis, which is the rarest form of virtual real estate available in the Axie Infinity ecosystem.

Monsters, known as Chimeras, spawn in the game and terrorize Lunaria. By defeating Chimeras, players earn Smooth Love Potions (SLPs), which can then be sold at cryptocurrency exchanges for cash. Defeated Chimeras also drop other types of resources that can be used to upgrade their Axies and land, thereby increasing earnings potential for SLPs. Genesis Land is located strategically at the center of Lunacia, where rare Chimeras raid bosses spawn and drop special items. In addition, only 220 out of 90,601 land slots have the Genesis classification.

Critics of the game say that there's nothing physically tangible with virtual real estate and wonder why they would have any value at all. But for some, playing Axie Infinity is a full-time job deserving of upfront investments, especially in developing nations, where earning SLPs each day in the game can often surpass that of countries' minimum wages. Open / Comment

2021-11-24 12:42:40 Nifty News: $2.5M virtual land sale, MetaSoccer raises $2.2M, CryptoDragons get Egg-cited

Metaverse Group has snapped up a lot of land and has said it has no plans to stop buying plots of metaverse land across various metaverse platforms.

Metaverse Group, which is headquartered in Decentraland, announced on Nov. 23 that it had completed what it calls “the largest Metaverse land acquisition in history.”

The subsidiary of Tokenscom snapped up 116 parcels of land “in the heart of the Fashion Street district” in Decentraland. The total size of the land purchased is equivalent to 6,090 square feet of land at the cost of 618,000 MANA tokens worth about $2.5 million.

Metaverse Group plans to develop the estate for fashion shows and commerce. It will also form partnerships with fashion brands looking to expand their presence in the Metaverse, especially in Decentraland. “Fashion is the next massive area for growth in the Metaverse,” said Sam Hamilton, Head of Content at the Decentraland Foundation.

The deal is the first of many by Metaverse Group since Tokenscom became its primary shareholder. The listed Canadian blockchain investment firm invested $2.75 million in Metaverse Group on Nov. 17 to increase its control of the shares from 50% to 70%. Metaverse Group plans on using the funds to buy more land in Metaverses such as Decentraland, Somnium Space, The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels, and Upland.

MetaSoccer raises funds
MetaSoccer has raised $2.2 million to launch soccer games and a soccer club management platform in the Metaverse.

The raise was led by Play Ventures, Defiance Capital, Parafi Capital, DAO Maker, Kyros Ventures, Metrix Capital, and Peech Capital.

MetaSoccer allows users to assemble virtual soccer teams and play matches or manage the team through a season. The Play to Earn (P2E) game allows users to earn MSU tokens by trading players, winning matches, and getting sponsorships on the platform.

Co-founder and MetaSoccer COO Patxi Barrios said that he wants “to create a new generation of digital native football players and clubs which will achieve similar ratings to those of professional football leagues.” Open / Comment

2021-11-22 12:40:07 ​​Shiba Inu team issues scam alert to SHIB investors

The team warned SHIB investors about scammers that are impersonating official accounts and creating fake users.

The team behind meme cryptocurrency Shiba Inu (SHIB) has issued a public warning against ongoing online scams that primarily target altcoin investors interested in SHIB tokens.

The proactive scam alert came in the form of a tweet detailing the various methods used to dupe unsuspecting victims from the Shiba Inu community.

The warning further stated, “A fake Shiba Telegram group is being shared across all social media. The scammers impersonate official accounts and create fake users. These scammers reply to general posts.”

While Shiba Inu attracts aspiring crypto millionaires and billionaires, bad actors have ramped up efforts targeting unwary investors on social media platforms including Twitter and Telegram. Some of the common methods used to contact potential victims are impersonating official accounts and targetting hashtags such as #shib #shibarmy #leash #shibaswap and #bone.

Furthermore, Shiba Inu’s scam alert highlighted that the community is not offering any kind of promotions including airdrops, bonuses, giveaways or gifts. As a general rule, investors are expected to refrain from sharing wallet keys, credentials or joining and following fake social media accounts.

Taking inspiration from Shiba Inu’s success, numerous dog-themed tokens have started to flood the crypto marketplace. Most recently, SHIB hit an all-time high of $0.000086 on Oct. 28 but has been struggling to keep up its value.

Shiba Inu’s development team has also developed and released another token called Doge Killer (LEASH), which has also seen 130.3% gains recently.

In addition to the token’s mainstream adoption, a growing community of investors has placed SHIB in some of the most popular crypto exchanges including BinanceUS and Cryptocom.

The hype around the Dogecoin (DOGE) spinoff is attributed to an extended bull market period that returned high profits for small-time investments. As Cointelegraph reported, an $8,000 investment made by a 35-year-old supermarket warehouse manager in early 2021 is now worth over a million dollars. Open / Comment

2021-11-19 13:48:13 Binance opens layer-two ETH deposits with Arbitrum One integration

Binance users can now deposit any ERC-20 tokens from the Ethereum network using Arbitrum quickly and at a reasonable cost.

On Friday, Binance announced the integration of the Arbitrum One core network and opened Ether (ETH) deposits on the Arbitrum One layer two.

Arbitrum is a third-generation layer-two optimistic rollup protocol that runs on an off-chain Ethereum contract and has lower costs and faster transactions than on the Ethereum mainnet.

The announcement notes that Binance users can now deposit any ERC-20 token from the Ethereum network with Arbitrum at a reduced transaction cost. In addition, Binance also stated that it will enable ETH withdrawals on the Arbitrum One Network layer two in the near future, making it one of the first centralized exchanges with layer-two support.

Ethereum, arguably the most prominent blockchain network in the world, has been hampered by network congestion and exorbitant fees, stymieing its exponential growth. Arbitrum One offers a solution to this problem by utilizing a multilayered Ethereum consensus protocol that allows for unlimited scalability and near-instantaneous transaction times at a fraction of the cost.

Binance’s integration of layer-two ETH deposits is a significant step forward, coming at a time when decentralized exchanges and cross-chain atomic swaps are gaining popularity in the market. Binance is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume, and the Arbitium integration is good news for Ethereum adoption.

The launch of the Arbitrum One Network layer two did not include an announcement for ETH withdrawals, but it did promise that more information would be provided when this functionality is available to traders. However, it has been reported that Binance is preparing to let users withdraw their funds directly to Arbitrum. Open / Comment

2021-11-17 13:12:17 ​​KuCoin Labs Launches $100 Million Venture Capital Fund To Empower Early-Stage Metaverse Projects

The world's sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume is making its move into the metaverse.

KuCoin Labs, the company behind the world's sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume with more than 500 crypto assets listed, announced on Wednesday that it would be launching a $100 million metaverse fund for early-stage projects. The money is also available for entities that develop blockchain-based games, nonfungible tokens, and decentralized applications. In addition, Kucoin will also provide business incubation services, branding, incentives, and business partnerships for developers selected into the fund.

Johnny Lyu, CEO of Kucoin, said the following in a prepared statement obtained by Cointelegraph:
"KuCoin Metaverse Fund will be launched to accelerate the evolution of the Internet industry. We hope to mature the emerging blockchain industry by further strengthening the application of blockchain technology to the metaverse projects."

Lou Yu, the head of KuCoin Labs, added:
"The concept of metaverse has remained at the theoretical level since it was proposed in the last century. It was not until the birth of the blockchain that metaverse became the next migration destiny for mankind."

The concept of a metaverse, or augmented virtual reality with its own digital economy, has been gaining traction ever since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last month to focus on its development. Shortly afterward, Microsoft ventured into the metaverse with Team updates and Xbox upgrades. Then, Animoca Brands unveiled its plans for a K-pop NFT Metaverse. As more global brands move in, the total addressable market of the Metaverse is projected to grow to over $1.5 trillion by the end of 2030. Meanwhile, debates are ongoing as to whether or not the Metaverse should be centralized. Open / Comment

2021-11-15 13:07:09 ​​VanEck Bitcoin futures ETF to launch on CBOE on Nov. 16

After years of efforts, VanEck is finally launching a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund based on BTC futures.

VanEck, one of the first United States-based asset managers to file for a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), is finally launching its Bitcoin futures ETF.

According to an official notice by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), VanEck’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF will start trading on CBOE under the ticker symbol XBTF on Nov. 16.

VanEck’s new ETF is joining the growing number of BTC futures-based ETFs launched in the United States, including ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which became the first Bitcoin futures ETF to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 19. Valkyrie’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF started trading on Nasdaq under the BTF ticker in late October.

CBOE’s listing of XBTF comes just a couple of days after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially rejected VanEck’s spot Bitcoin ETF application. The SEC argued that the proposed rule change to list the ETF did not meet standards to “prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” or “protect investors and the public interest.”

Launched back in 1955, VanEck is a U.S. asset manager specializing in thematic and gold-based ETFs and Mutual Funds. VanEck is known in the crypto community as one of the first U.S. firms to ever file for a Bitcoin futures ETF. The firm has submitted multiple BTC ETF filings with the SEC since then but has only managed to get its futures ETF approved to date.

VanEck did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, SEC chair Gary Gensler previously hinted that the SEC would be more open to accepting ETFs based on cryptocurrency futures rather than through direct exposure.

However, some companies like Bitwise Asset Management remain bullish on a potential pure Bitcoin ETF, with the firm even deciding to drop its futures ETF filing last week. “Ultimately, what many investors want is a spot Bitcoin ETF. We think that’s possible. So Bitwise will continue to pursue that goal, and we will look for other ways to help investors get access to the incredible opportunities in crypto,” Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said. Open / Comment

2021-11-12 12:35:51 Discord drops Ethereum and NFT integration plans after backlash

While Jason Citron said the NFT feature was in “pre-release” mode, he has now changed his tune after being bombarded with thousands of comments calling on him to drop the plans.

Popular community messaging app Discord has been forced to walk back its integration plans with Ethereum (ETH)-based NFTs following strong backlash from a significant number of its user base.

The pushback started on Nov. 9 after Discord’s founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted “probably nothing” accompanied by a screenshot of the app’s user settings page that displayed an ETH logo and option to connect digital wallets such as MetaMask and Wallet Connect.

Citron was then bombarded with thousands of comments calling on him to abandon the plans along with users threatening to cancel Nitro subscriptions. The crypto-skeptics asserted that NFTs are a Ponzi scheme and damaging to the environment due to the amount of energy consumption used to mine cryptocurrencies.

While Citron had commented that the feature was in “pre-release” mode, on Nov. 11 he indicated it had moved to “no-release” mode:

“Thanks for all the perspectives everyone. We have no current plans to ship this internal concept. For now we're focused on protecting users from spam, scams and fraud. Web3 has lots of good but also lots of problems we need to work through at our scale. More soon.”

Despite Discord being a commonly used app amongst the crypto community — with NFT projects in particular using the platform to build communities — it appears that the gaming contingent (among others) using the platform are not so fond of crypto.

A Reddit post in the r/discordapp community on Nov. 9 titled “Please do not support NFTs” received around 6,400 upvotes. Open / Comment

2021-11-10 11:55:51 DOGE-1 moon mission set for launch with SpaceX in early 2022

The Dogecoin-funded payload appears to be on track for launch in the first quarter of 2022 on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

DOGE-1, the first crypto-funded mission to the moon, is set to launch early next year following a new partnership between two blockchain companies and manufacturer Geometric Energy Corporation, also known as GEC.

Smart exchange ecosystem Unizen and DeFi incubator ZenX announced Wednesday that they are in the process of building and launching DOGE-1, a 40-kilogram — roughly 88 pounds — cubesat that will provide a new use case for cryptocurrencies. The cubesat will travel to a “stable lunar orbit” in order to obtain lunar-spatial intelligence from sensors and cameras that will be sent back to GEC for analysis.

The cubesat will be deployed through a launch agreement with SpaceX FalconX slated for the first quarter of 2022, though no hard dates were provided. Over 1,600 cubesats have been launched to date, but unlike DOGE-1, they’ve traveled into Low Earth Orbit, which is between 100 and 1,200 miles above the Earth’s surface. Traveling to lunar orbit puts DOGE-1 250,000 miles away from Earth.

“NASA’s CAPSTONE was set to be the first cubesat to reach the moon, but it has been delayed a number of times and has a current launch date of late March 2022,” the companies said. “This means that DOGE-1 could be the first cubesat in history to reach the moon, marking a significant achievement for global spaceflight.”

As Cointelegraph previously reported, the Dogecoin-funded project was first introduced in May of this year, with a planned launch date as early as the first quarter of 2022. At the time, SpaceX vice president of commercial sales Tom Ochinero said the “mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce.”

Dogecoin (DOGE) rose to prominence earlier this year thanks in part to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who touted the memecoin’s virtues and even claimed to work with its developers to improve its efficiency. The Musk-inspired surge may have added billions to DOGE’s market cap at a time when more mainstream users were getting into cryptocurrency. Open / Comment

2021-11-08 13:48:18 ​​Crypto markets tag $3T combined market cap for first time

Cryptocurrency’s combined market cap has tagged $3 trillion for the first time as top altcoins push into all-time highs.

With Bitcoin trading within 2% of its all-time high while Ethereum, Solana, and Polkadot push into previously uncharted price ranges, CoinGecko estimates that the combined cryptocurrency market cap has broken above $3 trillion for the first time.

According to CoinGecko, the total crypto capitalization broke into new highs above its previous record of $2.62 trillion on Oct. 20 and has increased by a further 14.5% in less than three weeks.

The combined crypto market cap had previously topped out at a peak of nearly $2.62 trillion on May 12 of this year, before bouncing off a local low of $1.24 trillion on July 20. The previous bull cycle saw the total digital asset capitalization post a high of $848.6 billion on Jan. 6, 2018.

CoinGecko’s data tracks 10,418 digital assets across 518 cryptocurrency exchanges.

Despite Bitcoin’s impressive price gains during the past two years, BTC’s market dominance has fallen by 42.8% since tagging a top of 70.8% on Sep. 6, 2019.

While Bitcoin still beats out its closest rival by more than double in terms of market share with 40.5% or $1.22 trillion compared to Ethereum’s 18.6% or $560 billion, the combined capitalization of all other cryptocurrencies is 40.9% or $1.24 trillion — evidencing the increasing plurality of the digital asset sector.

According to Messari’s Ethereum screener, which currently tracks 209 projects that have been built on the network, the Ether ecosystem currently represents a market cap of $829 billion or 27.6% dominance. Open / Comment

2021-11-05 14:02:45 ​​Former Comptroller Brian Brooks gets a new gig as Bitfury CEO

Former Binance.US CEO Brian Brooks has become the new CEO of Bitfury and will oversee the firm’s rapid expansion plans.

Former Comptroller of the Currency and Binance.US CEO Brian Brooks has been announced as the new CEO of crypto (BTC) mining firm BitFury.

According to a Nov. 4 announcement from Bitfury, Brooks was appointed last Friday and he will lead the firm as it prepares for a new funding round. Bitfury founder and former CEO Valery Vavilov will serve as Chief Vision Officer and the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“Mr. Brooks will lead the 10-year-old crypto unicorn as it launches a new funding round, increases the growth of its mining business with a revolutionary new microchip design and new global data center locations, and scales a portfolio of innovative businesses,” the breathless announcement read.

Bitfury’s last funding round occurred in 2018, when it raised $80 million at a valuation of $1 billion. Vavilov confirmed to Cointelegraph on Oct. 18 that the firm was considering a new fundraise via a potential initial public offering (IPO), but nothing is concrete at this stage.

Prior to this role, Brooks worked at Binance’s U.S. branch for a mere three months before resigning in August this year. Many onlookers speculated that the decision was due to prior knowledge about regulatory issues plaguing the firm.

Brooks also worked as Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer between 2018 and 2020, and is well-liked amongst the crypto community due to his strongly pro-crypto stance while serving as the Acting Comptroller of the Currency.

During his time at the agency between May 2020 to January 2021, Brooks oversaw the enactment of the fintech banking charter that enabled fintech firms and crypto companies to offer lending and payment products without oversight from state banking regulators.

“Brian is a respected executive and thought leader with deep regulatory, digital asset and capital markets expertise who shares Bitfury’s vision for a decentralized peer-to-peer economy,” Vavilov said.

Bitfury was established in 2011 and is one of the largest companies in the blockchain sector. It operates mobile data centers and provides a wide range of services such as crypto mining hardware design, software and artificial intelligence products. Open / Comment