WebProNews

Category: CryptocurrencyPro

CryptocurrencyPro

  • Bitcoin Surges After Banks Collapse

    Bitcoin Surges After Banks Collapse

    On the heels of three banks collapsing in the last week, Bitcoin appears to be benefiting from consumer fears.

    The tech industry and financial markets are reeling from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank. The tech industry was particularly dependent on SVB with its collapse still sending shock waves throughout the industry.

    According to Decrypt, Bitcoin is benefiting from spooked consumers and investors, with the cryptocurrency rising almost 20% since SVG’s collapse.

    In fact, the entire market appears to be getting a boost, with individual cryptos up across the board.

  • Tesla’s Net 2022 Bitcoin Losses Totaled $140 Million

    Tesla’s Net 2022 Bitcoin Losses Totaled $140 Million

    Tesla executives may be regretting the company’s investment in Bitcoin, with its losses totaling a whopping $140 million in 2022.

    Tesla surprised the industry with a $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase in early 2021. The company initially announced plans to accept the cryptocurrency as payment before reversing course over environmental concerns. In the wake of the crypto crash, it appears the electric vehicle maker’s investment has taken quite the hit.

    According to an SEC filing, Tesla recorded a $204 million loss as a result of Bitcoin’s price drop. Despite this, the company was able to make $64 million in profits from Bitcoin trading, leaving it with a net loss of $140 million.

    For example, in the year ended December 31, 2022, we recorded $204 million of impairment losses resulting from changes to the carrying value of our bitcoin and gains of $64 million on certain conversions of bitcoin into fiat currency by us.

  • SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce Slams Agency’s Crypto Actions

    SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce Slams Agency’s Crypto Actions

    SEC commissioner Hester Peirce has publicly slammed her agency for being “hostile to crypto” and a “paternalistic and lazy regulator.”

    The SEC recently orchestrated a $30 million settlement with Kraken over its crypto-staking program. While the agency touted it as a win for investors, not everyone was convinced, including Commissioner Peirce.

    “Today, the SEC shut down Kraken’s staking program and counted it as a win for investors,” Peirce wrote. “I disagree and therefore dissent.”

    Commissioner Peirce then goes on to describe Kraken’s model, which allowed crypto owners to “offer their tokens up for staking,” with both customers and company profiting. She then goes on to lament that, rather than providing guidance and guidelines for such programs, the agency went into enforcement mode, claiming Kraken’s operation should have been registered with the SEC.

    As Commissioner Peirce highlights, however, “crypto-related offerings are not making it through the SEC’s registration pipeline” in the current climate. She then makes the case that it would be better for the agency to put forth clear guidelines for crypto companies rather than immediately jumping to enforcement action.

    “Instead of taking the path of thinking through staking programs and issuing guidance, we again chose to speak through an enforcement action, purporting to ‘make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection,’” Peirce continues. “Using enforcement actions to tell people what the law is in an emerging industry is not an efficient or fair way of regulating.”

    In her most damning words of the dissent, Commission Peirce argues that Kraken’s program benefited investors and called out the SEC for shutting it down.

    “Most concerning, though, is that our solution to a registration violation is to shut down entirely a program that has served people well,” she added. “The program will no longer be available in the United States, and Kraken is enjoined from ever offering a staking service in the United States, registered or not. A paternalistic and lazy regulator settles on a solution like the one in this settlement: do not initiate a public process to develop a workable registration process that provides valuable information to investors, just shut it down.”

    It’s unclear if Commissioner Peirce’s dissent will have any lasting impact, especially given SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s open hostility toward crypto.

  • Senate Banking Chairman Opens Door to Banning Crypto

    Senate Banking Chairman Opens Door to Banning Crypto

    In the wake of the FTX crypto meltdown, Senate banking chairman Sherrod Brown has opened the door to banning crypto.

    The FTX meltdown is being credited with tremendous harm to the crypto market and has led to widespread calls for greater legislation. According to The Hill, Brown told NBC’s Chuck Todd that banning was an option.

    “Maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work,” Brown said

    At the same time, Brown acknowledged that the crypto market represents a “complicated, unregulated pot of money.”

    “So we’ve got to do this right,” the senator said, adding that he has talked to the Treasury Department to do a related assessment across regulatory agencies.

  • Microsoft Bans Crypto Mining On Its Cloud Platform

    Microsoft Bans Crypto Mining On Its Cloud Platform

    Microsoft has updated its Universal License Terms for Online Services to prohibit crypto mining on its cloud platform.

    Cloud platforms are popular options for crypto mining, but the practice is not without its challenges and risks. Microsoft has deemed those risks too great to allow mining on its cloud platform.

    The company included the following note in its Summary of Changes:

    Updated Acceptable Use Policy to clarify that mining cryptocurrency is prohibited without prior Microsoft approval.

    The company didn’t elaborate, but provided the following statement to The Register:

    “Crypto currency mining can cause disruption or even impairment to Online Services and its users and can often be linked to cyber fraud and abuse attacks such as unauthorized access to and use of customer resources.

    “We made this change to further protect our customers and mitigate the risk of disrupting or impairing services in the Microsoft Cloud.”

  • Binance Abandons Plans to Buy FTX

    Binance Abandons Plans to Buy FTX

    Binance has abandoned plans to purchase FTX, despite being partly to blame for its rival’s woes.

    FTX’s value has plummeted and sparked liquidity concerns following a CoinDesk report revealing that much of Alameda Research’s value was based on illiquid tokens, such as FTX’s FTT. Both companies were founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Following the revelation, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced he would divest his FTT holdings, driving FTX down even more.

    Despite initially striking a deal to purchase FTX, Binance has reversed course, deciding the deal is untenable.

    “As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged U.S. agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX.com,” a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk.

    “In the beginning, our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help. Every time a major player in an industry fails, retail consumers will suffer. We have seen over the last several years that the crypto ecosystem is becoming more resilient and we believe in time that outliers that misuse user funds will be weeded out by the free market.

    “As regulatory frameworks are developed and as the industry continues to evolve toward greater decentralization, the ecosystem will grow stronger,” the spokesperson added.

  • Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition Drives Up Dogecoin Price

    Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition Drives Up Dogecoin Price

    Elon Musk finalized his Twitter purchase last week, and Dogecoin investors have reason to rejoice.

    Musk has been a long-time fan of the dog-themed crypto. Despite its origins as a meme coin, Dogecoin has become a major crypto. Tesla began accepting Dogecoin in early 2022 and Musk’s other company, SpaceX, even accepted Dogecoin for a satellite mission to Mars.

    According to Reuters, Dogecoin is seeing a major boost following the Twitter deal, jumping as much as 70% on Saturday.

    Only time will tell if the crypto will keep its gains, but having one of its biggest proponents in charge of one of the world’s biggest social media platforms is sure to help.

  • Telegram Adding Username Auction Capabilities

    Telegram Adding Username Auction Capabilities

    Telegram is working on a way for users to be able to auction off usersnames via the TON blockchain.

    Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, first announced the idea in August:

    I’m really impressed by the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names. Wallet.ton was sold for 215,250 Toncoin (~$260000) while casino.ton was sold for ~$244000.

    If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction. In addition to millions of catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, all four-letter usernames could be made available for sale (@bank, @club, @game, @gift etc).

    It appears Telegram’s developers have been hard at work implementing the capabilities and have announced the new features are almost ready:

    GOOD NEWS!

    The development phase is almost over, and the auction platform will be launched soon. Make sure you don’t miss your chance to acquire the most valuable usernames and secure your ownership of them in the TON blockchain’s immutable ledger.

  • Google Cloud Partners With Coinbase to Enable Crypto Payments and Web3 Innovation

    Google Cloud Partners With Coinbase to Enable Crypto Payments and Web3 Innovation

    Google Cloud will soon let customers pay with crypto thanks to a new partnership with Coinbase.

    As part of the partnership between the two companies, “Coinbase will use Google Cloud’s powerful compute platform to process blockchain data at scale.” Coinbase will also benefit from Google’s fiber-optic network, using the speed of the service to help power machine-learning crypto insights.

    Google plans to allow select customers to pay for cloud services via crypto, with customers in the Web3 space being given the opportunity first.

    “We are excited Google Cloud has selected Coinbase to help bring Web3 to a new set of users and provide powerful solutions to developers,” said Brian Armstrong, Co-founder and CEO of Coinbase. “With more than 100 million verified users and 14,500 institutional clients, Coinbase has spent more than a decade building industry-leading products on top of blockchain technology. We could not ask for a better partner to help execute our vision of building a trusted bridge into the Web3 ecosystem.”

    “We want to make building in Web3 faster and easier, and this partnership with Coinbase helps developers get one step closer to that goal,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “We’re proud Coinbase has chosen Google Cloud as its strategic cloud partner, and we’re ready to serve the thriving global Web3 customer and partner ecosystem. Our focus is making it frictionless for all customers to take advantage of our scalability, reliability, security, and data services, so they can focus on innovation in the Web3 space.”

  • How Crypto Pairs Help You Maximize Benefits in Volatile Markets

    How Crypto Pairs Help You Maximize Benefits in Volatile Markets

    The crypto market is full of different crypto instruments. On average, there are at least 12k cryptocurrencies for a crypto investor to consider. Out of these, many people know a handful widely.

    Contrasting the figure with fiat, there are only about 180 fiat currencies. The differences in fiat value are the reason for the bustling forex currency market that invites many traders. While not so much talked about, the crypto market has its exchange market. The industry borrows heavily from the fiat currency market, where a person can easily exchange a Bitcoin for Ethereum and vice versa. 

    People seeking tips for cryptocurrency margin trading or any other type of trading often hope for straightforward answers that point them towards the perfect direction for maximum profits. The dynamics in the crypto exchange markets are hard to predict and often make investment positions in crypto highly risky. However, beyond day traders, crypto pairs work for people looking to use different blockchain networks. 

    Exchanging BTC for LTC

    The fiat market has some preferred fiat pairs, which dominate the trade. As of this writing, the Dollar and Euro dominate the forex markets in terms of volume exchanged. The reason for USD/EURO dominance is that the two pairs are the most preferred in the world for exchanging goods and services. 

    The Sterling pound dominates the currency market in the United Kingdom. The Yen has its dominance in the Asian markets. In a nutshell, a local currency will dominate the domestic market, alongside an internationally acceptable unit of currency, which is usually the dollar or the Euro. 

    Bitcoin is the Base Exchange point in crypto pairing. It is the most valuable crypto and has significant popularity in the crypto space. While Ethereum is the second most valuable crypto, only behind Bitcoin as of this writing, Bitcoin pairing with the dollar takes the lion’s share. Noteworthy, the latter is not a cryptocurrency. However, in pure crypto matters, the BTC/ETH pairing is what dominates the crypto markets.

    In matters BTC and LTC, the latter is a minor player in the currency market alongside over 10,000 other cryptocurrencies. People looking to own some LTC might have some difficulties using BTC to have a piece. However, to make the transaction a possibility, a crypto fanatic can liquidate their Bitcoin in an exchange, and then use fiat to buy LTC. 

    Some exchanges allow the trading of one crypto with the other, but since over 11K of them exist, some will require the dollar to buy them. 

    Why Is BTC The Base Crypto?

    Usually, the leading trading commodity by volume of trade is the base tool to standardize any market. In the currency world, each of the over 180 fiat is the base currency in an individual state, using the currency for local exchanges. For example, the Rand is the most useful exchange tool in South Africa. 

    However, when looking at things from an international perspective, the forex market becomes something entirely different. Smaller currencies have minuscule or non-existent reserves in other central banks. The reserves help local businesses trade internationally. 

    The dollar on its part has built a reputation over the years, coupled with US economic hegemony, which makes most central banks and countries use it as a reserve. Therefore, the dollar has become the base fiat currency, meaning that other currencies base their values using it when trading internationally.

    Other reserve currencies are the Euro, the Sterling pound, and the Japanese currency.

    The crypto exchange market is not far off from the ordinary forex markets. Bitcoin being the most valuable crypto has earned the right to base the value of other coins on crypto exchanges. 

    How Do Stablecoins Fair in Crypto Exchanges

    Stablecoins are already in parity with the dollar according to their definition. Using stablecoins in the exchange market is akin to making a BTC/USD pair. However, in their own right, stablecoins are not fiat, meaning that they work in decentralized exchanges. Therefore, a USDT/ETH pair is highly probable. 

    Closing Remarks

    A slight change in the price of one coin over the other makes crypto pairs a working investment strategy for a day trader. Many events crop up in the crypto markets that help make a coin more or less valuable. 

    For example, a BTC endorsement on Twitter will quickly shift the value of Bitcoin much higher against another cryptocurrency. A watchful crypto investor can quickly dump their BTC for the dollar. 

    Crypto pairs also help blockchain users change their crypto for the one that supports a particular blockchain.

  • Alphabet Is Blockchain’s Biggest Corporate Investor

    Alphabet Is Blockchain’s Biggest Corporate Investor

    Alphabet is the biggest corporate investor in blockchain and crypto technology among the top 100 public companies over the last ten months.

    The crypto market is currently taking a beating, but that hasn’t stopped companies of all sizes from continuing to invest in crypto and blockchain tech. According to Blockdata, Alphabet is the top investor in blockchain technology among the top 100 public companies.

    Between September 2021 and June 2022, Google invested a staggering $1.5 billion in blockchain technology. Asset manager BlackRock came in second, with $1.17 billion. Morgan Stanley rounded out the top three with $1.11 billion.

    Other top companies included Microsoft, Samsung, Goldman Sachs, PayPal, LG, Wells Fargo, and more.

    Despite the current downturn, the continued support and investment from some of the world’s largest companies will help ensure the technology’s continued growth and adoption.

  • Coinbase Notifications Were AWOL During Crypto Crash

    Coinbase Notifications Were AWOL During Crypto Crash

    Coinbase notifications were noticeably AWOL during the crypto crash, just when users needed them most.

    Coinbase is known for sending email alerts to some users when the price of their watched cryptocurrencies rises or falls. Unfortunately, according to Mother Jones, those alerts stopped right as the market was crashing — and right when users may have been able to benefit from them most.

    According to various legal experts and academics, Coinbase’s actions may not have been entirely legal. The issue stems from Coinbase initially sending some users notification emails, providing information when cryptocurrency prices rose and fell, and then apparently halting those emails without notifying users. It’s possible, even likely, that many crypto users may have lost money because they did not receive alerts.

    “It’s potentially illegal,” Matthew Bruckner, an associate professor at Howard University who specializes in business law, told Mother Jones. “It could be unfair to do this, to sort of induce people to rely on the email alerts,” adding that it could be an even bigger issue if people lost money as a result of the alerts being halted.

    “This seems straight up deceptive,” he said. “They said we’ll email you price alerts and then stopped doing it without saying they were [going to stop].”

    Bruckner cautioned that it’s still too early, with too little information, to make a definitive assessment. But the situation certainly raises questions about Coinbase’s decision-making process. If the company’s decision can be linked to losses, however, it could potentially open Coinbase to legal liability.

    “It seems plausible that they could have caused damages by inducing users to stop using other methods of checking prices by introducing emailed price alerts, and then taking them away,” Bruckner added.

    Coinbase provided a statement to Mother Jones, implying the company was testing the alerts to a segment of their user base with a view to rolling the final feature out to all customers once the feedback and lessons from the pilot program were incorporated.

    “We began testing email notifications for some users in January, and have since rolled out email notifications for all interested users,” Coinbase spokesperson Crystal Yang said in an emailed statement.

  • Dutch Authorities Arrest Suspected Tornado Cash Developer

    Dutch Authorities Arrest Suspected Tornado Cash Developer

    In an unusual twist in crypto news, an individual has been arrested by Dutch authorities over suspicion of being a Tornado Cash developer.

    Tornado Cash is the crypto mixing service that was recently banned by US authorities. The app masks transactions by mixing them together before sending the funds to their final destination. According to TechCrunch, US authorities banned the app because it’s commonly used to launder crypto funds.

    The outlet also reports a suspected developer has been arrested by Dutch authorities, prompting fear and criticism from both the crypto and privacy communities. The authorities didn’t rule out the possibility of multiple arrests.

    Many took to Twitter to point out the seeming double standard of not arresting and jailing the creators of popular traditional financial services since they are used for far more money laundering than Tornado Cash.

    https://twitter.com/mdudas/status/1558041340029591552?s=20&t=g3XdrtdPixx0L1vNd6X5ug

    Sill others pointed out how the banning of Tornado Cash and the arrest of its developer appears to be a blatant attack on privacy.

    Perhaps the most chilling observations were those highlighting the dangerous precedent being set for developers and the responsibility they will hold for how others use their products.

  • Pearson Wants to Use NFTs to Make Money on Secondary Book Sales

    Pearson Wants to Use NFTs to Make Money on Secondary Book Sales

    Publisher Pearson wants to tap into NFTs to make money off of secondary sales of textbooks.

    Industries, companies, and individuals are looking for ways to make money off of NFTs, often trying to auction various ones for millions. Pearson CEO Andy Bird wants to use NFTs to help his company make money from the secondary book market, according to Bloomberg.

    “In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale,” he told reporters.

    “The move to digital helps diminish the secondary market, and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life,” from “owner A to owner B to owner C,” added Bird.

    Bird also made clear that his company is looking at additional opportunities the ongoing digital transformation is raising.

    “We have a whole team working on the implications of the metaverse and what that could mean for us,” Bird added.

    If Pearson is able to successfully utilize NFTs the way Bird described, it could provide a template for publishers and other content providers to increase their revenue streams.

  • Helium Called Out for Being Dishonest About Its Clients and Partners

    Helium Called Out for Being Dishonest About Its Clients and Partners

    **Updated with company statement to WPN.**

    Helium has been lauded as a Web3 success story, but the company has egg on its face after being dishonest about who its customers are.

    Helium is creating a decentralized wireless network that serves as a peer-to-peer network for IoT devices. One of its main selling points is that it allows customers to earn crypto. The company prominently features a number of companies as customers and partners in an effort to add legitimacy to its service. There’s just one problem: Some of them aren’t customers or partners and never have been.

    A report by Mashable found that, despite claiming Lime was one of its customers, Lime was not using Helium’s platform. In fact, other than a testing period in which it evaluated the possibility of adding Helium devices to its scooters, Lime was never a paying customer, let alone a partner.

    “Beyond an initial test of its product in 2019, Lime has not had, and does not currently have, a relationship with Helium,” Russell Murphy, Lime senior director for corporate communications, told Mashable.

    “Helium has been making this claim for years and it is a false claim,” Murphy said

    It appears Lime is finally preparing to take action and is planning to send Helium a cease and desist.

    Lime isn’t the only company Helium appears to have been dishonest about. According to The Verge, Salesforce has also denied being a Helium partner.

    “Helium is not a Salesforce partner,” Salesforce spokesperson Ashley Eliasoph told The Verge. When asked about Salesforce’s logo, which appeared on Helium’s website, Eliasoph said that “it is not accurate.”

    A spokesperson for the company reached out to WPN to provide the following statement:

    “Since the Network launched in 2019, we’ve worked with a variety of companies on various applications and pilots. In the case of the brands mentioned in recent articles, we had approvals to talk about the use cases but we’re going to be much more rigorous now about the logo approval process going forward to avoid any confusion. Both Nova and our partner the Helium Foundation have removed the reference.”

    Helium’s Financials

    Helium has already been called out for only bringing in $6,500 in revenue per month, despite receiving $365M of investment, with Andreessen Horowitz taking the lead in the fundraising. The VC firm called Helium the “fastest growing wireless network ever” at the time.

    Interestingly, according to Mashable, Helium CEO Haleem and Helium investor Kyle Samani confirmed the revenue numbers.

    For a company being held up as the poster child of Web3, Helium certainly has a lot to answer for. Only time will tell if these are the only revelations to come out or if there’s more yet to come.

  • New Bill Would Give Crypto Users a Break on Small Transactions

    New Bill Would Give Crypto Users a Break on Small Transactions

    A new bipartisan bill has been introduced in the US Senate that would exempt crypto transactions under $50 from being taxed.

    Crypto trading has become an increasingly complex activity in the US, from a tax standpoint, with individuals needing to report even the smallest transaction. Senators Patrick Toomey and Kyrsten Sinema have introduced a bill that would make things much easier, exempting transactions under $50 or transactions where earnings are less than $50.

    “While digital currencies have the potential to become an ordinary part of Americans’ everyday lives, our current tax code stands in the way,” said Senator Toomey. “The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act will allow Americans to use cryptocurrencies more easily as an everyday method of payment by exempting from taxes small personal transactions like buying a cup of coffee.”

    “We’re protecting Arizonans from surprise taxes on everyday digital payments, so as use of digital currencies increases, Arizonans can keep more of their own money in their pockets and continue to thrive,” said Senator Sinema.

    The bill would significantly ease challenges involved in everyday crypto, challenges the Senators highlight:

    Under current law, every time a digital asset is used, a taxable event occurs. For example, if an individual uses digital assets to purchase a cup of coffee, the individual would owe capital gains on the transaction if the digital asset appreciated in value—even if the asset appreciated by only a fraction of a penny. The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act would simplify the use of digital assets for everyday transactions by creating a sensible de minimis exemption for gains of less than $50 on personal transactions and for personal transactions under $50.

    Should the bill pass, it’s a safe bet it will be welcomed by many.

  • Lawmakers Call for Regulating Cryptomining

    Lawmakers Call for Regulating Cryptomining

    Several lawmakers have sent a letter to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE) to express concerns about cryptomining.

    Cryptomining has emerged as a resource-intensive task that is increasingly being viewed as climate-unfriendly. Lawmakers are now writing Michael Regan, Administrator of the EPA, and Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the DOE, to provide additional information about the energy impact of cryptomining, including the impact it is having on residents and small businesses.

    In their letter, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Edward J. Markey, were joined by Representatives Jared Huffman, Rashida Tlaib, and Jeffrey A. Merkley.

    Cryptomining in the city of Plattsburgh, New York reportedly resulted in residential electricity bills that were “up to $300 higher than usual” in the winter of 2018, leading the city to introduce the nation’s first 18-month moratorium on new cryptomining operations. A recent study estimates that “the power demands of cryptocurrency mining operations in upstate New York push up annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for individuals.” Moreover, states like Texas with relatively cheap electricity costs are experiencing an influx of cryptomining companies, raising concerns about the state’s unreliable electricity market and the potential for cryptomining to add to the stress on the state’s power grid.

    The lawmakers point out that the problem is amplified by a lack of regulation and oversight for the industry in general, leading the lawmakers to reach out to seven of the top cryptomining companies in the US.

    The seven companies alone indicated that they presently have developed over 1,045 MW capacity for cryptomining. This is nearly enough capacity to power all the residences in Houston, Texas.

    The lawmakers also expressed concern over the carbon emissions the industry produces. While some of the top seven companies touted facilities that were using sustainable energy, other of their facilities produce massive amounts of carbon.

    For example, Riot indicated that its 51 MW Coinmint facility “utilizes nearly exclusively hydroelectricity, a zero-emission, sustainable energy source.” But its Whinstone facility, which is seven times larger, uses power from the Texas grid that relies on coal or natural gas for more than 63 percent of its generating capacity.

    The letter is the latest challenge for an industry already reeling from massive losses.

  • Uber Eats Now Accepts Shiba Inu and Dogecoin

    Uber Eats Now Accepts Shiba Inu and Dogecoin

    Fans of the most popular dog-themed cryptocurrencies have a new place to spend their crypto, with Uber Eats now accepting Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.

    Uber Eats doesn’t directly accept any crypto, but it does via its integration with the BitPay service. BitPay made the announcement via a blog post.

    BitPay offers a variety of options for purchasing prepaid gift cards with crypto. Gift cards can be bought with cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Litecoin (LTC), XRP (XRP), Dai (DAI), Wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), Gemini USD (GUSD), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD).

    Despite starting as a meme, Dogecoin has become a major player in the crypto market. Shiba Inu, the “Dogecoin killer,” has similarly captured the hearts and wallets of users.

    BitPay’s expanded support for both coins will make it much easier to use them for everyday purchases.

  • Bitcoin Could Drop Another 27% to Its 2019 High

    Bitcoin Could Drop Another 27% to Its 2019 High

    Bitcoin may be experiencing one of its biggest drops, but at least one analyst believes it still has a ways to go.

    Bitcoin, and the crypto market at large, have shed hundreds of billions in value as currencies have plummeted. According to Business Insider, Fairlead Strategies’ founder Katie Stockton is warning the price could still fall 27%, to somewhere around its 2019 high.

    “Bitcoin has stabilized after a reaction to short-term oversold indications last week, supporting a short-term neutral bias within a bearish long-term trend,” Stockton said.

    With the crypto already falling below the $19,000 threshold, Stockton believes the next threshold is the $18,300 mark. Should bitcoin fall below that, Stockton believes 2019’s high of $13,900 will be the next support level to look for.

    “Bitcoin is newly long-term oversold per the monthly stochastics, but it will likely take several months for a long-term oversold ‘buy’ signal to register,” Stockton said.

  • Nothing to See Here: FTX CEO Denies Plans to Buy Robinhood

    Nothing to See Here: FTX CEO Denies Plans to Buy Robinhood

    Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has denied rumors his company is looking to purchase Robinhood.

    Bloomberg reported Monday that FTX was investigating the possibility of purchasing the stock trading platform, although no official offer had been made. Bloomberg’s sources were “people with knowledge of the matter.” In a statement to TechCrunch, however, Bankman-Fried said there are no active talks with Robinhood about an acquisition.

    “We are excited about Robinhood’s business prospects and potential ways we could partner with them, and I have always been impressed by the business that Vlad and his team have built,” Bankman-Fried said. “That being said there are no active M&A conversations with Robinhood.”

    In its own statement to TechCrunch, Robinhood pointed out that its founders control more than half of the company’s voting power. As a result, no deal could happen without their approval and support.

    Only time will tell if the two companies end up partnering on various initiatives.

  • Elon Musk Sees Opportunity in the Current Crypto Crash

    Elon Musk Sees Opportunity in the Current Crypto Crash

    Amid a massive crypto crash that has seen fortunes erased, Elon Musk is doubling down, continuing to support his favorite crypto.

    The crypto market is currently having a moment of crisis, with values dropping, companies laying off employees, and others struggling to stay solvent. While many are questioning their investments, Musk sees the current market as a buying opportunity for his favorite crypto, Dogecoin.

    When Altcoin Gordon replied, encourging Musk to “keep buying it then,” Musk replied with “I am.”