Microstrategy has announced its intention to offer 0 million of convertible senior notes due 2032 in a private offering, subject to market conditions. The company also expects to grant the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to an additional million of the notes within a 13-day period from the issue date. The notes […]
Bitcoin News
NFT Sales Soar to Over $500M; Bitcoin Leads With Unprecedented Growth
Sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have surged by 52.81% over the past week, reaching a total of 3.35 million. Bitcoin has emerged as the frontrunner in this week’s NFT market, generating 6.79 million in sales, surpassing Ethereum’s .67 million, which previously held the top spot.
Bitcoin Once Again Outperforms Ethereum in Thriving NFT Market
The total NFT sales this week, amounting to 3.35 million, saw Bitcoin accounting for more than half of this figure, with its 6.79 million representing 54.98% of the week’s total. This period also marked a significant rise in market activity, with a 199.44% increase in buyers and a 193.20% surge in sellers of NFTs, according to cryptoslam.io stats.
Bitcoin’s performance in NFT sales was notably strong, with a 122.16% increase compared to the previous week, amounting to 6.79 million. Ethereum, while still significant in the market, saw a modest week-over-week growth of just 0.93%, totaling .67 million.
Solana also showed a substantial rise in NFT sales, reaching .04 million, a 56.58% increase from last week. Meanwhile, both Polygon and Immutable X experienced declines in sales, dropping by 7.28% and 3.79% respectively, compared to the previous week.
This week’s data highlights Bitcoin’s growing influence in the NFT sector, with eight of the top ten NFT collections, in terms of weekly sales, originating from the Bitcoin blockchain. The leading seven collections are all Bitcoin-based, while the eighth and ninth positions were held by Ethereum’s “Matr1x Kuku” and Solana’s “Tensorians” compilation, respectively.
The most expensive NFT sale this week came from the Ethereum blockchain, with Fidenza #985 fetching 7K. Close behind was a Bitcoin-based NFT, an Ordinal inscription of a Van Gogh painting, which garnered 3K.
Other notable sales originated from Solana, Avalanche, Cardano, and Polygon. Notably, while Bitcoin-based NFTs began to make their presence felt in the market in 2023, the trend of inscription-based collectibles has left a significant mark on the crypto industry.
Throughout November and the first two weeks of December, Bitcoin has consistently outperformed Ethereum in NFT sales, a trend that is relatively rare in this domain.
What do you think about the uptick in NFT sales and Bitcoin’s latest lead? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
Critical Vulnerability in Tron’s Multisig Mechanism Exposed $500M in Digital Assets: Report
According to a report published by the cybersecurity research team known as 0d, a division of Dwallet Labs, researchers discovered a critical vulnerability in the Tron network’s native multi-sig mechanism. The cybersecurity experts explained that the vulnerability could have impacted more than 0 million worth of digital assets held in Tron multi-sig accounts. 0d specified that Tron’s development team addressed the problem by creating a patch for the bug.
Cybersecurity Researchers Summarize Bug Found Tied to Tron’s Multisig Mechanism, Tron Devs Patch the Vulnerability
On May 30, 2023, the research team 0d from Dwallet Labs published a report that uncovers a vulnerability in Tron’s native multisig scheme. The vulnerability enables any signer of a multi-sig account to bypass the network’s security measures, irrespective of the designated threshold and number of signers. “This vulnerability impacts over 0M in digital assets that are held in Tron multi-sig accounts,” 0d reported on Tuesday.
The researchers further stated that Tron’s developers were notified about the bug on February 19, 2023, and the programmers created a patch to address the problem. 0d said that the majority of Tron’s validators have already implemented the patch to prevent any potential exploitation of the vulnerability. “We have received a bounty reward for a high severity vulnerability via the Tron bounty program,” the cybersecurity research team disclosed.
0d explained that the vulnerability originated from the verification process of multisig transactions within the Tron network. The network depends on the uniqueness of signatures for identical messages from an individual. However, because of the deterministic nature of the signature generation process outlined in RFC 6979, an untrustworthy signer can utilize various nonces (random numbers) to generate multiple valid signatures for the same message while employing the same private key.
The revelation of the Tron multi-sig mechanism bug coincides with the discovery of a privacy vulnerability in the Monero blockchain. The bug is said to have existed on the Monero network for three years and has since been addressed. While discussing the Tron multi-sig problem, 0d researcher Omer Sadika explained that with the deployment of the fix, 0 million is now “secured.”
What are your thoughts on the recent vulnerability discovered in Tron’s multi-sig mechanism? Share your insights and opinions in the comments section below.
Mr. Wonderful-Backed Green Bitcoin Mining Venture To Build $500M HQ In N. Dakota
Who’s putting his money where his mouth is? Mr. Wonderful AKA Kevin O’Leary is. As one of the main proponents of the industry’s need for green bitcoin mining, Mr. Wonderful invested in Bitzero. And now they’re announcing that the company will build its North American headquarters in North Dakota. Why is this news? Because of the things they’ll do with the heat that the data center will produce.
Heat is an unintended byproduct of bitcoin mining, and Bitzero Blockchain Inc. plans to use it to fuel the region’s food production throughout the year. The company will partner with MHA Nation’s greenhouse project to accomplish it. And they’ll use North Dakota’s abundant green energy resources to mine the bitcoin without even touching carbon. Mr. Wonderful is presenting us with a win-win situation right here.
In a governmental press release, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation Chairman Mark Fox said, “Bitzero is working with us to use our Western Area Power Administration hydroelectric power to reflect the company’s zero carbon mandate. The additional heat produced from the data center facility will be used for our MHA Nation’s Greenhouse Project currently under construction.”
Excited to announce that North Dakota emerged as the logical choice for @bitzerodotcom's headquarters due to alignment on the state’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, a robust energy industry, favorable tax and regulatory environment and access to top-tier talent. 1/ pic.twitter.com/GylnM1aNaO
— Gov. Doug Burgum (@DougBurgum) June 1, 2022
Out of the 0M for the North American HQ, the company already raised 0M. At one point over the next two months, Bitzero will host an IPO in Canada to get the rest. The green bitcoin mining company is originally from Namsskogan, Norway, where their data centers already work with hydroelectric power. That means, their operations run on 100% renewable energy. Using the heat for food production is a benefit on top of that.
What Does Mr. Wonderful Have To Say About The Situation?
The plan was to announce the North American headquarters before the IPO, and Bitzero delivered. In what seems like a private event with entrepreneurs, politicians, and media, the North Dakota part of the venture came to life. Local radio station KVRR provides video and quotes Mr. Wonderful saying:
“Data is the new oil. This state has plenty of energy. Now, it has an opportunity to convert some of it and diversify into what every single sovereign wants. The value of having your data on your own soil. In a stable place because it’s the records of people, it’s the banking system. It’s all of the information that every single sector of the economy needs.”
For his part, Governor Doug Burgum said in a tweet, “excited to announce that North Dakota emerged as the logical choice for Bitzero’s headquarters due to alignment on the state’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, a robust energy industry, favorable tax and regulatory environment and access to top-tier talent.”
BTC price chart for 06/03/2022 on Cexio | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Other Projects in North Dakota
In the middle of April, just a couple of months ago, the government of North Dakota announced a visit by Mr. Wonderful and Bitzero CEO Akbar Shamji. The purpose of the visit was “to evaluate potential Bitcoin mining investment opportunities” in the state. Apparently, things went well.
There's so much opportunity in Bitcoin mining using 100% sustainable green energy like wind, solar, nuclear and hydro.
— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) May 10, 2022
At the time, they announced two more things. First, “the bitcoin mining company has plans to build out 200 megawatts (MW) of power in data centers over the next two years.” So, this is just starting. Second, “in addition to the data centers, the company also plans to develop an assembly and distribution hub for graphene batteries technology.” So, there’s more coming.
“There’s so much opportunity in Bitcoin mining using 100% sustainable green energy like wind, solar, nuclear and hydro,” Mr. Wonderful said recently in a tweet. Plus, in a Cointelegraph interview, Mr. Wonderful said, “Private capital must be compliant with environmental, social and governance factors. ESG was once a marketing term, but now it’s a real thing.”
Even though not everyone in the bitcoin space agrees with him, it’s commendable that Mr. Wonderful is not just talking. He’s betting on a green future for bitcoin, and apparently, he’s betting big.
Featured Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView
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MicroStrategy Receives Over $1.5B In Orders For $500M Notes To Fund Bitcoin Purchases
MicroStrategy is one of the loudest crypto advocates listed on Wall Street. Now, the Michael Saylor-led company is engaging in one of the first-ever corporate bond sales that specifically earmarks the proceeds for Bitcoin purchases.
MicroStrategy’s Strategy? Buy The Dip
After initially planning to issue 0M of the debt, by the time the deal was launching on Monday, the company saw immense demand. Saylor and team elected to up that amount to 0M with Tuesday’s junk bond sale. These type of bonds generally offer more aggressive yields, while running a higher risk of default. The secured notes where reportedly sold at a yield of 6.125%, according to reports, after earlier pricing discussions around 6.25% and 6.5%. Investment bank Jeffries led the offering.
The news comes after a bevy of Bitcoin purchases throughout this first half of the year. To start the year, MicroStrategy locked in 20,000 BTC with a hefty price tag in excess of B. The company grabbed a few hundred more in recent weeks at around K per coin. After a weekend at Miami’s Bitcoin 2021 Conference, Saylor is ready for more.
To date, the firm owns in excess of 90,000 BTC with an average per coin price just shy of K. Nonetheless, Bitcoin’s second quarter dip is evident; MicroStrategy reported in a filing this week a roughly quarter billion dollar hit in it’s next earnings report from the crypto’s fluctuating price. After issuing convertible bonds in the past to make crypto purchases, Saylor seems to be set on buying the dip with this first-ever corporate bond sale.
Related Reading | There’s Zero Chance Of Bitcoin Being Replaced Says Saylor
Corporate Bonds Garnering Some Attention
This isn’t MicroStrategy’s first “first”. The company was also one of the first to pay their board of directors in Bitcoin, and Saylor was led the firm to be the first to have a modified corporate strategy integrating Bitcoin. Saylor’s hyper-fixation on Bitcoin in particular has drawn a fair share of critics, but all that aside, MicroStrategy’s business intelligence products are still seeing success with substantial Fortune 500 customers in their wheelhouse.
This week’s bond offering is also notable not just for being the first of it’s kind, but also from the response it drew. The company upped their offering to 0M in notes, but received in excess of .5B in orders for the offering – including a large number of hedge funds, according to reports. Despite the recent Bitcoin dip, many major investors still seem to be chomping at the bit. The weeks to come could be particularly telling around their aggressive perspective.
MicroStrategy has come back to earth after yielding substantial attention earlier this year with Bitcoin purchases. | Source: $MSTR-NASDAQ on TradingView.com
Related Reading | Saylor: North American Bitcoin Miners To Form Coalition After Meeting With Elon Musk
Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
Ethereum Options OI Approaches $500m; Here’s What the Market is Saying About ETH
The Ethereum options market is seeing massive growth as of late, with the total open interest now rapidly approaching 0 million.
The vast majority of this open interest still resides within Deribit, with the popular trading platform currently dominating the crypto-options market.
Options have been seeing increasing popularity throughout 2020, with investors widely pivoting away from margin trading and towards alternative investment tools.
As for what the options market is saying about Ethereum’s near-term outlook, data shows that the majority of traders are expecting the cryptocurrency to end the year below its current price of roughly 0.
Considering the macro strength expressed by ETH, Bitcoin, and many other digital assets throughout 2020 so far, this statistic is rather surprising.
Ethereum Options Open Interest Rockets – Deribit Market Dominance Remains High
Ethereum’s volatile price action seen in recent weeks appears to have led directly to a surge in the value of ETH options open interest.
According to data from the analytics platform Skew, the total open interest for Ethereum options currently sits at just under 0 million.
Deribit currently accounts for 91% of this total outstanding OI, with the number of open ETH contracts on the platform now exceeding one million.
“Total ETH options open interest on Deribit now exceeds 1 million contracts with a notional value of ~USD 424 million. This represents a 91% market share on Deribit,” the platform said in a recent note.
As seen below, the vast majority of this growth in OI has come about since late-July, at which time total open interest for Ethereum options was sitting below 0 million.
Options Market Thinks There’s a Sub-6% Chance of ETH Breaking ,000 by 2021
As the open interest and investor involvement within the options market grows, so too will its influence over Ethereum’s price dynamics.
Currently, the majority of the contracts on Deribit expire on either August 28th, September 25th, or December 25th – making these important dates to watch.
As seen on the below chart from Skew, for the December 25th contract expiry, traders are currently placing a sub-6% chance on Ethereum’s price being over ,000.
Interestingly, the market is also only placing a 41% chance on its price being at or above 0 by the end of the year – a sign that the majority of traders are expecting it to decline from its current price levels as the year drags on.
Featured image from Unsplash.
A Massive VC Just Raised $500M to Back Crypto: Here’s Why It’s Important
Supply chains have ground to a halt and dozens of millions are unemployed but this hasn’t stopped crypto from getting a big fundamental boost: one of Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firms just raised half a billion dollars to invest in industry startups.
Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin Hits ks, a16z Raises 0M Crypto Fund, Ethereum 2.0 Nears
Top Venture Capital Firm Raises .5B Crypto Fund
Announced by Katie Haun and Chris Dixon, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — a VC firm known for its investments in Twitter, Slack, Lime, Instagram, and many other big companies — just finished fundraising for “Crypto Fund II,” a new “5 million fund that will be used to invest in networks and businesses.”
Haun and Dixon will be the partners leading this fund. According to them, they will be focusing on five main categories of investments in the cryptocurrency space:
Next Generation Payments
Modern Store of Value
Decentralized finance (DeFi)
New Ways for Creators to Monetize
Web 3.0
Vance Spencer, a co-founder of thesis-driven crypto fund Framework Ventures, said that this new 5 million fund could be very important to this industry moving forward.
“I see this as a recapitalization of the early-stage crypto scene both from a financial and legitimacy standpoint With crypto projects starting to show real traction, I am excited to see a later-stage funding ecosystem starting to take shape to support our industry,” Spencer said, summarizing the signifiance of this fund.
The raise comes as crypto funding has slowed down at a dramatic pace. Data shared by Rob “Crypto Bobby” Paone, founder of Proof of Talent, indicates that the number of crypto funding deals that took place in Q1 of 2020 was a mere 79 — far below the 220 in Q1 of 2019 or 230 in Q1 of 2018.
Ethereum Could Be the Biggest Beneficiary
Andrew Kang, a venture investor, explained that Ethereum could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this new fund. The investor interpreted a16z’s assertion that it will be investing heavily in “next-generation payment” projects as a sign that they will be “investing in ETH, the stablecoin settlement layer.”
A16Z is investing in payment blockchains
AKA
A16Z is investing in $ETH, the stablecoin settlement layer https://t.co/JfQGEkeFtq pic.twitter.com/xDIkbNy40v
— Andrew Kang (@Rewkang) May 1, 2020
Considering a16z’s previous fund dealing with blockchain, Kang is likely correct in making this statement.
Although Crypto Fund I made investments into vanilla projects like Coinbase, Libra, Polychain Capital, and Dfinity, a big focus of that portfolio was clearly Ethereum, stablecoins, and decentralized finance.
The venture capital firm’s Ethereum wallet, for instance, holds million worth of ERC tokens like MakerDAO’s MKR and Synthetix, while the fund made direct investments into Ethereum projects like Compound, dYdX, and TrustToken.
Should a16z’s Crypto Fund II follow a similar format, countless projects based on Ethereum and potentially Ether itself could benefit greatly once investments start rolling.
Related Reading: Elon Musk Casually Drops the Bitcoin Bomb On Twitter, Once More
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
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Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin Hits $9ks, a16z Raises $500M Crypto Fund, Ethereum 2.0 Nears
Another week, another round of Crypto Tidbits. Bitcoin has been one of the best-performing assets in financial markets over the past week, managing to rally as high as ,500 — over 25% higher where it started this week. Altcoins, interestingly, have underperformed the market leader, with Ethereum and XRP both gaining around 10% over the past seven days.
Crypto’s strength this week comes as the stock market has started to stagnate in the 2,800-2,900 point range, seemingly playing with the idea of a reversal as the economic outlook remains dismal, with a total of 30 million Americans filing for unemployment over the past month.
Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, went as far as to say that the U.S. economy is currently in its worst rut in history due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The recovery will not be V-shaped, Powell added, asserting that it may take a while for life to return to pre-virus levels due to the long-lasting effects of the shutdown of the world’s biggest economic powerhouse.
Whatever the case, analysts are still bullish on Bitcoin.
Roch Rosenblum, the co-head of trading at GSR, remarked to Bloomberg that the ongoing BTC rally is predicated on the macroeconomic environment:
“This latest run past ,000 is as much about positive macro sentiment as it is about the upcoming halving. We’re starting to have a lot more certainty, as more countries begin to share their plans to reopen the economy in May.”
Chart from Coin360.io
This optimism was echoed by Zac Prince, a co-founder of crypto startup BlockFi, who said that the “current market dynamics are driving a bolstered interest [for] digital currency.” These dynamics he was referencing was the Federal Reserve’s commitment to money printing and the growth in stablecoins.
Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin Surges to ,800, More U.S. Stimulus, Tether Erupts
Bitcoin & Crypto Tidbits
Elon Musk ‘Talks’ About Bitcoin Again: Elon Musk created quite the stir in global financial markets on May 1st, when he tweeted “[The] Tesla stock price is too high imo,” resulting in the asset collapsing by approximately 10% during the day’s trading session. Although many holders of TSLA saw Musk’s statement as controversial because of the seeming effect it had on their investment, the operator of the @Bitcoin account on Twitter, which has over one million followers, decided to leverage the situation to tweet that the “Bitcoin price is too low imo.” The Tesla chief executive surprisingly responded, first with the tweet below that has Musk laughing at the comment. Musk followed this up ten minutes later by asking @Bitcoin how much it would cost for “some anime Bitcoin.” While he made these comments in jest, Musk has previously mentioned crypto in interviews in a positive manner.
Bitcoin price is too low imo
— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) May 1, 2020
Bitcoin Spikes in Popularity in China: According to Samson Mow — CSO of Bitcoin development company Blockstream — the Chinese term for “BTC” (比特币) recently exploded in popularity on Weibo. This comes shortly after the Chinese term for “Bitcoin halving” experienced a similar treatment last week, suggestive of a larger hype cycle for cryptocurrency. As of April 29th, the search term was the 19th most popular term on the trending page, registering hundreds of thousands of comments on the matter from the over 400 million users that frequent the social platform.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Raises Big Crypto Fund: This week, Katie Haun and Chris Dixon, partners at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — one of the largest Silicon Valley venture capital firms — unveiled “Crypto Fund II,” a new “5 million fund that will be used to invest in crypto networks and businesses.” The two partners claim they will be focusing on five main categories of investments in the cryptocurrency space, one of them being DeFi: next-generation payments, modern store of value, decentralized finance, new ways for creators to monetize, web 3.0.
Ethereum 2.0 Draws Ever Closer: The “Topaz” testnet for Ethereum has continued to gain transaction, with the network recently hitting 100,000 slots. The Topaz testnet is currently testing Ethereum 2.0 software, which is expected to be launched in late-June or July to the mainnet.
Milestone! 100k slots at Topaz testnet!
24.4k validators
3200 finalized epochs
90% participation
@prylabs controls less than 53% of the network
Some nodes with 300 peers pic.twitter.com/LDZxiC8a0r
— Terence Tsao (@terencechain) May 1, 2020
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
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Fintech Arm of Chinese Insurance Giant Shoots for $500M IPO in US
n Ping Ans fintech subsidiary OneConnect is aiming for a 0 million IPO in the U.S. according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commissionn
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Crypto-Friendly Mobile Banking Firm Revolut to Attempt Raising $500M
n Cryptocurrency-friendly mobile banking firm Revolut looks to raise 0 millionn
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