FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Payments firm Block is on a hiring spree to build out its Bitcoin mining and wallet hardware businesses. 

The company is hiring heads of Bitcoin mining policy, communications, and partnerships, according to several job postings published to LinkedIn over the past two weeks. 

In a job advertisement posted to LinkedIn on Saturday for a “test hub lead,” the firm said its mining team develops “bitcoin mining ASIC, bitcoin mining rig, and associated systems, software and infrastructure.”

The test hub, according to the ad, will “host Block’s mining hardware and will be used to test the hardware and software and the overall operational issues (power, cooling, dust, restart, performance monitoring, connectivity to pool) of the mining system.”

The firm is also hiring product and engineering talent “to develop the next generation of mining ASIC” and to build its “first mining rig” and “future mining rig product lines.” It also has several positions related to wallet design. Block revealed its Bitcoin hardware wallet this past spring. 

Formerly known as Square, Block has made a huge bet on Bitcoin and decentralized finance.

For instance, Block’s decentralized finance unit, TBD, announced earlier this month a stablecoin partnership with Circle.

As for mining, Block’s general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton, outlined the company’s Bitcoin mining ambitions in January, as reported by CNBC.

“Common issues we’ve heard with current systems are around heat dissipation and dust. They also become non-functional almost every day, which requires a time-consuming reboot. We want to build something that just works,” Templeton said on Twitter. “They’re also very noisy, which makes them too loud for home use.”

Block is making a push into mining during a period that’s difficult for the sector. Companies have seen their profit margins squeezed in the past few months, as bitcoin’s value dropped and energy prices went up, along with global hash rate and mining difficulty.

Catarina Moura contributed reporting. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Binance’s stablecoin is enjoying a spike in activity despite a broader slump in the market. 

The Block’s data dashboard shows that BUSD has expanded its market share to its highest level ever, representing 15.48% of the stablecoin market’s $140 billion in total supply as of Friday. The crypto’s share of trade volume by pair denomination stands at 22%.

Meanwhile, the total supply of BUSD clocks in at just under $22 billion—an increase of more than $6 billion since the beginning of the year. 

In September, Binance said it would convert existing balances and new deposits of stablecoins USDC, USDP and TUSD to its own stablecoin, BUSD. 

The exchange is the largest in the world in terms of cryptocurrency volumes. 

The total stablecoin supply peaked this past spring ahead of the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, which overnight collapsed from $1 to nearly zero. The event—which wiped out billions of dollars in value across the Terra ecosystem—precipitated a credit crisis in crypto, which resulted in the bankruptcy of firms like Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and Voyager. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A web of political action committees funded by FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried and other crypto leaders are reportedly planning an eleventh-hour surge in advertising for the 2022 midterm elections. 

Citing an unnamed strategist, CNBC reported Friday that Super PACs Web3 Forward and Crypto Innovation are planning to spend six figures on advertising for the midterm elections. The ad campaign is set to begin in two weeks. 

The two Super PACs have reported a total of over $8 million in funding as of the end of September, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. Their primary funder is GMI PAC, a project spearheaded by FTX Digital Markets head Ryan Salame. The organization has received over $11 million from donors including Bankman-Fried, Circle, as well as investment firms Paradigm, a16z, and Multicoin.

Hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci and his firm Skybridge Capital contributed a combined $200,000 to Crypto Innovation.

The PACs are part of a network of political action committees growing around the crypto exchange, which has seen executives Bankman-Fried and Salame emerge as some of the biggest political donors in the US in recent cycles.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin’s shifting relationship with traditional markets hints that investors may again be thinking of it as a haven asset, according to research by the Bank of America. 

The crypto market heavyweight has seen its correlation with gold increase from zero to 0.5 since mid-August, Bloomberg first reported, citing BoA digital assets strategists Alkesh Shah and Andrew Moss. 

Its correlation with major indexes has also flattened out below record highs, with the S&P 500 registering 0.69 and the Nasdaq hitting 0.72. 

Investors may be viewing bitcoin as a “relative safe haven” amid macro uncertainty, Moss and Shah wrote, adding that “a market bottom remains to be seen.”

The new data indicates a change from the cryptocurrency’s tendency to move in lockstep with equities markets. 

Bitcoin was trading around the $19,200 mark at the time of writing, up about 1.2% in the last 24 hours, according to Coinbase data. Still the number one cryptocurrency by market cap, it is now sitting at 72.1% below the all time high of $68,789.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The token supply of ether (ETH) appears on trend to deflate to pre-Merge levels as a result of more tokens being burned than created for the last few weeks, on-chain data shows.

At the time of The Merge on Sept. 15, Ethereum’s upgrade from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus, the ETH supply was 120,520,00 tokens. After The Merge, the supply rose to 120,534,000 tokens on Oct. 8, but has since fallen back to 120,522,00, now sitting just a couple of thousand tokens more than the supply recorded at The Merge. This deflationary trend has occurred as more tokens have been burned for transaction fees than were created as rewards for validators in recent weeks.

“Since issuance is significantly reduced now compared to pre-Merge, even a slight increase in burned ETH from recent levels would make daily net emission go negative,” said Kevin Peng, research analyst at The Block. 

The deflationary supply after The Merge

One of the many changes from The Merge is a 90% reduction in new token supply issuance amid the elimination of miner subsidies in the former proof-of-work blockchain. Combined with the EIP-1559 feature on Ethereum, where a portion of transaction, or gas, fees are “burned,” it’s estimated that more ether is destroyed than added to supply whenever the transaction fees go above 16 gwei, the very trend being observed now. In fact, the supply is merely 1,700 ETH away from getting to pre-Merge level and continuously going down, according to data from ultrasound.money. 

If this trend continues, and fee burns remain greater than new issuance, we may see supply growth drop below the level prior to The Merge in the next few days, noted DeFi researcher Mika Honkasalo. “Post-merge total supply change is about to turn negative in the next 5-7 days,” Honkasalo tweeted. 

ETH supply change since The Merge. Image: Ultrasound.money

While average transaction fees remained low for some time after The Merge, since Oct.8 they have increased along with a spike in activity on Ethereum. The increased activity has been accounted for by the introduction of a freely claimable token called XEN. This is a token that’s open to claim by anyone as long as claimants pay the Ethereum transaction fees, and it has effectively spammed the blockchain for a few weeks. 

Later, big trading volumes around new memecoins also contributed to an expanding volume of transactions and an increase in fees, both normal validator rewards and miner extractable value, resulting in an expansion of ether burned.

Currently, the average fees are ranging anywhere between 20 to 30 gwei, a situation that is more than enough to burn a lot of ether every day and make the supply deflationary. The amount of ETH burned on a given day is contingent on network activity, as the base fee adjusts according to how crowded blocks are, and more transactions overall just mean more fees burned.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto news in the last week saw a continuation of some familiar trends as the industry marched on amid slumping prices. 

There was yet more C-suite-level change with a reshuffling at Gemini and a leadership swap at Polkadot-linked Parity. VC-backed Aptos proved it could successfully build in a bear market as its mainnet went live. And the existential moment for NFT projects continued, as many mulled a potential future of 0% creator royalties. 

Here are the stories that got us talking last week: 

Gemini and Parity’s top-level change

The week was book-ended by news of top-level changes in crypto organizations — an ongoing trend amid the bear market. 

Cameron Winklevoss left his spot on Gemini Europe’s board of directors, it was learned on Monday. The investor, billionaire and co-founder of crypto exchange Gemini officially stepped aside as a director of its European branch on Oct. 12. 

Cameron and his twin brother, Tyler Winklevoss, remain president and CEO at Gemini. The pair established the crypto exchange in 2014.

Later in the week, we found that that Gavin Wood was stepping down as CEO of Parity Technologies, a key developer of the Polkadot blockchain ecosystem. He will be replaced by fellow Parity co-founder Björn Wagner.

“The role of CEO has never been one which I have coveted (and this dates back long before Parity),” Wood said in a blog post. “Anyone who has worked with me knows where my heart lies. I’m a thinker, coder, designer and architect. Like many such people, I work best asynchronously.”

The pair joined the likes of MicroStrategy chief Michael Saylor, Kraken’s Jesse Powell, Genesis head Michael Moro, Sam Trabucco of Alameda Research, FTX’s Brett Harrison and Celsius chief Alex Mashinsky, who have all left top roles in crypto in the last few months. 

Aptos: The new kid on the blockchain 

It was a busy week for the new kid on the blockchain, Aptos, the Layer 1 project developed by former Meta employees. Its mainnet went live early in the week. User transactions followed on Oct. 18.

An update on tokenomics showed that the blockchain will have an initial supply of 1 billion tokens, which will increase to 1.5 billion by the end of 2031. The minimal unit for Aptos — similar to a satoshi, or a wei — will be called an octa. Its tokens will be split among the community (51%), core contributors (19%), the foundation (16.5%) and investors (13.5%).

The Aptos Foundation also conducted a retroactive token airdrop to reward early network participants. It allocated 20.1 million APT tokens as an airdrop late Tuesday, representing 2% of its initial total supply of 1 billion APT, according to an announcement on Twitter. These tokens had a total value of from $200 million to $260 million, based on the token’s market price shortly after the airdrop opened.

The NFT royalty debate raged on

The NFT space continued to hotly debate the future of artist royalties. Magic Eden announced a switch to an optional royalty model last week, a move that means those buying or selling NFTs may choose what percentage of a sale is returned to the original artist.

Creator royalties have long been touted as one of the top use cases for NFTs, allowing creators to make money on secondary sales. Still, there’s no way to make people cough up on the protocol level. Instead, collecting royalties has traditionally been left to NFT marketplaces themselves. If markets don’t collect, creators don’t get paid.  

Magic Eden’s COO called the conundrum a “prisoner’s dilemma” in an interview with The Block. Meanwhile, we explained why NFT royalties are almost impossible to enforce on-chain.

Nike and Bored Ape Yacht Club’s parent company Yuga Labs were later revealed to be among the top beneficiaries of royalty payments in a report by Galaxy Digital. 

Royalties for Ethereum-based NFT projects earned a total of $1.8 billion in revenue. The top 10 NFT projects netted $489 million, or 27% of all royalties earned. Yuga Labs, with its Bored Ape, Mutant Ape and Otherside projects brought in $147.6 million in royalties, followed by Art Blocks with $82 million. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Former chancellor Rishi Sunak has taken an early lead in the race to become the UK Conservative Party leader and the country’s next prime minister. 

The contest, which comes amid a prolonged period of political uncertainty in the country, could end as soon as Monday. Sunak has already secured the backing of at least 100 Tory MPs, meaning he will be considered in the ballot of party members next week if he declares that he is running. 

Outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss was confirmed as the country’s leader on Sept. 5. She resigned this week following a backlash to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s economic plan, which included tax cuts for top earners. 

Sunak also ran in the last leadership election, but had lost out in the last round with 43% of the vote to Truss’s 57%. 

This time, other candidates in contention are ousted prime minister Boris Johnson and the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt. Only three members of parliament will be able to get to the next round, as there are a total of 357 Conservative MPs.

We need to restore trust in the @Conservatives.

I will be a fresh voice and unite the party. #PM4PM pic.twitter.com/j8mpJsrByM

— Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) October 22, 2022

Sunak’s crypto credentials

Sunak proved himself as overtly crypto curious when he served as chancellor for the Exchequer between February 2020 and July 2022. In April this year, he set out plans to make the UK a crypto-friendly tech hub, and said the Royal Mint would launch an NFT this summer. He also made moves for stablecoins to be brought within regulation, paving their way for use in the UK as a recognized form of payment.

The move came amid a protracted period of confusion around crypto regulation in the UK, as firms waited for verdicts from the financial regulator on anti-money laundering licensing. The process, conducted through the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), forced many companies to consider their place in the UK market, including crypto market maker B2C2, Blockchain.com and wallet firm Wirex, which have all chosen to seek licenses elsewhere. 

These policies followed meetings with top crypto executives and venture capital firms. 

The Treasury minister’s meetings log, published on the UK government website, shows Sunak met with Sequoia managing partner Douglas Leone to “discuss the UK’s Venture Capital sector” earlier this year. Previous disclosures also showed that at the end of last year, Sunak visited California and met with representatives from Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as attending a roundtable with companies including Bitwise, Celo, Solana and Iqoniq. 

Other runners and riders

While Boris Johnson oversaw Sunak’s period as chancellor in office, he has not offered a clear opinion on the future of blockchain or crypto regulation in the country. It is thought unlikely by many in the party that he will win this contest after he was forced to resign during his last term. 

“Whether you’re an arch-Boris fan or an arch-Boris critic, I don’t see how you can reconcile making a return to frontline politics,” former top Tory Dominic Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. 

Penny Mordaunt’s stance on digital assets is also relatively unknown. In April, she met with the president of the Texas Blockchain Association to discuss UK partnership opportunities. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A judge in the Southern District of New York has denied a motion to dismiss the wire fraud charges against former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain.

A grand jury indicted Chastain after the former OpenSea head of product allegedly purchased and sold non-fungible tokens (NFTs) he knew would be listed on the marketplace’s homepage – a scheme the DOJ alleges was akin to turning a profit using insider information.

Chastain filed a motion to dismiss in August, arguing NFTs constitute neither securities nor commodities and that wire fraud charges alleging front-running require trading in those categories. 

District Judge Jesse Furman formally disagreed in a memorandum and order today, denying the motion to dismiss the indictment and saying the argument “is wholly without merit.” 

“No court has suggested, let alone held, that conviction in such a case requires trading in securities and commodities,” Furman wrote.

A footnote within the opinion says that, at most, Chastain’s argument suggests the term “insider trading” may be misleading and if so, the appropriate action would be to strike the phrase from the indictment rather than dismissing the indictment altogether.

Chastain’s legal team filed a separate motion earlier this month requesting the court strike the term from the case and bar the government from using it in the future. The defense team also filed to subpoena Chastain’s former employer and throw out evidence related to a search of his home. 

The next conference in the case is scheduled for Oct. 27 at 11 a.m. in New York.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Argentina’s national tax authority broke up an undeclared crypto mining farm in a so-called “mega operation” leading to the arrest of 40 people, marking the latest action in a series of crypto-related crackdowns there. 

The tax authority, which goes by AFIP in Spanish, worked with local agencies to conduct 70 raids, it said in a statement. It seized more than 100 cell phones and SIM cards, cash, cars, firearms, computers and assorted office equipment such as memory cards, flash drives and printers.

The mining farm allegedly operated out of a shed in the municipality of Quilmes, about 12 miles southeast of the city of Buenos Aires. The farm was operating with stolen cables, and authorities investigated the alleged theft of electricity to mask the crypto mining activities.

AFIP has ramped up investigations related to digital asset operations since its director Carlos Castagneto stepped into his role in late July. 

The agency announced in September that it had discovered three crypto mining sites that allegedly hid their mining operations by not properly declaring their activities.  

The AFIP said it has specialized areas of the organization that can detect undeclared crypto farms around the country based on high electricity levels. 

“Through these in-person verifications, agents verify the existence of the corresponding import documentation for equipment and the correct registration of both the mining activity and income received,” AFIP said in a statement. 

While the Argentine government’s crackdown on crypto mining seems to center on undeclared operations and equipment, recent raids have raised questions about whether mining is legal at all. To clarify, the nonprofit organization ONG Bitcoin Argentina has communicated the message that crypto mining in itself is not a crime when it adheres to local laws.

“Cryptocurrency mining is not a crime defined by the criminal code, so it is not an activity that in itself can be considered clandestine or illegal,” ONG Bitcoin Argentina wrote in a Sept. 27 blog post. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Circle has announced a partnership with Axelar focused on the use of USDC and cross-chain applications.

Avalanche, Cosmos, Ethereum, Polygon, and Sui will be the first chains integrated with Axelar’s General Message Passing (GMP). The announcement comes shortly after Circle announced its native USDC bridging protocol last month.

When a user bridges an asset, the token they receive on the other end is non-native, meaning it is a synthetic version subject to liquidity issues and security vulnerabilities if the bridge is attacked and hacked.

In essence, Circle oversees and verifies the movement of native USDC between chains removing the need for wrapped assets. Axelar’s GMP takes this process one step further and allows applications to integrate Circle’s bridge.

One of the main goals of the partnership is to simplify the cross-chain user experience. Use cases for new applications include cross-chain swaps, one-click trade execution, and cross-chain NFTs. For example, a user could utilize a wallet on Cosmos to purchase an NFT on Ethereum, removing the need to bridge and download a new wallet. The NFT could then be used in applications built on Cosmos, even though it was purchased on Ethereum.

“Composing Circle USDC Bridge with Axelar General Passing is a key step to achieve global interoperability across dApps on different chains,” Axelar’s co-founder Sergey Gorbunov said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.