- SAND Token, Below 200-Day MA, Joins Broader Crypto Market in Gloomy Outlook
SAND, the native token of the Ethereum-based virtual-reality platform The Sandbox, has caught up with the rest of the crypto market after weeks of resisting the downward pull.
The cryptocurrency dipped below the widely tracked 200-day moving average (MA) early Tuesday, joining peers from other crypto sub-sectors in signaling a gloomy market mood. The coin slipped under the critical $2.93 level during the Asian trading hours, dropping to its lowest price since Jan. 25, according to Binance data tracked by charting platform Trading View. It last traded under its 200-day MA in July.
The Sandbox introduced a staking mechanism on scaling tool Polygon earlier this month, allowing users to stake SAND without having to worry about gas fees (transaction costs). The move, however, failed to arrest the decline toward the 200-day MA. Staking refers to the process of locking up coins in a blockchain for a specific period of time to contribute to the security of a network in return for rewards.
- El Salvador’s Tourism Rises 30% After Bitcoin Became Legal Tender
The Salvadoran government has outlined some economic benefits resulting from adopting bitcoin as legal tender. The country’s bitcoin law went into effect in September last year, making BTC a national currency alongside the U.S. dollar.
A notice posted on the government website Monday explains that during the first months of bitcoin being legal tender in El Salvador, “it was possible to identify the advantages of having added innovation and financial freedom.” The notice adds that tourism was one of the first sectors where it was possible to verify how bitcoin has helped the country’s economy.
The head of the Ministry of Tourism (MITUR), Morena Valdez, commented: “The implementation of bitcoin benefited the sector. More tourists and investors have come to see how cryptocurrency works.” She elaborated:
We did a poll to check the activity before and after bitcoin. The tourism sector increased, in November and December, more than 30%.
https://news.bitcoin.com/el-salvadors-tourism-rises-30-after-bitcoin-became-legal-tender/
- How The IRS Is Looking For Its Share Of Cryptocurrency And NFT Growth
Most tax accountants would not be described as “hip” and many struggle to be considered “tech savvy”. Even so, some of their clients’ needs are forcing them into a new world surrounding the exchange of digital assets. While many persons trading cryptocurrency or buying a non-fungible token (“NFT”) think they are just doing something new, fun, or just goofing around because they have cash to play with, what they don’t realize is that Uncle Sam is looking to collect their share. The number of questions being asked in this space have skyrocketed. Countless persons are looking for help and are shocked when they learn of their potential tax bills. The lack of understanding and proper planning in this space can result in a significant check being made out to the IRS.
- Bitcoin falls below $38,000 as evergrow set to break new crypto records
Bitcoin’s price has fallen to below $38,000 for the second time in 2022. Cryptocurrency’s largest token has struggled since starting the year at $47,000 and despite a rally in early February Bitcoin price is back where it was a month ago. A combination of factors means that investors are increasingly avoiding risk, and in the current climate risk means Bitcoin.
The trouble is that a bearish cycle for Bitcoin usually means a downward cycle across the crypto market. Despite starting the year with an industry market cap of $2 trillion, this has fallen to $1.79 as of late February 2022. But as crypto’s major coins are nearly all showing losses over the past week, a few projects have made announcements that could bring confidence back to the crypto market. EverGrow for example is looking to make ‘crypto history’ with a project focused on fundamentals that can generate its own volume – regardless of market ups and downs.
- The new (virtual) sheriff in town: US taps top crypto cop
The US Department of Justice named Eun Young Choi as the first director of its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) on Thursday, as part of a broadening effort to monitor virtual currency and associated activity.
Citing misuse of technology in cyberattacks, ransomware, extortion, theft, fraud, money laundering, illicit drug trafficking and other crimes involving cryptocurrency and jurisdictional complexity, the US has sought to create divisions within its federal law enforcement agencies to tackle tangled legal issues that cross state lines and international borders by way of the blockchain.
“The NCET will play a pivotal role in ensuring that, as the technology surrounding digital assets grows and evolves, the department, in turn, accelerates and expands its efforts to combat their illicit abuse by criminals of all kinds,” Choi said in a statement attached to the announcement.
Choi worked perhaps most notably as the Cyber Crimes Coordinator for New York state’s Southern District, which includes New York City, for nearly a decade. She then served as senior counsel to the US Deputy Attorney General.
https://capital.com/the-new-virtual-sheriff-in-town-us-tabs-top-crypto-cop
- ‘Frozen’ Bitcoin Tied to Canadian Protests Lands at Coinbase, Crypto.Com
Cryptocurrency tied to the Canadian truckers protesting COVID-19 restrictions has been on the move, in defiance of the authorities’ orders to freeze funds, blockchain analysis shows.
Nearly all of the roughly 20 BTC (about $788,000 U.S. at current exchange rates) sent to the Tallycoin fundraiser is gone from that address, with only 0.11 BTC left, according to Blockchain.com data.
Most of the 30 bitcoin wallets identified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as being attached to the fundraising have been largely drained as well, with only 6 BTC combined between them, on-chain data shows.
Whether the recipients will be able to use the funds to buy goods or services remains to be seen, however.
A CoinDesk review of the public ledger shows that four small portions of the roughly 20 bitcoin raised – about 0.14 BTC each – ended up at two centralized exchanges, Coinbase and Crypto.com. It is not clear whether the funds were cashed out for fiat or frozen at those platforms.
- Solana NFT Marketplace Magic Eden Reveals Airdrop, Plans to Launch DAO
According to the developers of the Solana-based Magic Eden NFT marketplace, a DAO is in the making and the fundamentals behind the change. The team detailed that it started distributing thousands of NFTs to active wallets. Magic Eden (ME) developers created three levels of “Magic Tickets,” which includes “OGs – people who first transacted on ME from Sep 17 – Oct 17,” “Degens – people who first transacted on ME between Oct 18 – Dec 18,” and “Normies – people who first transacted on ME Dec 19 onwards.”
The Magic DAO has three fundamentals which include:
A mission and set of rules to which will operate
Funding and treasury that can be used to fund and reward certain activities
Voting rights to establish operation rules and make key decisions
Magic Eden is a popular NFT market and 24-hour statistics indicate it’s the 12th largest market by NFT sales volume, according to dappradar.com. Metrics further show the Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden is the sixth largest, in terms of all-time sales volume with $704.15 million.
https://news.bitcoin.com/solana-nft-marketplace-magic-eden-reveals-airdrop-plans-to-launch-dao/
- Crypto companies are tempting top talent away from Big Tech to build ‘Web3’
Executives at tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon are quitting to take jobs in the buzzy world of crypto.
Blockchain platforms such as Polygon and Circle have hired top talent from Big Tech firms lately, enticing them with the pitch of working on the next “big thing” in tech — Web 3.0, or Web3.
Wyatt left YouTube earlier this month to lead a new gaming studio from Polygon. Wyatt had joined the Google-owned video site back in 2014 to head up a push into video games content and compete more aggressively with Amazon’s Twitch platform.
“When I started at YouTube Gaming almost eight years ago, I was the first person there,” Wyatt told CNBC in an interview. “We didn’t have a team. People were really starting to show interest in gaming video.”
“I look at this opportunity very much the same way,” he added, describing the current stage of blockchain development as “early” and “exciting.”
The buzz surrounding Web3 has attracted some of the brightest minds in tech. The Web3 movement proposes overhauling the internet in a way that would move popular online services over to decentralized technologies like blockchain.
- Algorand Can Be a Top Crypto With Its Unique Approach to Security
Algorand (ALGO-USD) is a popular decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency. It has a market cap of about $5.6 billion as of Feb. 20. ALGO is ranked as the 28th largest crypto in the list of all the largest market cap cryptocurrencies kept by CoinMarketCap.
The crypto uses proof-of-stake validation rather than crypto mining to validate its transactions. This sets it apart from some very large cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and even Ethereum (ETH-USD).
This leaves Algorand as one of a few eco-friendly cryptocurrencies. Its system does not use a lot of energy from electricity production to validate cryptocurrency transactions on its platform.
https://investorplace.com/2022/02/algorand-can-be-a-top-crypto-with-its-unique-approach-to-security/
- India’s Crypto Advertising Guidelines Are Out
The Advertising Stands Council of India (ASCI) has released guidelines for crypto or virtual digital assets related advertisements, which will be applicable on or after April 1. Earlier advertisements must not appear in the public domain unless they comply with the new guidelines after April 15, 2022.
The ASCI said it held extensive consultations “with different stakeholders including government and the virtual digital asset industry” to frame the guidelines.
The primary guideline requires all ads for VDA (virtual digital asset) products and VDA exchanges or featuring VDAs, to carry the following disclaimer: “Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.”
According to the guidelines, the words “currency”, “securities”, “custodian” and “depositories” may not be used in advertisements of VDA products or services as consumers associate these terms with regulated products.
The guidelines also seek that cost or profitability of VDA products shall contain clear, accurate, sufficient and updated information. For example, “zero cost” will need to include all costs that the consumer might reasonably associate with the offer or transaction.
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/02/23/indias-crypto-advertising-guidelines-are-out/
