- Ireland’s central bank follows UK’s example in warning of crypto advertisements
The Central Bank of Ireland issued a warning to consumers about the risks around crypto investments in addition to “misleading” advertisements, including those pushed by influencers on social media.
In a Tuesday notice, Ireland’s central bank said the warning was part of a campaign organized by the European Supervisory Authorities, made up of the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Banking Authority, and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority. The Central Bank of Ireland said that cryptocurrencies were “highly risky and speculative” for retail investors and warned people to be mindful of “the risks of misleading advertisements, particularly on social media, where influencers are being paid to advertise crypto assets.”
“In Ireland and across the EU we are seeing increasing levels of advertising and aggressive promotion of crypto asset investments,” said Derville Rowland, the central bank’s director general of financial conduct. “Before you buy crypto assets, you need to think about whether you can afford to lose all the money you invest […] People should also be aware that if things go wrong, you do not have the protections you would have if you invested in a regulated product.”
- Bored Ape and CryptoPunk NFTs Owner Yuga Labs Raises $450M at $4B Valuation
Yuga Labs announced today that it has raised $450 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing the Web3 company to a total valuation of $4 billion. The Miami-based Yuga Labs confirmed the funding and valuation numbers to Decrypt via email today.
Animoca Brands, Coinbase, MoonPay, and FTX are among the other Web3 companies that contributed to the massive funding round, which is Yuga Labs’ first to date.
As a leading NFT brand, Yuga Labs—which created the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs and recently acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits IP from Larva Labs—is looking to further expand its presence. With its new funding, Yuga plans to hire more employees and develop brand partnerships.
https://decrypt.co/95706/bored-ape-cryptopunk-nfts-yuga-labs-450m-4b-valuation
- Crypto.com Nabs FIFA World Cup Sponsorship for Undisclosed Sum
Crypto exchange Crypto.com has made another splash in the world of sports partnerships, announcing Tuesday it will be an official sponsor of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The partnership will put the exchange’s branding all around the tournament’s Qatar venue, as well as within the stadium’s broadcast view. The total compensation for the deal was undisclosed.
“No sport brings the world together like football, and no sporting event brings the world together the way FIFA World Cup does,” Crypto.com CMO Steven Kalifowitz told CoinDesk in a statement. “Only a few brands have the privilege to participate as official sponsors, and we jumped at the opportunity to be the first brand to represent the crypto industry in this historic month-long event.”
Crypto.com made headlines in November when it acquired the naming rights to the iconic Staples Center in Los Angeles, renaming it Crypto.com Arena. The deal was estimated to cost $700 million, which makes it the largest naming rights deal in sports history.
The exchange said in a Tuesday press release that it serves more than 10 million customers and has over 4,000 employees across offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
- Bitcoin bulls take aim at $45K while some analysts warn of possible correction
The bullish narrative is beginning to build across the cryptocurrency ecosystem on March 22 as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) briefly spiked above $43,000 while Ether (ETH) has reclaimed support at $3,000 following a deposit of $110 million worth of ETH into Lido’s liquidity pools.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin rallied 6.15% from a low of $40,884 in the early hours of Tuesday to an intraday high at $43,380 before consolidating around support at $42,300.
Here’s what several analysts are saying about Bitcoin’s recent price action and which support and resistance levels to keep an eye on moving forward.
BTC price could correct lower
A foreshadowing of Bitcoin’s move on March 22 was provided by market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user “Rekt Captial,” who posted the following chart noting that “If Bitcoin successfully retests the green dashed diagonal as new support,” then it “will spring towards the green ~$43100 resistance ahead.”
According to the trader, this was a notable development because it “confirmed” the end of the “multi-month series of lower highs” for Bitcoin and suggests we could soon head higher.
Despite this bullish turn of events, fellow trader and pseudonymous Twitter user “Ed_NL” warned that it may still be a bit premature to open a BTC long based on price action following the pump.
- Argentines Flock to Crypto Games as Economy Eats Up Salaries
Argentina has become the top place in Latin America for “play-to-earn” crypto games, as inflation running at a ten-month high erodes the value of local salaries.
South America’s second-largest economy jumped in the rankings and is also the fifth around the world when it comes to playing games for income, with 9,400 visits so far this year to Decentral Games, the metaverse company with the most players in the world, up from just a few hundred last year. Brazil also shot up in the platform to become the seventh-most popular place for these games.
relates to Argentines Flock to Crypto Games as Economy Eats Up Salaries
Decentral Games’ PokerSource: Decentral Games
Both countries are grappling with double-digit inflation, trailing only Venezuela in Latin America. In Argentina, prices are growing at a pace above 50% annually and wages have grown below inflation for the last four years. In Brazil, inflation doubled in the last year to above 10% annually.
“Argentina and Brazil’s trends show the numbers will keep rising,” said Gabriel Mellace, Decentral Games head of investor relations. “Young people are not only looking for profitability. They’re also looking for fun.”
- Part of Singapore’s Crypto Allure Is a Sheen of Transparency. Is the City-State Changing?
Singapore has been celebrated as crypto’s natural home in Asia.
Its judiciary and regulators are fair, quick and efficient, the air is clean and the population speaks English fluently. Its strongman founder, Lee Kuan Yew, believed that prosperous nations are ones where the rich aren’t above the law; civil servants are handsomely paid to help ensure they are immune to bribes. Judges must rule on commercial disputes citing case law, not thinking about favors and connections.
But a strange thing happened this week in Singapore’s crypto scene. DeFiance Capital, one of the many crypto funds registered in the city, was put on an “Investor Alert List” by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the central bank and regulator.
“The Investor Alert List provides a list of unregulated persons who, based on information received by MAS, may have been wrongly perceived as being licensed or regulated by MAS,” is how MAS describes it.
MAS didn’t respond to a CoinDesk query to provide a detailed explanation of why DeFiance Capital was placed on the list and not any of its peers, such as Three Arrows Capital, that are registered in the city.
DeFiance Capital told CoinDesk that “inclusion on the IAL carries no implication of legal impropriety but simply indicates that DeFiance Capital, like many other crypto-native VCs in Singapore, are not yet regulated by MAS.”
But DeFiance Capital is also unsure what happened.
“We are currently trying to understand how this issue came about. Prior to this we were proactively working with MAS to communicate our operations in Singapore,” the fund said in an email to CoinDesk, noting that its investment activities and operations remain unaffected.
Although being on this list doesn’t signify any sort of wrongdoing, that might be lost on casual observers when they see a fund’s name – and not that of its peers – on an “alert list.”
- Bitcoin faces new ‘milestone’ in 2022 as new forecast predicts BTC price ‘in the millions’
Bitcoin “may be primed” for a quantum leap in its development thanks to inflation this year, a Bloomberg analyst has claimed.
In a tweet on March 17, Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, released a fresh bullish take on Bitcoin’s (BTC) future under the current macro conditions.
Well known for his belief in Bitcoin coming from the latest global financial turmoil out on top, McGlone argued that inflation would ultimately help Bitcoin’s “maturation” as an asset class, claiming it would even beat gold in terms of returns.
“Facing the Federal Reserve, inflation and war, 2022 may be primed for risk-asset reversion and mark another milestone in Bitcoin’s maturation,” he wrote.
“It’s unlikely for Bitcoin to stop outperforming gold, stock market amid bumps in the road as the Fed attempts another rate-hike cycle.”
An accompanying chart showed Bitcoin’s performance relative to a basket of macro assets.
The forecast followed the first in what the fed hinted would be a series of key interest rate hikes, an event that delivered a modest but welcome boost to BTC price action.
McGlone, however, was far from alone in his prediction. Arthur Hayes, former CEO of derivatives exchange BitMEX, delivered a stark warning about what was to come for global financial markets in his latest Medium post.
The Ukraine–Russia war, while adding to inflationary pressure, is symbolic because it has shown that even a central bank’s foreign currency assets can be effectively stolen, he argued.
“You cannot remove the world’s largest energy producer — and the collateral these commodity resources represent — from the financial system without serious unimagined and unintended consequences,” he reasoned.
- Wyoming Senator’s Crypto Bill to Receive Democratic Support: Source
In a move that could bolster support for the cryptocurrency industry in Washington, D.C., at least one Democratic senator is poised to co-sponsor a key piece of legislation being drafted by Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican and a long time Bitcoin holder.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the legislation is likely to be co-sponsored by one or two Democratic senators who represent states on either coast.
If this comes to pass, it would let the bill’s supporters brand the effort as bipartisan—an important potential development given the highly partisan atmosphere in Congress, and given how Democratic leadership has been largely hostile to crypto.
The Lummis legislation, which could drop as soon as this week, is expected to propose rules that will clarify the role of the SEC and other agencies when it comes to overseeing crypto, and to provide definitions that will mean many popular tokens are not securities. The law also likely would create a so-called de minimus exemption for crypto transactions of a few hundred dollars or less—a measure that would mean people could use crypto for small purchases or transfers without triggering tax obligations.
https://decrypt.co/95691/lummis-crypto-bill-senate
- Indian Superstar Amitabh Bachchan Pays Up After Tax Authorities’ Action On Platform Hosting His NFTs
Indian acting superstar Amitabh Bachchan, whose NFTs are featured at Beyondlife.club, an NFT marketplace, has paid around 1 crore ($136,000) in taxes after authorities sent a notice, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Hyderabad division of India’s Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) was investigating the platform and found discrepancies.
After a follow-up notice was sent, Bachchan paid the tax due on the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) worth around Rs 7 crore ($1 million).
BeyondLife.club is a partnership between Rhiti Entertainment and no-code NFT exchange platform, GuardianLink.io. Bachchan had partnered with Rhiti Entertainment for the sale of his NFTs.
The NFTs include the megastar’s recital of poems from Madhushala, the renowned collection of poems by his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, punks titled Big B, which is his nickname, digitised vintage posters of his appearances in Indian films and posters with signed moments.
D. Purushottam of the Hyderabad division of the DGGI confirmed that the tax investigation is active.
Bachchan or the people associated with Rhiti Entertainment did not provide a comment.
The Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence is responsible for identifying evasion of tax and collection.
- US Bitcoin mining firm turns to harmful coal waste for cleaner energy
Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG), a crypto mining company in Pennsylvania, is turning waste from old power plants into energy to power hundreds of Bitcoin mining rigs.
The company collects coal refuse, a leftover waste material from the process of coal mining, and burns it in what it says is an emissions-controlled environment at its energy generation facilities.
Coal refuse can cause a raft of environmental problems, such as water and air pollution, and acid mine drainage, the acidic water which comes from coal mining operations. Collecting this waste and safely disposing of it while generating power for crypto mining is a productive way of tackling the problem.
The state of Pennsylvania is the third-largest producer of coal in the United States, estimates put the amount of coal wastage at 881 pounds per 2,200 pounds mined, or 400 kilograms per ton. Stronghold estimates that Pennsylvania alone has over 220 million tons of harmful wastage.
Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies have caught the attention of regulators recently due to their reliance on energy-intensive processes in order to mine and provide validation for the network.
Earlier this month, a New York state proposal to suspend proof-of-work mining that uses fossil fuels was introduced, citing the negative environmental impact of the process, that proposal today was advanced by the New York State Assembly. If passed, it could see proof-of-work mining suspended for up to 3 years in New York.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-bitcoin-mining-firm-turns-to-harmful-coal-waste-for-energy
