Author: CRYPTO WORLD

The number of Bitcoin ATMs in the US rose 177% over the past year

CRYPTO WORLD
Bitcoin ATM Installations Growth

Since March 1, 2020, the number of new Bitcoin ATMs installed worldwide is nearing 10,000. According to the latest data from Coin ATM Radar, the current number of machines stands at 16,835, a strong 57.5% increase, or 9,683 new machines, as compared with 7,152 last year. Back in Nov. 2020, Cointelegraph had reported a striking year-on-year increase of 80%. As previously, the vast majority of machines continue to be located in the United States, where 81% (13,699 out of 16,835 machines globally) are installed. Within the U.S., growth has been…

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Decentralized esports tournament series looks to bring traditional gamers to crypto

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gaming esports crypto

Polyient Games co-founder Craig Russo referred to the partnership as “a major step towards bringing mainstream adoption” to the crypto industry. Non-fungible token-focused investment firm Polyient Games is launching a new online tournament to introduce mainstream gamers to the crypto space. In an announcement today, Polyient Games said it would be partnering with esports tournament platform Community Gaming for a $100,000 series featuring games using non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The esports games will reportedly “function as a method of introducing mainstream gamers to the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain assets”…

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Volkswagen pilots blockchain to integrate electric vehicles with power grids

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electric car charging

Energy Web plans to use blockchain technology to help ensure an efficient future for Volkswagen’s electric vehicles. Automobile makers everywhere are betting big on electric vehicles as the world begins to push for environmentally friendly modes of transportation. For example, while fewer than 1% of cars on the roads in the United States today are electric, a number of automobile manufacturers are aiming to change this by stopping sales of gasoline-powered cars. At the end of January 2021, General Motors said it would stop selling gas-powered cars and trucks by…

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Nvidia plans Cryptocurrency Mining Processor for Ethereum

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Nvidia Processor for Ethereum

GPU giant Nvidia plans to release a processor designed for mining cryptocurrency Ethereum, and will put artificial limits on how effective its future GPUs are at mining. The first in the Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) series will focus on Ether mining, used to make the Ethereum cryptocurrency possible, and is set to release in March. CMP chips will not do graphics processing, Nvidia said. Unlike gaming-focused GeForce GPUs, they also lack display outputs, enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. CMPs also have a lower…

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Blockchain firm aims to build crypto city in Nevada desert

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Nevada Las Vegas

CEO Jeffrey Berns says the smart city could incorporate digital currency payments for goods and services as well as records on the blockchain. Blockchain incubator and investment firm Blockchains LLC is stepping up its plans to build a smart city in the Nevada desert east of Reno. In an interview with the Associated Press released Saturday, Blockchains CEO Jeffrey Berns said he had asked the state of Nevada to let him form a local government on the 67,000 acres the firm owns in Storey County. If his petition is successful,…

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Ethereum 2.0 set to undergo first hard fork upgrade

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The Official Etherscan Beacon Chain Ethereum 2.0 Explorer

The first Ethereum 2.0 hard fork is aimed to be a general test before introducing deeper changes. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a plan on Monday for the first hard fork of the new Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain, tentatively named HF1. The hard fork would allow the developers to introduce several key upgrades to the recently launched Beacon Chain, which would also serve as a useful test for deeper changes in the future. The biggest practical change is the support for light clients — nodes that would have minimal resource…

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Verge of disaster: 200 days transactions wiped from blockchain

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Verge blockchain reorganization

Verge has been hit by a huge blockchain reorganization, resulting in more than six months worth of transactions and balances vanishing. However, devs claim it can be fixed. Privacy-focused blockchain network Verge (XVG) has experienced a significant block reorganization, replacing transactions dating as far back as July 2020. Despite being described as potentially “the deepest reorg that has ever taken place in a top 100 cryptocurrency,” analysts are yet to confirm that the incident comprised a coordinated attack. Coinmetrics COO Antoine Le Calvez was one of the first to notice…

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Tesla allocates 7.7% of gross cash to Bitcoin

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coinmarketcap bitcoin chart

Breaking down Tesla’s Bitcoin purchase reveals the emergence of a new corporate whale. Tesla (TSLA) sent shockwaves across the financial markets Monday after a United States Securities and Exchange Commission filing confirmed that the electric vehicle maker has added Bitcoin (BTC) to its balance sheet. Tesla’s latest Form 10-K filing for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2020 shows a $1.5 billion allocation to Bitcoin. As Bitwise researcher David Lawant points out, Tesla’s BItcoin exposure represents roughly 7.7% of its gross cash position. He derives those figures from Tesla’s cash…

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Stellar Development Foundation invests $5M in blockchain payments firm Wyre

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wyre payments

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has made its first investment in 2021, investing $5 million in cryptocurrency payments company Wyre. The Foundation believes the investment will provide a wide variety of payment application programming interfaces (APIs) to fintech applications on the Stellar blockchain network. Wyre is a natural fit In its press release announcing the investment, the Foundation described that bringing Wyre to the Stellar ecosystem will create key payment infrastructure for companies operating on the network. It will also enable relationships connecting international financial systems, the Foundation stated. Denelle…

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Bitcoiners use mining rigs as heaters as temperatures drop

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bitcoin green house

Bitcoiners mining cryptocurrency at home this winter have been staving off freezing temperatures by putting them to good use as heaters. According to the Wall Street Journal, crypto miners in France and the United States report their overall heating costs have dropped — even if the temperature in their homes often gets far above what they’d prefer. Thomas Smith, a photographer based in California, has been using mining rigs to heat his home since at least 2019. He’s also been exploring some novel uses, including employing the miners to warm…

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Mitsubishi and Tokyo Tech create blockchain system for P2P energy trading

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P2P energy trading using blockchain

Mitsubishi Electric has teamed up with researchers from the prestigious Japanese university, Tokyo Tech, to jointly design a blockchain-based trading system that can support more flexible, peer-to-peer energy trading. Announced on Jan. 18, the new system is intended to support the efficient use of surplus electricity that is generated from renewable energy sources. In particular, it is hoped that the trading system can ensure that at any given moment, there will be the maximum available amount of surplus electricity accessible on the market for consumers. Peer-to-peer energy trading set-ups allow…

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Someone Wants to Pay $7,777 for Elon Musk’s Dogecoin Tweet

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Elon Musk tweet

Valuables is a service that lets you put up cryptocurrency to “own” tweets as NFTs. Elon’s “One word: Doge” is up for grabs. Tesla founder Elon Musk is no stranger to posting silly things on Twitter. He’s used the platform to mock public safety precautions connected with the pandemic, and to inadvertently(?) depress the value of his own company’s stock. He’s also tweeted from time to time about the niche cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which is based on the popular “doge” meme. His posts have significantly influenced the price of the coin.…

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Mr Beast becomes a verified Brave browser publisher

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Mr Beast Brave browser

Jimmy Donaldson, aka “Mr Beast,” a prominent YouTuber boasting 50.2 million subscribers and 8.5 billion total views, now owns a verified Brave browser account — potentially exposing some of his enormous audience to virtual currency. Donaldson is not new to crypto and is believed to have made a considerable amount of money via cryptocurrency investments. The star previously hosted videos discussing crypto before his channel exploded in popularity and he reportedly purchased a $100,000 car using his crypto profits. However, his account was later purged of all content relating to…

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Canaan releases liquid-cooled A1066I Bitcoin miner

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Avalon Immersion Cooling Miner

Canaan, one of the earliest manufacturers of Bitcoin (BTC) ASIC miners, has released the Avalon Immersion Cooling Miner A1066I, a device designed to be liquid-cooled. Unlike traditional air-cooled devices and common types of liquid cooling for enthusiast PCs, the A1066I’s electrical components are submerged in a special dielectric fluid that carries heat away directly from the boards. Dielectric fluids are specially engineered to insulate the components and avoid the corrosion damage and short-circuiting that would occur with standard water or other types of fluids. This is also different from liquid…

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Dfinity quietly launched the ‘Internet Computer’ mainnet last month

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Internet Computer Dfinity

After several years of research and development and numerous breakthroughs in cryptography and computer science, Dfinity launched the mainnet of its “Internet Computer” on Dec. 18. The Internet Computer promises to be the first blockchain computer running at web speed with unbounded capacity. It achieves this speed through something called Chain Key Technology, which splits calls to smart contracts into two types: update calls and query calls. Update calls are finalized in one to two seconds, based on the time it takes for new blocks to be produced. However, query…

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