🥈largest Bitcoin mining hub, Digital yuan salaries 💴, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) 🌅
Daily Crypto, Blockchain & Web3 Update 2023-04-24
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Bitcoin price holding $27K could open buying opportunities in BNB, ADA, XMR and TON (5 min read)
Altcoin prices have crumbled since BTC’s sharp pullback, but BNB, ADA, XMR and TON could be the first to bottom.
Bitcoin is on target to finish the week with a sharp fall of around 9%. This suggests that some traders may be booking profits in fear of a resumption of the downtrend. Analysts expect Bitcoin to reach the $26,600–$25,000 zone, where buying interest may pick up.
Russia becomes second-largest Bitcoin mining hub after US, claims local miner (2 min read)
The US remains the leading country in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining, but reportedly, Russia has taken the second spot. Nevertheless, the lack of clear regulations regarding cryptocurrencies in the United States may lead to a potential market distribution shift.
BitRiver, a company that offers colocation services for cryptocurrency mining, reported that Russia ranked second globally in mining power with 1 GW in the first quarter of this year, according to Kommersant.
Zimbabwe’s central bank to issue gold-backed digital currency: Report (2 min read)
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is set to introduce a gold-backed digital currency to serve as legal tender in the country. The move is a government initiative to stabilize the local currency from continued depreciation against the U.S. dollar.
The Sunday Mail reported that Zimbabweans will now be able to exchange small amounts of their dollars for digital gold tokens, which serves as a hedge against currency volatility. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya said the plan intends to “leave no one and no place behind.”
Musician Grimes willing to “split 50% royalties” with AI-generated music (2 min read)
Canadian musician and producer Grimes tweeted that she will treat creators who use her voice in AI the same as any other artist she works with. Grimes wrote that she would want to “split 50% royalties on any successful AI-generated song” that uses her voice.
Grimes mentioned that she has no label and therefore “no bindings” to any major entity in the music industry, which could cause IP rights issues. The artist thinks it's cool to merge with a machine and supports making art open-source, which means eliminating copyright.
Chinese city public servants to receive digital yuan salaries starting May (2 min read)
The Chinese city of Changshu has stated that all civil servants in its jurisdiction will be paid their full salaries in digital yuan starting May 2023, according to local reports.
Financial authorities in the city have announced that civil servants at all levels, including those in public service, institutions and state-owned firms, will receive payment in digital yuan.
BLOCKCHAIN
China to expand CBDC use case for Belt and Road Initiative (2 min read)
The digital yuan (e-CNY), China's central bank digital currency, is being utilized for Belt and Road projects and cross-border commerce. The digital yuan a.k.a. digital RMB was one of the first CBDCs to be developed and widely tested. While there hasn’t been an official launch, the government has expanded its testing parameters to include multiple cities and millions of people.
Xuzhou city, a departure point for many goods trains from China to Europe, has released a plan to encourage the use of Chinese digital currency in cross-border trade.
LUNA is not a security, South Korean court rules in Terra co-founder’s case (2 min read)
A South Korean district court has dismissed charges of security violations against former Terraform Labs CEO and co-founder Hyun-seong Shin. The court deemed LUNA (the native token of the LUNA ecosystem) a non-security under Korea’s Capital Markets Act.
The court, while rejecting the prosecution’s request for confiscation of the accused’s properties, noted that it is difficult to see that the property subject to the claim had been “acquired by a crime or an asset derived from it."
How to become a game developer using ChatGPT (5 min read)
While ChatGPT, an AI language model, can offer some guidance on becoming a game developer, it cannot personalize a comprehensive learning path. Here are some ways you can utilize ChatGPT to become a game developer:
Develop your programming skills
Choose a game engine
Learn game design principles
Join game development communities
Build a portfolio
Participate in game jams
BUSINESS
US Treasury seeks to tighten nonbank rules following banking crisis (2 min read)
The United States Treasury and a number of top U.S. financial regulators suggested new rules to make it easier for the Federal Reserve to designate nonbank institutions as systemically important, making it easier to supervise and regulate them.
In remarks from the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Council Meeting on April 21, U.S. Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, expressed concern about unregulated "nonbank" financial institutions as they may cause wider financial impact when they face distress.
SEC wins $2.8M in suit over alleged crypto token price manipulation (2 min read)
A US securities regulator settled a seven-month lawsuit with a firm accused of cryptocurrency price manipulation for $2.8 million.
A New York District Court ruled against Hydrogen Technology Corporation and its former CEO, Michael Ross Kane, for a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and ordered them to pay $2.8 million in remedies and civil penalties on April 20.
The total includes $1.5 million in profits gained from illegal activity and a penalty exceeding $1 million.
KuCoin to reimburse victims of the short-lived Twitter account hack (2 min read)
The official Twitter account of the crypto exchange KuCoin has recently been compromised, leading to users losing their funds to a fake giveaway event. The crypto platform promised to reimburse the funds lost in the incident.
The company urged victims to contact them for assistance and promised to implement better security measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. The firm also said that it’s collaborating with Twitter to conduct further investigations into the incident.
NFTS
Romania plugs into Web3 with national NFT marketplace (3 min read)
Romania’s National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (ICI Bucharest) aims to drive Web3 adoption in the country with the launch of an in-house non-fungible token trading platform.
ICI D|Services, an institutional NFT platform, will launch on April 26. The goal is to connect private and public institutions with users. The platform is primarily an NFT marketplace, allowing public and institutional users to mint, manage, and trade NFTs.
DEFI
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is now home to an innovative leverage trading app (4 min read)
Since its establishment in 2017, Bitcoin Cash has continuously evolved and can now provide a dynamic platform for deploying smart contracts and developing DeFi DApps on its UTXO main chain. One new project that has recently launched is BCH Bull.
BCH Bull enables users to create long or hedge positions on various assets like USD, Bitcoin, and gold through the AnyHedge protocol. Users can even add leverage to their on-chain trades.
Google DeepMind restructuring aims to deliver next-gen AI breakthroughs (2 min read)
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have announced that two entities within the company have merged to form a new business unit dedicated to developing the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs and products.
The new unit, Google DeepMind, was formed by merging the Brain team from Google Research with DeepMind, a London-based AI company Google purchased in 2014. The newly formed business unit aims to accelerate the company’s progress in developing AI in a safe, responsible manner.