Day: December 9, 2021

Most Influential 40: Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor has probably spent more on bitcoin at this point than anyone else – and he’s still buying. The CEO of MicroStrategy, a publicly-traded business intelligence firm that now operates more like an unregistered bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), started his BTC binge with the firm’s cash reserves in 2020 and hasn’t stopped. Sometimes he buys the dip, sometimes the local high, a sort of institutional-grade dollar cost averaging. To date, MicroStrategy has bought some 122,478 BTC (worth about $6 billion), and Saylor is still on the market. Source

Most Influential 40: Jeremy Allaire

Jeremy Allaire, a technologist who has long seen the disruptive potential of the internet, founded Circle in 2013 with the aim of bringing bitcoin to the masses. The company has evolved over the years, counting its fair share of losses, but has indisputably played a defining role in the cryptocurrency industry. U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC), launched in collaboration with crypto exchange Coinbase and others, is now one of the largest and most trusted stablecoins. This year payments rivals Mastercard and Visa both selected USDC to run their early stablecoin projects…

Bitcoin Dips as China’s Evergrande Defaults; Altcoin Outperformance Could Fade

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“As of recent weeks, bitcoin has surfaced more like a risk asset – correlations against U.S. equities spike above 0.6 the past few days alongside the sell-off in technology stocks last Friday,” Lennard Neo, head of research at Stack Funds, a crypto investment firm, wrote in a report on Thursday. “However, crypto assets did not see the same rebound that U.S. equities had earlier this week,” Neo wrote. Original

Avast Acquires Self-Sovereign Identity Firm Evernym for Undisclosed Amount

“Our vision for digital freedom is to enable people to manage and retain control over their personal data so that they can interact and transact safely, privately and with confidence. Adding Evernym’s groundbreaking, self-sovereign identity technology to our offering enables us to address this area and is a huge step forward in the realization of our decentralized, portable model,” said Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek in the press release. Source

Stacks’ Mitchell Cuevas talks building integrated DeFi bridges for Bitcoin users

The Stacks ecosystem is a collection of independent entities, developers and community members working to build a user-owned internet on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. Stacks’ STX cryptocurrency was distributed to the general public through the first-ever Securities and Exchange Commission-qualified token offering in the United States. Mitchell Cuevas, head of growth for the Stacks Foundation, held an exclusive ask-me-anything, or AMA, session with Cryptox Markets Pro users on Dec. 2. During the session, he discussed the Stacks blockchain’s technological capabilities, future growth and major developments. Cryptox Markets Pro User: PoW [proof-of-work] blockchains…

Metaverse Goes Hollywood With Universal Music Group Avatar Partnership

“Genies and UMG together are bringing the power of NFTs and crypto to culture,” Genies CEO Akash Nigam said in a press release. “UMG’s roster of talent represents some of the world’s most entrepreneurial pioneers, and by equipping these iconic artists with their own Genie avatars, we’re excited to help them realize even more potential in Web 3.0.” Source

Ethereum-Based Altcoin Jumps After Surprise Listing on Crypto Exchange Binance

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An Ethereum-based governance token is surging after being listed on crypto exchange giant Binance. In a new announcement, Binance says that the native governance token of Biconomy (BICO), a network that offers plug-and-play relayer infrastructure to developers and aims to economically connect users on decentralized applications (DApps) across different blockchains, will now be available for trading. The news sent BICO’s price surging from a seven-day low of $5.65 to $7.78, a 37% increase. The altcoin has since stabilized and is exchanging hands at $6.18 at time of writing. BICO aims…

Strike Launches Dollar-Cost Averaging Product in US

Crypto-friendly payments company Strike has launched a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) product in the U.S., the company announced Thursday. Users, except for those in Hawaii and New York, can create recurring bitcoin purchases for as little as 50 cents, with no fees. This can be done on a monthly, weekly, daily and hourly basis. “Recurring purchases allow our users to deploy one of the most reliable and performant investing strategies for the world’s best performing asset,” Strike founder and CEO Jack Mallers said in a statement. The initiative comes roughly seven…

Microsoft leads startup Palm NFT Studio’s $27M series B round

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Crypto startup Palm NFT Studio announced a Series B raise of $27 million on Thursday led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12. Palm NFT, cofounded by ConsenSys founder and Ethereum cofounder Joseph Lubin, provides strategic and technical services for creators to build NFT marketplaces.  Other major backers include Griffin Gaming Partners, RRE, Third Kind Venture Capital, Sfermion, the LAO, Warner Bros., and SK Inc. According to the statement issued on their company blog, the raise will enable the team to scale the Palm NFT Studio’s technology platform and offer it to third…