El Salvador’s bitcoin bet is in the green: Bukele

El Salvador’s bitcoin investment is in the black, according to president Nayib Bukele. 

Bukele alleged on X that El Salvador could not only recoup its initial bitcoin investment but also potentially earn millions if the country decides to sell.

According to Nayibtracker.com, which tracks the country’s bitcoin purchases based on Bukele’s tweets, El Salvador would walk away with roughly $4 million in profit as of publication.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) sits around $41,000 at time of publication after hitting $42,000 Monday morning. After a rough 2022 following the collapse of FTX and multiple bankruptcies, bitcoin’s price is now sitting at levels not seen since before Terra…

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Cosmos-based networks Umee and Osmosis to merge, creating ‘DeFi Hub’

Cosmos-based networks Umee and Osmosis will merge via a software upgrade, according to a Dec. 4 announcement. Umee’s UX Chain code will be reimplemented on the Osmosis chain, allowing features of the two networks to be combined and creating what the development teams call a “DeFi Hub” for the Cosmos ecosystem.

Umee user interface. Source: Umee.

Umee is a decentralized lending protocol that runs on its own dedicated Cosmos chain called “UX Chain.” Osmosis, on the other hand, is one of the largest decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the Cosmos ecosystem, which also runs on its own dedicated network. It has over $23 billion in cumulative volume and is the fourth largest Cosmos chain…

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Cosmos chain Osmosis to hook up with Umee’s borrow/lend protocol

Osmosis, the largest decentralized exchange by trading volume in the Cosmos ecosystem, will merge with Umee’s cross-chain lending UX Chain.

As part of this merger, the UX Chain will transition its code so that it will be compatible with the Osmosis Blockchain and cater to existing liquidity, TVL, and functionality. 

This move will enable Osmosis to inherit Umee’s lending features, including spot margin trading, shorting, liquidations, stablecoin pools, interchain flash loans and MEV markets. 

Osmosis currently has a TVL of $140 million and a seven-day trading volume of $103 million. Following this merger, its TVL will be combined with TVL on the UX chain, which currently is…

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Want to bolster American national security? Support bitcoin mining.

Advanced semiconductors are at the heart of virtually all modern technology, from consumer electronics to advanced military systems. 

Dependence on foreign — in many cases adversarial — semiconductor supply chains poses a significant risk. Onshoring the semiconductor industry is not just a matter of economic policy, but a strategic imperative for national security.  

In the midst of the many rapid AI and cloud computing advancements, bitcoin mining plays a complementary (albeit less visible role) as an important driver for domestic chip demand. The burgeoning mining sector’s need for high-powered, efficient computing chips underscores and amplifies the call for onshoring chip…

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Envision partners with HBAR and UN on new digitization platform for carbon markets

The 2023 United Nations climate change conference saw several new initiatives aimed at innovating the fight against climate change and streamlining the complex carbon credit markets. Among a sea of announcements and partnerships, Envision Blockchain, in collaboration with HBAR Foundation and Swirlds Labs, announced a new open-source Managed Guardian Service (MGS) platform focused on digitized and digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV) system for carbon markets.

The dMRV system is developed in collaboration with the UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub and built on the HBAR blockchain. The new platform is aimed at the digital transformation of the carbon markets using…

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LATEST: Brazil’s Banking Giant Itau Unibanco Now Offers Bitcoin Trading Services

Brazil’s Itau Unibanco, the largest bank in the country, has launched a cryptocurrency trading service, allowing clients to trade Bitcoin and Ether through its investment platform. The bank, a major player in Latin America, also plans to expand its offerings to include more cryptocurrencies. Itau will act as the custodian, storing crypto assets for clients, though initially, external crypto wallets cannot be used for deposits and withdrawals. This move aligns with Itau’s earlier launch of digital asset custody and comes amidst preparations by Brazil’s leading banks for the Drex, the digital Brazilian real.

Two opposing visions of crypto’s future

Jan3 CEO Samson Mow has said that comparing Bitcoin to crypto is like comparing “an aircraft to a paper airplane.” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said, “It will be a multichain world.”

These opposing statements are the latest front in the longest-running feud in cryptocurrency — the battle between Bitcoin (BTC) and everything else that followed.

For the crypto masses, those individuals who hold only to a single blockchain are often referred to as the maximalists.

Bitcoin maximalism is almost as old as Bitcoin itself, with the phenomenon emerging not long after its creation.

According to Bitcoin educator and self-confessed Bitcoin maximalist Giacomo Zucco, maximalists hold four…

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Vote With Your Money, And Your Feet

Individual voting, often considered a civic duty, has a statistically negligible impact on election outcomes. Studies show minimal difference between Republican and Democratic state governments on various policy outcomes.

Politicians often declare every election as the “most important of our lifetimes” to rally their supporters. However, despite increased voter turnout, change remains elusive.

Government keeps growing, but trust and satisfaction in government institutions continues to decline. 70% of Americans trust the presidency “some or very little” and economic confidence among U.S. adults is –41 on a scale of –100 to 100. 74% of Americans think economic conditions are…

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ByBit sees BTC, ETH ‘flight’ of institutional investors to stablecoins

The cryptocurrency exchange ByBit released its 4th quarter report on Dec. 4, highlighting and comparing trends between its institutional and retail investors. 

The report found that institutional traders had some 45% of their assets in stablecoins, with the remaining split 35% in Bitcoin (BTC), 15% in Ether (ETH) and only 5% in altcoins, which the exchange categorizes as anything other than the aforementioned digital assets.

The survey suggests that the “flight” to “safer assets,” like stablecoins, in a bear market “might explain this risk-averse asset allocation from traders.”

Nonetheless, institutional traders’ allocation of Bitcoin (BTC) did spike in September, which…

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How this Bitcoin bull market tracks to other major price rallies

Bitcoin has pressed on with its price rally, and if you believe traditional market math, another bull run has long been confirmed.

The price of BTC briefly cleared $42,000 Monday morning — up nearly one-fifth over the past month and by 150% over the year to date, about on par with Meta but trailing Nvidia.

Bitcoin is now at levels not seen since about a month before Terra collapsed in May 2022, pulling crypto into its longest bear market in history by at least one metric.

Potential approval for spot bitcoin ETFs from banks like BlackRock and Fidelity may have pushed bitcoin higher. The DOJ finalizing its case against Binance and co-founder Changpeng Zhao also appear to have helped,…

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