A recent study conducted by the United Nations (UN) suggested a direct correlation between the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and the energy needed for mining operations.

The UN scientists evaluated the activities of 76 Bitcoin mining nations during the 2020–2021 period and found that the global Bitcoin mining network consumed 173.42 Terawatt hours of electricity. During this timeframe, the crypto ecosystem was undergoing a bull run, and Bitcoin rallied to mark its all-time high of $69,000. The UN report highlighted:

“A 400% increase in Bitcoin’s price from 2021 to 2022 triggered a 140% increase in the energy consumption of the worldwide Bitcoin mining network.”

At the time, fossil energy…

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Zodia Custody, a crypto subsidiary of British bank Standard Chartered, is set to roll out its crypto storage services in Hong Kong, following the region’s recent introduction of a new licensing system. 

The expansion signifies the UK-based company’s growing presence in the Asia Pacific area.

Zodia Custody’s CEO Julian Sawyer said that Hong Kong’s crypto demand, which is primarily from institutions rather than retail users, aligns well with the firm’s offerings, CNBC reported on Sunday.

Having already established operations in Singapore, Japan and Australia, Hong Kong completes the company’s expansion throughout the Asia Pacific, he said.

Blockworks has reached out to Zodia…

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To track down and counter the sudden disappearance of tokens from crypto wallets requires investors to know the various ways bad actors use to steal cryptocurrencies successfully. 

Blockchain investigator Bitrace has identified three effective ways hackers gain access to crypto investors’ wallets — search engines such as Google and Bing, pasteboard hijacking and Liquidity mining and coin theft.

Crypto investors claiming “my coins disappeared suddenly” have been found to have recently downloaded crypto applications from unverified sources. Attackers use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to rank higher on internet searches, unknowingly coercing users to download and sign…

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Gary Gensler once criticized the United States securities regulator for its “inconsistent” approach to spot Bitcoin (BTC) products, according to a resurfaced video of Gensler from 2019.

The video clip, which has recently made the rounds again on social media, shows the pre-SEC Gensler discussing blockchain regulation at the 2019 MIT Bitcoin Expo in a fireside chat with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Peirce.

“Bitcoin futures, and I think Ethereum futures and so forth, will exist and Bitcoin ETFs have not and that feels a little inconsistent to me […]It feels a little inconsistent,” Gensler said.

“Even though the laws aren’t exactly the same,…

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El Salvador president Nayib Bukele has filed paperwork to be re-elected in the country’s upcoming 2024 presidential election in February.

Bukele, a Bitcoin advocate, received strong support from the public on Oct. 26 after he was officially nominated by his party to run for re-election.

“Five more [years], five more and not one step back,” Bukele said in a speech in front of thousands of El Salvadorans. “We need five years to continue improving our country,” he added.

| ÚLTIMA HORA: Al grito de “cinco más, cinco más y ni un paso atrás” Nayib Bukele da su discurso delante de miles de Salvadoreños luego de inscribir su candidatura presidencial para la reelección….

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At least 25 people have reportedly seen $4.4 million in crypto drained from across 80 wallets due to a 2022 data breach that impacted password storage software LastPass.

In an Oct. 27 X (Twitter) post, pseudonymous on-chain researcher ZachXBT said they and MetaMask developer Taylor Monahan tracked the fund movements of at least 80 wallets compromised on Oct. 25.

“Most, if not all, of the victims are longtime LastPass users and/or confirm having stored their [crypto wallet] keys/seeds in LastPass,” Monahan said in an accompanying Chainabuse report.

Just on October 25, 2023 alone another ~$4.4M was drained from 25+ victims as a result of the LastPass hack.

Cannot stress this enough, if…

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The United Kingdom’s government is in danger of regulating nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in a way that doesn’t suit the true nature of the nascent technology, says Mintable CEO and founder Zach Burks.  

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Burks said he believes a recent report from a U.K. parliamentary committee significantly exaggerates the role NFTs play in copyright infringement and fails to recognize that they are more than just volatile digital pictures.

“NFTs are in a transition phase where they’re moving away from the speculative boom of PFPs, and now it’s going into utilities of brands implementing NFTs across a whole range of different things,” Burks explained.

In the…

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Hopes of approval for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission boosted Bitcoin’s price by 27% in October. This improved sentiment, attracting aggressive buying by crypto investors.

Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas highlighted in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), the first futures-based ETF to get regulatory consent in the U.S. in 2021, saw its second biggest trading week ever at $1.7 billion. Similarly, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) recorded a volume of $800 million. The sharp uptick in volume in the existing instruments shows that spot Bitcoin ETFs are likely to witness huge…

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Stablecoin Tether (USDT) has seen a significant surge in adoption in Brazil, accounting for 80% of all cryptocurrency transactions in the country, according to data from Brazil’s revenue service agency. 

As of mid-October, USDT transactions in Brazil this year amounted to $271 billion Brazilian reais (~$55 billion), almost double the volume of Bitcoin (BTC) transactions in the country, which were $151 billion reais (~$30 billion). Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to have a stable value, often pegged to the value of fiat currencies, like the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real.

USDT transactions have been on the rise in Brazil since 2021, but crossed Bitcoin volume for the first…

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