Crypto community wonders why Nakamoto Telegram channel enters read-only mode – could this be due to spam and trolls or something else. On Jan. 3 a “pro-Bitcoin” news outlet called “Nakamoto” launched with the stated intention of letting industry thought leaders share positive content about cryptocurrencies. According to the about section of the Nakamoto website, the platform was launched “to create a venue for quality technical, philosophical, and cultural writing that is of general interest to the crypto community as a whole, for beginners and experts alike.” The […]

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Virginia’s state legislature looks to study blockchain technology in a bid to protect voter records and election results. In the United States, Virginia’s state legislature looks to study blockchain to improve elections and voting. Prefiled on Dec. 27 and scheduled for offering on Jan. 8, a new bill requesting further study into blockchain-based elections has emerged in Virginia’s General Assembly. The bill, House Joint Resolution 23, asks the Department of Elections to determine whether blockchain technology should be considered to secure voter records and election results. What […]

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Launched in 2019, TaxBit’s tax reporting solution was built by not just developers but a team of CPAs, tax attorneys and software developers. TaxBit, a crypto-oriented tax compliance firm, has raised $5 million in a seed round that saw participation from the Winklevoss twins’ family office, Winklevoss Capital. In a Jan. 6 announcement, TaxBit said that it plans to use the raised funds to enhance its software products on an international scale as its tax reporting tool has amassed thousands of everyday crypto users so far. Specifically, […]

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We asked prominent crypto and blockchain actors how they would summarize the year 2019 for the industry. Alexander Zaidelson, CEO of Beam I think the year of 2019 was a year of big hopes for wider adoption and some disappointments. The Libra debacle was one of the big events that, in my view, influenced the market quite a bit. While the reaction of the hardcore crypto community to Libra was mostly negative (Libra is not really a cryptocurrency), there was hope that bringing 1B people to blockchain-based […]

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Fans of Italian professional soccer club Juventus have used blockchain platform Socios to vote on Blur’s Song 2 as the official goal song at home games. Fans of Italian professional soccer club Juventus have used the Socios platform to vote on the song to be played when they score a goal in their home stadium. The voting marked the first-ever poll held on Socios, a tokenized fan-voting platform for sports, and a real use-case of the team’s branded token JUV, according to a Jan. 6 blog post. […]

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Several altcoins have made their first move from longtime lows and if Bitcoin is able to confirm a bottom, a marketwide rally is likely to pick up steam. The price of an asset class is determined by its fundamentals and the sentiment towards it. At times of panic or exuberance, fundamentals take a back seat and sentiment dictates the price action. Currently, the US-Iran tension has sent investors scurrying towards safety. This has seen a move away from stocks and into assets that are considered safe havens. […]

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From Switzerland and Malta to North Korea and Iran: Overview of experimental crypto regulations around the globe. This is the final part of a three-part series covering the regulatory landscape for cryptos in 2019 and thinking about the prospects for 2020. The first two parts covered the “Insiders” of Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim, and “Outsider” nations such as China, Russia and India. This piece covers the prospects for the “Experimenters”: countries that have made efforts to foster innovation and welcome crypto projects to their […]

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Revenue of crypto accommodation booking service Travala increased by over 33.5% month-on-month after partnering with Booking.com. Cryptocurrency-accepting booking service Travala has seen its revenue for the month of December go up by over 33.5% month-on-month following a partnership with Booking.com. According to a post published on the firm’s official blog on Jan. 1, Travala has also seen the total monthly number of accommodation nights booked through the service reach 1,528 in December, which is a 15.2% increase since November. Furthermore, the average room price increased by over […]

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