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This week: Tether releases pie-charts, is apparently more or less Tethered, Tesla's about-turn on accepting Bitcoin, Imogen Heap's carbon-negative NFTs, Bank of Israel's plans for a digital schekel and blockchain for cobolt-tracing in cars. 

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Volvo-owned electric carmaker, blockchain for cobolt tracing

Polestar, an electric car manufacturer owned by Volvo, has formed a strategic partnership with blockchain traceability startup Circulor. The companies intend to collaborate on tracing cobalt used in the Polestar fleet. “This unprecedented level of traceability means that Polestar can promote sustainable and ethical practices in its supply chain and provide better transparency for consumers,” said company CEO Thomas Ingenlath. (Ledger Insights) Read More

Dfinity to release AWS-rival internet computer on blockchain

Crypto startup Dfinity is preparing to launch a blockchain rival to Amazon Web Services (AWS). The so-called internet computer refers to a group of technologies that can support a new wave of decentralized applications and services developed in blockchain. Dfinity raised over $120m from investors in 2017 and aims to shake up the cloud computing world by decentralizing data storage. (Financial Times) Read More

Microsoft to shut down its Azure blockchain this autumn

Microsoft has announced that it is shutting down its Azure blockchain-as-a-service this September and is quietly asking its users to migrate their data to an alternative of their choosing. No reason has been given for the decision. (ZDNet) Read More

World Economic Forum publishes report on blockchain

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been exploring blockchain use cases across traditional asset classes. The body has published a report into the possibilities of incorporating distributed ledger technology (DLT) in equity, debt, securities financing, derivatives and fund administration. Although the report is generally positive about such technologies, it points to a lack of regulatory standardisation as a key barrier to growth. (Ledger Insights) Read More

Decentralized referral network Attrace raises $2.5 million

Attrace, a startup that is developing a decentralized referral network, has raised $2.5 million in its latest fundraising round. The seed round was led by Deribit founders and garnered investment from several VC funds including Coinstone Capital. The network has ambitions of becoming “a referral standard for any tokenized asset on any blockchain in a tokenized economy.” (The Block Crypto) Read More

Tether releases pie charts roughly showing how it's backed

Tether, the largest and perhaps most controversial stablecoin issuer in crypto has (finally) released a breakdown of its reserve holdings. Tether, which has printed around $50 billion in Tether tokens in the last year, has released some pie charts showing that 75% of its reserves are in cash and cash equivalents and that 65% of those cash equivalents (about 49% of the total) are in commercial paper, without giving any more details of what that means or what it's backed by. This isn't the same as being 100% US Dollar backed. There is much speculation within the community of what Tether is fully backed by and how much Bitcoin it actually holds. (Forbes) Read More Commentator Amy Castor gives her commentary on the meaning of the pie charts

Tesla now won’t accept Bitcoin citing energy consumption

In an about-turn, Tesla now won’t accept Bitcoin payments for its cars anymore due to the environmental impact. Elon Musk tweeted that "We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," and that they still think cryptocurrency is a good idea and are looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy per transaction. Many in the community are crying market manipulation, given the gains Musk and Tesla have already made from the cryptocurrency, and others. The move had a downward impact on crypto prices. Elon's Tweet here (BBC) Read More

Bank of Israel outlines plans for digital shekel 

The Bank of Israel has published a draft model outlining its vision for a digital shekel. The document, released by the bank’s steering committee, notes that “a digital shekel could generate various benefits for the Israeli economy, but issuing it also involves risks.” China was the first major nation to issue its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) but several other countries will reportedly follow suit. (Bitcoinist) Read More

Swiss bank may offer wealthy customers crypto exposure 

Swiss bank UBS is exploring ways to offer wealthy clients digital currency investments. According to well-placed sources, any investment offering would constitute a small portion of the clients’ total wealth due to the inherent volatility of digital assets. In March, Morgan Stanley became the first major US bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds. (Reuters) Read More

Papa John’s giving away BTC with pizza purchases in UK

Pizza chain Papa John’s is giving away bitcoin with pizza purchases in the UK,  through a partnership with crypto exchange Luno. Customers who spend at least £30 will get £15 off their orders as well as £10 in free bitcoin. The promotion is only available online or at participating physical locations, and ends this Sunday 16th May. (CryptoSlate) Read More

MoneyGram teams up with Coinme to onboard more bitcoiners

Payment giant MoneyGram is working with digital cash exchange Coinme to enable the cash funding and payout of crypto purchases and sales. By combining MoneyGram's mobile and API-driven payments platform with Coinme’s proprietary crypto exchange and custody technology, the alliance intends to bring bitcoin to thousands of point-of-sales scattered throughout the United States. (FinExtra) Read More

Druckenmiller claims ledger-based system could replace USD

Billionaire hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller has claimed a crypto-derived ledger system could overtake the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency. Druckenmiller made the comments during an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, claiming a dollar replacement would be “some kind of ledger system invented by some kids from MIT or Stanford or some other engineering school that hasn't even happened yet.” (Cointelegraph) Read More

Hungary halves tax on crypto profits

Hungary plans to cut the tax levied on capital gains from cryptocurrency transactions, slashing the rate from 30.5% to just 15%. The main goal is to tackle tax evasion, though the reduced tax rate could also entice more crypto traders and investors to the country. If ratified by parliament, the proposals will come into effect in 2022. (news .bitcoin .com) Read More

Vitalik gifts $1.2b in crypto tokens to India’s Covid relief fund

Vitalik Buterin has gifted $1.2 billion in crypto to the covid-19 relief effort in India. The donation was made up of 50 trillion SHIB tokens worth $1.2 billion which he had been gifted by their creators of Shiba Inu coin (SHIB) in addition to coins he had been gifted by the creators of Dogelon (ELON) and Akita Inu (AKITA). The tokens had reportedly been gifted to Buterin on the premise that he wouldn’t sell them. The anonymous developers of the Shiba Token have sent 50% of its token supply to Vitalik over the past year, stating on its website that these tokens were “burned to Vitalik Buterin”. (Forbes) Read More

Ether hits $500m market cap for first time

Number two cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) passed the market cap milestone of half a billion dollars on May 12, climbing as high as $505 million before pulling back slightly. The ascension meant Ethereum surpassed both JPMorgan ($480 million) and Visa ($496 million). Bitcoin passed the same milestone as recently as late December, 2020. (CoinDesk) Read More

Block.one invests $10b in new crypto exchange Bullish Global

Block.one, the blockchain platform behind EOS and backed by billionaire Paypal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, has invested $10 billion into its new subsidiary Bullish Global, which plans to release a crypto exchange later this year. A press release describes the new exchange which will use the EOSIO and EOS Public Blockchain as a "blockchain-based cryptocurrency exchange designed to combine the performance, user privacy, and compliance offered by central order book technology with the vertically integrated user benefits of decentralized finance (DeFi) market architecture. (Business Insider) Read More

Crypto exchange Binance reportedly under investigation

Bloomberg has reported that the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice are investigating Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. The scope of the investigation isn't yet clear. This comes after a 2019 Chainalysis report that some $756 million of $2.8 billion worth of the criminal transactions involving Bitcoin went through the exchange. (The Verge) Read More

eBay will soon allow sales of NFTs

eBay will soon allow trusted sellers to offer NFTs across music, art, trading cards and entertainment. The digital assets, which provide proof of ownership of various commodities, have been gaining popularity this year. In a statement, eBay acknowledged that "NFTs offer greater access to a broader audience of collectors and creators.” The company also likened the transformative potential of NFTs to that of digital publishing. (CNET) Read More

Imogen Heap's new carbon-negative line of NFTs debut drop

Musician Imogen Heap is launching a new debut line of carbon-negative audiovisual NFTs that hope to "set the bar for what digital art can and should be". Heap donated a percentage of her profits to blockchain based carbon startup Nori. With Nori, every ton of carbon is recorded in unique certificates called Nori Removal Tonnes (NRTs), which are themselves NFTs recorded on blockchain. This helped removed a total of 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere compared to the estimated 0.2 tons of CO2 emissions generated by the average Ethereum-based NFT release due to the processing power that is needed to mint a non-fungible token on the Ethereum blockchain. (dezeen) Read More

Lending platform Aave launches private pool for institutions

Defi lending protocol Aave has built a private pool for institutions, enabling them to practice before participating in the decentralized ecosystem. The pool will live on public chains but have permissioned access according to Aave’s head of institutional business development, Ajit Tripathi, who described the pool as “a great solution to promote collaborative learning across cefi and defi.” (Cointelegraph) Read More

CryptoPunks NFTs sell for almost $17 million at Christie’s

A collection of nine portraits in the CryptoPunks collection has sold at auction for $16.9 million. CryptoPunks, which comprise simple pixel-art portraits of people, zombies, aliens, etc, has been one of the best-performing projects in the NFT space in 2021. The latest sale is the second-largest NFT purchase ever made, second only to Beeple’s $69 male in March. (The Verge) Read More

Live Nation says NFTs could ‘memorialize’ concert attendance

Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation has been outlining its vision for NFTs. CEO Michael Rapino made the comments when answering questions about the firm’s view on blockchain and collectibles. Rapino said he believed one use-case could see users ‘mint’ magical moments from concerts, with the NFTs then being layered onto a ticket for a future event. “We think it’s a great way for us to engage with our fans using that NFT and that direct relationship now to add rewards, add perks, add souvenir moments,” said Rapino. (Ledger Insights) Read More

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