Police seized 1,746 bitcoin mining machines across 21 premises in raids this week.
Ether soared to new record highs Thursday, but an overheated derivatives market may suggest higher volatility is on the way for the short term.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value set the new lifetime high of $1,928 soon before press time, having first breached the previous peak of $1,821.49 reached on Feb. 13 early today, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
In the derivatives market, the average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges offering ether perpetuals (futures with no expiry) has risen sharply from 0.069% – just short of the early January record high of 0.21%, according to data source Glassnode.
“It shows the derivatives market is overleveraged,” Patrick Heusser, head of trading at Swiss-based Crypto Finance AG, told CoinDesk. “With this current structure, I do not feel…
Police seized 1,746 bitcoin mining machines across 21 premises in raids this week.
Bitcoin
Blockchain
Business
Tech
Chinese Retailer Goes From Bubble Tea to Crypto Mining in Unlikely Pivot
A retailer of specialty teas and baked goods based in Hunan, China is expanding its business into cryptocurrency mining.
According to a press release on Thursday, Urban Tea Inc. has hired two new executives ahead of its strategic expansion into its new cryptocurrency venture.
Fengdan Zhou has been hired as the company’s new chief operating officer (COO), while Yunfei Song has signed on as an independent director.
Zhou, who will lead the company’s implementation of its “blockchain and bitcoin business plan,” brings a wealth of experience in building and managing blockchain data centers, mining equipment and digital currency tech development, according to Urban Tea.
Meanwhile, Song is expected to provide guidance on the company’s blockchain development strategy. The independent director is a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences with a…
Blockchain
Policy & Regulation
How Staking and Eth 2.0 Makes the Ethereum Economy More “Sustainable”
In this episode, Christine Kim and Will Foxley discuss with David Hoffman, the co-founder of Bankless, the market implications of a dual Ethereum blockchain and what new realities staking presents to the long-term value proposition of ether.
According to Hoffman’s “Ether as a triple-point asset” thesis, Ethereum 2.0 bolsters ether’s value proposition as a capital asset. This is because Eth 2.0 enables staking on the protocol level.
For all ether holders with a minimum balance of 32 ETH, they can earn an annual percentage return for locking in their crypto assets to the network and becoming a validator. This is a use case for ether on top of its existing functionalities as a form of payment for fees and as a store of…
Global cryptocurrency mining operators are increasingly moving their equipment to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States as they chase lower energy prices.
Igor Runets, founder and CEO of Russian crypto mining firm BitRiver, told local news agency Kommersant Thursday that the company is actively building up its power capacity to meet increasing demand from American and European investors.
According to the executive, BitRiver has run out of spare capacity at its data centers, having fully reserved all of its power for the next 18 months. During this period, the company expects to co-locate mining equipment of total mining power estimated at 1 GWh.
BitRiver, which operates the largest colocation services for Bitcoin (BTC) mining in Russia and the CIS region, is now building two new data centers in Russia, including an 80 MWh facility in Krasnoyarsk and a 300 MWh center in the Republic of Buryatia….
The normalization of cryptocurrency advertising took another leap forward this week as Europe’s most successful soccer club announced a partnership with a Turkish Bitcoin (BTC) trading platform.
Rangers Football Club, Europe’s most trophy-laden team with 115 competition wins to its name, will partner with Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Bitci Technology. The partnership will run until the end of the 2022–2023 season, and will see the Bitci brand appear on the club’s strip. The club will also launch its own fan token as part of the deal.
The official Twitter account for the club announced the news on Feb. 17, stating:
“
RangersFC are delighted to announce an exciting new Official Partnership with Bitci Technology, in a wide-ranging agreement that will see the @bitcicom brand appear on the Rangers First Team shorts, through until the end of the 2022/23 season.”
Founded…