Chicago Mercantile Exchange CME Group plans to launch micro-futures on Bitcoin with a nominal value of 0.1 BTC on May 3. This will expand traders’ access to the digital asset market. CME started trading Bitcoin contracts in December 2017. Then the size of one contract was set at 5 BTC. At the current exchange rate, this is almost $ 300 thousand, and only large investors can trade such contracts. CME Group’s head of stock indices…
The operator of bank cards Visa, together with Crypto.com, launched a pilot program to conduct international transactions using the USDC stablecoin on its network. The partners have already completed the first test transaction in USDC: Hong Kong-based payment company Crypto.com has sent tokens to the Visa address through the custodian company Anchorage. Visa said that cryptocurrency payments are usually converted to fiat currencies when making payments, which implies certain complications and costs. The new service,…
Mining company Hut 8 bought chips for cryptocurrency mining (CMP) from Nvidia for $ 30 million. Will private ETH miners get these cards and how much do they need them? According to a press release from Hut 8, the mining company has decided to expand its activities beyond mining BTC and will be mining altcoins, primarily ETH. To do this, Hut 8 bought special CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) mining chips from Nvidia for $ 30…
The Bank of Japan announced the creation of a Committee on Government Digital Currencies, and six Chinese banks have begun testing digital yuan wallets. According to the Bank of Japan, the Committee was created so that the country’s regulators can interact with the government and the private sector, exchanging information on developments regarding government digital currencies. Further steps for a simplified and efficient implementation of PoC in the banking sector will also be discussed. Last…
Argo Blockchain, together with DMG Blockchain, will launch the first sustainable Bitcoin mining pool – Terra Pool. It will only use energy generated by hydroelectric power plants. Argo Blockchain is registered in the UK, while the mining company has several datacenters in Canada for mining bitcoin and the ZEC confidential coin. Argo Blockchain recently acquired 320 acres of land in Texas to begin construction of a 200 megawatt datacenter. However, Argo Blockchain does not intend…
The Central Bank of Germany announced the successful testing of settlements for securities transactions with Deutsche Börse, which used distributed ledger technology (DLT). According to a statement from the German Federal Bank, the Central Bank has successfully completed testing of settlements for securities transactions using DLT and the real-time gross settlement system TARGET2. An atomic transaction was made, meaning that the Central Bank payment and securities were simultaneously exchanged in a delivery versus payment transaction.…
Daniel Buchner, Senior Product Manager for Decentralized Identity Products at Microsoft, has confirmed the launch of ION, a decentralized identifier (DID) network on the Bitcoin blockchain. In an article on the company’s blog, Daniel Buchner said that after four years of development, the ION solution was finally released. It is a second tier solution on the Bitcoin blockchain that stores DID and DPKI (Decentralized Public Key Infrastructure) and is scalable. DIDs can be used to…
The developers of the Uniswap decentralized exchange have unveiled a new version of the Uniswap v3 protocol, which will launch on May 5 on Ethereum, and then integrated with the second level solution Optimism. According to a developer blog post, the goal of the new protocol version is to make the application “the most flexible and efficient automated market maker ever created.” The developers plan to launch Uniswap v3 on the Ethereum mainnet on May…
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) should solve social problems, and not be seen as a casino that brings money to celebrities. Buterin is convinced that collectible tokens should be created for charity, funding public goods and other socially significant goals. However, today NFTs are created to tokenize in-game items, paintings or music. According to Buterin, the NFT in the form of a tweet, which was recently put up for sale by…
Indian billionaire and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has opposed the ban on cryptocurrencies in India, believing they should be seen as a new asset class. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been actively discussing the possibility of another ban on digital assets in the country. Last week, there was information from an Indian official that the government is preparing a bill to criminalize the circulation, storage, mining and transfer of crypto assets. Nandan…
