Data Provider API3 and Open Banking Platform have entered into a 10-year partnership to connect banks to the blockchain via API and leverage banking data in DeFi and Web 3.0. API3 co-founder Heikki Vanttinen said API3 and Open Banking have entered into a 10-year agreement. This partnership will bring together the “disparate” worlds of centralized and decentralized finance (DeFi). Vanttinen explained that banks will be able to work with Web 3.0 developers to explore options

Miners of the new Chinese cryptocurrency Chia, which should become the “best bitcoin”, are buying up all available SSD-drives in order to mine the coin. This caused a shortage of SSD drives in Asia. In Southeast Asia, a frenzied demand for fast and capacious SSDs began. Thus, in Hong Kong, prices for SSDs ranging from 4 TB to 16 TB increased by $ 25- $ 75. Chinese SSD maker Jiahe Jinwei has revealed that all

Mining company Bitfarms has signed a contract with an Argentina electricity supplier to consume up to 210 MW of electricity for its new mining facility. According to Bitfarms, the company entered into an eight-year contract with a private Argentine electricity producer at a cost of $ 0.022 per kWh for electricity for the first four years. Last October, Bitfarms signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a 60 MW BTC mining center in Argentina. The

The mobile payment service Venmo, owned by PayPal, has added a direct buy and sell feature for four cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, LTC and BCH. Over the next few weeks, more than 70 million Venmo users will be able to purchase, store and sell these cryptoassets through the service’s app. The minimum purchase amount for cryptocurrencies is $ 1. To do this, customers will be able to use money from their Venmo balance linked to their

The activation code for the Taproot and Schnorr Signatures Update – Speedy Trial – has been included in Bitcoin Core. The first phase of the update activation is scheduled for May. Bitcoin Core developers Fanquake and Marco Falke added two pull requests to the client code created by AJ Townes and Andrew Chow. Now that the Speedy Trial has been merged with the Bitcoin Core source code, the Taproot update is ready for the first

The Flare mainnet launch will take place in late June, after months of testing the technology on a testnet. The Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) will be integrated into the network and support for smart contracts will be added. According to the official statement from the Flare Networks development team, there are 5-6 weeks before the start of the main Flare network. The distribution of the FLR cryptoasset will take place from mid-June to mid-July. The

On the Ethereum blockchain at block 12,244,000, the planned hard fork of Berlin took place. The update includes four proposals to improve the current Ethereum network and reduce fees. Berlin’s goal is to reduce transaction fees on the network. Considering that Ethereum is in high demand among projects working with decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT), this network lacks the ability to quickly process transactions. As a result, users are forced to pay high

French bank Société Générale is launching stock tokens based on the Tezos blockchain to integrate with banking systems and interact with institutional clients. Société Générale will present its own tokenized shares with the participation of Forge subsidiary. The launch of stock tokens will expand the list of services provided to institutional investors. This step could bring the bank closer to the cryptocurrency market by 2022. The investment giant called it a new experiment in line

The European Central Bank has published a report on the results of the public discussion related to the launch of the digital euro. The survey participants expressed what they want to see this digital currency. Public consultations on the potential launch of the state cryptocurrency were held from October 12, 2020 to January 12, 2021. The European Central Bank (ECB) received over 8,200 comments. The overwhelming majority of respondents (94%) were private individuals. Banks, payment

India’s finance minister said the new regulation will protect investors from crypto asset volatility. According to experts, the government may propose an emergency stop mechanism for trading. Anurag Thakur said in an interview with Times Now that the government intends to protect investors from cryptocurrency market volatility. However, how the legislators plan to do this, the Indian finance minister did not specify. “The price volatility of cryptocurrencies is so high – unlike fiat currencies –