Gibraltar

Located in Europe, on the southern tip of Spain, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar is a bubbling hotbed of cryptocurrency adoption. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Albert Isola, Minister for Digital and Financial Services for Her Majesty's Government of Gibraltar, explained the territory's approach to crypto and shed some light on his own investment interests. Isola played a pivotal role in shepherding Gibraltar’s purpose-built distributed ledger technology (DLT) regulatory framework. However, he’s also a Bitcoiner. Isola (left) in front of a picture of the Gibraltar peninsula, known as “The Rock.”Speaking from the Ministerial offices in Gibraltar, he told Joe Hall “I do have Bitcoin.” He continued: “I’m not at the stage yet where it’s something that I’d use on a regular basis, it’s more about buying some for the benefit of my kids in the years to come. I don’t touch it.”While spending Bitcoin (BTC) at one of the Costa Coffee’s that now accept Bitcoin in Gibr..

Following the chaos caused by counterfeit tickets in the UEFA Champions League 2022, crypto exchange Binance has launched the pilot of its nonfungible token (NFT) ticketing solution with football club Società Sportiva Lazio for the 2022 to 2023 season. In the announcement sent to Cointelegraph, Binance highlighted that NFT tickets will solve the issue of fake tickets and eliminate scalping, preventing disorder in sporting events. Apart from access to events, the NFT tickets will also serve other purposes such as store and match discounts, token giveaways and other experiences with S. S. Lazio. With the collaboration, NFT tickets will be available for all of S. S. Lazio’s home matches. Marco Canigiani, an executive at S. S. Lazio, said that current ticket holders will be able to claim their NFT tickets for free and use them to enter Stadio Olimpico and avail themselves of the benefits that come with the digital tickets. Binance executive Zoe Wei said that the launch of NFT ticketing s..

Lido DAO (LDO) price has skyrocketed by roughly 400% month-to-date to reach $2.22 on July 28, its highest level in over two months. LDO MergifiedLDO price has benefited majorly due to its association with Ethereum, the leading smart contract platform by total-value-locked (TVL) and market capitalization. Notably, LDO serves as a governance token inside the Lido DAO ecosystem, a project that offers staking services for Ethereum. The staking practice allows users to earn passive income without needing to sell their coins. It also helps validate transactions and secure the blockchain. In return, the protocol offers stakers rewards in the form of new tokens minted and fees collected. Lido DAO working mechanism. Source: Official WebsiteEthereum could become a full-fledged proof-of-stake blockchain by Sept. 19, the tentative date for the Merge. A successful transition to proof-of-stake could mean more demand for Lido DAO services in the future. Lido DAO has remained the leading Ethereum s..

Major cryptocurrency tracking website CoinGecko is open to acquisitions, but not right now, according to a co-founder of the platform. CoinGecko has been hit by the current crypto bear market, but the firm is far from selling off, CoinGecko chief operating officer Bobby Ong told Cointelegraph. Ong believes that all crypto-related companies are affected by the cyclical nature of the industry as they usually do well during bull runs and struggle during bear markets. “During this crypto winter, we at CoinGecko are similarly impacted. This will be our third crypto winter and we are focused on improving CoinGecko to prepare for the eventual bull run that will come again,” Ong said. According to the chief operating officer, CoinGecko had 100 million monthly pageviews in July, experiencing an 85% decrease in traffic compared to the peak in November 2021. The traffic decline comes in line with the price movement of Bitcoin (BTC), which reached an all-time high above $68,000 last November. “Th..

The Ethereum mainnet is just one testnet merger away from officially transitioning to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. After multiple shadow forks and testnet merges, the years-long journey has reached the final stage with the announcement of the final testnet merge to the Beacon chain. The transition to PoS began in December 2020 with the launch of the Beacon chain, starting Phase 0 of the three-phase process. Phase 1, the current phase, was slated to be completed by 2021. However, due to numerous delays and unfinished work on the developers’ end, it is expected to be completed by the third week of September. The final phase of the transition is slated to be completed by late 2023. Lead Ethereum developer Tim Beiko took to Twitter to announce the details of the Goerli testnet transition. The Goreli testnet will merge with the Beacon Chain called Prater and the combined Goerli/Prater network will retain the Goerli name post-merge. The testnet merger will be completed in two phases s..

The Law Commission of England and Wales is proposing a number of law reforms to provide wider recognition and legal protections for cryptocurrency and digital asset users. The institution is reviewing existing legislation on digital assets at the request of the British government in an effort to accommodate the space as it continues to grow in reach and use. The Law Commission announced the call for public consultation from legal experts, technologists and users on Thursday. The proposal highlights the evolving nature and multi-faceted use of cryptocurrencies, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and other digital assets. Cryptocurrencies are used as a means of payment, store of value and as a digital representation of ownership or rights to equities and debt securities. The Law Commission seeks to deliver “wider recognition and legal protections for digital assets” to give a wider range of people, businesses and institutions access to the burgeoning sector. The consultation paper examines how pe..

From the great migration to the bear market, crypto miners went through many challenges throughout the year including a shift in profitability. However, according to Steve Bassi, an expert in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) mining, crypto mining may still be profitable if we look at its long-term prospects. As the costs of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners hover around $8,000 to $12,000, and electricity costs take up more than half of the projected income — the current estimated time frame when a miner could cover the cost of one device is five to six years. Commenting on the topic, Bassi said that while mining income certainly looks bleak in the short run, it will change as time goes by. He said: “In the long run, we’re expecting another BTC halving in 2024. So, a long-term holder could do well mining in the short term and perhaps selling when block reward goes down in 2024.”If prices don’t change in the coming years, things can go sour for miners as the devices are..

A recent report from Absolute Reports projects massive growth for the GameFi industry within the next six years. The research has the play-to-earn nonfungible token (NFT) game industry with an estimated value of $2.8 billion within the time span from 2022–2028. Moreover, the compound annual growth rate of the industry is 20.4% in the same six-year period. This forecast comes in the midst of a raging crypto bear market, which leaves little room for projects and industries with no substance. The report highlights the leaders in this field of play-to-earn game development which include Sky Mavis, Dapper Labs, Decentraland, Immutable and The Sandbox. Furthermore, it breaks down GameFi by type, console and market region. Though it’s not only the report which points to a favorable future for the Web3 gaming industry, as research from Cointelegraph also highlights interest from venture capitalist investors during the down season. For example, Animoca Brands recently acquired three companie..

Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated higher into July 28 after United States monetary policy changes fueled optimism in risk assets. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingViewFed hike instils fresh crypto optimismData from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing to highs of $23,452 on Bitstamp overnight. The pair had reacted strongly to the latest Federal Reserve key rate hike, despite this conforming to market predictions. Subsequent comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell added to the breakout’s momentum. “I think the reason this is providing some relief to the equity market is the Fed is acknowledging that there can be an impact on growth, to the economy, based on their policy,” Gargi Chaudhuri, head of asset management giant BlackRock’s iShares investment strategy Americas, told CNBC: “They’re recognizing there are two sides of this — there’s a growth tradeoff to fight inflation. The recognition is something we heard today that we didn’t hear before.”..

A future without digital assets is hardly imaginable but Bitcoin (BTC) is far from being perfect by design, according to a finance professor at the London School of Economics (LSE). LSE financial professor Igor Makarov believes that digital money and digassets will undoubtedly be part of the future of finance and their efficiency will depend much on their design. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Makarov said that there has not been much evidence that Bitcoin can become a store of value as it has been extremely volatile over the past 10 years. Since Bitcoin’s volatility remains high despite its massive rise in value and increased liquidity, there is no guarantee that its price will become more stable one day, he said. “Without any government backing Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency’s value depends on the willingness of the general public to hold it, which, in turn depends on changing investor sentiment and its standing against other cryptocurrencies,” Makarov stated. The professor also as..