Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Crypto adoption news
- Kirobo, the Tel Aviv-based startup that created an ‘undo button’ for previously irreversible Bitcoin (BTC) transactions, available to MetaMask and WalletConnect owners, has made the feature available on Ethereum (ETH), it said in a press release. Initially, the service will be available for ETH and later on all ERC-20 tokens, and it comes with protection against sending funds to smart contracts that don’t support deposits.
- Decentralized oracle platform Chainlink (LINK) and decentralized asset issuance protocol for synthetic assets Synthetix (SNX) have developed a new pricing mechanism to power a new synthetic derivatives product that gives users on-chain exposure to oil, they said in an announcement. This is a novel price feed for sOIL, a synthetic digital asset tied to a non-expiring Crude Oil Price Index.
- Bitcoin (BTC) nonprofit BitGive has partnered with a sustainable food and farming nonprofit, Heifer International, to assist with aiding small scale American farmers in Arkansas, with the ultimate goal of raising funds for hunger relief efforts in the United States through cryptocurrency donations, said the emailed press release. BitGive and Heifer have worked to onboard a new project to GiveTrack, BitGive’s donation tracking platform, which will allow Heifer to purchase farming equipment that can be loaned to small-scale farmers in Arkansas. All donations will be used in bitcoin, and Heifer has confirmed with the Farmers Friend and BCS equipment vendors to purchase all equipment directly in cryptocurrency, it said.
Blockchain news
- Chinese tech giant Baidu’s Baidu Library arm has officially launched a blockchain-powered copyright service, reported China Email. Baidu is China’s answer to Google, and its Library arm is a vast repository for document sharing, media archiving and university lecture note hosting. Baidu said that its new blockchain-based services will be applied to everything from monitoring to rights protection, and will help provide original authors and issuing institutions with improved copyright protection as well as a more powerful platform upon which to share their work.
Investments news
- API3, a decentralized API or Application Programming Interface (dAPI) network, has raised USD 3m in a private fundraising round lead by Placeholder and with participation by Pantera, Accomplice, CoinFund, Digital Currency Group, Hashed, and others. Per the press release, when it goes live, API3 will enable off-chain API data and service providers to connect their APIs to the blockchain without the use of any middlemen.
- Axelar, a decentralized interoperability bridge developed by the founding team members of Algorand (ALGO), has announced seed funding of USD 3.75m with investments secured from the Binance Smart Chain Accelerator Fund called Binance X, an arm of major crypto exchange Binance, as well as venture capital firm DCVC (Data Collective) and Divergence Ventures. Per the emailed press release, the funding will be used towards building the tech, tools, and API solutions of the network, along with recruiting the engineers that will help design the underlying technology and protocols.
Regulation news
- A group of six Democratic Party Congress members has hit out at the American banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), for its “excessive focus on cryptoassets and crypto-related financial services.” The group, per a press release, said its views were “shared by the American Bankers Association and other trade groups,” which it claims “have expressed similar reservations” that recent moves to issue a fintech charter and allow banks to begin offering crypto custody and stablecoin services represent a “move too far away from the core business of banking.” The group, in its own words, “questioned whether acting OCC chief Brian Brooks has his priorities straight during COVID-19’s health and economic crises.”
NFTs news
- The buyer of the world’s most expensive non-fungible token (NFT) has come forward. The NFT was redeemable for a digital racecar created for the Formula 1 tie-in blockchain game F1 Delta Time and sold at auction for USD 110,000 in May 2019. The buyer, stated F1 Delta Time maker Animoca Brands in a press release shared with Cryptonews.com, is named Metakovan. Metakovan was described as an “entrepreneur, coder, and angel investor in blockchain technology since 2013, Y-Combinator alumnus and a DeFi OG,” with a “portfolio of premium NFTs” in a “crypto-exclusive fund.”
Mining news
- Cryptocurrency mining pool ViaBTC has announced a partnership with BitRiver, a colocation services provider for cryptocurrency mining, to provide special terms to those who are customers of BitRiver’s data center facilities, said the press release. ViaBTC aims to install a new server of its pool in BitRiver’s datacenter in Bratsk before the start of 2021.