Cypherpunk Holdings has dumped all of its Monero and Ethereum holdings to focus exclusively on Bitcoin. The Canadian publicly listed company is directed by none other than legendary poker player Tony G.
By: Mark Patrickson
Cypherpunk now holds almost 277 Bitcoin which at current market value is worth around $5 million, the ninth largest holding of any public company. Tony G is well-known for his business acumen and this latest move shows that he is behind the modern cryptocurrency trend seeing it as a great investment opportunity.
A company report last month said: “The increase in Bitcoin holdings is a result of the full liquidation of positions in Monero (XMR) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as the partial use of proceeds from a private placement of $505,000 CAD that closed on August 27th, 2020.”
American investment banking giant JP Morgan Chase recently said that Bitcoin is now a serious rival of gold for alternative currency investment.
partypoker to Exit More Grey Markets
Major online poker platform partypoker is to exit more grey markets. Last month GVC holdings, partypoker parent company, said they intended to operate only in fully regulated markets by the end of 2023. Any regions that did not have a viable path towards a legalised market would no longer be serviced by partypoker.
Colette Stewart, partypoker’s community manager said: “Going forward, GVC, our umbrella brand, will willingly operate in regulated, fully licensed markets [only]. By mid-December, we will no longer offer our services across unregulated poker markets following a management business decision.”
Players from Poland, Norway, and Montenegro have already been informed of the coming changes, with up to a dozen countries in total thought to be affected.
It has been suggested that this new policy is aimed squarely at impressing US regulators as more states look to get legalised online poker on their statute books. So far only Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey, and recently Pennsylvania, offer the game within the law. It makes sense that after the Black Friday debacle partypoker wants to continue to show a clean image to make a more favourable case when applying for a license in new states.
Spain Tightens the Screw
New advertising regulations have been approved in Spain, tightening up an already strict set of rules for gambling firms. Private companies in the country now have a severely limited ability to market their products and services.
Television advertising can now only be done between the hours of 1am and 5am. And sports teams are now prohibited from entering into any sponsorships deals.
On the face of it this is all being done to protect the most vulnerable. The number of problem gamblers in Spain is amongst the lowest in the world per capita, and the government looks keen to reduce it even further.
However, the new legislation has come under fire for maybe not being what it purports to be.
Firstly, these new rules only apply to private companies. State-run lotteries still have a free-for-all. They can advertise whenever they like and now look certain to monopolise the sponsorship of major sports teams. These aren’t small organisations either. They make up as much as 65% of the total gambling revenue for the country.
As the situation currently stands there isn’t much to do. Politicians regularly do as they please with little fear of comeback. So long as their decisions collect more money into state coffers and any complaints aren’t heard nothing will change.
NetEnt Sold and staff Laid Off
Online gaming company Evolution has completed a $2.3 billion acquisition of NetEnt. The firm which specialises in live casino games is now expected to start laying off hundreds of staff due to an overlap in services from their new owner.
As soon as the deal was finalised NetEnt’s live dealer studio in Qormi, Malta, was closed, even during what is a boom period for the online casino industry.
The Gaming Malta Foundation is now doing its best to help any affected employees find work at any of the other 250+ online gaming companies on the mediterenean island.
Evolutions live dealer casino games have been a huge hit over recent times. Online casino gambling in general has always been met with a degree of skepticism from a section of the population refusing to trust its integrity. The idea of watching a live dealer gives that feel of being in a casino from the comfort of your own living room, making everything look more trustworthy.
This idea has been tried in the past for online poker but it wasn’t a popular idea. Maybe in the mobile gaming age with a new generation of adults we can try again.
UK High Street Bookies to Reopen with Strict Rules
Although it is good news to see British bookmakers opening their doors after the latest one-month lockdown, the rules that customers must abide by will certainly put many off going.
A maximum of 15 minutes inside the shop at any one time is barely enough to check out anything. Two visits per day is some help but not of much use if the punter has to travel far to get there.
No furniture inside the shop is a major turn off. But as there won’t be any live sport being shown on the TVs it doesn’t really matter.
This isn’t a great time for high street bookies but they have to open in the fight for survival.
Chris Sykes of Leicester-based Mark Jarvis, an independent chain of 46 shops across the Midlands and South Yorkshire said: “It’s a relief to be back in the game. We’ll have lost some customers who have gone online or opened telephone accounts. It will be pretty much like after the major national lockdown, they will come back slowly. They won’t all come back in straight away and I imagine it will take a couple of weeks for some, if not all of them, to come back in.”
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