Cryptocurrency latest news – Market on eToro booms as Dogecoin rival Shiba Inu coin spikes in value

SOCIAL NETWORK ‘MINDS’ PUTS 25% OF BALANCE SHEET IN CRYPTO

Minds, a social network focused on crypto that lets its users use digital coins for transactions has converted 25 percent of its balance sheet into cryptocurrencies.

That’s about $2.5million – a quarter of the $10 million Series B funding the company raised in June, as reported by Fortune.

The startup joins other companies like Tesla and Square, which have also put some of its money into crypto.

DOGECOIN FANS ANGRY AMC WON’T ACCEPT IT AS PAYMENT

After AMC CEO Adam Aron announced the movie theater franchise will accept bitcoin as payment, but not Dogecoin, he was inundated with messages from DogeCoin fans.

AMC WILL ACCEPT ETHEREUM AND LITECOIN BY END OF YEAR

Movie theater chain AMC announced on Thursday it will start accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for online ticket sales and concession payments by the end of the year.

Along with Bitcoin, they will also accept Ethereum, Litecoin, and BitcoinCash, according to CEO Adam Aron.

However, other popular cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin will not be accepted as payment at the chain.

EL SALVADOR’S BONDS TUMBLE AS INVESTOR ANALYZE BITCOIN USE

EL Salvador’s bonds tumbled as investors eye the nation’s Bitcoin use and whether it will get a $1billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

The Central American nation’s government’s bonds spreads to comparable U.S. Treasuries hit a record high on Thursday, as investors are also concerned the nation’s Bitcoin use will produce negative credit implications, as reported by Reuters.

DALIO: GOVERNMENTS WILL KILL BITCOIN IF IT’S TOO SUCCESSFUL

The world’s largest hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has said regulators will kill bitcoin if it becomes too successful.

“If it’s successful, governments don’t want to have it. At the end of the day if it is really successful, they will kill it and they have ways of killing it,” Dalio told CNBC.

“That does not mean it does not have value. Of course, it does not have intrinsic value,” he added.

SALVADORIANS SMASH BITCOIN ATM IN PROTEST

Thousands of Salvadorians went out to protest the presidency of Nayib Bukele on Wednesday, and many took issue with the government’s rollout of Bitcoin as a national currency.

Protestors wore “NO To Bitcoin” shirts and signs with the bitcoin logo crossed out.

While most were protesting peacefully, a group of anti-Bukele protestors smashed and torched at least one bitcoin ATM.

ALTERNATIVE CRYPTOCURRENCIES OVERSHADOW BITCOIN

Less known cryptocurrencies such as Avalanche’s AVAX token are attracting investors, as Bitcoin dipped below $48,000 on Thursday.

The AVAX token, for example, was up about 20% over the past 24 hours.

“BTC dominance could easily pick up again, but certainly DeFi could continue – we see it on the front line in terms of client interest,” head of research at crypto trading platform BeQuant told CoinDesk.

WHAT HAS MONEY EXPERT MARTIN LEWIS SAID ABOUT CRYPTOCURRENCY?

Money expert Martin Lewis believes that when it comes to cryptocurrency, “if you can’t afford to lose the money you put in, do not invest in it”.

“It’s a gamble like all forms of stocks and shares, like all forms of investment, and putting money in gold,” he said.

“That’s your choice, but if you do it the right way, the investment should work for you – that doesn’t mean you won’t lose money though.”

EL SALVADOR USES ALGORAND

Algorand will be used by the government of El Salvador to develop blockchain infrastructure including Chivo, the nation’s bitcoin wallet according to Forbes.

The country hit headlines as the first in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.

Algorand has also come into the mainstream, signing a deal to sponsor the Drone Racing League, CNBC reports.

Hedge fund SkyBridge Capital run by Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Director of Communications sacked by Donald Trump, recently said it will use Algorand to get institutions to use blockchain.

HOW HAS ELON MUSK INFLUENCED CRYPTOCURRENCY, PART 2

Posting to his personal Twitter account, Musk wrote at the time: “We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Bitcoin then started plummeting within minutes.

Other cryptocurrencies quickly followed, with several of the mainstream coins seeing a huge drop in value that day.

HOW HAS ELON MUSK INFLUENCED CRYPTOCURRENCY?

The first signs of trouble for the crypto market came in May, when Elon Musk released a statement saying Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin for purchasing vehicles.

The Tesla founder has previously caused currencies to spike in value by mentioning them on Twitter or in press statements.

HOW ARE GOVERNMENTS CRACKING DOWN ON CRYPTO-MINING, CONTINUED

Authorities in China’s southwest province of Sichuan ordered crypto-mining projects to close earlier this summer.

It followed on from Beijing declared war on Bitcoin mining and trading as part of a series of measures to control financial risks.

HOW ARE GOVERNMENTS CRACKING DOWN ON CRYPTO-MINING?

Many crypto-mining regions in China are radically reducing operations.

Miners create new cryptocurrencies using a complex computer code in a complex process, which is highly energy-intensive and requires a lot of computer power.

ETHEREUM CO-FOUNDER NAMED A TIME MAGAZINE INFLUENTIAL PERSON

Vitalik Buterin was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2021.

He is one of the co-founders of Ethereum.

HOW TO EARN BTRST

The website breaks down how to use the new cyrpto.

“It’s easy. Today you can earn tokens by:

• Inviting other freelancers to the network
• Inviting employers to hire talent on the network
• Completing peer-to-peer vetting
• Additional token rewards will be added over time. Stay tuned for future updates!”

HOW TO USE BRAINTRUST COIN

The Braintrust or BTRST website describes how to use the crypto saying “Redeem tokens for special perks created exclusively for the Braintrust community such as free and discounted software, products, career resources, and community perks.

“And we’re continually adding new ways for Talent to use BTRST, so you’ll always have options.”

WHAT IS BRAINTRUST?

The new coin describes itself as “the first decentralized talent network that connects highly skilled technical freelancers with the world’s most reputable brands like Nestle, Porsche, Atlassian, Goldman Sachs and Nike.

“Braintrust’s unique business model allows talent to retain 100% of their earnings and enables organizations to spin up flexible, skilled teams on-demand at a fraction of the cost of traditional staffing firms.

“This new business model that limits fee extraction and enables community ownership is uniquely enabled by a blockchain token.”

SEC CHARIMAN ADDRESSES CONGRESS

It comes after, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler testified before the Senate Banking Committee this week on cryptocurrency.

Gensler wants more protection in crypto trading, lending, and finance and plans to discuss the environmental risk of such currencies.

AMC TO ACCEPT CRYPT

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said on Wednesday that AMC Theatres will accept Bitcoin and other crypto for online ticket and concession payments.

Other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash will also be accepted, Aron said.

He tweeted: “Cryptocurrency enthusiasts: you likely know @AMCTheatres has announced we will accept Bitcoin for online ticket and concession payments by year-end 2021. I can confirm today that when we do so, we also expect that we similarly will accept Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.”

INTERACTIVE BROKERS ADDS TOOL

Interactive Brokers Group announced on Monday that they launched low-fee cryptocurrency trading on their platform.

According to Reuters, “U.S. clients of the brokerage will now be able to trade and custody bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash alongside stocks, options, futures, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.”

RISKS OF CYRPTOCURRENCIES

Below we round up five risks of investing in cryptocurrencies.

• Consumer protection: Some investments advertising high returns based on cryptoassets may not be subject to regulation beyond anti-money laundering requirements. 
• Price volatility: Significant price volatility in cryptoassets, combined with the inherent difficulties of valuing cryptoassets reliably, places consumers at a high risk of losses.
• Product complexity: The complexity of some products and services relating to cryptoassets can make it hard for consumers to understand the risks. There is no guarantee that cryptoassets can be converted back into cash. Converting a cryptoasset back to cash depends on demand and supply existing in the market. 
• Charges and fees: Consumers should consider the impact of fees and charges on their investment which may be more than those for regulated investment products.  
• Marketing materials: Firms may overstate the returns of products or understate the risks involved.

EXPERTS ON HBAR

Myron Jobson, Personal Finance Campaigner, interactive investor, says that one of Hedra’s unique selling points is its purported energy efficiency credentials.

He told The Sun: “Unlike the Bitcoin network which uses more in one year as the country of Argentina, analysis by Cambridge University suggests, Hedra claims to be a low carbon footprint public ledger.”

“It is part of the InterWork Alliance’s (IWA) Sustainability Business Working Group which aims to aid global efforts on sustainability in the crypto space by in a number of ways, including standardizing carbon offsets.

“Proof-of-stake blockchains like Hedra inherently consumes energy to function – there is no getting around it.

“The effectiveness of carbon offset is difficult for the lay investor to gauge based on the publicly available information.

Mt Jobson adds: “Hedera Hashgraph still has a long way to go in proving its concept. The usual warnings over risk and volatility applies here.”

WHAT IS HBAR WORTH?

You can buy and sell HBAR on some cryptoexchanges ans is currently trading at $0.3987 at the time of writing.

HBAR’s up nearly 5% in the past 24 hours and down just over 10% from it’s all time high back in March of $0.4495.

WHAT IS HBAR?

Hashgraph is similar to a blockchain and was created in 2017 by American computer scientist Leemon Baird.

The Hedera Hashgraph system is a distributed ledger built on Hashgraph and was created by Baird along with Mance Harmon.

HBAR is the cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph.

The company itself expalins: “HBAR is the native, energy-efficient cryptocurrency of the Hedera public network.”

It claims to be the third generation public ledger after “Bitcoin pioneered decentralized infrastructure and Ethereum brought programmability”.

There is a total HBAR supply of 50billion units and according to Coinmarketcap almost 7billion were in circulation as of January 2021 – around 14% of the total supply.

There is a governing council for Hedrera and members include well-known companies like Google IBM and Boeing.

NO GUARANTEE

The HBAR coin is one of the top 50 cryptocurrencies in the world based on market cap, according to the website Coinmarketcap.

But like all cryptocurrencies HBAR is highly volatile and its value can go down as well as up in the blink of an eye.

You could lose all you money investing in cryptocurrency and you should never invest money you can’t afford to lose – or in financial products you don’t understand.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to convert your crypto investment back into cash either and you could be charged higher fees than on traditional financial products.

Cryptocurrencies are not regulated so you won’t have the same protections either if something goes wrong.

Newer cryptocurrencies can also be riskier than more established coins like bitcoin.