Miami Major said that the US has unlimited nuclear power that can be useful to mine bitcoin. Hydrogen will also be helpful as a technological tool that will empower bitcoin mining shortly.

The United States should upgrade its bitcoins mining to improve its national security. This recommendation happens because 90% of the activity takes place outside the country, according to the mayor of Miami, Francis Suárez.

Suárez made this statement during an interview through YouTube granted this March 26, 2021, to the journalist Laura Shin, a crypto-specialist. Suarez argued that the country’s leading the high mining rate use dirty energy, and the United States has the key to change such actions against the environment.

Suarez also said that a higher level of mining in the United States would bring many advantages to the country’s cryptocurrency community. The Major considers that the United States, with the city of Miami as a leader, can be a mining center due to sufficient renewable resources.

Suarez Says The Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrency Mining will be a Thing of the Past

During the conversation, Suárez showed a lot of optimism regarding the possible negative environmental impacts caused by cryptocurrency mining. In Suarez’s view, this will be a thing of the past as new technology will rise to cover every energetic need:

“I also think that you are going to see solar technology and other clean technologies like hydrogen as a tool that empowers mining. So I think that clean technology is going to make mining more efficient, less expensive, and less energy consumption.”

The mayor of Miami also said that he hoped to make this city the world’s cryptocurrency capital. Suarez administration’s first step was to tour the United States to learn what cryptocurrency-friendly laws are.

The Major also said that he discovered that one of the friendliest states was Wyoming; its laws were copied and tried to improve them. This panorama led to him submitting a bill to the County Commission and the Senate to pave the way for the governor’s approval. This decision would make Florida the most crypto-friendly state.

Suárez recalled that a resolution is under implementation in Miami, which will allow employees to receive a salary in bitcoins. They will also explore the chances of setting investments in cryptocurrency. They think that cryptocurrencies are the future’s new wave.

Central and Regional Governments Join Efforts to Work with Cryptocurrencies

Regarding the chances that central and regional governments would join efforts to interact in handling cryptocurrencies, Suarez said that he hopes there will be a positive response to this new rise.

“I think one of them will be the eradication of deficit spending where governments will now have to tie their decisions to a cryptocurrency rather than the other way around. So they’re going to have to borrow money like everyone else does because they can’t just print their own money, “he said.

By: Jenson Nuñez

XRP holders have been able to celebrate a win against the SEC, as the court brought permission to file a motion to arbitrate. The filing margin time is April 19, and the SEC and Ripple comments should last to the court yesterday, May 3.

Attorney John E. Deaton and XRP holders yesterday achieved an essential first partial conquest regarding intervening in the lawsuit between the United States Securities Commission (SEC) and Ripple.

After Deaton submitted a formal pre-filing brief, permission went to file a motion to intervene in the ongoing case on behalf of more than 10,500 XRP holders. Judge Analisa Torres even ruled on the calendar.

According to the award, the motion to intervene must set a presentation no later than April 19. After that, the SEC, as a plaintiff, must file their paper, and Ripple, Garlinghouse, and Larsen must file their answer in court on May 3, if conditions apply.

On May 17, Deaton then has to target his response to the SEC review document and Ripple’s response to sentencing Torres.

For the SEC, it is a Complete Defeat

The XRP community is pandering to a major conquest, while for the SEC, it is a complete defeat, especially since the regulator previously vehemently defended a denial. Although Judge Torres did not grant the motion, she rejected the SEC’s arguments that XRP holders should not have the opportunity to present.

Ripple submitted their position papers on Deaton’s intervention. The regulator stated that Deaton is not clear about the claims it wants to make.

Deaton posted via Twitter that the SEC’s letter to achieve Torres’s sentence was the most confusing and deceptive letter that he had ever seen before a court. He said:

“Tenreiro is trying to get me to misquote by stating that my motivation in figuring out to step in is profit-taking. When I read that, I said: ‘I’m not talking about the price of #XRP – what the hell is he talking about?’ The truth is that I have never said that the objective of the revaluation is the appreciation of the price or zero similar. But that’s what he claims I said. I have investigated it. The comment I made was about the likelihood that the SEC would inform the exchanges that they could return to trading.”

As Deaton said on the social network, there are other moments where the SEC deforms the lawyer’s words to sway the court and make the intentions of Deaton and XRP holders look worrying or even harmful.

The SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple in December 2020, alleging the company, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chairman Chris Larsen, made a sale of over $1 billion in XRP and created a token promotion, and even paid third parties to support the cryptocurrency.

By: Jenson Nuñez

They hope that Ethereum 2.0 will allow solving scalability problems and leaving them in the past. The Ethereum Foundation is the main development entity of the Ethereum Network.

“As the use of technology grows, scalability continues to be a huge challenge,” according to Aya Miyaguchi, CEO of the Ethereum Foundation. The executive stated that scaling is easy for someone who does not care about decentralization. However, she commented that it is hard to try to scale, without compromising decentralization, so that everyone can participate.

Regarding the challenges that blockchains face, Miyaguchi noted that transparency is a key benefit that they can provide. She said that it is not possible to solve many problems with greater transparency and there is also a challenge to privacy. In that regard, she added that they are working to provide education about the benefits of public blockchains.

“There has been an evolution in privacy enhancements (such as zero-knowledge tests),” according to Miyaguchi. She expressed that they also hope to be able to respond to these challenges gradually. Besides, she explained that these technologies are even helping companies become more comfortable using public blockchains.

Decentralization and the Creation of a Free Internet

Concerning how decentralization works to create a free Internet, she said that the perspective of apps depends on who builds them. However, she argued that many of these tools allow access to tamper-proof information or borderless financial tools. That situation prevents governments from having unnecessary control.

In May 2019, Ethereum posted on their blog that they were on their way to becoming more decentralized and sustainable. They reaffirmed that the Ethereum Foundation’s number one priority is to release version 2.0 of the network. This software update intends to stop using Proof of Work and move on to Proof of Stake.

This change in the consensus protocol uses the network to reach an agreement on the information registered in the chain. This system does not require miners to spend computing resources to validate new transactions but it will be based on stakers. The latter will demonstrate their reliability by blocking large stakes of money.

Decision Making and Governance of Ethereum

Looking to the future, Miyaguchi is addressing decision-making processes and governance in the Ethereum ecosystem. She clarified that the Ethereum Foundation and the Ethereum community are very different, as are their governments.

According to Miyaguchi, the Foundation was initially similar to a developer house. Many builders who maintain the network believed it important to ensure that no one party had too much influence. However, the decision-making process has been decentralized since its launch. For that reason, they have taken a different approach, which they often describe as “a philosophy of subtraction.”

She explained that independent teams and people worldwide feed the system (helping to decentralize it) in exchange for rewards in Ether (ETH). Since this token serves as fuel for every action taken on the network, the system creates its demand.

The Search for Scalability on Ethereum

For years, Ethereum developers have presented various proposals to solve blockchain scalability problems. These drawbacks have occurred particularly due to the overload of transactions on the network.

In 2019, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin stated that “scalability is a bottleneck for this network as the blockchain is almost full.” They hope that upcoming network updates and the arrival of Ethereum 2.0 will allow solving the scalability problems and leaving them in the past.

By Alexander Salazar

After two consecutive weeks in the red, Bitcoin is back in green numbers. The pioneering cryptocurrency has risen by 16% from its lowest point in recent weeks.

Bitcoin’s price rebounded after falling to USD 50,000 per unit, various analysts predicted. Now, the cryptocurrency is beginning to exceed USD 58,000 and seems to be challenging the all-time high above USD 60,000.

In recent days, the price of Bitcoin has increased by over USD 2,300, exceeding a 4% increase, according to data from TradingView. The first cryptocurrency opened the day below USD 56,000, which had become a resistance level.

From the low point just above USD 50,000, the price of Bitcoin is up just under 16%. It looks as though it will start to reverse the downward behavior of recent weeks, with a couple of red weekly candlesticks, according to data from TradingView.

Although analysts expected the recovery, some attributed the rise to the fact that Visa added cryptocurrency transactions to its payment system. For the first time in its history, the multinational financial services company settled a transaction with the USDC stablecoin, through the Ethereum blockchain.

Even without having touched Bitcoin, Visa’s entry into the cryptocurrency environment may have impacted the market that the cryptocurrency dominates.

The truth is that Bitcoin seems to have resumed the goal of setting new all-time highs and that the bullish cycle remains unstoppable. Right now, the milestone to break is the all-time high of USD 61,711, according to data from CoinGecko.

Bitcoin Resumes Its Bullish Pace

Although it has risen by more than 1,400% since March, this bullish cycle for Bitcoin is still in an early phase, according to many analysts. Last year, Bitcoin fell by more than 40% amid uncertainty over the declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the levels that it has recently reached seemed to be something impossible in such a short time.

However, the cryptocurrency began to gain strength through the media boost that various companies gave. The growing interest that this sector has been showing in Bitcoin as a store of value is evident.

This year, Bitcoin has doubled in price but has taken a declining pace in the last two weeks. That nearly took it down from the USD 50,000 per unit level.

Despite the recent drop, Willy Woo and other top Bitcoin researchers kept their bullish predictions for the following months. According to the renowned metrics analyst, the price of the cryptocurrency seeks to reach over USD 74,000 in the short term.

YouTuber Juan Rodríguez (@juanbiter) identified a pattern in the price of Bitcoin in recent months. It seems to point in the same direction as Woo’s predictions.

Since October, Rodríguez has noticed the lateralization or fall of Bitcoin in the days before relevant liquidations in the options market. In recent days there was a liquidation of more than USD 6,000 million in options contracts. After that, the price of Bitcoin started to rise again.

He estimates that in the weeks following previous liquidations, Bitcoin has risen by as much as 30%. If another rise in that same percentage range occurred, the cryptocurrency would be around USD 74,000, which Woo previously anticipated.

The cryptocurrency that Satoshi Nakamoto created must recover USD 60,000 to break its most recent all-time high. Some analysts predict that Bitcoin will be around 300,000 by the end of the year. Its price would have to multiply five times from current levels for this to be possible.

By Alexander Salazar

One of Gorillaz fans launched a petition to stop the band from releasing the NFT. As part of their 20th-anniversary celebration, the band planned the release of an NFT.

Twenty years ago, animated alternative music band Gorillaz released their first album. To celebrate their anniversary, they announced several projects including the launch of a non-fungible token (NFT). Criticism about this news arose among his fans due to the impact that these digital items have on the environment.

Their projects also include vinyl figures, a new G Foot clothing collection, and the reissue of some of their albums. The first album that they will reissue will be Gorillaz from 2001, which they will release later this year, according to music weekly NME (New Musical Express).

The other projects did not attract any negative comments, but the announcement of the creation of an NFT did. The band will work together with toy company Superplastic, which released their first NFT in February.

This upset some of their fans mainly due to the environmental impact of the electricity consumption and carbon footprints that NFTs have. In 2010, Gorillaz released the album entitled Plastic Beach, where they spoke precisely about environmental awareness and the dangers of excessive consumption and waste.

Fans Classify the Band as Hypocrites and the NFT Launch as a Treason

The fans did not like the opposition between the creation of NFTs and the position of  Gorillaz on the Plastic Beach album. Some of them even classified them as Hypocrites and Traitors, as is the case of Twitter users woodpecker (@PeachyKneeSock), Lars (@larsaddams), and Kaiju (@Kaijukings).

Lars commented that Gorillaz getting into “NFTs is really the treason of the millennium. I cannot even muster the words to express myself.”

Fans have been so offended that a Gorillaz fan named Jamie Bradner even launched a petition on petition platform change.org. There, people will sign and contact the band and their team to stop the NFT launch process.

“The decision of Eleven Mgmt (its manager) and Warner Music (its record-label company) to create an NFT based on Gorillaz art is misinformed. It goes against what Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett [the band’s founders] originally created,” according to Jamie Brander himself.

At the time of writing this article, the petition for 2,500 signatures has already raised more than 1,899.

Other Artists have Launched Their NFTs

The NFT rush has led many music artists to release the non-fungible tokens of their previously unreleased albums or other material. Among them is the rock band, King of Leon and DJ 3LAU. So far, they have not had any problem with their fans in this regard, at least not like Gorillaz. Actually, the tokens have had a good reception in both cases.

So far, neither Gorillaz nor their creative and administrative teams have offered statements about the criticisms on their NFT project. They have also given no details about the tentative date for its launch.

By Alexander Salazar

Cryptocurrency scams will increase by 75% in 2021, according to a report from Bolster Research. The research indicates that 52.6% of cryptocurrency scams involve the use of Bitcoin.

Fraud prevention company Bolster Research recently published its first annual report on cryptocurrency scams. They released key findings on the number and types of scams that occur in the ecosystem.

According to the report, available on Bolster Research’s official blog, cryptocurrency-related scams increased by 40% in 2020 compared to 2019.

Over 400,000 cryptocurrency scams occurred in 2020 alone said the report. The fraud prevention company also predicted that cryptocurrency-related scams will increase by 75% in 2021.

The research indicates that scams increased due to the rise in the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Other factors were their daily increasing popularity and the number of people seeking them for financial aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bolster Research says that the global market for cryptocurrencies increased its value 8 times, reaching a valuation of USD 1.7 trillion in January. That is just a way to illustrate the high value that cryptocurrencies have been gaining from January 2020 to January 2021.

The growing price of Bitcoin has not only attracted large investors but also scammers. These criminals have launched hundreds of thousands of attacks to steal digital assets. These acts range from traditional giveaway scams to direct attacks on cryptocurrency wallets.

Key Discoveries about Bitcoin Scams

There are many types of scams in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, according to the Bolster Research report. However, those the most proliferating during 2020 and part of 2021 have been those announcing false prizes, sweepstakes, or lotteries.

Scams involving supposed investments with cryptocurrencies and advance-fee schemes are also in vogue. In them, the criminals request their victims to send crypto assets so that the latter will supposedly receive double.

Besides, there are scams in which the thieves pose as celebrities such as singers, actors, politicians, and businesspeople, among others.

For this report, the firm analyzed from the most popular cryptocurrencies to less recognized ones. They concluded that most scams with cryptocurrencies involve Bitcoin with 52.6%, preceding Chainlink (LINK) with 15%, and Ether (ETH) with 13.3%.

The wallets and exchanges that scammers mostly use are Binance (with 41.8%), Coinbase (with 21.5%), and Gemini (with 13%), according to Bolster Research.

Concerning those announcements in which scammers pose as celebrities, the most widely used identity was Elon Musk, with 90.2%. For example, some hackers posed as the businessman on YouTube promising to give gifts to those sending money.

In the end, Bolster Research recommended companies and individuals use systems that help identify scam and fraud campaigns in advance.  At the same time, they advise using a tool that can analyze URLs in real-time, thus blocking malicious links. These are security measures that cryptocurrency holders should take into account if they want to protect their coins.

Other studies have proved that the number of crimes involving cryptocurrencies amounts to around 1%. However, cryptocurrency users should always be careful about the security of their assets, especially by not forgetting the keys to their wallets. They should also avoid revealing sensitive personal information, which could make it easier for cybercriminals to attack them.

By Alexander Salazar