About 5,000 users will now have the option to pay with Bitcoin. The company expects to be able to launch its Bitcoin wallet soon.

Portuguese electricity company Luzboa has a majority stake in Spanish group Nexus Energía. They recently announced that their users will be able to pay the electric service bill with Bitcoin (BTC).

Pedro Morais Leitão, the president of the company, spoke about that decision with local media. He stated that this is in line with people’s growing interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

They will call that rate “Bit Spot.” Morais acknowledged that the cryptocurrency is volatile, but he said that they are “ready to take the risk.”

The executive considers that younger generations are interested in technology. For that reason, he believes that they will be willing to “provide the opportunity to use new means of payment.” However, he reported that the Bitcoin payments that the company receives will be converted into euros.

The company did not specify when the implementation of the measure will begin, but Morais said that they are developing their wallet. He explained that they expect everything to be ready before the end of February.

In Portugal, there are about 5,000 Luzboa customers, who will now be able to pay their bills with the pioneering cryptocurrency.

Luzboa, who decided to open its doors to cryptocurrencies, sold 51% of its shares to Spanish company Nexus Energía in 2017. The former focuses on commercializing electricity, specifically on behalf of the market of renewable energy producers.

Concerning Nexus Energía, they consider themselves the leading company in photovoltaic energy. They are present in Spain and Portugal, and they also provide their services in Germany and Mexico. In 2019, they billed EUR 1.1 billion, according to their website.

Bitcoin Gains the Trust of People in Portugal

The fever for Bitcoin has been growing in the European country, according to Portuguese analyst Enrique Tomé. “This type of financial product has been recovering the levels of demand that they recorded between 2017 and 2018. Now there is a growing number of projects in this sector,” he said.

There is an increase in the number of retail investors welcoming Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Tomé explained. Companies like PayPal have entered the market of digital assets, which gives confidence that more people choose to buy Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency is gaining strength in the markets thanks to the support of large institutional investors. This has contributed to expanding the adoption of Bitcoin as a payment method. For that reason, people see it as a reliable option when it is time to pay.

Swiss canton Zug shows its role as a pioneer in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This is the first canton to offer individuals and legal entities the option to pay tax bills with Bitcoin and Ether.

Similarly, KIKLABB, a firm that the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) owns, recently talked about Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. In Port Rashid, in Dubai, they said that companies will be able to use them to pay for business licenses and visa fees.

By Alexander Salazar

Billionaire businessman Bill Gates believes that there is a “mania” for Bitcoin. The founder of Microsoft said that the SEC must pay attention to what happened with GameStop.

Billionaire businessman and founder of Microsoft Bill Gates recently said that he has taken a neutral view on Bitcoin (BTC). He also made it clear that he has not invested in the main cryptocurrency on the market.

Gates said that he does “not own any Bitcoin” in an interview with the US television channel CNBC, on the Squawk Box program. He also clarified that he is not short on Bitcoin, that is, he does not bet that its price will drop. For that reason, he has chosen to take a “neutral view” on the pioneering cryptocurrency.

The interviewer asked him about the role of Bitcoin in climate change due to the amount of energy that mining farms consume. However, he did not answer the question and decided to talk about the payment tools that his foundation has developed in vulnerable countries.

“The Gates Foundation moves fiat money in a more digital way, which reduces transaction costs in developing countries,” said Gates.

He also explained that his foundation promotes tools to make transactions that users in those countries can reverse. He said that this allows complete visibility of what each person is doing.

The businessman also talked about the volatility of Bitcoin and said that its price “can go up or down”. However, he believes that there is a “mania or whatever [people] want to call it” for the cryptocurrency. He believes that he has “no way of predicting what the future will be like” for the so-called digital gold.

Bill Gates’ current neutral view on Bitcoin is in stark contrast to his opinion in 2018, specifically on its privacy.

That year, he noted that “the main characteristic of cryptocurrencies is their anonymity.” He said that he did “not think that this is a good thing.” He highlighted that “the government’s ability to find money laundering, tax evasion and financing of terrorism is a good thing.”

Bill Gates and the GameStop Frenzy

The founder of Microsoft talked about what recently happened with GameStop shares on the US stock market in the interview with CNBC. He said that “people like to gamble and, sadly, it is a zero-sum game. They do it with the idea of driving valuation far beyond what is rational. It is difficult to view that as socially good use of time.”

According to Gates, people who buy stocks early make windfall profits, but those who buy late “can feel like fools.”

He also considers that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should review this type of situation. He believes that people cannot view the stock market as a mere casino.

Last January, Reddit’s group WallStreetBets came into conflict with Wall Street’s big companies, which made the GameStop trade phenomenon unfold. They produced a bullish rally for the shares of the video game store chain GameStop. That situation made Melvin Capital and other companies lose millions of US dollars.

By Alexander Salazar

One researcher warns users against betting life savings on a meme. Elon Musk warned about the level of centralization that exists around the Shiba Inu dog asset.

Elon Musk is not only praising DOGE through Twitter, but The CEO also criticized the cryptocurrency ecosystem that has been inflating for months. He unleashed a Twitter recently claiming that: “Too much concentration is his only real problem.”

The warning from the CEO of Tesla received the confirmation of Coin Metrics, which, in its latest newsletter, indicated that 1% of addresses own 94.2% of the total supply of the crypto asset.

In its 90th report on the network’s state, the data provider also highlights that only 100 addresses contain 68.1% of the DOGE supply. To understand the level of massive concentration around the meme-born cryptocurrency, Musk compared it to Bitcoin. “The 100 largest BTC addresses only contain 13.7% of their total supply.”

Analysts also say that the concentration of capital in DOGE is high, considering that at least 2.7 million addresses own at least one currency.

Musk Tweeted on Sunday: “If the Main Dogecoin Holders Sell Most of their Coins, they Will Get my Full Support.”

They also point out that many DOGE owners are likely to hold their properties on centralized exchanges and brokers. This behavior would explain why there are so few addresses with a considerable percentage of their market capitalization and ensure that the Dogecoin offering appears in larger concentrations in large owners.

Musk tweeted on Sunday: “If the main Dogecoin holders sell most of their coins, they will get my full support.” This tweet is pointing that his constant pumping of the cryptocurrency price has benefited a small group above the rest.

One user pointed out that Whales will have to consider Musk’s request because “if they comply, DOGE becomes the currency of the Internet. If they don’t or cheat by distributing their coins in multiple wallets, they lose Elon’s backing. Easy decision for Whales. Do the right thing”, as he wrote on Twitter.

However, this is not the first time that DOGE’s centralization has raised concern. Weeks ago, Changpeng Zhao from Binance raised the issue when he highlighted that around 27% of current assets are housed in a single address, while the top 20 lessons with the most funds capitalize more than 50%. Of the tokens in circulation, which makes the project much more centralized than the community believes.

At that time, Zhao also pointed out that Dogecoin does not have a central development team, so the project would practically disappear without the possibility of innovating or incorporating improvements in its operation.

The problem with Dogecoin Goes beyond Capital Centralization

Coin Metrics researcher Lucas Nuzzi explains that another threat looms over the DOGE network. Nuzzi said on Twitter that the hash rate, which is an indicator of network security, is well below all-time highs.

His concern revolves around the fact that the price of DOGE has risen 1,200% since its founding in 2014, while its hash rate has grown only 15% so far. This factor potentially makes the network a target of attack because it cedes all processing power to Litecoin.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The Central Bank of Venezuela showed an inflation of 2,959.8% in 2020. The argentine analyst called to acquire bitcoin after the possible issuance of 1.90 billion pesos.

The organizations that manage the economy in Latin American countries have recently reported some thoughts and data about inflation levels in the region. In Venezuela and Argentina, both countries are the ones that stand out with the most aggressive inflation in 2020. Both countries are adopting Bitcoin massively as an option to safeguard their finances.

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reported that Venezuela is going through hyperinflation that reached 2,959.8% in 2020. Statistics in the Caribbean nation remain unclear. The authorities do not publish such data. However, The opposite National Assembly created an economic analysis office that calculates inflation at 3,713%.

The BCV released a lot of exciting information. The report also shows that the price variation was 46.6% in January, a falling price compared to last December, which closed with 77.5%.

Hyperinflation and the Greater Use of Foreign Currency as a Means of Payment

The fact that the Venezuelan consulting firm Ecoanalítica also highlighted is that, amid hyperinflation and the greater use of foreign currency as a means of payment, Venezuelans are suffering due to a robust and prevalent shortage of funds in the local currency.

According to the firm, some people and companies keep making high expenses in bolivars and, in some cases, preferring to continue trading using the local currency. Hence, these users used with more frequency the informal exchange markets with hopes of finding said funds, which sadly does not happen.

Those companies consider that the Executive branch’s bad decision-making regarding the regulation of the supply of bolivars and the unofficial dollarization that prevails in the country will keep Venezuelans suffering the consequences of the inconsistency of the authorities.

Regarding Argentina, the country that maintains the second place as the highest inflation after Venezuela, there is a report from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) of Argentina that highlights the inflation in that country, which reached a peak of 38.5% during the last 12 months, while in January it was 4%.

For his part, the Minister of Economic, Martín Guzmán, in a recent statement to a local media outlet, clarified that inflation in the last quarter of 2020 and the first part of 2021 reflects factors that weren’t previously affecting the economy.

Guzman also explained how they are currently working to neutralize inflation and send it to a downward trend. Guzmán assured that the government plans to achieve an inflation rate of around 29% to recover Argentines’ purchasing power.

Capital markets specialist Ramiro Marra urged Argentines to prepare “for a historic devaluation of the peso.”

Marra claimed this event right after the Central Bank of Argentina’s (BCRA)authorization to issue up to ARS 1.90 trillion (about USD 12,000 million at market value) in 2021.

Latin-American Sees Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies as a Refuge From Inflation

In Venezuela’s case, bitcoin (BTC) has been the currency in which many of the population had to protect itself from hyperinflation and the local currency’s devaluation.

The cryptocurrency has burst with strength onto the economic scene. It became an apparent reference to set the exchange rate, with the so-called “bitcoin dollar,” In fact, blockchain research and tracking firm Chainalysis ranked Venezuela among the countries with the highest adoption rate globally. The South American country ranked third in a September 2020 investigation, with countries like Ukraine and Russia.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The cyber café transformed its business archetype by exploring cryptocurrency mining to increase its profits in pandemic times.

In Vietnam, an internet café turned its business model into cryptocurrency mining to generate profits in the middle of the quarantine. The business model of cybercafes tends to be obsolete these days. In some countries, mostly Asian and African (and even Latin American) lands, this business structure remains active.

The source that keeps these businesses alive is the crescendo in the video game industry, which often requires better computers that can be expensive for the average gamer. These spaces also serve as spots for the gamer community.

Social distancing and quarantine due to Coronavirus and the arrival of the pandemic situation worldwide affected any types of businesses. In Asia, internet cafes or gaming rooms went to be in a shut-down condition. The owners of these businesses have protested against the restrictions that prevent them from opening their trades.

Mining Cryptocurrencies: The Secret Ways that Cybercafe Owners did not Know until Now

There is always an alternative. An internet café in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is shifting paradigms by transforming its old business into a more successful one.

The Ciber cafe posted on its Facebook the following statement: “By transforming the business due to the pandemic, the profits went higher than the [Internet room] businesses. Internet room owners who want to do it, please contact me to do it for free.” shared the Computer Star owners, also showing some photos of the equipment and its installment.

The cybercafé did not have to invest in any extra-equipment or kits to start its journey as a crypto-miner already had the ideal equipment required for mining digital currencies. According to various sources, Computer Star also runs a business for the sale of computer equipment. There is a comprehensive line of monitors and computers, each with a set of graphic cards ready to work all day long.

While pent-up demand for Nvidia’s latest range of RTX 3000 series cards created a massive GPU shortage in late 2020 that has lasted into this year, Bitcoin and Ethereum hit the highest all-time price records.

And although the room has probably registered substantial growth in electrical costs, the owners are not worried about it; they claim that profits are well enough to deal with all the expenses. Such gains are even higher than the ones with the previous business. It is not surprising that with the current explosion in market prices, many companies are taking advantage to start digital mining assets.

However, the use of this equipment for cryptocurrency mining could end up wearing down the cafe’s graphics cards, so some of the proceeds might go to consolidate an investment in the purchase of new equipment once the players return after confinement.

By: Jenson Nuñez