On Monday, the EU Parliament will be voting on the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill, which features provisions aimed to limit the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining in the Union. For context, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a number of other digital assets fall under the PoW classification.
Okcoin, a leading Chinese cryptocurrency exchange, has announced the launch of the Bitcoin Odyssey – a year-long pledge to invest $165 million in projects building on the Bitcoin network. The massive accelerator program was established in collaboration with Stacks, an open-source network of decentralized apps (dApps) and smart contracts built on Bitcoin, and 20 venture capital firms.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin along with the majority of other digital assets experienced notable upward price movement that led to the cryptocurrency market cap nearly reclaiming the $2 trillion valuation. Despite today’s market pullback, the macroeconomic factors that contributed to yesterday’s upswing will likely play an outsized role in the coming weeks and months.
A Vancouver-based Bitcoin mining company, Hive Blockchain, has announced it will be acquiring Intel’s recently unveiled cryptocurrency mining hardware and expanding beyond Canadian borders with a rented Texas-based mining facility.
On Thursday, the mayor of Lugano, Michele Folleti, hosted the “Plan B” event where the announcement for the “de facto” legalization of crypto within city limits was made.
CME Group, the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange, has announced it will be launching micro-sized Bitcoin and Ethereum options on March 28th, as long as they receive a green light from the regulators.
In light of strict and extensive economic sanctions enforced against Russian financial institutions, global payments giants Visa and Mastercard have now joined the list of companies refusing to provide their services to Russian banks.
The rollercoaster of big price swings continues. Today, the market underwent a massive rally that pushed the total crypto market cap up by 9.36% to $1.96 trillion at press time.
Chip manufacturing giant Intel has revealed details on its first mining chip, aptly called “Bonanza Mine.” The new hardware was put on display at the annual International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held in downtown San Francisco. For the time being, it seems that hardware solutions by Bitmain and MicroBT retain the edge over Intel’s products.