Square Sees Profits from Bitcoin Sales Double in Q2

news A startup offering a new twist on token airdrops has raised $2 million from a group of notable investors, CoinDesk has learned. The investment in governance startup Commonwealth was led by 1confirmation, Canaan Partners and former Polychain partner Ryan Zurrer. Commonwealth’s new distribution approach, called a “lockdrop,” looks to maintain the high levels of interest that…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice charged the founder of crypto social media platform BitClout with wire fraud and the sale of unregistered securities. According to court documents, Nader Al-Naji – known pseudonymously as “Diamondhands” – raised approximately $257 million from the sale of BitClout’s native token, BTCLT. Al-Naji led investors to

May 20, 2020 at 14:16 UTCPhoto by George Pagan III on UnsplashCathy Barrera, a CoinDesk columnist, is a founding economist at Prysm Group, an economic advisory group, and was chief economist at ZipRecruiter. She has a PhD in business economics from Harvard. On May 6, Facebook announced the members of its new oversight board. They include a…

Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. She previously worked as an intern for Business Insider and Bloomberg News. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.The U.K. government is set to ban cold calls to sell financial products including crypto, according to a Wednesday announcement.Fraud makes…

Jun 22, 2020 at 12:08 UTCBitcoin Sees Small Gain as Gold Rallies to One-Month HighBitcoin is reporting moderate gains on Monday as gold, a safe haven asset, rallies amid renewed coronavirus concerns.  At press time, the cryptocurrency is priced around $9,430 – up 1.5% on the day – having put in lows near $9,260 during…

Sep 15, 2020 at 19:57 UTCUpdated Sep 15, 2020 at 20:04 UTCDiscrete Log Contracts Are Bringing Private, ‘Scriptless’ Smart Contracts to Bitcoin“Republican_win”; “Democratic_win.” These are the parameters (and call functions) for the first smart contract escrowed bet placed on Bitcoin’s mainnet. On Sept. 8, BTCPay Server founder Nicolas Dorier and Suredbits founder Chris Stewart entered…

Alongside its third-quarter earnings report, software developer MicroStrategy (MSTR) disclosed the purchase of another 155 bitcoins (BTC) during October, bringing the total acquired since the beginning of Q3 to 6,607.As of the end of October, the Tysons, Virginia-headquartered firm co-founded by Michael Saylor was the owner of 158,400 bitcoins acquired at a total cost of

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel when building [ethereum] 2.0.” Speaking to the complementary efforts of developers working on two separate upgrades to the ethereum blockchain – one dubbed ethereum 2.0 and the other dubbed ethereum 1x – Raul Jordan insists upgrades to be included in ethereum 1x on a shorter time horizon would…

Jul 28, 2020 at 07:47 UTCUpdated Jul 28, 2020 at 08:00 UTCFasset, a fintech company headquartered in the U.K., has launched what it claims is the world’s first operating system built on the Ethereum blockchain dedicated to the ethical financing of sustainable infrastructure. Announced Tuesday, the system is aimed to democratize investments in sustainable infrastructure…