Date: 12/13/2021
“Fun fact: the first 90% of Bitcoin supply took 12.9 years. The next 9% will take roughly the same amount of time and the .9% after that will take roughly the same amount of time.” — Jimmy Song
Weekly News Report:
1. It is estimated that the first cryptocurrency ATM in Uruaguay will open on January 1, 2022 at “Smart Point”, located in Punta del Este. Two national companies, inBierte and Urubit, worked together to install the ATM, which they called UTM. The digital currencies that will be available are those that were created by the same companies, Ferret Token and Urubit.
2. Ninety percent of all bitcoins have been mined as of Monday morning, according to data from blockchain tracker Blockchain.com. The feat means 18.89 million bitcoins — of a maximum of 21 million — are now on the open market. Reaching the milestone took nearly 12 years since the first bitcoins were mined on Jan. 9, 2009. However, the remaining supply is not expected to be mined until February 2140, based on network activity estimates and Bitcoin’s halving schedules.
3. Mubadala Investment Company, one of United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth funds, is investing in the ecosystem around crypto, be it blockchain, energy usage. Mubadala has AED 894 billion (US$243 billion) in assets under management and is one of the largest wealth funds in UAE and the world.
4. Wells Fargo and HSBC Bank said on Monday they will use a blockchain-based product for settling matched foreign exchange transactions. The two banking giants agreed to use a shared settlement ledger to process U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, British pound and euro transactions, with plans to expand the process to other currencies in the future.
5. BBVA Switzerland was the first traditional financial banking institution in Europe to implement Ethereum in its crypto offering. It has announced that it is going to widen its cryptocurrency trading service offering by adding Ethereum to its portfolio. The big addition will allow the institution to provide its private banking clients with a new offer that will give them exposure to the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market. Customers with a “New Gen” account will be able to manage their portfolio by adding and selling Bitcoin and Ethereum.
6. Brazil’s only stock exchange, B3, is evaluating opportunities in asset tokenization and digital asset custody, and it also plans to launch a crypto ETF in 2022. The San Pablo-based stock exchange is also considering services to facilitate over-the-counter (OTC) trading and access to liquidity centers.
7. Last Friday, NFT collectibles and fashion startup RTFKT announced on Twitter that the company had been acquired by Nike. Multinational footwear behemoth Nike just took a big step into the metaverse. This acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation.
8. The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget wants to defend the metaverse from Big Tech giants aiming to make a foray into the nascent market. Borget said that he is not very keen on Big Tech companies such as Meta joining the metaverse. Major technology companies could threaten the decentralization of the metaverse as their business model goes against it.
9. Savings banks in German-speaking countries, also known as Sparkassen, are working on a pilot to launch an in-house cryptocurrency wallet and exchange next year. German savings banks are reportedly planning to allow customers to invest in major digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ether directly from checking accounts. An expert group from German IT service provider S-Payment is reportedly designing the concept for the project.
10. Bitcoin could see its last day of downside as buyers line up to cash in on Wednesday’s United States Federal Reserve meeting. On Dec. 14, bids began increasing on major exchange Bitfinex in a conspicuous sign that the market believes BTC/USD is destined to gain. Bitfinex traders are betting on some upside following Wednesday’s Federal Reserve comments on inflation and asset purchases.
11. The National Women’s Soccer League is the latest sports property to step into crypto, signing a multi-year deal that is described as one of the most significant partnerships the league has ever done with crypto platform Voyager Digital. Sports fans are about twice as likely as non-sports fans to say they are familiar with cryptocurrencies.
12. Caduceus Metaverse Protocol, an open blockchain platform for Metaverse and Digital Twins providing secure highspeed meta power for developers and users, launches Version 1.0.1 for public testing.
13. PEOPLE, which ConstitutionDAO contributors received for donating Ethereum to the bidding effort, hit an all-time high price of $0.17 on Dec. 11, beating its previous record of $0.16 set on November 27.
14. Ethereum’s native token Ether has dropped by over 18% after establishing an all-time high around $4,867 on Nov. 10. Nonetheless, the plunge has not deterred retail investors from buying the token in small quantities. According to data gathered by Glassnode, the number of Ether addresses holding less than or equal to 0.01 ETH reached a record high level of 19.95 million on Dec. 4, the day ETH dropped to as low as $3,575.
15. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is one of several investors in a recently announced $200M debt and equity financing round for green bitcoin miner TeraWulf (NASDAQ: IKNX). The additional capital raised is expected to allow TeraWulf to achieve six exahash per second of mining capacity by the second half of next year, TeraWulf said earlier this month.
