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MicroStrategy buys more bitcoin for over $414 million in cash

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Software company MicroStrategy announced Monday that it had bought an additional 7,002 bitcoins for around $414.4 million in cash. The company bought these bitcoins at an average purchase price of $59,187 per coin. It purchased these bitcoins as part of its fourth-quarter purchase, i.e., during the period between October 1 and November 29. MicroStrategy now holds a total of 121,044 bitcoins, worth nearly $7 billion at current prices. The company is currently sitting on a huge paper profit of over …

SK Telecom spinoff buys 35% stake in local crypto exchange Korbit

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SK Square, a non-telecoms investment subsidiary of South Korea’s largest wireless carrier Sk Telecom, has invested 90 billion won (about $75 million) in crypto exchange platform Korbit. According to a statement from the company quoted by Korea JoongAng Daily, SK Square is looking to grow its net asset value by holding Korbit shares. Korbit is one of the “big four” South Korean crypto exchanges alongside Bithumb, Upbit, and Coinone. Following the investment, SK Square now owns a 35% stake in …

Thought Machine closes a $200m Series C, led by Nyca Partners

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Thought Machine has raised $200 million to help banks move into the cloud age, according to a statement. Thought Machine plans to use the extra cash to expand globally, especially in Asia, with its eyes on Malaysia and Japan. Founded in 2014 by former Google employee Paul Taylor, Thought Machine operates as an infrastructure-as-a-service for banking, helping legacy players take the leap into cloud-native core banking. It’s a mission that has convinced certain banking giants, with institutional investors including ING …

Bank of France official: Existing regulatory frameworks ‘constrained’ by DeFi characteristics

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A senior official for France’s central bank said earlier this month that regulators in Europe need to more directly supervise decentralized finance (DeFi). In a speech from November 19 that was published Sunday by the Bank of International Settlements, Denis Beau, first deputy governor of the Banque du France, primarily focused on the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and his institution’s pilot program in this area. France’s central bank is also a participant in the long-term project to …

Decentralized exchanges near $100 billion in monthly volume for November

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Monthly data for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) indicates that the ecosystem has seen nearly $100 billion in volume for the month of November. According to The Block’s Data Dashboard, the total for November is approximately $99.5 billion as of November 28. Monthly volumes have climbed since hitting a low for the year of $56.35 billion in July, with the November figure surpassing October’s $89.15 billion. As expected, Uniswap v3 and v2 exchange protocols have constituted the bulk of the monthly volume …

Hacked cloud accounts are being used to mine crypto, says Google

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A report released this week by Google indicates that a majority of recently attacked accounts on its Google Cloud Platform service were used to mine cryptocurrency. The Threat Horizons report for November stated that “[m]alicious actors were observed performing cryptocurrency mining within compromised Cloud instances.” “Of 50 recently compromised GCP instances, 86% of the compromised Google Cloud instances were used to perform cryptocurrency mining, a cloud resource-intensive for-profit activity, which typically consumed CPU/GPU resources, or in cases of Chia mining, …

Germany’s new ruling coalition calls for ‘joint European supervision’ of crypto in ruling agreement

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A trio of political parties in Germany struck an agreement this week that will see them assemble a national governing coalition. Part of that agreement, according to the German-language text, includes a call for European countries to work together to monitor activities in the crypto sector. The call is a minor but notable aspect of the 177-page document, made public this week after the agreement was made public. The coalition includes the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats. …

Deciphering the Metaverse #2: Virtual World Frenzy, the Evolution of Blockchain Gaming, and In-Game Economies

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November 26, 2021, 7:05PM EST • 16 min read Quick Take This weekly series explores the most interesting insights in NFTs, blockchain gaming, and virtual worlds The metaverse frenzy, which Facebook helped unleash, started to spill over to virtual world projects Investigating the current trends in blockchain gaming unearthed different types of games, which range from rudimentary experiments to premium AAA productions Join The Block Research for exclusive research like this Gain access to this research piece and 100s of …

Celsius says ’employee’ suspended amid rumors of CFO arrest in Israel

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Crypto lending firm Celsius Network said Friday that it has suspended an “employee” amid rumors of its CFO Yaron Shalem’s arrest in Israel. “We were recently made aware of a police investigation in Israel involving an employee,” Celsius tweeted. “While this is in no way related to the employee’s time or work at @CelsiusNetwork, the employee was immediately suspended. We have also verified that no assets were misplaced or mishandled.” The tweet came after The Block reached out to Celsius CEO …

Department of Veterans Affairs seeks contractor info on blockchain use for data sharing, supply chain optimizing

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The US Department of Veterans Affairs has laid out some specific areas that blockchain tech could be applied to its services.  According to a presolicitation notice published on November 26, the VA identified several areas in which the technology could be applied to its services. A presolicitation typically means that a government agency is probing contractor interest and viability in a particular project. “Specific task will focus on: (1) secure data sharing across institutions; (2) supply chain optimization; (3) quality …