Russian Social Media Giant Vkontakte Launches NFT Service
Russia’s largest social network, Vkontakte, has launched a feature allowing users to upload digital collectibles to the platform. Account holders will also be able to buy and sell them in the future as the company intends to establish a marketplace for non-fungible tokens. Vkontakte Users to Showcase Their NFTs, Set Them as Avatars The leading social media network in the Russian-speaking segment, Vkontakte (VK), has introduced an NFT...
Kevin O’Leary Tells US Lawmakers FTX Failed Because Binance Intentionally Killed It
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has told U.S. Congress that he believes the collapsed crypto exchange FTX failed because rival Binance intentionally put it out of business. He said former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) told him that Binance, which owned a 20% equity stake in FTX, refused to comply with regulators’ requests whenever FTX applied for a license in different jurisdictions. Kevin O’Leary Shares Why He...
Recently Signed 2009 Bitcoin Block Reward Linked to Hal Finney’s Set of BTC Transactions
At the end of November, an unknown person signed a signature tied to an extremely old block reward mined on Jan. 19, 2009, and the user published a message and verified signature linked to the reward on the forum bitcointalk.org. The message was tied to a bitcoin address associated with block 1,018, a block reward that was minted 16 days after Satoshi Nakamoto launched the network. Upon further investigation, onchain data shows that...
Federal Reserve Hikes Rate by 50bps, FOMC Signals Rate to Rise to 5.1% Next Year
The U.S. central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) convened on Wednesday and raised the federal funds rate by 50 basis points (bps). The 0.5 percentage point rise follows the four consecutive three-quarters of a point increases codified during the last few months. The FOMC’s rate hike follows the recent U.S. inflation report which indicated that consumer prices fell to 7.1%, which was lower than expectations. Fed Raises...
Avatar 2: Pirates Plot Russia Screenings as Draft Law Stamps on Copyrights
For millions of different reasons, Christmas is special for roughly two billion people globally. Traditions in the U.S. include a family outing to the cinema in search of the latest blockbuster and this year Avatar: The Way of Water will undoubtedly attract the crowds. For increasingly depressing reasons, new U.S. movies like Avatar 2 can’t be enjoyed in Russian cinemas on Christmas day, or on any other for that matter. Or at least...
