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Articles by Jose Oramas

What is Azuki? All You Need to Know About the NFT Collection

April 25, 2022

The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) ecosystem is moving fast. Hundreds of projects are created every day — some of them enjoy rapid success in the market due to their quality, uniqueness, communities, originality, art, and vision, while others flop quickly.
Talking about rapid success, Azukis — hand-drawn digital samurais and smoking skateboarders — have quickly turned into the next NFT blue chip.
In this guide, we take a closer look into the collection and everything there is to know about it.
What are Azuki NFTs? 
Azuki is a digital brand mostly associated with its collection of 10,000 avatars released by a Los Angeles-based group of artists on January 12, 2022.
These avatars have unique characteristics based on anime-themed drawing, which has caught the attention of NFT

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US Lawmakers Pass E-Cash Bill That Replicates Physical Money, Leaving Aside the FED

March 29, 2022

A group of US lawmakers introduced this Monday the “E-CASH” Act, a bill directed to the US Treasury Department to encourage the entity to develop a digital version of the dollar.
E-Cash Is not CBDC, but a Complement to it
Democratic Representative Stephen Lynch is the principal sponsor of the ECASH Act, a legislative proposal passed to the House of Representatives.
As per the bill, the US Treasury Department was selected as the “most appropriate” government entity to develop the pilot program for the e-cash instead of the Federal Reserve — the US Central Bank — so it technically wouldn’t be a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

E-Cash is intended to complement and be developed in parallel to other forms of digital public finance, including CBDCs, FedAccounts, Postal

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Ethereum VS Solana: Which Blockchain is Better for Minting NFTs?

March 27, 2022

If you’re struggling to decide between choosing Solana or Ethereum to mint your Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), you have come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll explore each blockchains’ strengths, capacities, weak points, and overall differences so you can make a better decision that suits your goals in the NFT market.
Ethereum: Ecosystem, Marketplace, and Security
There’s no doubt that Ethereum is the largest ecosystem of the DeFi (decentralized finance) sector, with thousands of projects of all kinds building on it — so it’s no surprise that the vast majority of NFTs are running on it, as ERC-721 tokens.
To be accurate, roughly 95% of all the NFT ecosystem uses Ethereum, so it’s no coincidence that when investors look for an NFT marketplace, the first one they usually

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Nearly 50% of Germans Are Ready to Invest in Crypto: Report

March 27, 2022

Almost half of the German population is motivated to invest in cryptocurrency, as revealed by digital asset exchange KuCoin’s ‘Into the Cryptoverse 2022’ report.
Crypto Adoption in Germany Grows
According to the report, 44% of Germans are somewhat motivated to “invest in cryptocurrencies to be a part of the future of finance.” 35% of them would do it for the opportunities of earning passive income and 30% consider crypto to be a reliable store of value. Some also hope to achieve financial independence.
On another note, some 16% of the country’s population that’s aged between 18 and 60 years have already invested in crypto or have been trading in the past six months.
From those who’ve expressed interest in cryptocurrencies, 77% are researching in hopes of finding potential

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South Korea, Britain, Bulgaria to Join Forces to Combat Crypto Tax Dodgers (Report)

March 27, 2022

South Korea’s National Tax Agency’s chairman Kim Dae-Ji held a meeting this week with tax executives from Bulgaria and Britain to discuss the “rise of tax-dodging schemes”  through the use of digital assets.
 As per a report from a local news outlet, the National Tax Agency plans to further cooperate with Bulgaria and Britain to track down individuals who use “new financial products” such as cryptocurrencies to dodge taxes, primarily through offshore schemes.
Dae-Ji held the meeting last week with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ Commission Chief Executive, Jim Harra, and two days later with Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency Director, General Rumen Spetsov.
The discussions centered on the idea of sharing accurate and precise income information from individuals suspected

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Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Model: What You Need to Know

March 23, 2022

The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model has become a popular one within the cryptocurrency industry and is commonly used to speculate on Bitcoin’s possible future price. In this guide, we’ll explain in detail what S2F is, who created it, how it applies to different types of assets, and its pros and cons.
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What is the Stock-to-Flow Model (S2F)?
The S2F is a model that predicts an asset’s possible future price by quantifying its scarcity.
This was originally applied to precious metals such as gold and silver, but its principles were applied to Bitcoin’s intricacies by the popular trader who goes by the Twitter handle PlanB, who has since been credited as the creator of Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow model.
PlanB is supposedly a former Dutch Institutional trader with over 20

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How to Mint Your First NFT on Solana’s Solsea? A Step-by-Step Guide

March 12, 2022

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) became particularly popular in 2021, and the trend continues, albeit a bit slower, in 2022. Users flock to create, sell, and collect various NFTs for many reasons. Some of them like the art, others are trying to speculate on their value, third are used as a part of a blockchain-based game, and so forth.
Whatever the reason might be – it appears that NFTs are here to stay. Naturally, Ethereum emerged as the dominant network for their creation, and the ERC-721 token standard continues to lead the market. However, this also led to network congestion, tremendous fees, and slow transaction processing times, and other blockchains appeared a reasonable alternative as users are looking for cheaper and quicker solutions.
One of these is Solana. In fact,

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What is Polygon (MATIC)? Guide For Dummies

March 6, 2022

Polygon, formerly known as MATIC network, is a layer-2 scaling solution created in 2019 to address several limitations in the Ethereum blockchain, such as transaction speed, throughput, and gas fees.
It was originally designed as a scaling solution, but it rapidly evolved into a multi-purpose ecosystem that’s been receiving a lot of attention. MATIC, its native token, debuted on the Binance Launchpad in 2019 amid the Initial Exchange Offerings (IEO) boom.
But first thing’s first, let’s see what  layer-2 solutions are if we want to have a better knowledge of Polygon.
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What Are Layer-2 Solutions and Why Do We Need Them?
A layer-2 solution is a blockchain that runs parallel to a mainnet — in Polygon’s case, Ethereum — but processes transactions outside of

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What Are Rug Pulls? How to Avoid Getting Scammed?

February 16, 2022

Nearly $10 billion were stolen in DeFi scams and thefts only in 2021, representing an 81% rise compared to 2020, and rugpulls accounted for over 35% of all crypto scam revenue.
This is according to a recent report by Elliptic. And while there are many types of scams that take place regularly within the cryptocurrency community, rugpulls are arguably the most infamous.

So, What is a Rugpull in Crypto?
A rugpull — from the phrase to pull the rug from underneath someone — refers to a type of scam where the development team behind a decentralized finance (DeFi) project runs away with investors’ funds by selling or draining its liquidity.
In DeFi, liquidity refers to the number of crypto assets poured into a liquidity pool and locked into a smart contract, and that’s a

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What is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)? Everything You Need to Know

February 8, 2022

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are a form of governance systems powered by their community. They can be independent of third parties, and government corporations and they also differ a lot in their business and organizational model from traditional organizations.
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What is a DAO?
In light of the above, we can pinpoint the following characteristics of a DAO:
Non-hierarchical system: As the name suggests, DAOs are decentralized systems owned and governed by token holders rather than presidents, managers, or executives like in hierarchical systems.
Self-sustained: DAO members inject liquidity into the system by staking their tokens in liquidity pools. They can also promote a crowdfunding campaign to attract investors and venture capitalist

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Proof-of-Reserves Audit Shows Kraken Holds $19B in BTC and ETH

February 5, 2022

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced on Thursday the results of a proof-of-reserve audit, showing that it holds over $19 billion worth of Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC).
Almost $20 billion Stored on Kraken
As per a blog post, the audit was conducted by Armanino LLP, a consulting and technology firm in the US. The results didn’t include other assets – just BTC and ETH, including the $3.5 billion worth of ETH held in Kraken’s staking service, which is an ETH 2.0 validator.
This is the second independent audit conducted on the exchange since 2014. According to Armanino, the audit took several years of work to reconstruct a Merkle tree – a mathematical data structure that encapsulates hashes of different blocks of data – and prove every coin was on spot.
The audit

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How to Play Axie Inifnity? A Step-by-Step Guide

January 4, 2022

Earning money through playing video games is a dream of every gamer, but in the traditional industry, it’s something that only professionals achieve.
However, things move fast in the field of cryptocurrencies, and the above is now becoming possible thanks to the P2E (Play to Earn) business model.
The combination of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) implemented in video games is giving crypto enthusiasts and gamers alike the opportunity to earn money by beating other players or just playing versus the environment.
One of the leading and most popular games in the field is Axie Infinity. In this guide, we’ll learn step by step what Axie Infinity is, its history, and how to play it.
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Axie Infinity’s Tokens: AXS and SLP Explained
How to Play

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How to Mint Your First NFT on OpenSea? A Step-by-Step Guide

December 29, 2021

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are becoming an essential part of the digital landscape. They are unique and non-interchangeable crypto assets issued on the blockchain, and the most popular ones are on Ethereum and Solana. As of 2022, their market has grown from $350 million to roughly $15 billion in just one year.
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Unlike standard tokens, NFTs are non-interchangeable. They serve as digital representations of items, such as artworks, images, videos, or anything that can be tokenized.
We’ve seen brands of all kinds, from fashion to sports, and even real estate companies jumping on the NFT bandwagon. Just recently, Nike acquired NFT collectibles RTFK as part of its digital transformation. Just like Nike, RTFK produces shoes, but digitally.
What is NFT Minting?

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Stronghold Digital Mining Buys 9,090 Bitcoin Mining Rigs

December 22, 2021

Stronghold Digital Mining purchased over 9000 BTC mining rigs, which will allow it to add roughly 826 petahashes per second (PH/s) to its power generation facilities.
The Pennsylvania-based company bought 9080 Bitmain and MicroBT mining rigs, as per an SEC filing on Monday.
The announcement is part of Stronghold’s Q3 earnings release on Nov. 30, 2021, which denotes that the company has signed four separate deals for the mining rigs.
The first 4,800 mining rigs are expected to be delivered by anywhere between the end of this December or by early January. The other 4,280 were acquired with its partner, Northern Data, through a profit-sharing plan and will be delivered during the first quarter of 2021.
All mining rigs will be installed on its wholly-owned power generation

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Virtue Gaming Introduces a P2E Online Poker Model To US Players

December 10, 2021

Poker fans in the US are now able to access the global poker market after a 15-year streak from the Department of Justice (DOJ). This happens as Virtue Gaming introduces the first P2E (Play-to-earn) offering in the country.
Reviving the Poker Field in the US With Blockchain
The Play-To-Earn business model relies on blockchain technology. Some of the most successful titles have amounted to record-breaking valuations of over $2 billion, like the famous Pokemon-inspired, blockchain-based Axie Infinity.
Now Virtue Gaming plans to revive the poker market in the US by connecting players to the rest of the world through a legal player pool using the P2E model. Players will be able to make real money in licensed jurisdictions, putting an end to the infamous Black Friday streak,

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EOS Community Blocks Ongoing Payments of $250 Million in EOS to BlockOne

December 10, 2021

On November 8, the EOS community elected to stop ongoing payments to BlockOne – the company behind the project. The decision comes after continuous debates within the community over the reliability of BlockOne, saying the company has plagued the network with centralization.
ENF vs. BlockOne
The conflict between the EOS Network Foundation (ENF) and BlockOne has been heating up in the last few weeks. The ENF said that BlockOne has been drifting away from the network’s interests and failing to deliver on promises. The decline in network activity caused serious harm to the EOS token, which has been one of the worst-performing assets in 2021, moving from the 7th spot in the crypto market to the 44th position.
The community decided to block the transaction of 67 million EOS –

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Binance Details Issues With Dogecoin Wallets in Response to Elon Musk

November 23, 2021

Binance has been experiencing problems with Dogecoin withdrawals for over ten days now. The root cause is a technical issue that resent old transactions to Binance users, besides DOGE holders being unable to withdraw the currency.
CryptoPotato reported that the 1.14.5 upgrade on the Dogecoin network led to issues on the Binance exchange. Some failed (stuck) transactions were relayed successfully post the 1.14.5 update, causing DOGE holders to receive old transactions while holders were unable to withdraw funds. The problem only occurred on Binance as they have a different wallet set-up for DOGE.
The issue has persisted, and now Binance is forced to rebuild the wallet, the exchange noted:
“Since the incident occurred, DOGE Network has been providing us with support, but we

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Game7 Seeks To Integrate Gaming and Blockchain With a $500M Platform

November 20, 2021

Several gaming and technology leaders have gathered to form Game7 – an upcoming blockchain ecosystem acceleration decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with a $500 million budget. The DAO seeks to intersect the $180 billion gaming industry with blockchain technology.
Accelerating Blockchain Adoption in the Gaming Industry
The initiative was announced in a press release seen by CryptoPotato. Game7 was proposed as a $500M blockchain gaming DAO that will seek to accelerate blockchain adoption in the gaming industry. Forte Labs and Magnus were among the most well-known projects behind the idea.
Additionally, Game7 is backed by several high-profile entities, including Solana Ventures, BitDAO, Alameda Research, Polygon Studios, Avalanche, Interchain Foundation, Offchain

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Acala Wins Polkadot’s First Parachain Auction With $1.3 Billion Secured

November 18, 2021

Acala, an Ethereum-compatible DeFi protocol for scaling DApps, has secured the first slot on the much anticipated Polkadot’s parachain auctions. 
Acala, a decentralized Layer-1 smart contract platform, recently won the first slot on the parachain auction on Polkadot with a total of 32,515,989 DOT ($1,250,895,296) locked from over 81,000 community members. The funds will be used for a myriad of cases.
The first features include launching a stablecoin on the Polkadot network and building a decentralized exchange (DEX).

Congratulations to @AcalaNetwork for winning Polkadot’s first parachain auction!
Acala will be onboarded at block #8179200 [Dec. 18] at the beginning of lease 6 with the other first 5 auction winners. Over 81K network stakeholders locked up DOT in

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Injective Protocol Mainnet Goes Live, Launches $120M DeFi Incentive Program

November 17, 2021

DeFi trading platform Injective Protocol is launching its mainnet after rolling out a $120 million incentive program for traders, market makers, and DeFi projects, the protocol announced this Tuesday.
First DeFi Cross-Chain Derivatives Markets
As per the press release, Injective Protocol is set to launch the world’s first DeFi derivatives markets using the IBC Oracle, the popular Cosmos-based third-party service that will provide access to external, off-chain data.
For now, traders will only be able to trade INJ (the protocol’s utility token), Bitcoin (BTC), Chainlink (LINK), Axie Infinity (AXS), and Wrapped Ethereum (wETH). The reason is that the INJ community has approved these coins for now. Further proposals for new markets will be rolling out soon, like new altcoins,

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Entrepreneur First Partners With Tezos To Boost Web3 Startups

November 15, 2021

Entrepreneur First, an international firm focused on investing in technology companies, is partnering with Tezos to launch a blockchain-focused platform to attract potential founders to Tezos’ web3 ecosystem.
Seeking Talented Web3 Developers
The new platform, dubbed Entrepreneur First Web3, is designed to attract potential blockchain innovators and DeFi app creators into the Tezos ecosystem. They will be able to share ideas with the community, collaborate with other DeFi app creators, apply for grants and investments to fund future projects, and more.
The platform will select the most talented and ambitious Web3 developers and integrate them into the Tezos Web3 ecosystem, providing them with technical training and guidance by experts from the community, besides financial

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Moonriver Surpasses 8 Million Transactions as Polkadot Parachain Auction Progresses

November 13, 2021

Moonriver, a canary-test network for the Moonbeam protocol, reached a milestone this week by hitting eight million transactions on its network, becoming the leading parachain in Kusama.
The platform announced on Twitter that it had reached the multi-million transaction count on Nov. 10, making it the largest adopted parachain on the Kusama Network.
Moonriver is one of the many successful parachains on Kusama, and it has secured a parachain slot for 2022 with over 60+ live integrations, 173,000+ wallets, and 2,000+ ERC-20 tokens supported.
Kusama is the sister network of Polkadot, which soared 15% to a new ATH following the anticipation for parachain auctions, allowing developers to register their parachains and seek crowd loan funding.
Moonriver is a canary-test network of

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Chainalysis: DEXs Have Grown 550% in 2021 as Competition Among CEXs Heats

November 13, 2021

The DeFi sector has seen a massive amount of money flowing onto its ecosystem this 2021 alone. So much that trading activity on large decentralized exchanges (DEXs) has increased by over 500% – outpacing trading volumes on popular centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs), according to a new report from analytics firm Chaynalysis.
2021 Is The Year Of Decentralized Finance
The report highlighted the fierce competition amongst centralized exchanges this year, with traders seeking the best platforms to trade amid the crypto boom since January. The transaction volume on crypto exchanges has increased significantly throughout the year, and while it isn’t constant, it shows a general upward trend. 
However, centralized exchanges have been outpaced by DEXs, with large protocols like

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Bitcoin Demand Trends Downwards as Institutions Move Into DeFi and Altcoins, Says Genesis

November 7, 2021

Digital assets firm Genesis recently published its Q3 Market Observations Report, and it highlights some of the major trends across the market. This time, it shows the demand for bitcoin had faded during Q3 as institutions were exploring DeFi platforms and altcoins.
BTC Demand Trends Downward Due to Institutionalization
As per the report, BTC demand trended downward during Q3 due to the lack of opportunities for traders to profit from spreads between the BTC price in spot and futures markets. 
The firm noted a “significant structural change” in the crypto market, starting with the deleveraging of retail exchanges. During Q2, we saw several exchanges limiting their leverage offers, like Binance reducing the levels to a max of 20x for accounts opened within 30 days.
“In Q1

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Cream Finance Hacked for $130 Million In Another Flash Loan Attack

October 27, 2021

Decentralized lending protocol Cream Finance has suffered a flash loan attack, losing over $130 million worth of various crypto assets. This was the third successful hack against the popular DeFi project in the past year.
Cream Finance has confirmed it suffered an exploit this Wednesday through a flash loan attack, compromising mostly Cream LP tokens and other ERC-20 coins.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield was the first to identify the attack. Data from blockchain explorer Etherscan shows $132 million was stolen from the C.R.E.A.M v1 marketplace on Ethereum, later sent to two different wallets.
The flash loan involved 68 different assets and cost around 9 ETH in gas. At press time, the attacker now holds $92 million worth of various tokens on its contract, and $22

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Shiba Inu Breaks ATH, Eyes Top 10 Largest Coins After 850% Monthly ROI

October 27, 2021

What started as a joke cryptocurrency is now becoming a serious investment for retail traders. Shiba Inu (SHIB) has made tremendous gains in the past month – outperforming other cryptocurrencies and hitting consecutive all-time high records with the latest at over $0.000068 earlier on October 27th.
Another ATH for SHIB
The crypto meme, which promised to be a Dogecoin-killer upon its launch last year, has surged nearly 900% in the past month, 100% in the last seven days, and 40% on a 24-hour scale. Depending on which giant data aggregator (CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko) one looks, it’s either the 11th largest cryptocurrency by market cap or the 9th.
Most cryptocurrencies are in the red, while SHIB remains on the green side of the story. The largest digital asset by market cap,

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Tether To Test Notabene’s Travel Rule System to Comply With AML Laws

October 26, 2021

Tether Holdings Limited, the issuer of the largest stablecoin by market cap, USDT, recently announced integrating Notabene to manage regulatory and counterparty risk in crypto transactions.
Tether to Crack Down on Illegal Transfers
As per an announcement on Tuesday, Tether will be testing the Notabene platform to comply with the Crypto Travel Rule —a mandate established on June 20, 2021, by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Notabene’s end-to-end solution will allow Tether to crack down on illegal transfer by transmitting user data for large cryptocurrency transfers to VASPs.

In order to assist cryptocurrency exchanges, digital wallet providers, and financial institutions with the new FATF Travel Rule requirement, #Tether will begin testing the Notabene

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Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen Says She Bought Crypto at the Right Time

October 25, 2021

The Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, has revealed her financial future is “fine” as she bought an undisclosed amount of crypto at “the right time.”
Financial Backup Thanks to Crypto
During an interview with the New York Times, Haugen said she’s currently maintaining her shelter in Puerto Rico thanks to cryptocurrency investment. She manages her own financial resources despite receiving money from nonprofit organizations (NPO). 
Last week, Politico reported that Haugen received financial help from various NPOs, which she used solely for “traveling and related expenses.” One of them is backed by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire entrepreneur and co-founder of eBay, who reportedly gave $150,000 to Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit handling Haugen’s legal representation.
For

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VanEck Receives SEC Approval: Will Launch Its Bitcoin Futures ETF Next Week

October 20, 2021

Global investment manager VanEck is set to launch a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) next week, shortly after ProShares got the SEC’s green light to launch the first BTC ETF.
As per a Wednesday post-effective filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), VanEck revealed it had secured approval from the SEC, and it’s now fully authorized to launch its BTC fund next week, after October 23, Saturday.
VanEck first applied for the BTC futures ETF in August. The fund will offer exposure to bitcoin through futures contracts and would begin “as soon as practicable,” which could be as early as Monday morning.

“The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (‘ ETF’) that seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing, under normal circumstances,

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Elliptic Raises $60M From SoftBank and Wells Fargo to Accelerate Crypto Adoption

October 12, 2021

Elliptic – a London-based blockchain analytics firm – has secured $60 million in Series C funding led by Japanese investment manager SoftBank Group and American multinational Wells Fargo. The funds will be used to accelerate cryptocurrency adoption by global financial markets. 
Accelerating Cryptocurrency Adoption by Large Institutions
Elliptic announced the disclosure of a $60 million fundraising in a press release on October 11th. The company plans to use the funds to expand its operations overseas and promote investment for its global network.
“At Elliptic, we help financial institutions, from crypto exchanges to the world’s leading banks, embrace cryptoassets more safely. This fundraising round is an endorsement of the opportunity for cryptoassets in the financial

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