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Core Scientific Inc, one of the biggest publicly traded cryptocurrency mining companies in the United States has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the latest in a string of failures to hit the sector. The company has blamed falling Bitcoin prices, rising energy costs for bitcoin mining, and a $7 million outstanding debt from one of its major clients Celsius Network, for its bankruptcy. In other news, FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried was granted release from custody on Thursday in a U.S. federal court in New York under extremely stringent bail conditions, which included a $250 million bond secured by his parents and a requirement that he remain in home detention with them. Other than that, here are the top stories from the world of crypto this week.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has signed a bill to legalize the use of crypto as a payment method within the country. The bill, passed by the nation’s Senate and Chamber of Deputies, will take effect in 180 days.
Brazil’s residents will not be able to use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as legal tender as used in El Salvador. However, the recently passed law defines several digital currencies as acceptable payment methods in Brazil.
The bill also paves the way for a new federal agency to regulate digital asset firms and establishes a “virtual service provider” license. Digital assets considered to be securities will be governed by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, while others will be regulated by an entity yet to be established.
Following the victory at the World Cup 2022 in Qatar, the Argentina football association has joined the metaverse platform Upland.
The contract will witness AFA take the Liga Profesional de Fútbol (LPF) into Upland’s metaverse platform, powering fan engagement between Argentinian football fans, teams, and players.
The gaming experience is set to feature a range of digital treasures related to Argentine football, such as teams, clubs, players, tickets, game highlights, historical moments, and other special deals.
The partnership also represents a first for Upland as it offers exclusive ownership of highlight videos of moments from LPF matches. Upland will also let users start virtual businesses to resell LPF digital collectibles in user-owned and operated shops located on virtual properties.
Decentralized exchange Uniswap along with fintech company Moonpay will allow users to buy cryptocurrency on its web app using debit cards, credit cards, and bank transfers.
Users in the majority of U.S. states, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, are now able to use the bank transfer option.
Depending on the user's location, Uniswap will initially support Dai, Ethereum, USD Coin, Tether, Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and Wrapped Ether (wETH).
According to Uniswap, users will soon be able to quickly exchange cash for cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum mainnet, Polygon, Optimism, and Artibrum.
Payments giant Visa has teased a possible integration with the Ethereum network to enable an automatic payments system. Visa has proposed a system known as “account abstraction” that uses smart contracts and can be used to enable automated programmable payments on Ethereum.
The smart contract acts as an intermediary between a user account and a contract account, allowing for the creation of a self-custodial wallet that can make automatic recurring payments without requiring the user’s active participation. The company proposed deploying the system on the Ethereum layer 2 network StarkNet.
Visa claims to be collaborating with outside Ethereum developers to accomplish this. Beyond creating the self-custody wallets, an effort is also being done to improve the network's transaction capacity and speed.
Founder and CEO of the Waves blockchain platform, Sasha Ivanov, plans to unveil a new stablecoin. The announcement comes after Neutrino USD (USDN), the algorithmic stablecoin backed by the Waves blockchain ecosystem, de-pegged from the dollar several times earlier this year.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies with values pegged to an external reference such as the U.S. dollar. USDN is an algorithmic stablecoin backed by WAVES, the native token of the Waves blockchain.
The new stablecoin is promised to be 'undepeggable' and is set to be a "hybrid between an algorithmic stablecoin" and will be based on the decentralized autonomous organization model.
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Disclaimer: This article was authored by Giottus Crypto Exchange as a part of a paid partnership with The News Minute. Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions. Please do your own research before investing and seek independent legal/financial advice if you are unsure about the investments.