Bitcoin Archives - The Block

Listen-to-earn lets you earn Bitcoin for listening to a podcast

Podcast platform Fountain has partnered with app monetisation company ZEBEDEE to bring Bitcoin micropayments to podcast listeners.

The partnership will give both podcast creators and listeners the ability to earn Bitcoin based on the amount of time spent with content.

ZEBEDEE says that listeners will support creators by paying for content by the minute as they listen to it. Listeners themselves will also earn money for their first hour of daily podcast listening and for...

26 January 2023 | Bitcoin

CashApp integrates Bitcoin Lightning Network support

CashApp has added support for transaction payments through the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Developed by Block Inc, CashApp is a mobile payment processing app similar to PayPal.

The new feature allows CashApp users to send and receive Bitcoin through its quicker, more efficient layer-2 protocol. Lightning is particularly well suited for small transactions, with near-instant processing times, compared to the minutes or sometimes hours required by the Bitcoin...

28 October 2022 | Bitcoin

Canada’s Conservative Party elects pro-crypto Pierre Poilievre

Pierre Poilievre, a staunch crypto advocate and Ontario Member of Parliament, has won the Conservative Party of Canada’s (CPC) leadership race by a major margin.

The Alberta-born lawmaker, who said he “wants to make Canada the blockchain capital of the world”, garnered 68% of the conservative vote. His closest rival, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, netted a meagre 16% of total votes.

As the new leader of the country’s main opposition party, Poilievre is...

12 September 2022 | Bitcoin

Ukraine details how it spent crypto donations

Ukraine has detailed exactly how it spent over $54 million in donations from the crypto community.

In the early days of the war, Ukraine began accepting cryptocurrency donations from kind-hearted folk around the world wanting to help the country defend itself from Putin’s war of aggression.

Yesterday, Ukrainian Vice Prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov posted a breakdown of how the crypto donations were spent:

“Every helmet, bulletproof vest, and night...

18 August 2022 | Altcoins

Ripple: Most financial institutions plan to use crypto within three years

A report by Ripple suggests that most financial institutions plan to start using crypto within the next three years.

Despite the bear market, financial institutions remain interested in the cryptocurrency space. Just this week, $10 trillion asset manager BlackRock launched a spot Bitcoin trust while saying that it’s also exploring “permissioned blockchains, stablecoins, cryptoassets, and tokenization.”

While BlackRock is exploring the potential financial benefits...

12 August 2022 | Altcoins

Compass Mining announces expansion plans weeks after lay-offs

Texas-based Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining has revealed expansion plans for one of its data centres through a hosting partnership with Compute North.

The 75 megawatt expansion comes two weeks after Compass Mining laid-off 15% of its staff and implemented salary cuts for its top executives in response to bearish market conditions.

It also follows the resignation of key executives including CEO Whit Gibbs and chief finance officer Jodie Fisher in late June, as well...

23 July 2022 | Enterprise

North Korea’s stash of stolen crypto has plunged in value

Victims of North Korea-linked crypto thefts may take some comfort in knowing that connected wallets have plunged in value.

Despite the recent drawdown, the exponential rise in the value of cryptocurrencies over the past decade has made them key targets. Hackers are regularly seeking to obtain cryptocurrencies through hacks and ransomware campaigns.

Fortunately, transactions on most blockchains are easy to track. Wallets connected with North Korean hacking groups like...

29 June 2022 | Altcoins

Crypto market falls to lowest capitalisation since January 2021

The global crypto market has tanked below one trillion dollars (£820 billion) for the first time since January 2021.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is down 13 percent over the past 24 hours and Ethereum is down 16 percent.

The trend marks the twelfth consecutive week – apart from some minor respite in week ten – of price losses for Bitcoin, something the market has never seen before.

Falling from nearly £40,000 in March, the top...

13 June 2022 | Bitcoin

Terra network suffers massive losses as UST falls below dollar peg

Whilst the whole cryptocurrency sector is tanking to lows not seen since last summer, few coins are having a worse time than TerraUSD (UST), the largest algorithmic stablecoin on the market.

UST, which is supposed to always be worth $1, briefly fell to $0.98 on May 7 following a number of major withdrawals from decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols on the Terra network.

The situation worsened on May 9 when UST’s price plummeted to $0.68 amidst a wider market selloff...