While much of the financial world is united in its efforts to distance itself from Russia as the country’s leader, Vladimir Putin, orders his forces continue their invasion of neighboring Ukraine, many of those in the cryptocurrency world are decidedly more ambivalent. Is this a function of the underlying libertarian spirit that powers much of Read more...

The post Have Cryptocurrency Firms Reached a Moral Crossroads Over Ukraine? appeared first on Finovate.

All cameras were trained on Binance as Ukraine requested crypto exchanges to issue a blanket ban on Russian users. As more and more politicians, crypto players, and war survivors voiced their own views on the issue, the pressure is mounting on exchanges to please everyone – while staying true to the values of cryptocurrency. BNB […]

Short-term rentals have taken the world by storm. Over the past two decades, the bed and breakfast type business has fallen prey to the more scalable short-term rental model. Real […]

One of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s leading real estate property developers, DAMAC Properties, is planning to launch a project in the metaverse soon, the company’s managing director (MD) has said. DAMAC Looking Into NFTs and Metaverse According to Ali Sajwani, the managing director of the real estate property developer DAMAC Properties, his company […]

Kraken's CEO, alongside other exchanges, issued warnings about storing funds with centralized custodians as Russian sanctions pile up.

The post Kraken CEO: Exchange must ban US traders if it freezes Russian accounts appeared first on Protos.

On Monday, Sven Henrich, the founder and the lead market strategist for northmantrader.com discussed bitcoin “rallying in the face of this crisis.” The technical analyst and market commentator highlighted four reasons why he believes bitcoin’s value surged — “Fundamental, Sentiment, Technical, [and] Safety trade.” Northmantrader’s Founder Sven Henrich Describes Why He Thinks ‘Bitcoin Is Rallying […]

The vice prime minister of Ukraine has asked all major cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze accounts of all Russian users. However, some crypto exchanges have already denied the request. Binance confirmed it is “not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts” while Kraken says it is “not really a viable business option for us.” […]

Gabe Newell, founder and CEO of Valve, a popular company in the PC gaming market, has revealed his take on crypto and NFTs when applied to games. In an interview with gaming media, Newell validated the NFT technology that makes it possible to create these digital representations. However, he also stated that the actors in…

The post Valve CEO Gabe Newell Praises NFT Technology, Criticizes Bad Actors appeared first on Bitcoin News Miner.

In light of the Ukraine crisis, major crypto exchange firms including Binance and Kraken have responded to the pleas to freeze Russian users’ crypto addresses.  Ukraine’s Plea to Crypto Exchange Firms On February 27, Mykhailo Federov – Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine took to Twitter to urge crypto exchanges to freeze the crypto addresses of Russians. The request came days after both U.S and EU decided to remove Russian banks out of SWIFT and freeze overseas assets of Russia’s Central Bank. I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. It's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users. — Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 27, 2022 Fedorov continued tweeting about firms freezing accounts of Russian and Belarusian users. One such startup, DMarket specializes in NFT and virtual in-game items in Metaverse was praised by Fedorov for the same.  Received breaking news. @dmarket, a platform for trading NFT & In-game Metaverse items, decided to freeze the accounts of users from the Russian Federation and Belarus. Funds from these accounts could be donated to the war effort. Nowadays Robin Hoods. Bravo. — Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 27, 2022 Crypto Exchanges Response to Ukraine Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken stated in response to Ukraine’s plea that although the sentiment is duly respected, they cannot block Russian users. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance also voiced similar opinions.  Early morning on February 28, Jesse Powell tweeted about declining the request set by Ukraine. However, he stated,  “Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent.” 1/6 I understand the rationale for this request but, despite my deep respect for the Ukrainian people, @krakenfx cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so. Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent. #NYKNYC https://t.co/bMRrJzgF8N — Jesse Powell (@jespow) February 28, 2022 In the same thread, Jesse Powell also mentioned the objective of Kraken. According to Powell, Kraken FX wishes to bridge individual humans out of the legacy financial system and urge them to look forward to the crypto world.  “Where arbitrary lines on maps no longer matter, where they don’t worry about being caught in broad, indiscriminate wealth confiscation.” Although Binance stated that there are no plans of blocking user accounts, they do wish to take action against users blacklisted by the West. Binance also wants to minimize the impact on innocent users. Furthermore, Binance guarantees to comply with sanctions imposed by the international community. 

The post Jesse Powell Declines Ukraine’s Request to Freeze Russian Users Crypto Addresses appeared first on Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform.

Valve founder and billionaire Gabe Newell has commented on two of the most buzzworthy topics in the tech and gaming space these days: crypto and NFTs. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, Newell doubled down on his lack of excitement and enthusiasm for the crypto/NFT space, which should come as no surprise given that Valve banned games with crypto and NFT elements back in 2021.

In the new interview, Newell said the underlying technology here is "pretty reasonable," but the implementation of what we've seen so far is not something the executive is interested in.

"You have to separate the underlying technology versus which actors are utilizing that technology," Newell said. "It's like, if you're a chemist, and you're looking at nitrocellulose, you're like, 'Oh, yeah, we can do some really interesting stuff with that.' And then if everybody's buying guns and shooting people with them, you're sort of like, 'Hey, this whole chemistry thing is great, but there are some outcomes that can be negative.' Not to equate NFTs with shooting people, but the underlying technology of distributed ledgers, and the notion of digital ownership, and shared universes, are all pretty reasonable."

People and companies involved with NFT projects these days are "not people you really are wanting to do business with," Newell said, saying NFT technologies give bad actors a chance to rip off customers or take part in money laundering schemes, for example.

"It's much more about the actors than it is about the underlying technology, or the rationale for what we're doing," Newell said.

As for why Steam does not allow cryptocurrency as a form of payment, Newell said this decision came down to volatility around pricing. Not only that, but cryptocurrency is often associated with fraud, Newell said. Some amount of fraud will exist on any platform, but Newell said the rates shouldn't come out to "half of all transactions turning out to be fraudulent transactions."

For more, check out GameSpot's roundup piece to see where other companies stand on NFTs.

There has been a record low for a Report lately. A hostile macroeconomic backdrop and even negative litigation have pushed the stock to its lowest point, in addition to gloomy considerations including growth misses, severe competition, and customer losses. It has been an underwhelming start for Robinhood’s stock since its debut on the public market. […]