Bitcoin continued to garner attention globally as a national legal tender with Central African Republic becoming the latest suitor. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra signed the bill into law on Wednesday and his chief of staff Obed Namsio hailed the move as one that could forever change the economic fabric of a country that has been embroiled in rebel violence for many years now.

Namsio said the bill was supported by the president because it would improve the citizens’ status. He added it would open up new economic opportunities for the landlocked country. The new bill provides a framework for use of cryptocurrencies in smart contracts, payments systems, online trade, and all electronic transactions alongside the CFA franc currency. 

“This move places the Central African Republic on the map of the world’s boldest and most visionary countries,” he said. 

Traders will also be capable of paying taxes with crypto and the finance minister Gourna Zacko who introduced the bill, believes it will ease cross-border transfers that have become increasingly difficult to do. These transfers will now become very cheap. Citizens will also be capable of undertaking legal financial transactions in the mainstream financial realms using crypto, and without necessarily going through middlemen banks. Cryptocurrency exchanges will not be taxed.   

The bill has clauses that prescribe up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of between 100 million to 1 billion CFA francs for anyone who breaks the crypto law. 

With a per capita income of only 750 USD per year, the country is one of the poorest in the region and world as a result of years of conflicts and war. This is despite having a vast amount of gold and diamond reserves. 

The country would, however, have to pursue an aggressive Internet coverage agenda to make this plan effective. It currently has an Internet penetration rate of just 7.1 percent and 355,000 Internet users out of a total population of 4.97 million people.   

It is not clear if and how the new move would help alleviate the country’s ailing inflation or GDP. Inflation has increased from 2.7 percent in 2019 to 3.3 in 2021. The country’s GDP also flipped to the negative last year at -0.6 from a 3.1 in 2019. Despite relying heavily on agriculture and mining, illegal gold and diamond exports undermine government revenue. The country is also embroiled in bad political and economic decisions, conflicts, and insecurity.  

The bill that governs use of cryptocurrency as legal tender in the country was unanimously adopted by the parliament last week. However, the move was not approved by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) which governs the Central African CFA franc regional currency used by the country and about 14 others. The franc is tied to the Euro and largely controlled by the West. Two ministers said the move to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency was a serious offense. 

The move was also criticized by former Prime Minister Martin Ziguele who said it was not a priority for the country, and that it was undermining the CFA franc. The decision could also be challenged in court by some legislators.      

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The Founder of Cardano (ADA) has invited Tesla owner and billionaire, Elon Musk, to work with him in developing the first decentralized social media platform. Charles Hoskinson, who also doubles up as the CEO of Input-Output Global is offering to help Elon Musk achieve his goal of free speech on social media.

The news follows Elon Musk’s acquisition of a stake in Twitter last week. The Billionaire bought 9.2% of Twitter, estimated at $2.89 Billion, and was even offered a seat on the micro-blogging site’s board. However, after deliberations, Elon passed on the offer since it would bar him from owning beyond a certain threshold of Twitter’s shares.

Free speech advocate

Elon Musk is on record for being a passionate supporter of free speech and open internet policies. He has in the past openly accused Twitter of muzzling free speech and open internet use. He recently held a poll that indicated that most users would prefer an edit button on Twitter and said that if he is not allowed to acquire the platform, he would have to reconsider his position as a major shareholder of Twitter.

To actualize this cause, he has offered to acquire the platform for a reported fee of $43 Billion in cash. This intended acquisition has left his critics and supporters talking and would go a long way in helping him bring much-needed changes to Twitter. His intention has however come under fire with his critics, including Dogecoin co-founder, Jackson Palmer saying that Elon Musk is planning a hostile takeover of Twitter. 

Hoskinson’s offer to Elon Musk

Upon seeing the opposition against Elon Musk’s plan, Hoskinson wooed Elon to join him in creating a decentralized social media platform. He tweeted:

“@Elon if Twitter rejects your offer, then hit me up. Happy to build a decentralized one.”

This offer follows Elon Musk’s Twitter poll where he sought the opinion of his 80 million followers about a decentralized social media platform. He posited that were he to be barred from acquiring Twitter, he would establish his decentralized platform that would be founded on free speech and open internet.

Elon Musk’s campaign for free speech and open internet has not been welcomed by all. Some of his critics have argued that coating his move with good intentions, his true intention is to get revenge against the SEC for muzzling his Twitter activities.

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Billionaire Elon Musk has yet again made headlines as the Tesla and SpaceX CEO recently bought a 9.2% stake in social media company Twitter.

According to the new SEC Filing, Musk holds 73,486,938 shares in Twitter, representing nearly a 9.2% worth of passive stake in the company, which makes him one of the biggest shareholders of the platform.

Musk Buys 9.2% Stake In Social Media Company Twitter

According to the Securities and Exchange 13G Filing shared on Monday, Musk has acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter which is worth $2.89 billion. The particular investment has made Musk one of the biggest shareholders of the platform.

Previously, Musk had organized a survey poll on Twitter, asking his followers to provide insight on whether the social media company adheres to the principles of free speech.

Since the majority of people responded no, the Tesla CEO had stated that he was giving some “serious thought” to launching a platform of his own.

Musk acquiring a stake in Twitter has significantly impacted the prices of its shares, which have surged a striking 27% after the SEC 13G filing was revealed on Monday. The filing also shows that the purchased Twitter shares are held by Musk’s Revocable Trust, of which he is the sole trustee. Moreover, the surge in shares added $8.38 billion to Twitter’s market cap, which currently sits at $40.8 billion.

Musk is known as an ardent Twitter user and has always utilized the social media platform to openly voice his opinions on critical matters. Moreover, the Tesla chief boasts a following of 80 million followers, making him one of the biggest tech personalities on Twitter.

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• Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine has had dire consequences on the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
• At the close of the week, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other altcoins took a steep dive.
• Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin has voiced his concern against an invasion.

As the world watches with bated breaths, investors are dumping their digital assets in anticipation of chaos. In the midst of it all, the Russian-Canadian founder of Ethereum tries to be the voice of reason.

Russia and Ukraine’s Dance Is Hurting Crypto

On Friday, the cryptocurrency market experienced a blip in prices that led to the loss of billions of dollars in value. The cause of this was adjudged to be the mounting tensions between Ukraine and Russia with the Kremlin ordering the movement of troops to the borders. According to information from the White House, the US government believes that Russia could invade Ukraine in the coming days.

The result of this was a devastating loss for cryptocurrencies as investors panicked. Bitcoin slipped by 3.27% to trade at $39,965 while Ethereum lost 6.98% in less than a day. Perhaps, the grim nature of the decline in values was felt by the altcoin markets as Solana, Cardano and Avalanche lost 11.66%, 9.97%, and 11.24% respectively. Shiba Inu and Dogecoin were not left out of the route as they also recorded double-digit losses.

On the larger scale, trading volumes are down by over 17.10% while the global cryptocurrency market cap sits at under $2 trillion after a cumulative loss of 5.15%. While the sell-off is thought to be because of the incoming invasion, there is the worrying threat of inflation that has continued to be a thorn in the flesh of investors. The recent report on inflation for January puts US figures at 7.5%, the highest in almost 40 years. Given the increasing correlation between cryptocurrencies and the stock market, investors are also dumping their digital assets.

On the flip side, there is the use of cryptocurrencies to fund NGOs according to a report by Elliptic. The report noted that there has been a steep rise in BTC donations to NGOs in Ukraine that are being used to equip the Ukrainian army against the planned invasion by Russia.

Vitalik Buterin Kicks

Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin has voiced his displeasure over Russia’s proposed plan to invade Ukraine. The Russian-Canadian took to Twitter to air his views in the Russian language which was a break from his typical mode of English.

“An attack on Ukraine can only harm Russia, Ukraine, and humanity. Whether the situation will return to a peaceful path or there will be war can now be decided not by Zelensky, not by NATO, but by @KremlinRussia. I hope they choose wisely,” he wrote.

Vitalik Buterin is no stranger to interactions with the Kremlin after he had a conversation with Putin in 2017 in an attempt to foster increased usage of cryptocurrency in the country. Buterin’s father has openly called out Putin’s government as being murderous. Russia is one of the largest contributors of hash rates to the Bitcoin network after it took in a significant number of fleeing miners in the wake of the Chinese crackdown.

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Barely six weeks into 2022 and the crypto market may have just witnessed its biggest DeFi attack of the year. A few hours ago, an unidentified hacker quickly crept under the Ethereum-Solana bridge (typically used to facilitate seamless transactions between ETH and SOL holders) stealing close to $320 million as at last valuation.

Wormhole Crypto, the official Twitter account behind the SOL-ETH interoperability protocol, has come out to confirm the attack, adding that it would replace all 120k wrapped Ethereum tied to several Ethereum users and bear the losses thereof. It has also offered the hacker a $10 million white hat bounty to return all the stolen digital assets. Here’s a scoop about what may have made the attack a successful one.

An unfixed glitch in the bridge protocol likely cause

Since the news of the hack, many top analysts have tried to reverse engineer the attacker’s process in stealing close to 120kwETH. wETH is an ERC-20 1:1 version of ETH that helps holders complete transactions with other tokens linked to or domiciled in the Ethereum blockchain. Like fiat currency backed by gold reserves, each wETH is backed by a corresponding ETH and is equal in value. To facilitate transactions on blockchain networks like Solana, a user would typically have to deposit ETH and proceed with the equivalent number of wETH. 

According to pro-Wormhole analysts on Twitter, the bug which was exploited by the hacker had been published on Solana’s GitHub open source repository since mid-January, and its remedy was given days after, but the team of developers had delayed its implementation until the attack.

Allegedly taking cognizance of this unresolved flaw, the attacker had successfully minted close to 120k fake ETHs, taking advantage of the unpatched bug to trick the Solana security verification system into acceptance. With the fake deposit now certified as real, all the hacker had left to do was to withdraw the equivalent amount of real ETH from the bridge protocol and transfer it to untracked recipients.

Speed vs. Security

All the news about Solana being better than Ethereum is hinged on its speed and not on its security. The latest attack has shown how much the network holds its ~55,000 transactions-per-second record in high esteem, neglecting the catastrophic losses that could come with poor user safety.

Back in September and more recently in December, it had suffered repeated DDOS attacks, causing close to 17 hours of network shutdown. Yesterday, the network was in the news for the launch of its Solana Pay protocol, spurring a brief gain past the $100 mark. Today, all such gains totaling close to 12% have been eroded as it sits sullenly at $96.76.

Crypto competence gets dragged

It is too early to tell if the attacker will choose to sacrifice $220 million of his bounty, but the entirety of the current circumstance casts a shadow on the cryptocurrency market. Especially for investors who find little attractiveness in such outrageous risk. Cases like these win points for the argument against open source reliability and decentralization especially considering the volume of transactions involved. The Geneva-based token will have to do more than just outrun Ethereum transaction speed to keep and attract new users.

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• Microsoft has signaled strong interest in the metaverse with the latest acquisition of Activision.
• The deal is worth a staggering $69 billion and will be finalized over the next few months.
• This is not the first time that tech giants will be dabbling into the metaverse.

It is easy to argue that gaming might be the best application for NFTs and the metaverse and Microsoft certainly agrees. The company’s latest acquisition signals intent to be a major player in the growing metaverse industry.

The Deal

According to an announcement by the Microsoft News Centre, the tech company will acquire Activision Blizzard in an all-cash transaction that is worth nearly $69 billion. Upon completion of the deal, Microsoft will ascend the ranks to become the third biggest gaming company behind Tencent and market leader, Sony.

“Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash,”  read the report. To close the deal, Microsoft had Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC as its financial advisor while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP were legal counsel.

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella hinted that the reason for the splurge was as a result of the growing interest in the metaverse and the tech company is “investing deeply” in introducing an era that puts players at the forefront for a more inclusive approach. “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” noted the CEO.

The acquisition adds to Microsoft’s growing Game Pass portfolio that has over 25 million subscribers. Activision Blizzard is behind popular gaming titles like Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush with over 400 million monthly active players around the world and will certainly make Game Pass a force to reckon with in gaming.

The current CEO of Activision Blizzard will continue to serve in his current role until the close of the 2023 fiscal year, and then the management team will report to Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming.

Previous Metaverse Forays

The race for a nice chunk of the metaverse between Facebook and Microsoft has been heated in recent weeks after the report that 100 Microsoft employees left to join Facebook’s Meta. 

Before the close of the year, Microsoft’s CEO disclosed the company’s plan for the metaverse through the introduction of “Mesh”. Through Mesh, company staff can create custom avatars that will allow them to hold meetings and interact with each other in the metaverse. The CEO also hinted that the company could integrate attributes of the metaverse in its Xbox consoles.

Microsoft has also been knee-deep in the development of virtual reality hardware with the release of its wide range of devices like the HoloLens 2 amongst others. The company also boasts of VR-ready PCs and ultra-modern Windows Mixed Reality. As part of its drive to a metaverse future.

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The world’s leading movie theatre chain will be accepting Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash in addition to Bitcoin as payments for confectionaries and movie tickets at all its U.S. outlets before December 31.

This is according to a Twitter announcement made by the Company’s C.E.O Adam Aron on Thursday morning sending out a wave of bullish sentiments on the three cryptocurrencies by crypto enthusiasts.

“Cryptocurrency enthusiasts: you likely know AMCTheatres has announced we will accept Bitcoin for online ticket and concession payments by year-end 2021. I can confirm today that when we do so, we also expect that we similarly will accept Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.” 

Last month, the C.E.O in an early morning earnings call had disclosed that AMC was actively engaged in setting up payment systems that would allow movie enthusiasts to pay for various services and purchases using Bitcoin. He had also acknowledged receiving a lot of inquiries from users and shareholders on the possibility of the company accepting payments in crypto which could have largely informed Thursday’s announcement.

Although Litecoin foundation did not respond to the statement in writing, Litecoin’s news page and Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin retweeted AMCs announcement gesturing their affirmation.

Broadening the crypto payments net

Litecoin has been making inroads in institutional halls thanks to its long-term persistence and reliability. Its completed MWEB upgrade project which allows the network to become much more scalable and make transaction amounts un-viewable to the public makes Litecoin the ideal choice for payments while protecting users’ data.

According to the Litecoin Foundations Q1 report, various companies have already announced that they’re integrating Litecoin including Paypal, Vaultoro, Flare Network, Moon among others. Its successful payment integrations have also attracted a fair share of challenges with a recent false report that Walmart was integrating Litecoin in its payment network.

Bitcoin cash which fulfills the original promise of Bitcoin as “Peer-to-peer electronic cash” could also see mass use given its fast transactions, low fees, and reliable confirmation. It also allows use on a large list of wallets including Ledger and Trezor among others, which are synonymous with most U.S. crypto owners. Its discounts on payments due to the elimination of credit cards are likely to attract most AMC movie enthusiasts looking to pay using this method.

On the other hand, Ethereum payments to the company could be fulfilled through Ethereum-Pay,  a decentralized ERC-1363 payable token built on the secure Ethereum network specifically tailored to be integrated with E-commerce transactions. 

EthereumPay creates a universal payment platform that allows merchants & users around the world to do business with each other instantly and cheaper than ever. Ethereum payments are accepted by companies including Sotheby, Overstock, Gipsybee,  Shopify CheapAir, Tripio among others.

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Elon Musk spiked the price of Dogecoin by 3% after tweeting that SpaceX will take the meme-themed cryptocurrency to the literal moon.

“SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”

Traders often use the term “to the moon” when expecting prices of a certain stock or digital currency to surge.

Elon Musk is a self-appointed Dogecoin and Bitcoin advocate and frequently tweets witty statements about the Japanese dog Shibu Inu, the central appeal and logo of the meme-themed cryptocurrency. The last time tweeted about Dogecoin was in mid-March:

“I’m getting a Shiba Inu #restistanceisfutile.”

The tweet also comes a month after Elon tweeted a meme of a Shiba Inu standing on the moon in a spacesuit while holding a Dogecoin flag, followed by the words, “literally” and “on the actual moon.”

Elon Musk and Dogecoin

Elon’s ability to influence bitcoin and Dogecoin’s price actions by merely tweeting about it has been both acclaimed and criticized for boosting crypto adoption and hindering mainstream acceptance, respectively.

Dogecoin has a total circulating supply of 129 billion Doge and an undefined maximum supply, unlike Bitcoin. Analysts including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao have warned investors against exposing themselves to assets with infinite amounts of supply.

However, Elon’s influence and Dogecoin’s price action in the past 6 months have inspired its developers to revamp its development. Speaking during an interview, Dogecoin’s lead developer Ross Nicoll said the team is working to make changes to Doge.

“People say it’s a joke coin but we’re very careful to take care of the code. When it took off there was a resurgence in attention and we want to keep the currency operational.” 

SpaceX was founded in 2002 with the goal of reducing the cost of space transportation by using relaunchable rockets to enable the colonization of Mars.  The company’s first commercial trip around the moon on its Starship rocket will take place in 2023.

Elon Musk previously said that he is highly confident that SpaceX will have reached orbit many times with Starship before 2023, and that it will be safe enough for human transport by 2023.

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It’s been over two months since the US-based cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, unveiled its intent to become the first major direct crypto exchange to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange market.

The planned event saw anticipations springing forth among the public as the initial date that was set to happen in March was reportedly pushed back to April.

Meanwhile, it appears that the wait is almost over as Coinbase announced in a recent blog post that its registration statement filed with SEC has finally been declared effective.

Moreso, it announced that the anticipated listing date of its Class A Common Stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market has been confirmed for April 14, 2021.

The tweeted announcement reads;

“We’re happy to announce that earlier today, the SEC declared our S-1 registration statement effective and that we expect our direct listing to occur on April 14, 2021, with our Class A common stock trading on the @NASDAQ under the ticker symbol COIN.”

The proposed listing has been under review by the SEC, thus suggested to be the reason for the delay.  

Therefore, Coinbase’s Class A common stock will begin trading on NASDAQ, an American multinational financial services corporation, on April 14 with the ticker symbol “COIN”.

A Big Win For The Crypto Ecosystem

As planned by Coinbase, the direct listing will be the first major listing to take place on Nasdaq Inc.

The event is undeniably a big win for the crypto ecosystem as it suggests irrefutable progress for cryptocurrencies to reach wide adoption all around the globe.

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The four most prominent ransomware strains of 2020, Maze, Egregor, SunCrypt, and Doppelpaymer have connections that lead back to the same Ransom as a Service (RaaS) network and affiliates.

According to a new Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report, established connections between the four strains indicate that they are either being controlled or executed by the same group of people.

“There may be fewer cybercriminals responsible for ransom attacks that one would initially think, given the number of individual attacks, distinct strains and amount stolen from victims.”

RaaS is a business model by ransom developers who lease or sell different strains of their ransomware to affiliates who in turn use them to perform attacks on individuals or organizations.

Cybersecurity researchers identified strong links between the four strains, all of which were relatively active in 2020. They were used to attack different companies and institutions including Barnes &Noble, LG, Pemex and University Hospital New Jersey.

“All four use the RaaS model, meaning that affiliates carry out the ransom attacks themselves and pay a percentage of each victim payment back to the strain’s creators and administrators.”

Additionally, the strains have all been using the same double extortion method to blackmail their victims by threatening to withhold data and publish it online for extra intimidation.

Ransomware Strains are Interlinked

The Maze strain disappeared shortly after Egregor became active in Q4 2020. Its administrators later announced in November that its website was shutting down due to reduced activity.

“Some Cybersecurity researchers see this as evidence that Maze and Egregor are linked in some way.”

Researchers further claimed that Maze operators either rebranded to Egregor or joined the latter’s operators, with a row between the two groups resulting in a split.

“Maze and Egregor share much of the same code, the same ransom note, and have very similar victim payment sites.”

SunCrypt has also been linked severally to Maze, including through a privately circulated report from a threat intelligence firm saying that SunCrypt is a rebrand of a well-known ransomware strain.

A connection between Egragor and Doppelpaymer has also been established through a 78.8 BTC ransom payment for Egregor that was suspected to be a Doppelpaymer administrator wallet.

Useful Information for Law Enforcement

Chainalysis concludes that Law enforcement agencies could benefit from this information to expand their crackdowns and even halt operations of well-known interlinked strains with a single takedown.

“Evidence suggests that the ransom world is smaller than one may initially think, given the number of unique strains currently operating.”

Ransomware attacks grew by 311% in 2020, with $350 million being paid by ransomware victims to attackers, despite crypto-related criminal activity falling by 83%. 

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