China is stepping up its crackdown on the crypto ecosystem

Banks and Institutions

China continues to regulate cryptos

The People’s Bank of China has ordered several domestic banks and mobile payment providers to cut off the accounts of companies selling crypto assets. Several Chinese provinces have cut power to mining farms including Sichuan, which has blacked out 26 mining pools. Bitcoin’s hashrate falls to its lowest levels since November 2020, at 91.2 EH/s/ Chinese miners appear to be heading primarily to Kazakhstan and Texas.

Source : The Block Crypto

BBVA opens trading and custody of bitcoins

BBVA, the Spanish banking giant, has announced the opening of bitcoin trading and custody in Switzerland starting June 21. The opening of these services follows a strong demand from investors for cryptoassets. These services could also see the light of day in other countries, depending on several parameters such as market maturity and regulation, as well as investor demand.

Source : The Block Crypto

Heavy fines imposed by US regulators

With $2.5 billion in fines handed out by U.S. regulators since 2014, crypto is not the "Wild West" of finance. A new report from Elliptic found that unregistered securities offerings account for more than half of all crypto-related fines handed out by U.S. regulators, and that fraud is also a major source of fines.

Source : Coin Telegraph

Cryptoactive ecosystem

Sotheby’s to accept crypto payments for diamond sales

Sotheby’s will accept crypto payments for an auction of a rare 101-carat diamond. The sale will be launched on July 9, and buyers will be able to make payments in bitcoin or ether. The diamond could be worth $15 million. This is the first time a physical object of this value has been publicly offered for purchase in cryptocurrencies.

Source : The Block Crypto

Collaboration between McLaren and Tezos

New collaboration between a sports entity and a crypto entity. Indeed, McLaren Racing has announced a partnership with the Tezos project. This collaboration will allow McLaren to use the Tezos network to create an NFT platform that will allow fans to acquire collectibles of the McLaren team, and we will soon see the team’s drivers wearing Tezos on their suits.

Source : Chastin

Republic Realm acquires digital land from Decentraland

Real estate investment firm Republic Realm has acquired a digital land in the virtual world Decentraland, based on the Ethereum blockchain, for nearly $1 million. The sale sets a new record after a digital land was sold on Boson Protocol a few weeks ago for $700,000.

Source : The Block Crypto

Travala launches a decentralized home sharing platform

Travala will launch a decentralized home sharing service, and will be able to compete with centralized companies such as AirBnb for example. Their goal is to repair the trust between hosts and guests, broken by existing centralized platforms. The Dtravel platform will therefore be born and will be governed as a DAO, in addition to using decentralized finance to facilitate smart contracts between hosts and guests.

Source : Coin Telegraph

CNN to market NFTs featuring historical news

CNN has announced the future commercialization of NFTs retracing some of the historical moments of humanity covered by CNN. Space travel, technological advances and presidential elections will be available for purchase.

Source : Coin Telegraph

Big order of machines for a bitcoin mining company

Bitcoin mining company Genesis Digital Assets has ordered an additional 10,000 machines from Canaan, the China-based mining equipment manufacturer. The new order comes less than two months after Genesis placed an order worth nearly $94 million in late April.

Source : The Block Crypto

Technology

A new algorithmic stablecoin collapses

Another algorithmic stablecoin crashes. This time it was the token TITAN, which guaranteed the value of the stablecoin IRON, and was the victim of a massive sell-off that brought its price from $60 to 0 in a few hours. IRON’s value was backed 75% by dollars, and 25% by TITAN. This was not enough.

Source : The Register

LightNing Network exceeds 1500 bitcoins of network capacity

The capacity of the Bitcoin Lightning Network has surpassed 1,500 bitcoins, according to The Block’s data dashboard, an amount worth $61.3 million at current prices. The Lightning Network is Bitcoin’s primary scalability solution, making transactions on the network cheaper and faster.

Source : The Block Crypto

Figures of the week

6 months
Ethereum commissions are at their lowest in 6 months.

50%
Shares of major mining companies are up sharply, by more than 50% since May.

71 billion dollars
71 billion in cryptoassets reportedly flowed through Malta since 2017.

More cryptos than stocks
According to a survey, in 2020, more British people bought cryptos than stocks.

6%
6% of Americans reportedly now own cryptoassets, and their favorite asset is Dogecoin.