Stablecoin company, Tether, said on May 20, 2023, that it would commit its resources to mining Bitcoin in Uruguay using renewable energy.
As Bitcoin halvings increase, Bitcoin’s mining hash rate is rising, necessitating more innovative ways of accessing electrical power as concerns are rising due to its high consumption levels.
Stablecoin Company Tether is shifting toward diversifying its treasury management strategy by investing some of its net profit in Bitcoin.
Tether to do more than minting USDT; Bitcoin in mind
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin company, has revealed that it seeks to diversify its treasury investment strategy by investing part of its profits in Bitcoin. The company is now moving to mine Bitcoin in Uruguay using renewable energy.
The company revealed this plan on May 30, 2023, marking its first foray into the green energy sector. It added that it is also searching for experts in the new venture to support its expansion in the green energy space. Bitcoin’s rising hashing figures require even more energy to secure the network and mint new coins, which necessitates the innovation of more solutions like green energy.
“By harnessing the power of Bitcoin and Uruguay’s renewable energy capabilities, Tether is leading the way in sustainable and responsible Bitcoin mining,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether.
“Our unwavering commitment to renewable energy ensures that every Bitcoin we mine leaves a minimal ecological footprint while upholding the security and integrity of the Bitcoin network.”
In early May 2023, Tether revealed that it plans to invest some of its profits in Bitcoin. The company committed to investing up to 15% of its net profit in Bitcoin, mimicking strategies from other international companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla and Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy.
Tether is now eyeing to establish its Bitcoin mining plants in Uruguay, one of the prominent leaders in renewable energy production, sourcing over 98% of its electricity output from green energy sources. This development creates a positive image for the company and Bitcoin, as influential people in the crypto industry have asked crypto miners to consider energy sources with lower carbon prints.
Keep watching Fintech Express for updates on crypto and other Fintech-related stories.
Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs are set to get bridgeable with the Ethereum blockchain as a new token standard is launched to facilitate inter-chain communication. The BRC-721E token standard launched by the Ordinals market and Miladys NFT collection allows users to migrate their ERC-721 NFTs to Ordinals.
Bitcoin and Ethereum finally become co-joined for the NFT community
The NFT community will have even more options after the Ordinals Market and Milady’s NFT collection pull forces together to build a token standard to support migrations of NFTs from the Ethereum network to Bitcoin network.
The BRC-721E standard enables the conversion of immutable, verifiable ERC-721 NFTs to Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin network. Initially, the metadata of these images won’t be stored on-chain. However, users can store the assets in lower-quality preview images and include a reference to the Ethereum burn in raw image data.
How to migrate your ERC-721 NFTs to Ordinals
The migration process of the NFTs starts by burying ERC-721 NFTs via an ETH call function. This burning process is irreversible and acts as an on-chain inscription method. To claim the Ethereum burn on Bitcoin, a user must inscribe valid BRC-721E data, after which the bridged NFT will appear on a custom Ordinals market collection page with its complete metadata.
The indexers that were responsible for checking the burned NFT data inscriptions, ensure that the new Ordinals token has only one valid inscription and that the Genesis address matches the burn transaction call data to prevent double entries.
This news comes when the craze around Bitcoin NFTs is still alive. These inscriptions have spiked a debate about whether they affect Satoshi’s original purpose of the network or not. However, the Bitcoin inscriptions have appeared to receive massive support from maximalists like Michael Saylor, who believe that they may be a chance to allow innovation to continue on the network and increase its use cases.
Keep watching Fintech Express for updates on this and other Fintech-related news.
Bitcoin Price in Binance Australia has been trading at around $5,000 lower than the international markets as customers seek to exit the market. On May 18, the exchange informed its customers that it would suspend the Australian Dollar following issues by its third-party services provider.
Binance Australia closes fiat ramp making Bitcoin price trade lower
As a result of Binance lacking a replacement in sight for its Australian dollar fiat ramp third party, the exchange decided to suspend the currency in May. This has resulted in massive sell-offs of Bitcoin against the Australian dollar, weakening the Bitcoin price against the AUD on the exchange.
On May 30, one Bitcoin was trading at a hefty discount of $5000 against the AUD as the deadline for PayID service withdrawal with the local currency is set for June 1, 5 pm local time. The exchange has also warned Australian customers that Bitcoins remaining on the platform after May 31 would be converted into USDT.
Although this discount initially seemed like a gold mine, those seeking to make quick money may be disappointed. The depositing of Australian dollars is no longer supported, while conversion of other currencies to the AUD bears premium fees locking enthusiasts out of the discounted Bitcoin price.
The exchange has said it will continue looking for alternate service providers for the Australian dollar deposits and withdrawals. However, it may have to delist the trading of several crypto trading pairs with the AUD on June 1.
Binance Australia tweeted earlier in the day, reporting that discontinuing bank transfers has caused the disruption. However, Aussie users can still deposit into the exchange via bank cards, P2P trading, and supported third-party payment systems.
While AUD deposits by bank transfers are no longer available to Binance users in Australia, there are still several ways Aussie users can deposit onto the exchange.
– Credit or debit card – Use P2P to buy and sell crypto – Third Party Payment
Though Binance remains optimistic about finding a new bank transfer services provider for Aussies, it’s not promised since the exchange has been caught up in legal issues with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, which even led to canceling its derivatives license there. Keep watching Fintech Express for updates on this and other related stories.
A Bitcoin price crash is happening with its marketcap receding from yesterday’s 542.46B to 536.97 B. This drop is off 1.01% from yesterday and -4.24% from a year ago.
Bitcoin market cap
The total Bitcoin marketcap as recorded on May 30, 2023, (536.97B) is down by 1.01% from the value recorded the previous day. This drop can be attributed to the continuous fall in crypto prices throughout May 2023. The coin’s market cap on May 04, 2023, was around 565.10B, 28.13B more than the values recorded today.
Bitcoin Price
Though Bitcoin’s market cap is down today, its price has not moved by much, it has recorded a 0.25% drop in the past 24 hours. It also has a price rise of 1.96% in the past seven days and a 24-hour transaction volume of around 451K BTC worth $12.564B.
However, this trading volume is a drop of 23.01% from what was recorded 24 hours ago pushing the coin’s market dominance to 46.53%.
Bitcoin’s Fear and greed index
Crypto Fear and Greed index is a chart that uses social signals and market trends to determine the overall sentiment surrounding an asset in the crypto market. It’s called an index because it tracks multiple data sources and combines them to come up with a final figure that is representative of the whole market.
During the time of writing, Bitcoin’s Fear and Greed Index was at 51, neutral. That means both bears and bulls have almost equivalent power to push the price foreshadowing a sideways market in the short term (next hours of the day).
Michael Saylor, who founded and heads Microstrategy, one of the largest institutional holders of Bitcoin, has been a vocal voice in the crypto space. At the Bitcoin Conference 2023, he said that using public blockchains like Bitcoin could solve most problems facing the cybersecurity space.
Michael Saylor says most emerging problems could be solved via Bitcoin
At the Bitcoin Conference 2023, Michael Saylor touched on how cybersecurity is becoming a threat today. He reflected on fake accounts constantly being purged off social media platforms like Twitter, saying that such fake accounts could be weaponized to drive divisive political agendas.
However, he explained how cryptographic security solutions like Bitcoin’s Ordinals and inscriptions could be used to do away with such misuse of technology. Michael Saylor said that digital identities could be inscribed on base layers of public blockchains like Bitcoin then the data is also copied to a universal database that is immutable and thus records any social media presence that a given individual builds.
He proposed that the use of such innovation could effectively control the rise of fake social media presences, giving an example of how an individual who generates 1 million fake bots and is caught and blocked loses a significant amount of money, thus serving as an example to others.
It’s not the first time that Saylor has praised the innovation behind Bitcoin. However, the effectiveness of such a technology in cybersecurity on a large scale remains untested as crypto adoption rates still need to be higher. However, some similar applications in things like Domain Names like Unstoppable Domains and Ethereum Name Service have already been seen though they still need to be more effective than Saylor explained.
