Author: Ben Carey

Ben Carey is a Brisbane-based writer, with a wide range of experience, from copywriting to game design and film and tv scriptwriting. He's been following, investing, and trading crypto since 2017. He has three lambos (in Gran Turismo), and can often be seen around town wearing a Bitcoin or Ethereum themed Christmas sweater.

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Bitcoin Crypto Wallets

El Salvador to Send $30 Worth of Bitcoin to Each of its 6.5 Million Citizens

Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has revealed that each of the Central American republic’s 6.5 million citizens will be entitled to US$30 worth of Bitcoin if they sign up to use the government’s Bitcoin wallet, Chivo.

According to Numbeo, which assesses the cost of living in countries around the world, the average person in El Salvador earns around US$13 per day. So the airdrop represents over two days’ worth of wages.

President Nayib Bukele reveals Chivo, the El Salvador government’s Bitcoin wallet. Source: Documenting BTC

The move aligns well with the president’s recent statement that his country is adopting Bitcoin for the benefit of the people. Although every citizen of El Salvador will be entitled to the airdrop, Bukele stressed that nobody will be forced to use Bitcoin if they don’t want to:

The use of Bitcoin will be optional. Nobody will receive Bitcoin if they don’t want it […] If someone receives a payment in Bitcoin, they can choose to automatically receive it in [US] dollars.

Nayib Bukele

The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (also known as CZ), applauded the move, no doubt aware that a large portion of these new users will use Binance to trade crypto in the future.

An Expensive Ad Campaign

The Bitcoin airdrop is a costly attempt by the El Salvadorean government to convince citizens to use its preferred wallet, Chivo. The scheme could cost the government around US$100 million if at least half of the population decides to take up its offer.

So what’s in it for the government? Some argue it is merely an effort to kickstart an ambitious economic transition. Others are far more sceptical.

El Salvador is Wasting No Time

Things are moving quickly in El Salvador. It was only weeks ago that it became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Since then, Athena Bitcoin announced it will be installing 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs across El Salvador, while Chainbytes announced that it wants to make El Salvador the hub of its crypto ATM operations for all of the Americas.

Problems With the World Bank

On a practical level, El Salvador has been having some issues with the World Bank, which has refused to help with the implementation of the country’s new Bitcoin ecosystem.

This could be a major logistical problem for El Salvador, or perhaps just a temporary roadblock; we will have to wait and see. One thing is for certain – Bukele won’t be focusing on the negatives. The President will keep his laser eyes trained on his vision of progress and economic revolution.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin ATM

El Salvador to Launch 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs for Purchase and Sale of BTC

El Salvador is leading Bitcoin adoption in Central and South America, declaring it will launch 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs across the country for buying and selling BTC.

The 1,000 new Bitcoin ATMs will be installed by Athena Bitcoin, which has established a strong presence in the Bitcoin ATM market and currently operates across the US, Colombia, Argentina and El Salvador.

Ceremonial launch of Athena’s Bitcoin ATMs. Source: Athena Bitcoin

Earlier this month, El Salvador became the first country in the world to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender. President Nayib Bukele stating that his country is “adopting Bitcoin for the benefit of the people“. Bukele, who many see as a revolutionary, also announced plans for a volcano-powered Bitcoin mining facility.

The Rise of Crypto ATMs

Chainbytes, another crypto ATM company, is also keen to get in on the action. It recently announced that it wants to “make El Salvador the manufacturing hub of Bitcoin ATMs for all of the Americas”.

There are approximately 22,000 crypto ATMs operating in the world today. ATM installations have increased by over 10,000 in the past year alone. These numbers seem to be a reliable barometer for worldwide crypto adoption.

Source: Coin ATM Radar

In Australia, Bitcoin ATMs do exist but are very rare, and almost non-existent outside of the capital cities. But as worldwide crypto adoption surges forward, access to crypto ATMs in Australia should increase as well.

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Crypto News

RIP: John McAfee Found Dead in Spanish Prison, Hours After Extradition to US Approved

John McAfee, the notorious antivirus software billionaire, has been found dead in a Spanish prison near Barcelona, late on Wednesday, June 23.

McAfee was arrested at Barcelona International Airport last October on tax evasion charges. His death comes just hours after the Spanish National Court approved his extradition to the US, where he was wanted for tax-related criminal charges and would have faced up to 30 years in prison.

McAfee speaking at the 2016 Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in California. Source: Wikimedia

Suicide or Murder?

According to McAfee’s lawyer, McAfee hanged himself in his prison cell late in the evening of June 23, just hours after the court ruling regarding his extradition to the US. Officials from the Catalan Justice Department said: “Judicial staff have been dispatched to the prison and are investigating the causes of death. Everything points to death by suicide.” For many watching this story unfold, this explanation fits the argument that McAfee would rather take his own life than face 30 years in a US prison cell.

According to his wife of eight years, Janice Dyson, McAfee’s mental health had deteriorated over the course of the eight months he was in prison.

These eight months John has spent in prison in Spain have been especially hard on his overall health both mentally and physically, as well as financially, but he is undeterred from continuing to speak truth to power.

Janice Dyson

Signs of Foul Play

However, there are also signs that point towards foul play. A tweet from McAfee on December 1, 2019 stated that he was wary of US officials and might have even received death threats in some form. The tweet also strongly suggested McAfee would never commit suicide, even if it looked like he had.

Getting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: “We’re coming for you McAfee! We’re going to kill yourself”. I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn’t. I was whackd. Check my right arm.

John McAfee [Twitter]
John McAfee $WHACKD tattoo
John McAfee $WHACKD tattoo [Twitter]

Another tweet from October 16, not long after he was arrested in Spain, ominously foreshadows his hanging and alludes to the fact that if he wound up dead, it would not be a suicide:

At the time of writing it was still too early to draw any definite conclusions, pending a coroner’s report and the findings of the official investigation.

The ‘Original Elon Musk’

In 2017, during the height of that year’s bull run, McAfee, who had around a million followers at the time, often tweeted about projects he was supposedly interested in. This resulted in the original twitter pump and dumps, which would see random altcoins soar thousands of percent in an hour and then dump to an all-time low as people started to panic sell as the price plummeted.

In March this year, McAfee was charged for cryptocurrency fraud by the US Federal Court in New York City. Many argue that McAfee was the ‘original Elon Musk’.

Crypto Community Mourns Loss

John McAfee, 75, lived a long and eventful life. He built an empire that changed internet security, fathered an estimated 47 children around the world, and had constant run-ins with the law. He was an extremely polarising figure – a lot of people loved him and many despised him. But despite his notoriety, he achieved legend status within the crypto community for his unwavering commitment to crypto and his willingness to speak his truth.

RIP Mr McAfee. Your legacy will live on for generations to come in the cryptoverse. Letting someone die this way w/o due process should show all of us just how anti human & corrupt of a world we live in. I don’t believe he killed himself at all. They didn’t want a US show trial.

Jared Tate (founder of Digibyte)

On behalf of everyone at Crypto News, RIP John McAfee – your legend will live on.

Categories
Basic Attention Token Crypto News Google

Brave Search Engine Launches to the Public: Fully Private, Anonymous, and Transparent

Brave, the company behind the popular privacy-focused web browser, has launched a public beta of its own search engine, Brave Search. The search engine promises to be fully private, anonymous, and transparent.

The Brave browser, first released in 2016, now has over 32 million active users per month and has become a popular choice for those who value privacy above everything else. Supporters of the Brave browser are excited by the release of the new search engine beta, which will become the default search engine in the browser later in the year.

The Brave New World

The Brave browser features privacy and security features such as in-built ad blocking, private windows, and password manager. The team also claims it is three times faster than Chrome out of the box. But perhaps its most innovative feature is the ability for users to earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) by viewing privacy-respecting ads. At this time, it is not clear whether using Brave Search will reward users with BAT.

The ‘Real Alternative’ to Google

Brave lion logo

Brave Search doesn’t track you or your queries. Ever. Private, independent, and transparent, Brave Search is the real alternative to Google. On mobile, desktop, and anywhere the web takes you. Search private. Search with confidence.

Brave [source]

Brave Search will also feature an independent index of the internet, which is a bold (or brave, if you will) move considering most new search engines merely repackage results from Google and Bing.

Comparison between Brave search and other popular search engines.

The Underdog vs Big Tech

Google has a monopoly when it comes to web browser and search engine market share. Currently, over 90% of searches go through Google. Not even Microsoft’s Bing has been able to make any meaningful inroads in the search domain, with just above 2% market share. It would be an ambitious task indeed if the Brave team were trying to overthrow the king, but it seems it is simply trying to present an appealing, private alternative to the big tech company.

Brave Team Keeping Busy

It appears that the Brave team has been very busy this year. It has also been building a Decentralised Exchange, which will feature benefits for BAT holders, such as discounts on transactions. Now could be a good time to be bullish on Brave.

Categories
Crypto News Dogecoin Market Analysis

Cryptos Are Plummeting and DOGE Bulls are Being Hit the Hardest

The crypto market is plummeting once again and Doge bulls are among those suffering the most. Dogecoin has crashed all the way to US$0.16, down from an all-time high of US$0.74 on May 8.

The most recent drop in the crypto market seems to be in response to China’s most recent crackdown on trading and mining. Of course, this is not the first time China has tried to “ban Bitcoin”, but because an enormous amount of Bitcoin mining has been based there, news of regulations and restrictions always has a big impact on the market.

The Big Short

However, some analysts – such as ‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry, who famously bet against the housing market before the Global Financial Crisis – argue that the crypto market has been due for a crash for a while.

All hype/speculation is doing is drawing in retail before the mother of all crashes … When crypto falls from trillions, or meme stocks fall from tens of billions, #MainStreet losses will approach the size of countries. History ain’t changed.

Michael Burry

Doge Bulls Among the Hardest Hit in Recent Crash

Dogecoin crashes to 16 US cents, its lowest point since April 23

It seems that the recent NASCAR Dogecar crash foreshadowed the losses that were to come for the Dogecoin Army. Dogecoin, one of the “meme stocks” that Burry refers to, plunged to 16 US cents, the lowest it has traded since April 23. Dogecoin peaked at 74 US cents on May 8, the same day Elon Musk went on Saturday Night Live to spruik the coin.

Since then, Dogecoin has steadily dropped, losing a huge portion of its former market cap.

Traders Are Frustrated

During this most recent crash, many traders have been taking their frustration out on Reddit and Twitter, where there are large and active crypto communities.

The Dogecoin community has largely remained positive (or blindly optimistic, depending on how you look at it), arguing that this drop in price is a fantastic opportunity to buy more of their favourite coin.

Praying to the Dogefather

It seems though that many within the Dogecoin domain believe that one tweet from Elon Musk is going to reverse the trend and pump Doge to the moon. The problem with “to the moon” narratives is that the price target is ambiguous and ever-changing, based on greed. Something the Dogecoin Army might soon have to consider is that perhaps the 20,000% gains Dogecoin has seen in the past six months was the moon shot they had been calling for.

Categories
Crypto News Dogecoin

The DogeCar NASCAR Crashed on the Weekend, and So Did the DOGE Price

A Dogecoin-sponsored car crashed into a wall at a NASCAR race on June 19, coinciding with a crash in the price of Dogecoin.

During a NASCAR Xfinity Series race in Nashville, US, the Dogecoin-sponsored Chevrolet Camaro collided with a wall, narrowly avoiding taking out another car in the process. The so-called “Dogecar” finished the race in last place.

But despite crashing out of the race, the Dogecar became a hot topic on Twitter, reaching #26 most trending worldwide. As one hopeful Reddit user noted, any publicity is good publicity. Then again, tell that to Iron Finance.

Any publicity is good publicity – Good luck next time Dogecar ❤ from dogecoin

Dogecoin Price Mirrors Fate of Dogecar

The price of Dogecoin dropped to 26 US cents, its lowest in over a month. Source: TradingView

Around the same time as the car crash, the price of Dogecoin fell to 26 US cents, the lowest since May 19. It is unlikely there is much of a correlation between the two events, given that most of the market is in the red at the moment.

Dogecar Driver Remains Upbeat

The driver of the DogeCar, Stefan Parsons, waxed positive about the whole experience:

Thanks to everyone for the support this weekend. We’ll take the positives away and learn from it. Been a rough couple weeks but we will build on it and be better for next time! Proud of the whole @TeamBJMcLeod crew for the effort we showed this weekend.

Stefan Parsons

Dogecoin Price Has Been Diving for Months

The Dogecoin Army have long called for the cryptocurrency to hit US$1 which, until recently, seemed utterly impossible. But Dogecoin skyrocketed over 20,000% this year alone to an all-time high of 74 US cents on May 8. Since then, however, it has been travelling steadily south. Some analysts and traders consider Elon Musk going on Saturday Night Live to promote Dogecoin to be a blatant “top signal” not only for Dogecoin, but the entire crypto market.

As for the Dogecar result, it stands in stark contrast to last month’s top 10 finish for the Bitcoin car in this year’s Indianapolis 500 race.