Author: Cristian Lipciuc

Cristian Lipciuc is a blockchain journalist working with startup companies across multiple domains such as freelancing, app development & cryptocurrency. Cristian specializes in applied blockchain technologies, cryptocurrency integration, the adoption of new technologies by governments, and cybersecurity.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

All Australians Can Now Get Wages Paid In Bitcoin

Australian fintech company Living Room Of Satoshi released a service allowing its users to automatically set aside a portion of their salary as Bitcoin savings.

In order to use the service, the customer must switch the bank account where their salary is received to the one provided by Living Room Of Satoshi. The company will then automatically deduct the indicated amount from the user’s wage, converting it to Bitcoin and placing it in their wallet. The remainder will be sent to the bank account indicated by the user.

Set Up Savings in BTC

Living Room Of Satoshi is not a new player in this space. The company has been involved in cryptos since 2014. Their focus seems to be on allowing anyone to pay their bills, expenses and credits directly with cryptocurrencies, without having to convert them to cash first.

According to Daniel Alexiuc – chief executive of Living Room Of Satoshi – the company was founded when he spotted the opportunity to build a service addressing those who would like to hold cryptocurrencies, but don’t want to spend time managing a balance in cryptos. Instead, the process works more like a “route to savings account” option, similar to what is often offered by many banks.

Bitcoin has seen its price rise astronomically in the last 6 months, which has triggered an unprecedented buy-in from institutional investors. We wanted to provide an option for regular folks in Australia to also join this burgeoning ecosystem — and the simplest and most pain-free way is to have a small percentage of your wage converted and sent to you when you get paid.

Daniel Alexiuc, CEO of Living Room Of Satoshi

The name of the company came from the idea that at the end of the day, Satoshi Nakamoto might be sitting down in his living room paying his bills using the vast amounts he mined shortly after inventing Bitcoin.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Investing

Crypto Piggy Bank Launches To Help Kids Save Bitcoin

Strive, a UK-based company focused on teaching young kids the basic tenets of finance, has built crypto piggy banks that allow crypto-savvy parents to give kids a time-honoured way of helping kids learn about the value of cryptocurrency.

The piggy banks connect directly to any external wallet to display the BTC balance. This is designed to help parents introduce their children to cryptocurrencies in an innovative way.

Penny the piggy bank – source

While a child may not care much about hash rates and mining difficulties, they may very well care about the increasing sum displayed on the gadget’s digital display counter. It can display in USD, EURO and AUD and 30 other currencies. Other versions may be available as shown on the original Kickstarter.

The Future Of Money

According to Andrew Birt – the co-founder and CEO of Strive – the gadget priced at $149 USD aims to fill the niche left open by the skyrocketing adoption of cryptocurrencies. While there are a myriad of children’s books breaking down the advantages of delayed gratification, cryptocurrency has jumped onto the scene recently enough that even the majority of adults are still confused about it.

“Without a doubt, the crypto market is here to stay. With $2T now stored in crypto across 68M crypto wallets around the globe, there’s still a surprisingly visible lack of resources to teach kids about digital currency. This is why we’ve built Penny the Pig – to give everyone a simple, safe and responsible way to explore the space of cryptocurrencies and learn about the future of money.”

Andrew Birt gives his son pocket money in Bitcoin himself – and says his son used to ask him constantly to check the price of Bitcoin on his phone. Now, he no longer has to.

Example of a kid receiving payment for making her bed – source

Penny the pig and the kids can:

  • Pay allowances (set as regular payments or one-off payments)
  • Set goals to help kids learn how to save
  • Make chores fun with set tasks and rewards
  • Send the kids encouraging video messages
  • Get others to add to the bank for birthday presents

With a bit of luck, the next generation of children will be better prepared – and if Australia is any indicator, the signs are promising.

If you want to buy a piggy bank there is an initial limit of 1000 units so you’ll need to be quick. They also accept BTC or ETH as payment. Currently only Coinbase wallets are supported with more to follow.

Categories
Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Mining

Dust Off The Old Commodore 64 – You Can Now Mine Bitcoin With It

Following last week’s experiment that allowed tech YouTuber Stacksmashing to mine Bitcoin off of a Game Boy, yet another fun project that repurposes old recreational computing device for contemporary purposes has surfaced.

Maciej Witkowiak – a data scientist and old-school retro gaming enthusiast – has repurposed a Commodore 64 to mine Bitcoin.

Pushing the Boundaries of Old Systems

The Commodore 64 was a home computer and not a portable console like the Game Boy, its main purpose was also recreational. Named after its 64 KB of RAM, the PC holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling desktop PC of all time.

Although the mining speed is likely too slow to actually net any profit, it’s still a very interesting project that will surely catch the eye of many nostalgic fans of the system. Its code is readily available on Github, in case you want to try it out – at 0.2 hashes per second, you may very well find your first block within… 337 years and 10 months.

According to Witkowiak, hash functions are hampered by the inefficiency with which the ancient PC handles 32-bit computations, which are crucial for hash functions.

The 6502 CPU in C64 runs at about 1MHz and it doesn’t handle 32-bit computations very efficiently.
Just enjoy the experience.

C64 Bitcoin miner [GitHub]
https://twitter.com/AbkarinoMHM/status/1381462087583461376

Is this a joke?
No, It really does the same thing that every other miner does […]

C64 Bitcoin miner [GitHub]

Although the chance of this mining method getting you any Bitcoin within your life is statistically insignificant, the nostalgia associated with these old systems isn’t.

So if you’ve got one collecting dust in your garage, now you can fire it up!

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News NFTs Regulation

Edward Snowden Sells NFT For $5.4 Million To Raise Funds For Freedom Of Press Foundation

In an effort to raise funds for the foundation’s activity, Edward Snowden sold an NFT representing “the entirety of a landmark court decision ruling the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance violated the law, with the iconic portrait of the whistleblower by Platon”. Snowden’s face is superimposed over it and his signature can also be seen in the bottom right corner.

The NFT was sold to someone who goes by @pleasrdao, who purchased it for a total of 2,224.00 ETH. According to Edward Snowden, this sum exceeds the FPF’s annual budget by a sizable amount — and has exceeded it a few bids prior to it being finally sold.

At the moment, this is the only NFT endorsed by Snowden and it is not known if any more will be released in the future.

A Brief History Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden is known worldwide for spilling the beans on the NSA’s snooping — on American citizens, as well as on people of interest worldwide — and consequently being forced to flee to Russia after being accused of violating the US 1917 Espionage Act.

A man who has been called both a hero and a traitor, Snowden stands true to his beliefs to this day, stating that “if this is treason, what they call loyalty is a crime.”

He then fled to Russia — where he was granted permanent residency in 2020 — and since 2017, he has been the president of the Freedom of Press Foundation (FPF), a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that fights for free speech. 

Categories
Australia Cryptocurrencies Payments

Zip Considering Implementation Of “Buy Crypto Now, Pay Later” Offer

Zip is an Australia-based company offering customers the ability to buy a product or service at full-price on the spot, without paying the full price right away – instead, Zip pays the full price, and the end customer pays Zip the rest later on.

Companies offering these services are not new, with counterparts like Swedish firm Klarna and others providing the same service in Europe – but they may very well be the first to offer this service for cryptocurrencies, instead of clothing and the like.

Youth Targeted For “Buy now, pay later”

The company stated that they are looking at the possibility of expanding their offers to cryptocurrency as a way to liaise with their predominantly young customer base.

If the plan comes to fruition, the service would probably first be offered in the United States via QuadPay, the US branch of Zip. QuadPay seems to be bringing in a significant percentage of Zip’s revenue – more precisely, “674,000 customers in Zip’s fiscal third quarter for a total of 3.8 million customers”, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“We’re very keen [to] move on this feature and the U.S., in particular, might be further advanced than Australia. It’s probably going to be slightly different for each of the products and services we roll out.”

According to Peter Gray – the co-founder of Zip, Co – the offer would most likely first be tested on the US market due to a more advanced interest in trading. Traditional stock trading was also briefly touched upon – although Zip is allegedly less keen on offering more traditional banking services like stock trading, compared to crypto trading.

Dangerous Game

The ability to buy stocks or crypto even if slightly out of pocket might be a dangerous game for inexperienced traders who might take on too much risk than they are comfortable with. With the current instability of crypto markets, this could pay off – but it could easily go wrong if the market turns, leaving people with more debt.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies Stablecoins Tether

Another $2 Billion USDT Minted At Tether Treasury

Tether – one of the biggest cryptocurrency stablecoins has minted another $2 billion USDT on the TRON blockchain.

A stablecoin is a new class of cryptocurrencies that price is pegged to an asset like the USD. For example, 1 USDT would equal 1 USD approximately.

What This Could Mean For USDT

Despite certain voices who have criticized Tether for a long time, asking whether USDT really is tied to the US Dollar or not – and how this tethering is actually ensured – Tether representatives and associates have gone on record in the past stating that every Tether token minted is actually backed by a reserve.

The above video is a podcast where Gregory Pepin – the CEO of Deltec bank – talks about the reserves backing USDT. Deltec is the Bahamas-based bank run by Tether Ltd., where their cash reserves are stored.

“We cannot take domestic customers and we cannot hold domestic Bahamian dollars. So that report is actually not relevant. And actually, if [the post’s author] took a little effort to go and dig a bit about the size of the Bahamian market of banking, [that person] would have found out that the entire mass of banks have around $200 billion in assets, I believe. And we are a part of that.”

Although any financial information, whether to do with crypto, fiat or both should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s worth noting that USDT is still one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap – so it’s quite possible that this minting is simply the result of new investors, or simply new funds that Tether Ltd. is putting to use. In addition, 2020 has seen the US Dollar ride quite a wave of inflation.

Overall, the minting of $2 billion worth of USDT should not be a cause for worry – but as always, be sure to perform careful research before making any investment.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies

Pay for your NBN Internet with Bitcoin Through Aussie RSP Launtel

Australian NBN Service Provider Launtel has enabled payments in Bitcoin on their website, allowing you to pay for your internet using BTC.

On the website, you can select Bitcoin as a payment method, then you’ll be redirected to a page showing a QR code you can use to pay (at the current going rate for BTC).

New Bitcoin Payment Method

The ability to pay for your internet in Bitcoin is not advertised – as of today – on Launtel’s website. However, the announcement was made on the company’s Twitter account and is visible on the User Account payment page.

Launtel has now joined the ranks of companies like Tesla who allow their goods and services to be paid for in Bitcoin. In fact, Tesla has gone even further, allowing tokenized (TESLA) stocks for sale on Binance.

Australian Companies Accepting Bitcoin Is Growing

The list of Australian companies accepting cryptos as payment is growing, these are some we have seen recently:

Companies might be deciding to accept Bitcoin because of the increasing price over the past year or so. Cryptocurrencies still do, however, remain a new market and companies should be aware of this and factor in the risks vs rewards into their decisions.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

Hardware Hacker Modifies Old School Game Boy To Mine Bitcoin

Stacksmashing – a YouTube content creator who focuses on reverse engineering gadgets and old-school games just for kicks – recently made waves with his video in which he sets up a Game Boy to mine Bitcoin, with a little help from a Raspberry Pi Pico and a connection to a computer running a Bitcoin node.

Battery-Powered Bitcoin

In an era where gamers and crypto miners are engaging in asymmetrical warfare over high-end GPUs and exploring the tactical advantages of eBay botting versus grey market rigs from Newegg, one entertainer set out to see if he can use other gaming equipment for the task as well.

The experiment was a success, with Stacksmashing successfully setting up a Bitcoin mining rig running on four AA batteries, childhood memories and sheer ingenuity.

Of course, certain technical hurdles had to be overcome first – for starters, Game Boys cannot connect to the Internet. The memory available on a Game Boy is also too small to contain the entire blockchain – so the Game Boy was jimmy-rigged with a Raspberry Pi Pico for some processing power, which was then linked to a PC with internet access running a Bitcoin mining node.

However, before you go rummaging through that one box in your garage to duplicate the experiment, note that the mining rate of the entire setup only amounts to 0.8 hashes per second. For comparison, a dedicated mining rig has an average speed of about 125 billion times that, meaning that if things were left to run their course – assuming the mining difficulty of Bitcoin left unchanged – Stacksmashing’s Game Boy would earn 1 BTC within a few quadrillion years.

In order to test his setup, Stacksmashing had to set up a new Bitcoin blockchain that contained no prior records. However, it’s quite exciting to see that the thing actually works – and beeps along to some cutesy animations while at it.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

The Art of Piledriving: The Undertaker Puts NFTs Through the WWE Ropes

On the weekend, WWE released six Undertaker NFTs, preserving some of the wrestler’s most memorable moments for posterity.

NFTs are one-of-a-kind tokens fast becoming one of the leading ways for artists to connect with their fans.

The NFTs sold at auction for prices between US$100 and $100,000, in partnership with crypto wallet provider Bitski.

The Undertaker NFTs sold on auction

Several Tiers of NFTs

The NFTs were sold in four tiers, with two bronze NFTs, two silver NFTs, and a gold and platinum-tier NFT each.

For the platinum tier, bidding started at $10,000 but it sold for $100,000. The buyer will also receive two front-row tickets for Wrestlemania 38 and 39, taking place in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Aside from VIP access and an all-expenses-paid stay at a hotel, the buyer will receive a personal thank-you recording from the Undertaker – real name Mark William Callaway – as well as “an original Paul Bearer urn out of the WWE Vault, used by Paul Bearer and the Undertaker, to be signed by the Undertaker, as well as a personalised WWE Championship title belt with the winner’s name engraved on the side plates”.

Nick Khan, WWE president and chief revenue officer, stated that the creation of the NFTs will help expand the wrestling phenomenon, honouring the longest winning streak of any WWE wrestler – which stands at 21-0.

WWE’s first-ever NFT collection presents an opportunity to own a digital piece of history featuring the Undertaker, one of the most iconic superstars in sports entertainment. This will also allow WWE to deepen our connection with the WWE universe during our biggest event, WrestleMania.

Nick Khan, WWE president and chief revenue officer

With the auction over, avid WWE fans will find their very own pieces of wrestling history stored safely within their Bitski wallets.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Investing

Tidal Insurance Set To Go Live On The Oasis Network

In a recent post, The Oasis Foundation – which sprung from the roots of Oasis Labs, the team behind the Oasis Network – stated that DeFi insurance provider Tidal Finance will be bringing their services to the Oasis Network.

As a company known for providing a selection of pools with risk assessments, Tidal Finance allows investors to hedge their bets depending on how much risk they are willing to take.

More Security For Investors?

The aim of implementing insurance policies on a DeFi network is to protect investors who, although interested in DeFi, may dither due to the relative immaturity of the decentralized business sector. Although DeFi is attracting more and more investors – with over $100 billion worth of assets locked into DeFi ventures – certain issues in the not-so-distant past may still give prudent investors reasons to look elsewhere.

According to the blog post, Tidal Finance will be providing cross-chain insurance for Oasis customers. In return, Tidal Finance will be able to expand the scope of their activity, taking advantage of the confidential smart contracts that are one of the major selling points of the Oasis network.

This integration will go beyond just providing insurance capabilities. The Oasis Network’s unique ability to keep smart contracts and their data confidential, will also allow Tidal to explore expanding their claims process to include anonymous, democratized voting on claims processing with their community. In short, their community could vote on whether a particular claim should be approved in a privacy-preserving manner.

Oasis Protocol Foundation

Confidential smart contracts also have uses outside of the financial sector. For example, a hypothetical medical establishment allowing payment in cryptocurrencies could receive payments this way, ensuring the relationship between the doctor and the patient remains confidential – a cornerstone of medicine ever since the Hippocratic Oath was put to paper.