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Jun 24 2021

50,000 electric vehicle charging stations in Europe to offer crypto payments

Two payments firms have partnered to roll out crypto payments across 50,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in Europe.

The partnership is between Irish e-commerce and mobile payment solutions firm HIPS Payment Group Ltd and Vourity, a Swedish firm that specializes in unattended payment facilities such as EV charging stations.

The integration of crypto payments with charging stations will occur over the next three years starting from November 2021.

The firms haven’t revealed which cryptocurrencies will be supported yet, but Vourity has dropped a pretty strong hint that Ethereum is likely to be among the first after it released an image of a payment terminal with an ETH logo on it. Ethereum is moving to the much more energy efficient Proof-of Stake consensus mechanism in the next year, which could mitigate any backlash among environmentally conscious EV drivers.

“We are currently evaluating what cryptos/coins we will support. It will be converted to fiat,” stated Hans Nottehed, the CEO of Vourity.

Vourity payment terminal, with an ETH logo

Crypto payments will be integrated with Vourity’s EV charging stations by connecting to the blockchain via Hips Merchant Protocol’s native protocol token Merchant Token.

Back in May, HIPS Payment Group launched the HIPS Merchant Protocol, the HIPS Merchant Protocol Gateway, and its governing Merchant Token.

The protocol was built on Ethereum and Solana in May 2021 and plans to expand support to Cardano in the future.

“With near real-time transaction speeds, in addition, the Hips Merchant Blockchain is designed for merchant transactions regardless if they are mobile, instore or e-commerce and utilizes the interchange concept from the payment card industry,” HIPS noted in May.

EV crypto innovation

Tesla famously did a U-turn on accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments for vehicles, with Elon Musk noting the firm won’t change course until the mining sector is at least 50% powered by clean energy. Other EV-focused firms have sought ways to innovate using “clean” crypto mining and adoption.

At the beginning of this month, Canadian light EV manufacturer Daymak announced an upcoming EV set for 2023, that is fitted with a crypto mining rig that can mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies while it’s charging or parked.

In March, Stellantis, the parent company of European car manufacturer Fiat, partnered with Kiri Technologies, to promote an “eco-driving style,” by rewarding Fiat EV drivers in cryptocurrency via Kiri Technologies’ KiriCoin.

In that same month, Volkswagen Group Innovation, the research department of German car Volkswagen, announced a partnership with Energy Web, a non-profit organization focused on open source energy transition.

The duo teamed up to research methods of using EV’s and charging stations as part of the power grid using blockchain.

Jesse Morris, the chief commercial officer of Energy Web, spoke with Cointelegraph and emphasized the benefits of tracking the integration between EVs, charging stations, and power grids using blockchain.

Morris mentioned that during times of local grid congestion, Volkswagen drivers could be incentivized not to charge by being paid out in crypto or fiat. Additionally, utility providers could pay EV drivers to store energy during times of excess generation on the power grid.

50,000 electric vehicle charging stations in Europe to offer crypto payments

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Jun 23 2021

$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in ‘hack’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

Around 69,000 Bitcoin has vanished from a South African investment platform along with two brothers who owned the crypto firm.

Although the facts are yet to be proven in court, if it turns to be an exit scam rather than a hack, it would be the biggest in history according to Bloomberg. There were warning signs for investors either way, with users reportedly promised returns of up to 10% a day.

AfriCrypt was founded in 2019 and operated by brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee. It had reportedly amassed around 54 billion rands worth of BTC, or $3.6 billion USD at the time, when it sent a message to investors on April 13 claiming the platform had been hacked.

The firm said it would halt operations while it began the process of “attempting to retrieve stolen funds and compromised information.”

South African law firm Hanekom Attorneys, which has taken the case on behalf of affected users, said suspicions were aroused as the message included the warning that: “clients may proceed the legal route, but we ask clients to please acknowledge that this will only delay the recovery process.”

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” Hanekom Attorneys said. The law firm also claimed that “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

Hanekom Attorneys alleges that the brothers transferred the 69,000 BTC — which is now worth $2.2 billion after the recent price tumble — from AfriCrypt’s accounts and client wallets, and subjected the funds “to various dark web tumblers and mixers, resulting in severe fragmentation” to make the funds untraceable.

The brothers have been unreachable, with calls going directly to voicemail, while the AfriCrypt website is also down. The law firm has reported the case to an elite unit of the national police dubbed the “Hawks.”

South Africa’s Gauteng South High Court has granted a provisional liquidation order against the Cajee brothers, and they have been given until July 19 2021 to respond to the order.

According to African online crypto news outlet BitcoinKe, AfriCrypt drew in clients by targeting high net worth investors and urging them to refer their friends, while also offering returns of up to 10% daily.

The eye watering daily return puts the 10% monthly return promised to users of South African crypto Ponzi scheme Mirror Trading International (MTI) into the shade.

MTI has been described as the biggest Ponzi-scheme the country had ever seen, pulling in 23,000 BTC from investors ($774 million at today’s prices) with MTI’s CEO, Johann Steynberg reportedly fleeing to Brazil to escape punishment when the firm was placed under provisional liquidation in 2020.

$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in \’hack\’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

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Jun 22 2021

Dogecoin Price Hits $0.176 after a 22% Dip – Where to Buy DOGE

Altcoins are having a hard time recovering, with the majority of them deep in the red zone. One of the worst-hit tokens is dogecoin, which has lost 22% in the past 24 hours.

In the past month, DOGE has lost nearly half of its value. However, those who invested at the beginning of the year are still in profit since the token’s current price is almost 7,000% higher than what the coin was trading at the beginning of the year.

At the time of writing, DOGE had sunk below critical $0.20 support levels and traded at $0.176 on major exchanges.

Dogecoin Price Analysis

It seems that DOGE’s glorious days may be coming to an end. The meme coin gained popularity after Elon Musk affiliated himself with it and promoted it on his Twitter account. However, Musk is yet to come to the rescue of DOGE this time round. His silence comes weeks after a threatening video by the Anonymous hacker group was released, criticizing him for misusing his power over the crypto market.

DOGE Price Analysis 22 June 2021 — Source: TradingView

The chart above shows how dogecoin has been performing this month. The highest downtrend for the token started this week, as can be seen above, which could be attributed to the lack of support from the broader crypto market. After BTC sunk to almost $31,000 at the beginning of the week, altcoins followed suit and dogecoin was not spared.

Dogecoin needs to push past $0.20 to prevent a further retreat. Currently, the meme coin is on the verge of losing its coveted position among the top ten cryptocurrencies. Losing its space could be devastating for the token.

Dogecoin holders are urging Elon Musk to step in and save the meme coin from any further turmoil. However, his silence on the matter could indicate that the billionaire is keeping his sentiments about the crypto market to himself ever since he was accused of manipulating the market and misusing his power in the sector. However, not all is lost, and we may see the CEO tweeting about his favourite coin soon.

The current price movement could be because of a market correction, given the coin’s massive gains. However, it is worth noting that DOGE’s price gains merely resulted from investor demand. If the token gains practical adoption for use in the real world, such as in global financial systems, its value will definitely shoot.

Dogecoin has a strong community of fans compared to other cryptocurrencies, which is one of DOGE’s strengths that will help it with its long-term value. Due to its growing fan base, dogecoin has been accepted as a payment method for Wag, a dog-walking app. An increase in use-cases for DOGE will boost demand and hence value.

How to Buy DOGE

To purchase dogecoin, you need to create an account on a crypto exchange. One of the exchanges that support DOGE is eToro. The exchange is highly secure and reliable. Besides, its trading fees are highly competitive, and it offers a wide array of outstanding features for new investors. In addition, the exchange is among the few that offer copy trading, and if you have never traded crypto before, the exchange will provide you with a demo account where you can learn.

Looking to buy or trade Dogecoin (DOGE) now? Invest at eToro!

75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider

Dogecoin Price Hits $0.176 after a 22% Dip – Where to Buy DOGE

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Jun 21 2021

Portugal Grants First Crypto Exchanges Operating Licenses

For the first time ever, Banco de Portugal has approved operating licenses to regional cryptocurrency trades.

Recently, the central bank gave out the statement that Portuguese-based trades “Mind the coin” and “Criptologia” are now enlisted as virtual assets service providers.

The central bank has issued only these two names in the list on their official website. Banco De Portugal took around nine months to finalize the decision. In September 2020, Criptojola was reported to perform its initial registration to give out its services as a virtual assets provider.

Mind the Coin and Criptoloja have been given permission to perform crypto exchange services between fiat currencies and different virtual assets within the Portuguese region. Furthermore, they are also allowed to cover various transfer services, safeguarding, and administration works for such assets.

Banco De Portugal has been awarded as one of the most crypto-friendly nations in entire Europe, and the whole continent seems to be proud of it.

In May 2021, Jean Galea, a well-known investor, and blogger said that Portugal is becoming a haven for all the individuals involved in the crypto world in one of his write-ups. Cryptocurrency income continues to be immune from capital gains taxes and VAT in Portugal unless the income is associated with professional trading activity.

Which other European countries are involved in Crypto exchanges?

Nonetheless, Portugal isn’t the only European country to accept crypto trading and services with a warm welcome.

In the final week of May 2021, The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) granted “XCoins,” a country-based leading exchange provider, the license to class 3 VFA (Virtual Financial Asset).

The founder and CEO of XCoins, Rob Frye, stated that Xcoins is dominating the space of digital assets worldwide by standing as one of the earliest cryptocurrency platforms to reach this benchmark implies that they are completely capable of paving the path for an additionally secured and organized industry.

This is another such authorization the Malta Financial Services Authority has consented to a crypto trade this year. The firstest crypto platform to obtain a VFA authorization of a similar degree was “Crypto.com.” By earning the milestone of receiving the license a couple of weeks before XCoins, the company called this achievement a historic moment for the cryptocurrency world.

Moreover, Crypto.com had previously made a plea to the MFSA to serve as a licensed financial institution, but the plea didn’t get approved. Again this year, the company has presented its plea to the Maltese authority; however, the regulator’s verdict is still not finalized.

European countries like MFSA and Portugal are surpassing the crypto exchange milestone!

Conclusion

Further, Criptoloja is currently seeking to bring Portuguese folk together who are interested in investing in crypto assets. However, the service provider company is not confident enough to start accounts in out-of-country trades. Nevertheless, investors say that the tremendous adoption of cryptocurrencies in Portugal is forming a new era of traders.

To get instant updates about Blockchain Technology and to learn more about online Blockchain Certifications, check out Blockchain Council.

Portugal Grants First Crypto Exchanges Operating Licenses

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Jun 20 2021

Crypto-finance company Amber Group valued at $1B following $100M raise

Cryptocurrency investment platform Amber Group has added $100 million to its coffers following a successful Series B fundraiser, bringing its total pre-money valuation to $1 billion — a major milestone for the firm as it enters its fourth year of operations.

The cash injection will be used to “expand global operations to meet client demand and develop market solutions for the world’s leading crypto investors and companies,” co-founder and CEO Michael Wu said.

Measures of trade volume and total assets under management showcase Amber Group’s significant growth over the past four years. The company now has over $1 billion in assets under management, with more than $500 billion worth of cumulative trade volumes.

“We’ve had record months over the past quarter across both client flow and on-exchange market-making volumes,” Wu said, adding:

“Since stepping up our on-screen presence, we now account for 2-3% of total trading volumes in major spot and derivative markets and are continuing to see growth. Our cumulative trading volumes have doubled from $250 billion since the beginning of the year to over $500 billion.”

In terms of notional trade volume, Amber Group ranks 21st among global exchanges, according to BitMEX data.

Amber’s assets topped $530 million in 2020, representing a 275% increase from the prior year. At the time, Wu told Cointelegraph that his company has “already proven we can provide institutional-grade integrated crypto financial services.”

In addition to its Series B backers, Amber Group has received direct funding from some of blockchain’s biggest venture funds, including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Blockchain.com.

Venture funds have poured billions of dollars into the crypto economy over the past six months, highlighting their conviction in the new asset class. Just this month, Solana Labs finalized a $314 million private token sale, PayPal and Salesforce contributed $14 million to TRM Labs and DeFi exchange dYdX raised $65 million through a Series C fundraiser.

Crypto-finance company Amber Group valued at $1B following $100M raise

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