ApeCoin integrates with Polygon amid NFT mint backlash and speculation

Malice Or Ignorance? The New York Times Keeps Printing Lies About Bitcoin Mining

The New York Times’ campaign against bitcoin rages on. Even though this time they had the perfect opportunity to write a balanced article, they didn’t. The author reports one positive bitcoin mining story after another, while keeping a snooty attitude and suggesting it’s all a PR move. The title summarizes the New York Times’ stance, “Bitcoin Miners Want to Recast Themselves as Eco-Friendly.” Related Reading | Valkyrie Bitcoin Mining ETF “WGMI” Approved For Nasdaq Listing Before we get into it, a quick story. The foremost expert in bitcoin’s energy consumption, Nic Carter, published an exhaustive report on mining. Among other things, it contained hard data that showed to what extent China was mining using hydropower energy. Mainstream media largely ignored it. The party line was that we couldn’t trust China’s statistics. And, that China was probably burning cole.  Fast forward to last month. China banned bitcoin mining a while ago and bitcoin’s hashrate relocated, recovered, while the network functioned perfectly throughout. Most of China’s mining industry relocated to green energy-abundant countries. What did the New York Times post? An article called “China Banished Cryptocurrencies. Now, ‘Mining’ Is Even Dirtier,” that claims that Chinese miners were using hydropower energy and thus used cleaner energy. That’s the level of propaganda we’re dealing with. What Did The New York Times Say About Bitcoin Mining This Time? The article starts by featuring Argo Blockchain, the company is building a new facility that “would be fueled mostly by wind and solar energy.” They even quote Peter Wall, Argo CEO, saying. “This is Bitcoin mining nirvana. You look off into the distance and you’ve got your renewable power.” What could be wrong with that? Two paragraphs later, the New York Times starts pushing lies and embarrassing numbers:  “A single Bitcoin transaction now requires more than 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or enough energy to power the average American household for 73 days, researchers estimate.” Of course, those ridiculous claims come from Digiconomist, a widely debunked researcher who happens to be an employee of the Dutch Central Bank. And then, they blatantly quote the malicious study mentioned in the intro.  “The Bitcoin network’s use of green energy sources also dropped to an average of 25 percent in August 2021 from 42 percent in 2020. (The industry has argued that its average renewable use is closer to 60 percent.) That’s partly a result of China’s crackdown, which cut off a source of cheap hydropower.” And quote Alex de Vries, one of the study’s authors, being completely off the mark. “What a miner is going to do if they want to maximize the profit is put their machine wherever it can run the entire day.” WHAT? To maximize profit, a miner is going to find the cheapest source of energy possible. Energy is their biggest cost. The cheapest source possible is energy that’s currently being wasted. That’s the situation. BTC price chart for 03/26/2022 on Forex.com | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com More Feel-Good Stories Framed As Bad News The New York Times even quotes Paul Prager, TeraWulf CEO, saying “Everyone I talk to now is talking about carbon neutrality. The language has absolutely changed.” And then, the newspaper spreads the good news. “TeraWulf, has pledged to run cryptocurrency mines using more than 90 percent zero-carbon energy. It has two projects in the works — a retired coal plant in upstate New York fueled by hydropower, and a nuclear-powered facility in Pennsylvania.” None of these stories are celebrated. Remember the article’s title, they are cynically presented as PR stunts. Then, it´s time for Sangha Systems, who “repurposed an old steel mill in the town of Hennepin. Sangha is run by a former lawyer, Spencer Marr, who says he founded the company to promote clean energy. But about half the Hennepin operation’s power comes from fossil fuels.” The New York Times Closes The Loop That’s the worst example that the New York Times could find. A person who “founded the company to promote clean energy” but had to make a compromise to start his business. To close the article, the author brings us back to Argo Blockchain and tries to pull something similar. Apparently, the CEO “can’t guarantee that Argo’s new center will have no carbon footprint. That would require bypassing the grid and buying energy directly from a renewable power company.” Related Reading | Biden Loves Intel’s Plan To Produce Semiconductors. What About Bitcoin Mining? And then, they quote him again. “A lot of those renewable energy producers are still a little bit skeptical of cryptocurrency. The crypto miners don’t have the credit profiles to sign 10- or 15-year deals.” So, Argo is really trying but it’s not possible at the moment for understandable reasons. And the whole industry is moving to a greener path because the incentives are aligned that way. Got it, New York Times. Got it. Featured Image by tacskooo on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

How The LABEL Foundation NFTs Infrastructure Will Lead The Entertainment Industry To Its Next Stage

For far too long big corporations have dominated the entertainment industry by keeping total control over consumers and content creators. Blockchain, the technology that powers cryptocurrencies, and NFTs have opened a door to turn that model upside down and place power on fans and artists. This transformation process is at an early stage but could be a great leap forward in 2022 as content creators from all over the world begin to take note of NFTs and their potential to connect them with their audiences. These digital assets let fans live new experiences and provide artists with a direct income stream; with a straightforward method to monetize their work. The LABEL Foundation and the Ethereum-based infrastructure LABEL, backed by two of South Korea’s most prominent companies in systematic music education, CLESSON and OPENTRACK, seem poised to be a relevant piece of this digital revolution. Created to completely remove any third parties for content creators and their fans, LABEL has the tools to take the entertainment industry into the future. Including its own native NFT Market that lets content creators digitize their work in the form of these assets, and an incubation platform to receive funds from the community. In that sense, Intellectual Property (IP) distribution, promotion, and financial support have moved from big companies directly into the hands of content creators and LBL holders. The latter is LABEL’s native token which operates as the backbone of its governance model, run by the platform’s Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Its voting system gives the users a voice over the proposals that will impact LABEL’s future. A Multichain Vision, How LABEL Will Disrupt Entertainment The LABEL Foundation and its platform believe in making the entertainment industry more open, transparent, and fair for content creators. Unlike its legacy counterparts, LABEL is built around its community, and it’s building a transparent profit-sharing ecosystem. According to the team behind the project: LABEL provides a decentralized P2P incubating platform to invest in world-class entertainment-education content through the DAO voting system to further allow contributors to claim profits through the NFT shareholding mechanism. The growth in the blockchain-based ecosystem has been massive in past years, as more users demand transparent and decentralized services. The LABEL Foundation understands that the crypto industry is heading for a cross-chain ecosystem to provide users with more accessibility and interoperable functionalities. In that sense, they have recently reconfirmed their commitment to take LABEL and its infrastructure to other networks. The Foundation consolidated a partnership with Ankr to leverage their nodes, and with Curvegrid, to provide LABEL with their multi-business-as-a-service (BaaS) middleware. By expanding its cross-chain capabilities, more users will be able to onboard the platform and benefit from its features. Thus, bringing the revolution of entertainment closer. LABEL, What NFTs Need To Usher A New Wave Of Adoption? LABEL has seen impressive growth, despite the current bearish price action across the crypto market. The LABEL Foundation has announced more partnerships as it expands to achieve its objectives, its native token LBL has seen an explosion of interest as demonstrated by its 4,600% increase since launched on crypto exchanges. In addition, OPENTRACK, the platform that provides a majority of the IP for LABEL released its version 2.0. Now, the platform has improved on its features by integrating it with NFTs. In that way, artists can bring their content as this digital assets into the platform. The LABEL Foundation also announced the successful raise of $1 million in a private sale round. The project received support from some of the most relevant venture capitalists and institutions within the crypto space, such as HG Ventures, Mindfulness Capital, M6, IOST, Adaptative, Icetea Labs, Alphabit, Pragma, and others. Simon Jeung, a co-founder at HG Ventures, the leading investor in the LABEL Foundation, said: We believe that NFTs will definitely need the next level of adoption, and the musicians, artists and other content creators that were previously restrained from their legitimate profits will now be able to protect their rightful IP rights in the most innovative NFT infrastructure platform (LABEL).

Binance Shuts Down Ontario Users From Its Platform – Will It Restrict Other Canadian Provinces?

Binance has bid Ontario adios. The dispute between cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Ontario’s financial regulator has concluded, with the company formally agreeing to cease operations in the Canadian province. The conflict between Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange (by trading volume), and the Ontario Securities Commission began in June 2021, when the exchange announced its […]