Author: Donald Munn

Visa and Mastercard decided on Saturday to suspend all their active services in Russia, in response to the attack by Moscow troops on Ukraine Visa and Mastercard abandon Ukraine “We are compelled to act following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed”, said Al Kelly, president and CEO of Visa.  “We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues, and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia. This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values”. Mastercard explains its…

SPONSORED POST* What is Ducklization Ducklization is a new turn-based NFT RPG crypto game coming to the Waves* blockchain.  The goal of the game is to explore the world of Ducklization and establish and prosper your nation by building cities, diplomatic and trade relations, and discovering new lands and technologies. The game’s economy is based on the deflationary SHEG token, produced by all nations through Waves Ducks and by cities through a staking mechanism regulated by a smart contract. The game was developed on the Waves blockchain to help develop and support its ecosystem, as well as for performance, decentralization…

Immutable, the scalable, zero-emissions platform for trading NFTs on Ethereum, has raised $200 million in Series C funding, bringing its valuation now to $2.5 billion.  The capital will be invested to fuel the startup’s global expansion plans, as well as in Immutable X and Immutable Gaming Studio, including its flagship games Gods Unchained.  Immutable NFT and the $200 million Series C funding round  In a series of tweets, Australian unicorn Immutable tells followers and non-followers alike that it has closed its $200 million Series C funding round.  1/ Major news: we’re thrilled to announce @Immutable has raised $200M in Series…

NFTs have become major players in South Korea’s presidential election race. Even candidate Yoon Suk-yeol has launched his own collection.  Yoon Suk-yeol launches NFTs for the South Korean elections Korean Conservative Party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol has launched a special collection of NFTs in the hope of appealing to young people in particular.  According to reports, Yoon has launched 4,000 NFTs representing him, minted on the Aergo Blockchain, and now for sale on the CCCV marketplace with prices starting at around $40.  In reality, more than 22,000 of these NFTs are expected to be released in total.  His main contender, the…

NFT Bunny releases its first update and introduces social functions: today, Friday 4 March, many new features have been introduced, starting with the social wall.  What’s new in the NFT Bunny update Social features The new NFT Bunny update introduces the social wall. With this new feature, users will see a timeline of content and new functions will soon be added, such as chat, interactions, comments and much more.  At the moment, the social wall is only accessible to logged-in users. Those who do not have an account will continue to see the platform in its classic style.  The social…

Bitcoin Analysis  Bitcoin’s price was sent lower on Monday and BTC market participants settled up with BTC’s price finishing -$398 on the day.  The first chart we’re looking over today is the BTC/USD 1D chart below from stikytrading. BTC’s price is trading between 0.00% [$35,044.48] and 23.60% [$42,726.84], at the time of writing. Bullish BTC market participants have taken aim back at the 23.60% fib level with a secondary target of 38.20% [$47,479.49] and a third target of 50.00% [$51,320.67]. For bearish BTC market participants their path to sub $30k bitcoin is rejecting the 23.60% fib level and then snapping…

Last week saw a real boom for crypto funds.  Crypto funds, +$36 million in volume According to CoinShares, investment products in digital assets saw inflows of $127 million last week. That’s an increase of $36 million from the previous week, and the largest volume of weekly inflows since 12 December 2021.  This is very comforting for the crypto markets as it seems to suggest cautious optimism as investors appear to be expanding their exposure to digital assets despite the current geopolitical uncertainty. Not even the expected monetary tightening by central banks seems to be able to stop this phenomenon.  Moreover,…

A few days ago, Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, officially announced an increase in the minimum wage in the public sector to half a Petro.  The Petro for raising the minimum wage in Venezuela The Petro is Venezuela’s national token, launched in 2018, and theoretically pegged to the value of oil.  According to the official website, 1 Petro is currently worth around USD 58.5, but since it cannot be traded freely on the market, this is the price set by the Venezuelan government, not its real market value.  According to these figures, the new value of half a Petro of the…

The price of Bitcoin seems to be holding up, despite the deep tensions gripping financial markets these days.  Bitcoin’s price amid international tensions After a sharp drop last week, the price seems to have settled since yesterday between $38,000 and $39,000, roughly the same as it was at the end of February.  This is still 10% lower than it was before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, but a 10% swing for the price of BTC is not particularly sensational.  To be fair, in the last 24 hours it has even fallen as low as $37,600, but the latest…

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who has long followed the world of cryptocurrencies with interest, said in a recent interview that Bitcoin is the digital equivalent of gold and the product of a “mathematical miracle”.  Wozniak: Bitcoin better than gold Indeed, according to the eccentric billionaire, the most popular digital currency is in some ways even better than gold: “Gold is limited and you have to look for it; Bitcoin is the most amazing mathematical miracle. I don’t invest in Bitcoin, but I believe in it for the future”. At the end of last year, Wozniak had already spoken in enthusiastic…