• Aug 13, 2024

US Government Moves $600 Million in Silk Road Bitcoin to Coinbase

The United States government moved nearly $600 million in seized Bitcoin from the Silk Road dark web marketplace to a Coinbase wallet Wednesday, according to Arkham Intelligence. The government moved 10,000 Bitcoin, worth nearly $594 million at the time of transaction, to a wallet tied to Coinbase Prime. It's not immediately clear whether the United States plans to sell or custody the assets. The transaction follows a previous move of approximately $2 billion worth of Silk Road Bitcoin in late J...

• Aug 13, 2024

Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin Has Potential to Dominate Market, Say Experts

Coinbase has teased the upcoming launch of cbBTC, a new tokenized version of Bitcoin, on its Base network. Experts told Decrypt they think it could reshape the landscape of tokenized Bitcoin (BTC). This new token, announced via a cryptic tweet in the early hours Wednesday, signals Coinbase's ambitious plans to expand its tokenized asset offerings and potentially reshape the landscape of wrapped Bitcoin. Coinbase has not yet responded to requests for more details from Decrypt. The introduction of...

• Aug 13, 2024

Elon Musk's Grok 2 Generates AI Images—How Does It Stack Up?

Artificial intelligence company xAI, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, unveiled Grok 2 on Wednesday, the next evolution of its AI chatbot. This latest release takes Grok into multimodal territory, boasting capabilities that span text comprehension, real-time Twitter analysis, and image generation. “We are excited to release an early preview of Grok-2, a significant step forward from our previous model Grok-1.5, featuring frontier capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning,” xAI said in its offic...

• Aug 13, 2024

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary Lays the Blueprint for Crypto Mass Adoption

The speculative nature of Bitcoin won’t catapult digital assets into the mainstream, according to Kevin O’Leary. Rather, the ascension of crypto tech will be driven by the disruptive potential of stablecoins tied to real-world currencies, the Canadian investor and “Shark Tank” star believes. “We should expand our thinking in this narrative we're having right now about digital payment systems,” he said in a recent interview with Decrypt. “The largest market on earth is FX, it's currency. And I th...

• Aug 13, 2024

‘Digital Real Estate’? Eric Trump Further Teases Cryptic Crypto Project

What's the big Trump family crypto move that the former president's sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have teased in recent days? Well, Eric Trump just did an interview about it—and it's no clearer now than it was before. “It’s digital real estate,” Eric Trump told the New York Post in an exclusive interview. What does that mean? To some, the phrase may conjure images of a Trump metaverse push a couple years after the hype faded. It could also point to the concept of real-world asset tokenization—t...

• Aug 13, 2024

Telegram Launches New Ways for Creators to Earn TON Tokens

Messaging app Telegram is becoming even more crypto-focused after announcing a feature that allows creators to earn Toncoin (TON), the native cryptocurrency of The Open Network.  The app’s developers said Wednesday that users can now send reactions in Stars—an off-chain, in-app currency tied to TON—to content creators and channels, and then those Stars can then be converted into TON. And if those receiving the Stars don’t want TON, then they can use them to pay for advertising. TON Ventures Laun...

• Aug 13, 2024

Binance to Pay $1.7 Million to Brazil’s SEC Over Crypto Derivatives

Binance has agreed to pay security regulators in Brazil a fine equivalent to $1.75 million for acting as a “securities intermediary” by offering derivatives trading in the country without a proper license.  The settlement of 9.6 million Brazilian reais was revealed Tuesday by Brazil’s Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), which says it decided to accept the payment amount and finally put its years-long feud with Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to bed. A spokesperson for the exc...

• Aug 13, 2024

Judge Allows Copyright Case Against AI Image Generators to Move Forward

A federal judge has ordered the copyright infringement case against AI image developers Stability AI, Midjourney, and the online art community DeviantART to move forward, according to court documents released Monday. The lawsuit—brought by attorneys for artists including Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz—alleges the developers used their work without permission to train their respective AI models. According to court documents shared by the Hollywood Reporter, U.S. District Judge Wi...

• Aug 13, 2024

MetaMask and Mastercard Launch Debit Card That Lets You Spend From Your Ethereum Wallet

MetaMask, the popular Ethereum-centric crypto wallet, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Mastercard to pilot a new debit card that will connect directly to users’ self-custody wallets and allow them to pay with crypto anywhere in the world where Mastercard is accepted.  The MetaMask Card, as the product has been dubbed, will initially be available via a limited pilot program for a few thousand users in the European Union and the United Kingdom. By later this year, the MetaMask Car...

• Aug 13, 2024

Solana Meme Coin Gigachad Up 21% After Endorsement From Meme Model

Solana meme coin Gigachad (GIGA) is up 21.2% on the day after the model behind the meme endorsed the project on his Instagram. Shortly after, famous bodybuilder Mike ‘Titan’ O’Hearn also pushed the project. Ernest Khalimov (known as Berlin 1969 on Instagram) is the model behind the famous gigachad meme. He is one of many models photographed by Russian artist Krista Sudmalis for her “Sleek n Tears” project. When Khalimov had his hyper-muscular figure and chiseled face photographed, the internet w...