Twitter Experiments with DOGE’s Shiba Inu as Its Logo
Last week, the CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, fulfilled a promise to replace the microblogging site’s bird logo with the image of a Shiba Inu, the logo of Dogecoin (DOGE). After the logo update, the price of the digital asset, which according to CoinMarketCap.com, is the eighth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose by more than 30%.
Musk has been touting DOGE years ago, to the point that he and his companies were accused of being “engaged in a crypto pyramid scheme by way of dogecoin cryptocurrency” in a $258 billion lawsuit last year. Attorneys for Twitter and Musk last week asked a federal judge to toss out the case.
Ralph Lauren Discloses Plan to Start Accepting Crypto for Merchandise
In line with ongoing luxury brands trend, US apparel retailer Ralph Lauren last week joined the league of crypto-accepting outlets. The fashion company will be allowing customers to buy merchandise at its Miami store using Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Polygon's MATIC and twelve others through service provider BitPay, a report says. Other accepted cryptocurrencies include ApeCoin (APE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dai (DAI), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and USD Coin (USDC).
While the top brand notes that the new Miami Design District store is Ralph Lauren’s first to accept cryptocurrency, the brand is also working to give out co-designed NFTs to all existing Poolsuite community members. The gifted NFTs will serve as an access pass to an exclusive event.
Hidden Copy of Bitcoin Whitepaper Found In macOS
A developer, Andy Baio, made a rare discovery last week after stumbling on the Bitcoin whitepaper written by Satoshi Nakamoto among sample documents in a folder tucked away in the Image Capture utility built into macOS.
In a published explainer, he theorizes that every copy of macOS that has shipped since 2018 has the original whitepaper of the top cryptocurrency hidden somewhere. Since he couldn’t pinpoint why the document could be shipped with the operating system for Apple's Mac computers—the second most widely used desktop OS after Microsoft Windows—Baio put it out to the crypto community to help solve the mystery of how or why the Bitcoin whitepaper possibly ended up in macOS.
Cash App Founder Dies From Stab Wounds
The founder of mobile payment service, Cash App, Bob Lee was killed in a stabbing in San Francisco's Rincon Hill neighborhood last week. The 43-year-old Lee, who created Cash App while he was the chief technology officer at Square, also launched a crypto wallet called Moby when he became the chief product officer at MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency startup, in 2021.
The software engineer and investor was reported stabbed around 2:35 a.m., and offered medical assistance, but later died at a local hospital. The case remains an active investigation as no arrests have been made, according to the police.
Accounting Board Proposes Fair Value Measurement for Crypto
The past week saw attention drawn to a proposed accounting standards update that is aimed at improving the accounting for and disclosure of intangible crypto assets. Issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)—establishes financial accounting and reporting standards for companies—the proposed update raises several amendments. They include that entities be required to measure certain crypto assets at fair value in the statement of financial position each reporting period and recognize changes in fair value in net income. Fair value accounting (or mark-to-market) is a method for measuring assets that are subject to periodic fluctuations based on the current market price. Public comments on the exposure draft of the update are accepted until June 6.
US Treasury Wants Stricter AML Control for DeFi’s Illicit Actors
Following a risk assessment in which it found that criminals use DeFi services to profit from illicit activities, the US Treasury last week recommended that the US strengthen its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) supervision of virtual asset activities. Among other things, Treasury also suggested that private sector engagement be continued to support understanding of developments in the DeFi ecosystem, as well as engaging with foreign partners to close gaps on virtual assets and virtual asset service producers VASPs.
The moves are geared towards preventing illicit actors, including ransomware cybercriminals, thieves, scammers, and cyber actors in heavily sanctioned countries, from using DeFi services to transfer and launder illicit proceeds.
Kyrgyzstan’s Electricity Subsidy Favors Undercover Bitcoin Miners
Following a visit to Kyrgyzstan, an analyst at Hashrate, Jaran Mellerud, last week shared some interesting facts about crypto mining in the country.
In a Twitter thread, he describes the Bitcoin network as Kyrgyzstan's “seventh-biggest export partner, right behind China.”
With a tariff for miners at $0.066/kWh, as opposed to the $0.033/kWh for residential and industrial consumers thanks to government subsidies on electricity, Bitcoin miners in the country are financially incentivized such that it encourages undercover operations.
He sees Bitcoin mining as an opportunity for Kyrgyzstan if done well and provided its political instability does not pose any risk to such an operation.
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