Blockchain this week
Your summary of the latest from the world of blockchain technology
Bitcoin plunges after Elon Musk tweets that Tesla will no longer accept it as payment
I wish he’d let me know in advance before he does things like this. Elon’s tweets upend the market once again. He cited environmental concerns for the decision, in particular the use of fossil fuels to provide the energy used to mine Bitcoin. He did, however, say that Tesla still plans to use Bitcoin once the currency finds cleaner energy sources.
And Ethereum and Dogecoin followed it down
The crypto market as a whole fell by around $300 billion this week, and these two cryptocurrencies saw similar slides. The sharp fall was also sparked by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin moving over $2 billion of Bitcoin, donating around $1 billion to the India Covid Relief Fund. Ethereum subsequently dropped below recent highs of over $4,000 These events serve as a major reminder that the market remains vulnerable and volatile, particularly to the actions of ‘whales’ who hold large amounts of cryptocurrency.
Argo Blockchain purchases hydro-powered crypto mines
Argo Blockchain, one of the world’s largest crypto mining companies, purchased two data centres in Quebec as part of its ‘green mining vision’. Argo is clearly alive to the environmental concerns surrounding Bitcoin, which requires a large amount of energy per transaction. These data centres have a combined total of 20 megawatts of power capacity, and should lay the foundations for the company’s long-term, sustainable crypto mining vision.
Samsung expands blockchain support on Galaxy smartphones
Users will now be able to import their virtual assets to the Samsung Blockchain Wallet, now available on most Galaxy smartphones. This will allow users to manage their crypto assets from one convenient location. Galaxy devices can connect to multiple hardware wallets (wallets that allow digital currencies to be stored offline) and it supports major crypto tokens. To keep the wallets secure, the private keys used to access the wallet, and Samsung’s other blockchain solutions, are encrypted and stored in the Samsung Blockchain Keystore, which is isolated from the main operating system.
