New York Man Pleads Guilty to $1.8 Million Ether Robbery 4879

A New York man has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbery charges in connection with the theft of $1.8 million worth of ether. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement published on Wednesday that Louis Meza, who was accused of kidnapping an unnamed individual in New York last year and stealing their ether holdings, admitted to grand larceny in the first degree and kidnapping in the second degree.

Vance said in the statement:

“Meza orchestrated a 21st-century stick-up. Then 21st-century investigators brought him swiftly to justice, securing a landmark conviction in an undeveloped area of the law. Since 2010, my Office’s Cybercrime & Identity Theft Bureau has developed the expertise and technology to become a national leader in cybercrime prosecution and prevention, as underlined by this conviction and recovery of funds on the survivor’s behalf.”

While the Manhattan DA’s website states that Meza “is expected to be sentenced on September 27,” the Wall Street Journal reported that Meza agreed to a 10-year prison sentence under the terms of his plea deal. A judge will confirm or modify the sentence during a hearing later this month.

Authorities used video surveillance to confirm that Meza entered the victim’s home using the stolen keys, before exiting with a box believed to have held the victim’s digital wallet.

Meza was originally charged with criminal possession of stolen property, computer tampering, computer trespass and criminal use of a firearm on top of the charges to which he pleaded guilty.

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Microvisionchain announce MVC-20: The first protocol for free-minting assets on the bitcoin sidechain 10369

The future of assets protocol:

Fair launch, simplicity, efficiency, and low transaction fees

As we journey through 2023, the blockchain industry is buzzing with excitement, particularly the BRC-20 token market, led by the innovative Ordinals protocol. Moving forward, in 2024, the surge in market demand has ignited a quest for more efficient blockchain functionality, lower gas fees, and simplified operations. The market is also yearning for a fair competition environment for all participants.

Enter MVC-20, a revolutionary assets protocol that fully harnesses the high concurrency and low latency transaction characteristics of the MVC Layer1 smart contract. It’s designed to build an innovative fair distribution mechanism that addresses the fairness issues plaguing traditional models. MVC-20 is poised to bring about a seismic shift in the Bitcoin ecology token and NFT markets.

Introducing MVC-20: The First Protocol for Free-Minting Assets on the Bitcoin Sidechain

MVC-20 is a trailblazer, being the first free-Mint assets Protocol on the MVC Chain. It adopts a unique “burn to mint” mechanism, ensuring a fair start for everyone – no pre-sales, no whitelists, no team allocation, and no gas fee front-running transactions. The cost of minting MVC-20 tokens is burned, converting the value of the burned ‘Space’ [MVC network’s gas] into the intrinsic value of the MVC-20 token, without flowing into the project party or miners’ wallets.

Introducing the Burn to Mint Mechanism:

MVC-20 stands out from BRC-20 asset protocols with its innovative Burn to Mint concept. This allows the deployer to decide the burn rate of the MVC-20 token at deployment. Subsequently, all users who mint the MVC-20 token must burn a specified amount of SPACE [MVC network’s gas] to carry out the minting. The burn rate can be set between 0 and 10 quantity of SPACE.

Key Features of MVC-20:

  1. Layer 1
  2. Fair distribution [Fair Launch]
  3. High concurrency and low latency transactions
  4. Burn to mint
  5. Customizable: Burn rate 0-10 Space
  6. Permissionless
  7. Multi-functional Launchpad
  8. Compatible with various existing ecosystems and wallets, such as Show3, Orders.Exchange, MVCswap, Metalet and Indexer

MVC-20 Official Launch Day:

Starting from January 22, 2024 [UTC 15:00PM], user can begin to explore the innovative burn to mint mechanism of MVC-20 protocol. Get ready to experience the future of blockchain with MVC-20.

For more details, please visit:
https://mvc20.space/
https://mvc20.gitbook.io/intro

Microvisionchain: Introducing the Ultimate Solution to Bitcoin’s Scalability Challenge!

Microvisionchain presents a novel concept of Unified Scaling Ecosystems for Bitcoin, aiming to resolve Bitcoin’s scalability issue definitively. This plan doesn’t merely offer a same structure to Bitcoin but enhances Bitcoin’s capabilities by:

1. Superior Scaling:
Introducing a scaling solution that outperforms traditional ETH layer2 solutions. Imagine a Bitcoin ecosystem that’s ever-expanding, equipped with a Turing complete smart contract layer, and offering ultra-low fees without congestion.

2. User-Friendly:
Keeping it simple. A single private key can be used across all related second layers/sidechains, making the transition of ecosystem applications seamless and straightforward.

3. Unified Ecosystem:
Unifying countless second layers/sidechains with BTC at the core to collectively tackle BTC’s scalability issues. This will enable global user participation in Bitcoin ecosystem applications.

Implementation Steps:

Step 1: 1 MVC

The MVC node is expected to upgrade in March or April 2024, enabling the BTC ecosystem to transition seamlessly to MVC. MVC has already solved its scalability issue, with a measured TPS of up to 10,000 and transaction fees lower than 0.1 cent. MVC is the first Bitcoin-structure side-chain to implement a layer 1 smart contract on the UTXO structure, enhancing user experience and application capabilities.

Step 2: 100 MVCs

Developers can run a replicated MVC network within half an hour and adjust parameters as needed, provided the core UTXO structure and underlying capabilities remain unchanged for future compatibility with MVC and BTC.

Step 3: Use of Bitcoin

The creation of a global Unified Scaling Ecosystem for Bitcoin will permanently solve BTC’s scalability issue. Having 100 MVCs equates to having 100 large UTXO networks fully conforming to Bitcoin. Subsequent updates will support these 100 MVCs and various third-party Bitcoin-structure second layers/sidechains/ecosystems to form a globally expanding Bitcoin ecosystem expansion network.

Supporting ecosystems:

  • Mapping Satoshi Asset Bridge
  • UTXO chain block time synchronization system
  • Wallets that support multiple chains, and more.

We’re confident that, through MVC’s POB mechanism with builder grant program, we can attract global developers to revolutionize the whole blockchain industry and permanently resolve BTC’s scalability issue together.

Benefits of the MVC Unified Scaling Ecosystem plan:

Microvisionchain is a simple and elegant scalability solution that will permanently solve Bitcoin’s scalability issue and enable Bitcoin assets to possess smart contract capability. It is a superior scaling solution than many ETH second layers, uniting future second layers to collectively address Bitcoin’s scalability in a global network.

Bitcoin Price at 2011 Levels Returns as Bitcoin BSC Launch Provides Chance to Earn Free Bitcoin Clone Tokens 10713

Back in 2011, the Bitcoin price was $1, but today, following the launch of the Bitcoin BSC coin crypto presale on the BNB Smart Chain, buyers can acquire the token at a similarly low price and earn free Bitcoin clone tokens too.

Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, is struggling right now after bulls were trapped as enthusiasm at the prospect of the SEC spot bitcoin ETFs getting speedy approval receded. The price retraced below the $26k level, but it has been a different story for Bitcoin clone derivative coins.

During the past three months, for example, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork from Bitcoin is up 73%, while Bitcoin has fallen -2.3% in the same time period.

Meanwhile, a similar staking-based bitcoin derivative coin to Bitcoin BSC, BTC20, which launched a month ago, is up 52%.

In fact, BTC20 hit an all-time (ATH) intraday high of $6, equating to a 688% 7x gain on its $1 presale and listing price.

Yet another bitcoin clone derivative, this time BTC2.0, rose to an ATH of $1.06 to register a return of 538x, although the price has retraced markedly from its peak.

Earn free Bitcoin clone tokens with stake-to-earn Bitcoin BSC coin

Bitcoin BSC aims to match, or beat, the success of all of these Bitcoin clone coins, and to achieve that end it has a not-so-secret weapon – staking.

While the performance of BTC2.0, not to be confused with BTC20, since its heights has been somewhat underwhelming, there has been more of a steady-as-she-goes approach by the likes of BTC20.

That’s probably largely down to the ballast effect of staking, which bears down on any selling pressure that may emerge at listing.

In this way, Bitcoin BSC seeks to emulate BTC20 by adopting a similar design and strategy, providing the price with a stable platform for takeoff.

Like BTC20, Bitcoin BSC has staking utility built into its design from the outset.

However, it should be noted that there is one important difference between Bitcoin BSC and BTC20 – Bitcoin BSC is a BEP-20 BNB Smart Chain-compliant token, and BTC20 is an ERC-20 Ethereum-compliant token – hence the BSC in the name.

Staking has been popular in the crypto DeFi space, but enthusiasm waned in the aftermath of high-profile implosions of staking ecosystems such as Terra Luna.

However, the attractiveness of transparent staking that has a clearly defined source of yield, unlike the opaque algorithms in use on Terra Luna, has not gone away.

With $BTCBSC, which runs on the BNB Smart Chain, the yield is paid out over a 120-year period, in line with Bitcoin block confirmations. Altogether, 69% of the total token supply is allocated to distribute as rewards.

Staking provides token holders with a way of earning token rewards in proportion to how many coins of the total pool they deposit into a staking smart contract and the time they choose to stake for.

It is this staking feature that will deliver price support while offering both positive capital returns and income yield to network participants.

Bitcoin BSC staking is operative now, even before the coin lists on the decentralized exchange PancakeSwap.

You can keep an eye on how many token holders are staking by visiting the real-time Bitcoin BSC staking dashboard.

You can snap up Bitcoin BSC at the low Bitcoin 2011 price of $0.99

$BTCBSC can be bought today for $ 0.99 – the same price the Bitcoin was at back in its 2011 early days, and a far cry from the $25,7000 it will cost you to purchase Bitcoin at today’s prices.

Bitcoin BSC’s comparatively low price means contributors to the presale could be sitting on substantial upside potential when the Bitcoin halving bull run takes off.

The four-yearly event that sees block rewards halved on the original Bitcoin network has previously ushered in mind-melting bull runs.

This halving is expected to have the effect of lifting all boats – especially the prices of quality Bitcoin clone derivative coins such as $BTCBSC.

Bitcoin BSC has the same total token supply as Bitcoin – 21 million. Of that total supply, 29% is up for grabs through the presale of 6,125,000 tokens, meaning BTCBSC has an initial market cap of $6,063,750.

Two percent of the supply is reserved for DEX liquidity provision to guarantee smooth trading at launch and beyond.

The remaining 14,455,000 BTCBSC tokens (69% of supply) is reserved for staking rewards, which are paid out every 10 minutes as new blocks are added to the chain.

At that token emission rate, the maximum supply will be reached in about 120 years – the same time frame as Bitcoin.

Presale and post-presale investors can buy and stake tokens at any time with a 7-day lock on withdrawals.

Bear in mind that because BTCBSC runs on the BNB Smart Chain, to buy and stake in the presale, you will need to use BNB for your purchase. However, those buying with ETH today can start staking after the presale ends.

Faster, cheaper, more powerful and expandable than other Bitcoin clones

Still, staking is not the only advantage BTCBSC has over Bitcoin and the larger-cap clone coins such as Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV.

For one thing, $BTCBSC uses a proof-of-stake protocol, which means it runs on a much more scalable blockchain that is also cheaper and more efficient to transact on.

Because BTCBSC is built on the BNB Smart Chain, transaction fees are less than $0.10, compared to around $10 on Bitcoin and approximately $20 on Ethereum, depending on network conditions.

Another advantage BTCBSC has is its fast transaction speeds, which are typically less than 5 seconds compared to 10 minutes for Bitcoin, BCH, and BSV.

BNB Smart Chain is capable of running applications, too, so there’s no limit to future development possibilities for Bitcoin BSC.

Bitcoin BSC has a lot going for it, and with only $3,960,000 being raised in the presale, demand is sure to be robust.

Crypto market prices are generally becalmed, but there are waters where the current is much healthier. In the Bitcoin derivative clone sector, there’s all to play for as far as bagging out 10x gains goes.

Get in early, and the rewards will not just accrue to long-term stakers earning a generous APY, but also to those who want the chance to access life-changing returns.

How blockchain games are changing approaches to education and business 3870

Blockchain

Author: Andrey Frost Moroz, CEO of Bluelight.inc

Blockchain games first emerged in the early 2000s and have undergone several transformations. We all remember CryptoKitties, which literally exploded the crypto and gaming communities, with cartoon cats selling for millions of dollars to sophisticated collectors. They were followed by PokemonGo, Axie Infinity, and thousands of other entertainment games, whose goal was easy money and fun pastime.

The coronavirus epidemic and the prolonged crypto winter, which lasted for over a year, exposed the “narrow” areas of blockchain games. Of course, entertainment games can occupy you, but do they provide valuable and useful skills? Rather not! Today, the gaming world has turned not towards entertainment, but towards education. Dozens of simulation games are entering the market that can, if not instill, then give an idea of important skills. I believe that the pioneer of this trend was Mark Zuckerberg, who announced back in 2022 that he intends to launch about 10 virtual universities in the metaverse Meta, and education will be conducted in the form of games. So far, these statements remain on paper and in plans, but the concept of developing simulation games has proven to be in high demand on the market.Today, you can find dozens of such games. For example, the game 0xUniverse is essentially a simulator of space construction factories and plants. It’s clear that playing the game, you’re unlikely to learn how to build spaceships, but you will definitely understand how it works and what components a rocket or satellite consists of. Another example is MegaCryptoPolis, a city-building simulator where players must build buildings according to certain rules, beautify streets, and maintain order.

However, my team and I went further and decided to create our own business simulator, a digital analogue of Silicon Valley. Players don’t just play and complete tasks. They learn how to manage projects, build teams based on the knowledge and abilities of each member, maintain a warm climate within the team, and much more.

If you’re seeing the Bluelight game for the first time, you’ll definitely notice familiar graphics and interesting characters. Yes, the creators of the cult NFT cartoon Take My Muffin became our partners in developing the visual part of the game. But if you immerse yourself in the gameplay, every gamer will be able to find useful information or gain new skills. It’s like trading cryptocurrency on a demo account: you’re making real trades, but you’re not losing your money in case of failure. Demo trading allows you to acquire and consolidate basic trading skills and understand how orders work, how to read technical analysis, and what all these Japanese candles, figures, and curves mean. The same thing goes for Bluelight.

So what knowledge and skills do users gain just by playing the game:

1. The ability to plan is a skill that many people lack. Poor planning leads to wasting time on project implementation and, in some cases, losing money and clients. By playing Bluelight, you will learn to accurately plan the time needed to complete a task.

2. Delegation is another important factor in business. Not all tasks can be delegated, nor can they be assigned to every employee. You will understand this better if you assign a task to the wrong character. By studying the abilities and experience of the characters, you will learn to accurately determine the executor and delegate tasks to them.

3. Team building is a crucial component of a successful business. A strong and loyal team is half the battle. Our simulator helps you learn to identify and meet the needs of each team member, from their work environment to their salary and vacation.

Who will benefit from our game? I would say everyone, without exception, because these are skills that will definitely come in handy in life. However, I would particularly recommend playing Bluelight to novice entrepreneurs who are just taking their first steps in business. By the way, you can get exclusive access to the game here (email or contact form). Soon, we will launch an open beta version, and anyone will be able to play Bluelight.

Will Bitcoin continue to fall? 7068

Bitcoin

It’s no secret that the cryptocurrency market is quite volatile. Almost any piece of global news can affect the price of digital assets in one way or another. Take billionaire Elon Musk, for example, who was able to influence the price of Dogecoin simply by tweeting. However, this does not always happen because of a particular case and with a particular coin. In 2020, for example, the world went into lockdown for the first time in a long time. Countries’ borders were closed and the logistics of many goods began to be disrupted. People had to stay at home, fearing for their health. The Covid-19 pandemic was to blame. You would think that a virus could have an impact on digital assets. As it turns out, it was able to reach cryptocurrency as well. Because of problems in the economy, cryptocurrency has begun to lose value.

This did not last long, and a year later Bitcoin set a new historical high. The price of the first cryptocurrency was above $63,000. Those enthusiasts, who during the chaos and lockdown did not stop believing that cryptocurrency was the future and continued to invest in digital gold, were able to make good money in just one year. Bitcoin began to be prophesied to reach $100,000 in the near future. There were many explanations from analysts and financial experts that Bitcoin could do this. Today, however, the picture for the crypto industry does not look so rosy.

Since the beginning of 2022, the first cryptocurrency began to lose heavily in price, for various reasons. Today, we can observe that Bitcoin is in prolonged drawdown, just like all other digital assets. Some call it a “crypto-winter”. This has already happened to the crypto market more than once. But why is the fall so noticeable?

Experts attribute the prolonged decline in quotations to the fact that the Federal Reserve System is tightening policy in the US, which raises rates to contain inflation in the country.

As cryptocurrency is a risky asset, investors and traders are trying to get rid of it or keep it to a minimum.

Also, the recent news that one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, has filed for bankruptcy has not had a positive impact on the value of digital assets either. The first cryptocurrency still remains in a kind of sideways position. At the time of writing, it stands at $16,993, according to CoinGecko.

What if Bitcoin keeps falling?

If the cryptocurrency drawdown continues, nothing good can come of it. As analysts say, this will entail quite serious and large changes in the global crypto market. A similar scenario was discussed this summer, in the online edition of CNews. The publication’s experts believe that continued drawdown will mean that many tokens that are not widely known will simply disappear, until there are only the top and in-demand coins that are able to survive in today’s realities.

Of course it is too early to talk about it now, things may change tomorrow if there is any positive news. But we can only wait and see what happens.

And to start trading cryptocurrencies today, you can use the RevenueBot cryptocurrency bot service.

CME Group Announces Launch of Euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether Futures 7551

CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, today launched Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures.

“The launch of these new futures contracts builds on the strong growth and deep liquidity we have seen in our existing U.S. dollar-denominated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts,” said Tim McCourt, Global Head of Equity and FX Products, CME Group. “Our new Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures will provide institutional clients, both within and outside the U.S., with more precise and regulated tools to trade and hedge exposure to the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.”

Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures contracts will be sized at five bitcoin and 50 ether per contract. These new contracts will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin-Euro Reference Rate and CME CF Ether-Euro Reference Rate, which serve as once-a-day reference rates of the euro-denominated price of bitcoin and ether.

These new futures contracts will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

For more information on this product, please visit https://www.cmegroup.com/cryptocurrencies#explore-our-cryptocurrency-products.

As the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.

OpiPets: The Rise of Blockchain in Formula 1 5166

Formula One is one of the greatest sports in the world and brings about the best automobile teams which compete for the title yearly. From the racing tracks in Spa to the roads of Monte Carlo in Monaco, Formula One has developed into a billion-dollar industry with teams and drivers boasting a cult following globally.

The relationship between Formula One and the blockchain industry has grown in recent years. In part due to the growing adoption of crypto and blockchain technology. Crypto.com made a significant splash when it was announced as a Global Partner of Formula One in 2021. They are not alone. Binance, FTX, Velas, Bybit, Tezos and memecoin project Floki have established partnerships within Formula 1.

The familiarity between Forumla 1 and blockchain companies demonstrates the acceleration of consumer adoption of blockchain and crypto related products and services. Where Shell, Hewlett Packard and Coke once stood, cryptocurrency exchanges, harware wallets and blockchain protocols now lead the way. The success of new concepts like NFTs has also inspired Formula One teams looking to increase consumer engagement through limited card collections that provide exclusive content and access for fans worldwide.

Opis Group and OpiPets took part in the Monaco NFT and Swim week conference which took place during the Grand Prix weekend. As one of the oldest and most prestigious dates on the F1 calendar Monaco played home for a hive of blockchain related activity.

OpiPets, a Free Play-to-Earn project and sister company Opis Cloud showcased their use cases and product development with other successful projects and tech investors.

Building an innovative P2E ecosystem

Although Play-to-Earn has attracted over a million users within its first two years, majorly due to its promise to reward players with crypto and NFT ownership, it is still faced with an uphill climb in terms of broader mainstream adoption.

The start-up costs for new players are a major barrier to the widespread adoption of P2E games. Participants must spend up to a thousand dollars to begin. Many people cannot afford to test it and often regard it as a risky investment. Many players are still dissatisfied after attempting to recover their initial investment.

Contrary to the original idea, many so-called P2E games have transitioned into Pay-to-Earn. This is due to their unsustainable tokenomics which invariably makes them abandon their original ideals.

OpiPets is one of the few projects that distinguishes itself from the popular model. It’s a free P2E online game in which players are rewarded with cryptocurrency and the ability to create, battle, obtain, and trade their own NFT OpiPet characters.

OpiPets uses the P2E concept and focuses on giving the community actual ownership of assets produced and digital economies and new ways to generate income.

More developments on the horizon

The OpiPets team has continued to work tirelessly to significantly reduce the adoption barriers that limit the popularity of blockchain games. It also plans to launch its game in Q3 2022. The game is expected to include exciting features and products for users to explore its ecosystem and acquire new assets.