This episode is brought to you by Gate.io and League Of Ancients (Airdrop). One of the most trustworthy crypto hardware wallet brands Ledger launches Nano S Plus hardware wallet for NFT support while semiconductor manufacturing titan Intel doubles down on ESG with the launch of Blockscale ASIC second-gen Bitcoin mining chip. US imposes sanctions on Russian darknet market Hydra and crypto exchange Garantex. Followed by a Deep-Dive on discovering the inescapable controversy over the two most popular NFT markets in 2022.

In today’s Headlines:

Deep Dive: The Dark Side of the NFT Market | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Introduction:

Welcome back to the Altcoin News Podcasts, this is the show to get a neutral perspective on some of the latest headlines in DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, and Big Tech. Brought to you by Gate.io, a centralized exchange with a neutral stance on current events and uphold privacy & security.

The information presented in this podcast is to help you stay up-to-date on the latest happening in the crypto space, and nothing presented hereby is financial advice. The news that I cover in this podcast will have the original source at your discretion. Stick by this podcast as I show you how to stay vigilant and learn to do your own research.

Now, without further ado.

Dogecoin Rallies Again After Elon Musk Joins Twitter Board | 1 | 2 | 3 |

It was revealed on Monday that Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, took a 9.2% stake in Twitter, a stock purchase worth just under $3 billion, this makes him the largest stakeholder in the platform. The news instantly pumped Twitter shares by more than 22% in early trading and Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that Musk owns and frequently supports, immediately spiked 10% on the news.

Regulatory filings show that Musk filed a form 13G with the agency on April 4, officially reporting his ownership of more than 5% of Twitter. The form, however, states the person acquiring said securities is doing so “not with the effect of changing or influencing the control of the issuer,” which would include joining the board. If the buyer of shares wishes to become an activist or join the board, that would require the filing of a form 13D, in which those intentions would be stated.

A follow-up report on Wednesday noted that as part of the deal to join the board, Musk had agreed to not bring his stake any higher than 14.9% from the current 9.2%. Dogecoin then experienced the second spike in two days on Musk/Twitter-related news. While Monday’s move quickly reversed, DOGE had continued to rise and topped $0.16 for the first time in two months.

What Elon Musk’s investment could mean for Twitter’s crypto plans

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Musk exchanged tweets Tuesday morning expressing their excitement and interest in working together. Agrawal expressed that “Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to the board.” while Musk stated that “Looking forward to working with Parag and Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”

Over the past few months, Musk has promoted dogecoin, even allowing for DOGE to be accepted for payment at Tesla’s supercharging stations and its online merchandise store. Now, being the largest individual owner of Twitter shares and a board member, Musk might push for DOGE payments to somehow be integrated into the social media company’s platform.

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” Musk tweeted on March 25, “Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” He added that the “consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” A day later, Musk insinuated that he might be looking to start a new social media platform.

Apart from Musk using this event to tweet a funny poll, there was no official announcement regarding the billionaire’s plans for the company. However, given the history of both the Tesla CEO and the social media company with crypto, one possible hypothesis would be that the event will further Twitter’s exploration of more crypto and blockchain-based features.

On the other hand, Twitter has also been dabbling into blockchain-based technologies such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Apart from this, Twitter also supports tipping with crypto through its tipping jar function.

Ledger Launches NFT-focused Hardware Wallet While Promoting Crypto Education In The Metaverse | 1 | 2 |

Ledger announced on Tuesday that it was launching a brand new wallet specializing in nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Launched in 2014, Ledger is one of the world’s largest providers of hardware cryptocurrency wallets, the company has sold over 4.5 million wallets and launched six different wallets so far.

The new product, called Ledger Nano S Plus, is the next generation to the original Nano iteration released in 2016 and is the sixth hardware wallet produced by Ledger since the company introduced its first wallet HW1 back in 2015. The product is also the first hardware wallet that Ledger has released since the debut of the Ledger Nano X in 2019.

Ledger Nano S Plus is designed with NFT collectors' needs in mind and combined with the recent support of “clear signing” technology through Ledger Live aims to provide a safer user experience for Web3 customers. Clear signing technology is able to provide all the details of a transaction, removing the risk of "blind signing," or consenting to a potentially risky transaction.

Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet had previously warned users about the risks of blind signing blockchain transactions in the aftermath of a major phishing attack targeting the world’s largest NFT marketplace OpenSea in February.

According to chief experience officer Ian Rogers, while the new Ledger wallet natively supports the secure management of NFT transactions, some previous iterations of Ledger wallets have also supported NFTs, Rogers noted:

“Ledger Nano users have always been able to store NFTs on their devices through partners, on the Ledger Nano X, and now Ledger’s software application Ledger Live prioritizes NFT support where users can view their NFTs in Ledger Live and securely transact through clear signing.”

Ledger partners with The Sandbox

Ian Rogers also announced another news at Non-Fungible Conference on Monday, which was they had partnered with blockchain game The Sandbox to promote crypto education in its virtual world. He said that the new partnership aims to bring security into The Sandbox’s world and provide Ledger with a place in the metaverse to educate people about crypto.

A spokesperson for Ledger said that the company plans to announce more details about the partnership at a later date.

Lightning Labs Raises $70M to Bring Stablecoins to Bitcoin | 1 | 2 |

Bitcoin-focused company Lightning Labs has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Goldcrest Capital, and others.

The funding will help enable stablecoin transactions on the Lightning Network using Lightning Labs’ new Taro protocol. Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade, which went live back in November 2021, is what made the Taro protocol technically possible. Taro—whose name was inspired by the taro root plant—allows developers to move stablecoins from the Bitcoin network to the Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network is a layer-two solution for Bitcoin transactions, enabling instant, low-fee transactions with Bitcoin—but without using Bitcoin’s blockchain verification for each transaction. Lightning Labs builds features for the Lightning network. It’s already developed a few different products, including Lightning Pool for Bitcoin liquidity.

Lightning Labs CEO and Co-Founder Elizabeth Stark believes Taro will enable further Bitcoin adoption because it will allow those without bank accounts in developing countries to send and receive money in the form of stablecoins, which are designed to hold their value relative to currencies like the Mexican peso or U.S. dollar, through mobile applications.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network is currently being used by the country of El Salvador, the Bitcoin payments company Strike, Twitter's tipping feature, and the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, to name a few. Now, anyone looking to transfer stablecoins will be able to do so through the Lightning Network.

How it works

Lightning Labs describes Taro as an asset overlay network on Bitcoin. The security of Taro is based on embedded consensus, which means that transactions on Taro include Bitcoin data that needs to be verified on the Bitcoin blockchain.

There are additional rules to govern that data as defined by the Taro protocol, similar to how LN is an overlay network that uses Bitcoin smart contracts but has its own set of rules to enable the instantaneous transfer of BTC.

These are rules the Bitcoin blockchain doesn't necessarily care about. Most importantly, Lightning Labs released the technical specifications for Taro as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) so that the protocol can be built with feedback from the broader developer community.

While Taro might become available first on land, Lightning Labs’ implementation of LN, its status as an open-source protocol will allow other popular LN implementations, like ACINQ’s eclair or Blockstream’s Core Lightning, to use Taro. A critical distinction between Taro and other stablecoins, is that Taro is only the infrastructure to enable the movement of assets over Lightning, be they stablecoins or some other asset. Taro is not a stablecoin, collateralized, algorithmic or otherwise, it is simply infrastructure to enable the movement of assets. Developers still need to build projects using Taro.

Intel Launches New Bitcoin Mining Chips Focused on Sustainability | 1 | 2 |

Semiconductor manufacturing titan Intel unveiled its new Bitcoin (BTC) mining chip, Blockscale, On Monday. Building on years of Intel research and development (R&D), this application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) will provide customers with energy-efficient hashing for proof-of-work consensus networks.

For proof-of-work algorithms that are compatible with ASIC-based systems and SHA-256 hashing, the Intel Blockscale ASIC will provide the energy efficiency and computing power needed to achieve scalability and sustainability. And given the nature of the silicon powering this technology, Intel will be able to supply it in volume without compromising the supply of new CPUs or GPUs.

Compute requirement for blockchains utilizing proof-of-work consensus mechanisms is growing at a rapid rate due to their resiliency and ability to scale without sacrificing decentralization. This growing pool of computing power requires an enormous amount of energy, necessitating new computing technologies that can provide the requisite power in a more energy-efficient manner while also being durable enough to mitigate long-term e-waste concerns.

As told by Intel, Blockscale will have a hash rate of up to 580 gigahash per second (or 0.58 terahash per second, TH/s), consuming between 4.8 to 22.7 watts of power, and having an energy efficiency of up to 26 joules per terahash (J/TH). Each chip can be combined and merged into a single mining unit, increasing its output with a maximum of 256 integrated circuits per chain.

In comparison, Bitmain's Antminer S19 Pro, one of the leading Bitcoin mining machines on the market, has a hash rate of 110 TH/s, consumes 3,250 watts of power, and possesses an energy efficiency of 30 J/TH. Theoretically, a mining unit composed of 256 Blockscale chips would have a total hash rate of 148.5 TH/s and consume between 1,228 to 5,811 watts of power at around the same energy efficiency.

Intel says shipments of Intel Blockscale ASIC to customers will begin in the third quarter of 2022. Argo Blockchain, Block, Hive Blockchain Technologies and GRIID Infrastructure will be among the first companies to develop new systems based on Intel’s ASIC.

US Sanctions Russia's Largest Darknet Market Hydra And Crypto Exchange Garantex | 1 | 2 |

In a Tuesday announcement, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it had worked with the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations to sanction the Russia-based darknet marketplace Hydra Market, as well as virtual currency exchange Garantex.

The move from the U.S. government agencies came the same day when the German Federal Criminal Police announced it had shut down Hydra’s servers in Germany and seized more than $25 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) connected to the marketplace. Launched in 2015, Hydra is titled as the “ the most prominent Russian darknet market, and the largest darknet market left in the world” on the Treasury’s official press release.

Garantex was founded in late 2019 and originally registered in Estonia. The majority of Garantex’s operations are carried out in Moscow. The U.S. government agency alleged Garantex had “willfully disregard[ed]” Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism requirements imposed by many regulators on virtual currency exchanges. In addition, it hinted the firm was run by individuals exhibiting a “wanton disregard for regulations and compliance.”

According to the Treasury Department, the sanctions were part of an international effort aimed at “[disrupting the] proliferation of malicious cybercrime services, dangerous drugs and other illegal offerings.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said ransomware operators and those engaging in other cybercrimes were able to operate in Russia “with impunity,” posing a potential threat to U.S. interests.

In addition to sanctioning Hydra and Garantex, OFAC has identified over 100 virtual currency addresses associated with the entity’s operations that have been used to conduct illicit transactions.

As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the individuals and entities described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.