Crypto News & Updates Today: Arrival of BRC-20 Tokens, Beginning of Memecoin Season, Making of First Bitcoin Tower, New CEO of Twitter, U.S. SEC Crackdown on Crypto Exchanges and much more.
Welcome back, Crypto enthusiasts, to another electrifying edition of the latest crypto news and updates!
As you know, we timely bring top 10 crypto news to keep you updated about the latest crypto updates from the month. The crypto updates we tell through our blogs are the crème de la crème of the current crypto market. We cover every groundbreaking innovation to all the trending twists and turns in crypto. If you are a HODLer or a crypto trader, this blog will be all you need to know about the hottest trends and gossip brewing in crypto.
So buckle up, crypto lovers, as we embark on a quick journey to the top crypto stories of May month.
Latest Crypto News & Updates from the World
The Arrival of BRC-20 Tokens
In the previous version of the top 10 latest crypto news and updates, we told you about Bitcoin NFTs, also known as Ordinals, fastly gaining popularity. It has not been too long since then, and another product of the Bitcoin blockchain has made its debut. The product is BRC-20 tokens, a Bitcoin version of ERC-20 tokens with limited functionality.
An anonymous Bitcoin programmer, Domo, created the BRC-20 token standard by utilizing the ordinals protocol of Bitcoin. The Ordinals protocol makes it possible to attach a small size of data to each Satoshi of Bitcoin. This data can be any image, code, audio, video, text, or application. Domo used this feature to generate the first BRC-20 token, ORDI, with a total supply of 21,000,000 per mint limit of 1000 tokens. Though he started it as a trial, the BRC-20 token standards instantly went viral. Since creating a BRC-20 token is simple and uses Bitcoin, the most secure public blockchain, the tokens gained traction faster than anyone could have imagined.
Within days, people created their tokens on BRC-20 standards and deployed them. Around 14,300 types of BRC-20 tokens exist at the time of writing, and this number keeps rising every day. Some famous BRC-20 tokens that got good traction from investors are - Ordinals (ORDI), Pepe Ordinals (PEPE), Meme Ordinals (MEME), and VMPX coin (VMPX).
Since the Bitcoin blockchain underlies the BRC-20 tokens, their rising transactions are clogging the Bitcoin network causing its transaction fee to surge significantly. Thus, the existence of BRC-20 tokens has become a hot potato for the crypto community, which has a divided opinion on them. While some crypto enthusiasts think of BRC-20 tokens as a new functionality to Bitcoin, others discard it for causing congestion in the blockchain.
Beginning of the Memecoin Season
While major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become stagnant amid the prolonged crypto winter, meme coins brought investors an unannounced wave of excitement. April witnessed several meme coins entering the market and hitting astronomical hikes in the blink of an eye. A Meme coin, PEPE, inspired by Pepe the Frog, registered an incredible surge of 16,000% in only three days of its launch on April 17, 2023. Not much later, another meme coin, WOJAK, inspired by the Wojak meme character, peaked at 2200% in only three days, marking the official entry of the crypto market in the meme coin season. Some other trending meme coins in 2023 that contributed to this meme coin season are Floki Inu (FLOKI), MongCoin (MONG), Sui (SUI), and Pooh (POOH).
All these tokens registered stellar rallies making the meme coin season extremely rewarding for their early investors. However, it is worth noting that even though these cryptocurrencies made their investors overnight millionaires, they are highly risky and volatile. Thus, take this crypto news cautiously and research before putting any penny on meme coins.
Bitcoin Conference Went Well
Bitcoin 2023, the world’s largest Bitcoin Conference, was completed at Miami Beach this year. The three-day conference started on May 18 and continued till May 20. Many prominent figures like the next US presidential hopeful, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Michael Lewis (author of the best-selling book; The Big Short), US representative Patrick McHenry, another presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard attended the conference.
Many renowned Bitcoin Maximalists like Michael Saylor, Adam Back,
Samson Mow, Jack Mallers, Caitlin Long, Robert Breedlovr, and David Marcus also grace the event with their presence. The discussions took place over the FTX meltdown from the last year, suppressive regulatory scrutiny in the US, and the self-custody of holding bitcoins. Important topics of discussion at the conference were Green mining, TradeFi, CBDCs, and AI. Experts also debated over Bitcoin NFTs and BRC-20 tokens.
Despite Bitcoin being 40% down from its ATH, the conference got a good response from the Bitcoin community. In 2024, the meeting will take place in Nashville in July.
World’s First Bitcoin Tower
On its way to making new records, Dubai has chosen to shine among the Bitcoin-friendly cities by announcing the development of the world's first Bitcoin Tower. Salvatore Leggiero, an Italian architect, unveiled the design of this 40-story Bitcoin theme tower. Along with being an architectural marvel, the hotel will stand out by incorporating various blockchain-based technologies and sustainable means for business operations. It will also give NFT rewards to its guests. The hotel will treat the rental price paid by its guests as an investment done by its guests and will offer an APY (Annual Percentage Yield) to claim. The key focus of the hotel would be to educate the general people about digital assets and encourage their participation in it.
According to several news sources, the hotel will have both a physical and a virtual version. Salvador wants to build the hotel near Sheikh Zayed Road, part of the Dubai Skyline.
Tether Booked a Record Net Profit in Q1
This crypto news is about the most popular stablecoin in the market, USDT.
In the mid of May, Tether released its Q1 report stating various milestones achieved by it. It recorded a net profit of $1.48 billion in Q1 and secured a reserve surplus of $2.44 billion. The report further stated that Tether owns more than 64% of US treasury reserves. Tether also significantly reduced its bank deposits from $5.3 billion to $481 million in Q1, eliminating the counterparty risks like bank failures and collapses. The report also highlighted that Tether increased its Bitcoin and Gold holdings for the first time. Around 4% of its total reserves lie in Gold and 1.8% in Bitcoin.
Clearly, the overall health of Tether seems solid and well-diversified. Its native coin, USDT, is the only stablecoin that regained its all-time high market cap after the Terra Luna collapse. It is positive news because all the competitors of Tether are currently trading at over 40% lower prices than their ATH market cap.
If you want to buy USDT in India, you can buy it here.
Elon Musk Finally Hired New CEO for Twitter
Elon Musk’s relentless quest for Twitter CEO finally ended in May. Through his Twitter handle, Musk hinted through his tweet that he hired a new CEO to run Twitter. However, he did not immediately disclose the name of the CEO, except for the part that it is a female CEO and will start in 6 weeks. In his later tweets, Musk announced Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter. Linda handled crucial responsibilities in America’s famous media house, NBCUniversal as the chairman of global advertising and partnerships for 11 years.
Musk decided to step out as Twitter CEO to focus on his other ventures. Musk seems to have high hopes from Linda due to the falling advertising revenue of Twitter. In a tweet, Linda shared that Musk's vision of creating a bright future inspires her. She also expressed her excitement to transform Twitter into a better platform.
El Salvador Eliminated Taxes on Tech Innovations
The following important crypto news that surfaced in May is about El Salvador.
The country has been one of the biggest supporters of Bitcoin. It was the first nation to make Bitcoin a legal tender a few years ago. And this year, it went a step further by eliminating all kinds of taxes on Technological innovation, computing, and communications hardware manufacturing. Technology sectors that will benefit from this move are AI development, Software programming, coding, blockchain, and application development. The taxes levied from the innovative tech businesses include income tax, property tax, capital gains, and import tariff. The bill aims to promote technological innovations in El Salvador by removing financial hardships for new businesses.
The country has been known for its futuristic tech approach to its financial policies. Its president, Nyib Bukele, sees technology as an effective way to combat hyperinflation and prepare El Salvador for the tech future. It also recently invested $ 1 billion into creating one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining farms. The overall financial policies of the country give a clue of its intention to make it the first Bitcoin city.
Mastercard Collaborated with Crypto Alliances
Mastercard joined hands with several blockchain platforms, including Polygon, Aptos Labs, Solana Foundation, and Ava Labs, to roll out crypto credential service. This collaboration will result in the development of a new set of crypto standards to boost the finance industry’s trust score. It will include NFT verification by creating common standards that instil user trust in NFTs. Moreover, multiple payment solutions for corporate and the general public will also come into life through this alliance.
This crypto update is positive news for the crypto market, where real-world use cases hold significant importance in deciding the value of a cryptocurrency.
SEC Declared 67 Cryptocurrencies as Securities
SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) of the USA recently took a firm hand on crypto by declaring around 67 cryptocurrencies as securities. These cryptocurrencies include many well-known names like Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Filecoin (FIL), Algroland (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA)), Coti (COTI), Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), Flow (FLOW), Internet Computers (ICP), Near Protocol (NEAR) and 54 others. The names announced by SEC as “crypto asset securities' include multiple top cryptocurrencies with a total market cap of $100 billion. Being classified as “Securities' under SEC means that cryptocurrencies must follow certain pre-clearance and registering requirements. It means that any US-licensed centralized exchange providing trading of these coins will be removed from the market. On behalf of this argument, the SEC has filed multiple lawsuits against the US operations of Crypto trading firms, Binance and Coinbase.
SEC accused these exchanges of misbehaving with customer funds, dealing with unregistered “securities”, breaching the SEC regulations, evading US regulations, and much more. As a result, Binance.US announced its plan to delist 40 altcoin pairs of USDT, BTC, and BUSD. Robinhood, a US-based crypto exchange, is already considering delisting multiple trading pairs. The market has been recording a downward movement since the SEC announcement of SEC came out. The crypto community condemned the aggressive approach of the SEC towards crypto, adversely affecting millions of crypto investors and various institutions.
Apple Launched Augmented Reality Headset
The last crypto update is about Apple, which announced its first augmented reality headset, Apple Vision Pro, on June 5, 2023. The tech giant announced in the 2023 edition of the Worldwide Developers Conference. The device will use spatial computing technology to integrate digital content with the physical world. It will be a mixed reality-based gadget that will cost $3,499 and be launched next year. Vision Pro will introduce a three-dimensional user interface with its VisionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system. Apple's new launch of the AR headset is seen as a step towards the development of metaverse and virtual reality. While most people consider Virtual reality as only a theoretical concept, this launch by Apple is solid proof that it is not the case.
This crypto news ends our tenth session of the latest crypto updates.
Stay tuned for more exciting crypto updates and the latest crypto news.
