It has been a week in which two of the world’s biggest celebrities joined the crypto conversation in a very sweary manner indeed. So please do brace yourself if you’re sensitive to bad language.
But before that, here is the story of how Coinbase users were hit by a mysterious “crash” in the middle of a Bitcoin price surge.
Bitcoin has just enjoyed a huge rally which saw its price soar by roughly 10%. As the bulls roared on Friday, February 4th, Coinbase users missed some of the party, with an unknown number unable to buy or sell during the early stages of a semi-epic crypto boom.
“We’re investigating latency on Coinbase.com and the mobile app and difficult with trades/ payments,” Coinbase told users of the mobile app, according to Twitter accounts that shared screenshots of the warning. “Our teams are working to restore full service ASAP.”
Coinbase blamed a large surge of traffic for the problems.
On Twitter, it said: “??Currently, there is a large influx of people that is causing a latency issue, and our Specialists are investigating the issues.”
In a status report, Coinbase said the problems started on Feb 04, 2022, at 10:04 PST. The outage-tracking website Down Detector confirms this, recording a spike in reports from people suffering issues with Coinbase starting at roughly the same time.
A huge Bitcoin rally started at about 6 am PST, when the price was $37,450. Coinbase fixed the issue by 2 pm PST, by which time Bitcoin had soared to $40,600. Bitcoin then continued its climb before resting at a plateau and then starting to climb again in the early hours of Saturday morning to reach $41,825 at the time of writing.
Coinbase users were not happy about the outage. “It’s completely unacceptable that the average consumer is supposed to absorb the cost when Coinbase goes down,” a Twitter user raged. “We’re losing so much capital because you guys ‘crash’ during a boom.”
Nintendo’s NFT “Joy”
For some nostalgic gamers, there is little more joy than fond memories of time spent alone with Super Mario.
So if they grew up to become crypto friends, there might be some good news on the horizon.
Nintendo has reportedly said it is considering launching an NFT project, as long as it can bring “joy”.
“We do have interest in this area, we feel the potential in this area, but we wonder what joy we can provide in this area, and this is difficult to define right now,” Nintendo said in a results call, according to David Gibson, senior analyst at MST Financial.
In brackets, Gibson also said Facebook should “take note”. Meta - the company formerly known as Facebook - has previously discussed opening an NFT marketplace in the metaverse.
After all, there is little that summons up less “joy” than the thought of being locked into a hellish corporate sub-reality created and controlled by Mark Zuckerberg.
Carpe Diem
In other Zuck news: Meta has shut down its cryptocurrency project, Diem.
Meta sold all assets from its cryptocurrency experiment to Slivergate Capital Corporation for $182million.
In a statement, Stuart Levey, Diem CEO, wrote: “It… became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead. As a result, the best path forward was to sell the Diem Group’s assets, as we have done today to Silvergate.
“We remain confident in the potential for a stablecoin operating on a blockchain designed like Diem’s to deliver the benefits that motivated the Diem Association from the beginning. With today’s sale, Silvergate will be well-placed to take this vision forward.”
Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder, commented on the demise of Diem at the MicroStrategy World Conference. “They tried to create a currency that was owned by Facebook - probably for the right reasons, probably for noble reasons - but there were also some reasons that would indicate trying to get more and more people onto the Facebook ecosystem,” Dorsey said, according to Crypto Slate.
“Those two years or three years, or however long it’s been, could have been spent making Bitcoin more accessible for more people around the world, which would also benefit their Messenger product and Instagram and WhatsApp.”
Beware the “Massive” Binace Scam
Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has issued a warning about a major scam designed to steal victims’ credentials so crooks can empty their accounts.
“There is a massive Phishing scam via SMS with a link to cancel withdrawals,” CZ tweeted. “It leads to a phishing website to harvest your credentials. NEVER click on links from SMS!”
Crypto Tax Break On The Way?
A bipartisan group of US House Representatives has re-introduced a bill that could save millions of Bitcoiners from paying tax on low-value transactions.
The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act will provide an exemption for personal transactions made with crypto when the gains are less than $200.
Currently, US taxpayers must record changes in the dollar value of cryptocurrencies from the moment they buy tokens to the time of a transaction made using them. If the price goes up during the period in which they hold the crypto, tax must be paid on the capital gains achieved - even if they are tiny.
This means that crypto hodlers that buy a cup of coffee and profit by next to nothing still have to pay tax on the gains.
“This makes the everyday use of virtual currency near impossible, discouraging people from using virtual currency and inhibiting the growth of our country’s digital economy,” Congressman David Schweikert’s press team wrote in a news release.
“Antiquated regulations around virtual currency do not take into account its potential for use in our daily lives, instead treating it more like a stock or ETF,” said Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, who is introducing the bill alongside Rep. Schweikert. “However, virtual currency has evolved rapidly in the past few years with more opportunities to use it in our everyday lives. The U.S. must stay on top of these changes and ensure that our tax code evolves with our use of virtual currency. This commonsense bill cuts the red tape and opens the door to further innovations, ultimately growing our digital economy.”
News Justin
He’s the polarising pop princeling who’s either the best thing in the world or a little slice of hell on Earth, depending on your perspective.
But whatever you think of Justin Bieber, there’s no doubting the impressive size of his wallet.
Beez purchased a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT for a reported $1.29 million, it emerged this week.
He shared a picture of the sad-looking Ape on Instagram, along with a rather bleak post hinting at the existential ennui of life as a lonely multi-millionaire pop star.
“What if you had it all, but nobody to call, maybe then you’d know me,” J-Beebz wrote. “Cuz I’ve had everything but no one is listening and that’s just fuckin lonely.”
We took a look through Justin’s previous dalliances with the blockchain and found a cryptocurrency called Biebercoin. However, there has been nothing Yummy about its performance. It is now worth a cool $0.00001148 - its highest price in more than five years.
And yes, “news Justin” is possibly the worst pun of all time. Sorry.
Imma Let You Finish
Kanye is not a Belieber when it comes to NFTs. We finish this column with a searing quote from the erratic rapper, who published a handwritten note on Twitter raging against the non-fungible future.
“MY FOCUS IS ON BUILDING REAL PRODUCTS IN THE REAL WORLD,” he wrote in block capitals. “REAL FOOD, REAL FOOD, REAL SHELTER. DO NOT ASK ME TO DO A FUCKING NTF. ASK ME LATER.”
He also left a brief message with caps locked on for consistency, which hammers the point home should his note not be clear enough.
“STOP ASKING ME TO DO NFT’s I’M NOT FINNA CO-SIGN … FOR NOW I’M NOT ON THAT WAVE I MAKE MUSIC AND PRODUCTS IN THE REAL WORLD,” Kanye roared.
In this case, we’re not going to let him finish because his teasing “ASK ME LATER” postscript has got us all excited. We’d love to see Kanye join the NFT space. What do you think? Let us know…
