Coinbase Wallet adds Chrome browser extension

May 17, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Users of the popular exchange can now access their cryptocurrency DApps directly through the Google Chrome browser.

Digital currency exchange Coinbase has announced a new browser extension for its native wallet, enabling users to more easily connect to decentralized applications and decentralized finance directly on their desktop.

The Coinbase Wallet browser extension is now available on Google Chrome, the company announced Monday. Coinbase Wallet lead Sid Coelho-Prabhu said that more than 1 million Coinbase Wallet customers regularly connect to applications like Uniswap and Compound. The new Chrome extension will streamline this process, removing the need to scan a QR code on their mobile devices each time they want to connect.

Coelho-Prabhu explained:

“Starting today, we’re making it much simpler to access and use these dapps on desktop with the Coinbase Wallet extension. The new extension allows for instant access to dapps on desktop — after linking your Wallet account to the extension once, you are free to browse all dapps with one click.”

The new extension also supports users trading on decentralized exchanges and collecting nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. Decentralized applications like Rarible, OpenSea, SushiSwap, Matcha, Synthetic and Aave, among many others, are also supported.

Coinbase is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, with its Coinbase Pro platform processing nearly $10.6 billion in transactions in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. Only Binance handles more volume.

Coinbase also became the first major cryptocurrency exchange to file for a public offering. The company’s COIN shares hit the Nasdaq in mid-April. Like many other newly listed stocks, COIN has experienced extreme volatility in its short trading history, having only recently fallen below the $250 pre-listing reference price.

Samsung Adds Support for Hardware Wallets on Galaxy Smartphones

May 15, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bahamas central bank prepares national Sand Dollar push this summer

May 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Banks

The Bahamas is beginning a push for national digital currency adoption this summer, the central bank's governor, John Rolle, said.

The Central Bank of the Bahamas is preparing a national push for its digital currency this summer to get more Bahamians signing up for the Sand Dollar.

In another move toward the adoption of the Bahamas’ central bank digital currency, the CBOB is now focused on connecting mobile Sand Dollar wallets with commercial banking systems, CBOB Governor John Rolle announced.

According to a Wednesday report by the Nassau Guardian, Rolle said that the Bahamian government has initiated a number of measures to prepare itself and the Sand Dollar ecosystem.

“There is a focus now on enrolling individuals on those various platforms. So we are literally at the cusp of beginning that push for national adoption and that is a focus that is going to gain attention and momentum as we move over the summer months,” Rolle stated.

The official noted that a number of financial institutions, including payment providers, have already integrated their mobile wallets with the Sand Dollar platform. “We know that among the payment providers they are now able to communicate with each other and send funds across the platform,” he said.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the Bahamas is one of the first jurisdictions to fully roll out a CBDC, officially rolling out a digital version of its national currency in October 2020. Despite countries like China aggressively piloting CBDCs, some reports have ranked the Bahamas’ CBDC as the top global state-backed digital currency in terms of retail applications.

MetaMask cites ‘global south’ for their 5x increase in users

April 27, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The wallet service and browser extension has seen its active monthly users grow five times since October 2020.

MetaMask, the Ethereum (ETH) wallet service and browser extension, has recorded 5 million monthly active users for the first time — marking a major milestone in the growth of decentralized applications.

The rise in growth came just six months after MetaMask registered its first cumulative 1 million active users. Since October 2020, the service platform has grown five times, highlighting the continued strength of the cryptocurrency bull market.

The following chart, courtesy of MetaMask developer ConsenSys, highlights the exponential growth of the wallet service over the past six months:

*MetaMask's remarkable growth trajectory over the past six months. Chart: ConsenSys*

Interestingly, MetaMask adoption has surged in the so-called "global south" — a phrase that describes emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and South America. MetaMask mobile adoption has been especially pronounced in Vietnam and Nigeria. As Cointelegraph recently reported, Nigeria has emerged as a major center for cryptocurrency adoption as more of its citizens utilize Bitcoin (BTC) and other virtual assets to escape inflation and navigate capital controls.

ConsenSys further explained its growing popularity in emerging economies:

"Increasingly, these people use MetaMask to earn a supplemental income or to make long-term investments. Many are unable to access their local banking system and thus need alternative technology to act as a savings account."

MetaMask was initially released in 2016 before undergoing several major upgrades. The wallet service surged in popularity during the height of the DeFi boom in 2020, as more investors used it to fund their token purchases.

MetaMask helped to facilitate the growth of not only DeFi, but decentralized exchanges as well. These were the venues for finding low-cap altcoin gems not yet available on major exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken or even Binance.

DeFi remains one of the hottest trends in the cryptocurrency market, with total value locked, or TVL, of around $114 billion. TVL peaked above $123 billion earlier this month, according to industry data.

Early Tesla investor Baillie Gifford invests $100M in Blockchain.com

April 21, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain.com

Big tech investor Baillie Gifford has backed the largest single investment in major crypto wallet service Blockchain.com.

Baillie Gifford, a 110 year-old asset management firm known for its early bets on firms like Tesla, has invested $100 million in major cryptocurrency wallet service Blockchain.com.

Blockchain.com co-founder and CEO Peter Smith announced Wednesday that Baillie Gifford’s contribution to its $300 million funding round in March has become the largest single investment in the company so far. Smith stated that Baillie Gifford’s participation in the round marked “one of their first investments in a crypto company.”

“It’s also a validation that a balanced and diversified retail/institutional business has incredible growth potential in the coming years,” the CEO wrote.

With over $445 billion in assets under management, Baillie Gifford has emerged as a major tech investor, gaining nearly $28 billion by betting early on Tesla and Alibaba, and pharmaceutical company Moderna. One of the largest outside Tesla investors, Baillie Gifford reaped a $16 billion profit from its Tesla investment alone as of August 2020. The company is also known for backing companies like Google, Amazon and Airbnb.

Baillie Gifford’s bet on Blockchain.com comes amid increasing investor attention to the company and the wider crypto industry as well. United Kingdom-based Blockchain.com is one of the biggest fundraisers this year, securing $420 million in two funding rounds in February and March and bringing the firm to a $5.2-billion valuation.

According to data from business analytics firm CB Insights, crypto and blockchain firms including Blockchain.com, BlockFi and Dapper Labs received more funding in the first quarter of 2021 than over the entire course of 2020.

Exodus Wallet raises almost $60M in crypto in regulated offering

April 14, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Exodus Wallet raises almost M in crypto in regulated offering

Coin Telegraph

Exodus’ claimed record share sale is set to be shattered by Coinbase later today.

Crypto wallet provider Exodus has raised more than $59 million in just five days as investors flocked to participate in the public offering.

Exodus Movement, Inc., a firm based in Delaware, began selling stock on April 8 in a sale that was approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The shares were listed for $27.42 apiece with a maximum investment of 2,733,229 shares.

According to an April 12 report, the offering will close once the maximum offering amount of $75 million has been reached. The crypto wallet company is already 80% towards reaching that target with participation from over 4,000 investors.

The firm noted that the majority of the investment has come from retail traders or non-accredited investors with just 8% of the total coming from accredited investors.

The Regulation A sale allowed the firm to reach beyond deep-pocketed investors and offer participation to those often left out of securities sales. However, the sale was only available to U.S.-based investors excluding the states of Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

Exodus accepted payments in crypto only using Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDC instead of accepting fiat.

Exodus is currently exploring partnerships with alternative trading systems (ATS) that could potentially expand the availability of the shares. The firm intends to make the Class A common stock available for trading on several platforms including tZERO within nine months of this offering, the report added.

tZERO is a SEC-compliant security token trading platform and a subsidiary of Medici Ventures, which itself is a subsidiary of online retailer Overstock.

The multi-asset software wallet provider claims to have completed the largest regulated crypto offering to date, however, that accolade isn’t likely to last the day.

Coinbase is due to list its stock on the Nasdaq stock exchange just hours from now, which will no doubt be the largest crypto offering ever. Valuations for the company once it goes public have been between $60 billion and $140 billion, and sentiment has been overwhelmingly positive from both the crypto and traditional financial markets.

Former Apple Music exec joins crypto firm Ledger as head of NFT division

April 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Adoption

In his new position as Ledger’s vice president of NFTs, Brooks will be responsible for bridging the platform with the artistic community.

Apple Music veteran Parker Todd Brooks is leaving the company to join Ledger, one of the biggest providers of cryptocurrency hardware wallets.

According to a Friday announcement, Brooks will now head Ledger’s nonfungible token division as the company expands its support for the storage, display, management and security of NFT pieces.

Brooks is joining Ledger after spending the last seven years with Apple Music, helping launch Apple Music and music radio station Beats 1 after Beats Music was acquired by Apple in 2014. Prior to his role at Beats Music as director of artist integrations, he worked at Topspin Media, leading its integration into Beats Music and Spotify.

In his new position as Ledger’s vice president of NFTs, Brooks will be responsible for bridging the platform with the artistic community and developing NFT management products. He will also make sure that NFTs are “given priority across Ledger’s software and hardware platforms,” Ledger wrote in the announcement.

“I’ve spent my career serving the artist community. With NFTs there is an opportunity to reimagine how art and music are created, sampled, and managed while simultaneously addressing the security issues in storing NFTs on internet-connected devices,” Brooks said. The Apple Music veteran noted that his mission will be “simplifying the process to help artists showcase and manage their digital works, and to securely store them.”

Ian Rogers, chief experience officer of Ledger, told Cointelegraph that securing NFTs is “nothing new for Ledger,” as the company provides a secure way to access accounts on more than 100 different blockchains. “Most NFTs are currently available on Ethereum. To store these NFTs, you need a blockchain account the same way you would store cryptocurrencies. NFTs are just a new type of digital assets,” he said.

A major supplier of hardware wallets designed for secure storage of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ledger has been apparently trying to keep up with the ongoing NFT boom. “With the increased interest in NFTs, we have an increasing demand from our customers for supporting NFTs as a first-class citizen within Ledger Live, which Parker and his team will help us to deliver on,” Rogers noted.

US Treasury’s Proposed Crypto Wallet Rule Is Unconstitutional, Warns Civil Rights Group

March 31, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Blockchain.com Raises $300 Million, Firm’s Post-Money Valuation Now $5.2 Billion

March 24, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Wallet

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