Yesterday (February 16), Intel Corporation CEO Patrick Gelsinger explained how his companys upcoming crypto mining chip could help to solve Bitcoins climate issue.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Gelsinger started his career in October 1979 by becoming senior vice president and the general manager of the Digital Enterprise Group, and he kept these positions for the next 30 years. Also for five years, starting in January 2000, he was the companys CTO. Before returning to Intel in February 2021, he was president and COO of EMC (Sep 2009 Aug 2012) and CEO of VMware (Sep 2012 Feb 2021).

His most recent comments about Bitcoin were made during an interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Studio 1.0.

Chang started by reminding Gelsinger that back in 2019 he had said Bitcoin was bad design, extreme, and climate-intolerant, and asked if he stell felt the same way.

Gelsinger replied:

Indeed I do. A single ledger entry in Bitcoin consumes enough energy to power your house for almost a day. Thats a climate crisis, right, at that point, and the more you use it.

So if we produce a technology that consumes that much energy, wow, thats not okay. And then most of the uses when I said that were illicit, right? And it couldnt be regulated. So, it could become a currency for nations and for people to use broadly as well.

So, I have this mantra, you know, and we at Intel believe deeply that we have to be shaping technology as a force for good, right? If its being used for bad purposes, a climate crisis Well, that is not good yet. That doesnt mean its not a good technology, but were not using it good yet.

Well, Intel is about to bring forward a blockchain chip, you know, thats dramatically better, that is orders of magnitude better in terms of power performance. So, were helping to solve the climate issue in that way. We want to work with the industry to find ways that technologies like blockchain can be properly regulated, managed as well so that they truly can be fully realized.

So, yes, this is one of those areas that were gonna work on fixing this one because this is a powerful technology. An immutable leverageable digitized entry system can transform currency transactions, supply chain. So yeah, this ones exciting.

With regard to the blockchain chip Gelsinger referred to in the interview, on February 11, Raja M. Koduri, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group at Intel, made the following announcement:

Today, we at Intel are declaring our intent to contribute to the development of blockchain technologies, with a roadmap of energy-efficient accelerators. Intel will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way.

We are mindful that some blockchains require an enormous amount of computing power, which unfortunately translates to an immense amount of energy. Our customers are asking for scalable and sustainable solutions, whichis why we are focusing our efforts on realizing the full potential of blockchain by developing the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale.

Our blockchain accelerator will ship later this year. We are engaged directly with customers that share our sustainability goals. Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square) and GRIID Infrastructure are among our first customers for this upcoming product. This architecture is implemented on a tiny piece of silicon so that it has minimal impact to the supply of current products.

Intel Labs has dedicated decades of research into reliable cryptography, hashing techniques and ultra-low voltage circuits. We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.You will be able to learn more about our circuit innovations at the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) this month.

He went on to say:

To support this, and additional emerging technology, we have formed the new Custom Compute Group within Intels Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit.The objective of this team is to build custom silicon platforms optimized for customers workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge. Onward, we aspire to leverage technologies from our zetta-scale computing initiative to deliver energy-efficient solutions that make our tomorrow better than our today.

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

Featured Imageby TheDigitalArtist viaPixabay

Continued here:
Intel Wants to Solve Bitcoins Climate Issue With Its Upcoming Blockchain Chip - CryptoGlobe

Bitcoin (BTC) looks ready to fall below $30,000 in the coming months, per a confluence of historically accurate technical indicators brought forth by popular analyst Ari Rudd.

The independent market analyst published a thread on Feb. 14, explaining why Bitcoin's ongoing price recovery from below $33,000 on Jan. 24 to around $42,000 on Feb. 14 might not have strong legs.

In doing so, Rudd presented at least three long-term technical setups with extremely bearish outlooks.

They are listed as follows:

Rudd's Logarithmic Fractal Growth (LFG) is a Bitcoin price prediction model that relies on BTC's fractals that consist of "logarithmic scales on both axes." It then projects where Bitcoin may go next based on its historical price actions.

The analyst applied the LFG model on a monthly BTC/USD chart.

As shown in the chart below, the LFG levels had posed as accumulation/distribution zones for traders during the previous bearish cycles. So, Rudd noted that Bitcoin still had to fall to the lowermost level range, a so-called buy-area that had coincided with bottoms during the 2018 and 2020 price crashes.

"We are a few months away from reaching the accumulation phase," Rudd stressed, adding that:

Like the LFG model, moving average ribbons have coincided accurately with the end of Bitcoin's bearish cycles, including 2018 and 2020, on a quarterly timeframe.

In detail, these ribbons represent a range of moving averages (MAs) that enables traders to identify key resistance and support areas by looking at prices in relation to the MAs. Each of Bitcoin's top-to-bottom trends earlier has exhausted near its so-called "ribbon support."

With the cryptocurrency undergoing another price correction from its $69,000top, the analyst suggests that its strong bounce from near $33,000 could turn out to be a bull trap because the price is "due to retest the Ribbon support on [the] quarterly chart."

As a result, the moving averages ribbon indicator risks sending Bitcoin to $25,000 or below.

Another moving average ribbon indicator, but on weekly timeframes, has been instrumental in capping Bitcoin's ongoing price rebound.

Related:Up only for BTC fundamentals 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week

The "strong resistance," as Rudd hinted, provided further bearish sentiment if coupled with Bitcoin's weekly relative strength index (RSI).

RSI gives traders cues about bullish and bearish price momentum. Rudd noted that the buying momentum weakened around a downward sloping RSI trendline, hinting at potential selloffs ahead for the BTC/USD pair.

In contrast to the bearish technical indicators mentioned above, there are several Bitcoin on-chain indicators providing an interim bullish outlook.

As Cointelegraph covered earlier, Bitcoin addresses that hold at least 1,000 BTC have added more tokens to their balances during the recent upside retracement, signaling that the richest crypto investors have been backing the BTC's rebound move.

Additionally, the amount of Bitcoin held by exchanges dropped on Feb. 13 to its lowest levels in over three years, data from Glassnode shows, in a continuing bullish downtrend that has remained intact since the March 2020 bottom.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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Bitcoin bull trap? 3 indicators that predict BTC price falling to $24K27K this year - Cointelegraph

Hackers stole $21 million in Bitcoin and $15 million in Ethereum from retirement accounts held with IRA Financial Trust on February 8, according to a report from Bloomberg based on an anonymous source.

The FinTech startup, which manages individual retirement accounts in non-traditional assets, has been dealing with allegations of a major hack for nearly a week.

Late Friday, it tweeted that it had "discovered suspicious activity that has affected a limited subset of our customers with accounts on the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange." The same notice now appears on its website.

But according to an email purportedly sent to affected users and shared via screenshot with Decrypt, this is more than "suspicious activity."

It states: "Our investigation is ongoing, but a preliminary assessment indicates an attempted theft of cryptocurrency funds within the impacted accounts occurred. We are proactively utilizing all available resources to recover the funds."

Meanwhile, impacted users are complaining that they have been locked out of their accounts as they await answers. IRA Financial Trust has not yet responded to a Decrypt request for comment.

IRAs, or individual retirement accounts, are tax-advantaged savings instruments for U.S. workers, who can deduct their contributions from their income. For instance, if you make $60,000 but contribute $5,000 to an IRA, you're only taxed on $55,000; you only pay taxes once you withdraw funds. IRAs allow for investments in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, but not cryptocurrencies.

Self-directed IRAs, like the kind IRA Financial Trust offers, do. But there are risks. Companies that administer self-directed IRAs can't give financial advicethat's why they're called "self-directed"and the rules and fees aren't as straightforward as what you might find on Vanguard.

IRA Financial's value proposition is making the process a bit easier. Its customers can make retirement investments via its app, which it has linked to Gemini. If you can buy it on Gemini, you can hold it in your IRA. According to IRA Financial, "Our new cryptocurrency solution is the first to allow retirement holders to hold cryptocurrencies in an IRA directly on an exchange."

Gemini Head of Communications Carolyn Vadino told Decrypt: "Geminis systems have not been hacked or compromised in any way. We are aware that IRA Financial experienced a security incident last week and have offered assistance to IRA Financial in their investigation. While IRA Financials accounts are serviced on the Gemini platform, Gemini does not manage the security of IRA Financials systems."

https://decrypt.co/92950/gemini-client-ira-financial-hacked-36m-bitcoin-ethereum-report

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Gemini Client IRA Financial Hacked for $36M in Bitcoin and Ethereum: Report - Decrypt

Francis has been less than forthright with his ever-changing stories, Ms. deSouzas lawyers claimed in one filing.

No secret stash ever materialized. A spokeswoman for Mr. deSouza said he had disclosed the entirety of his cryptocurrency holdings at the beginning of the divorce. As soon as Francis knew that the Bitcoin was caught up in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, he told his ex-wife, the spokeswoman said. Had the Mt. Gox bankruptcy not occurred, the division of the BTC would have been entirely uncontroversial.

Ms. deSouza declined to comment through her lawyer.

But the appeals court found that Mr. deSouza, 51, who is now the chief executive of the biotech company Illumina, had violated rules of the divorce process by failing to keep his wife fully apprised of his cryptocurrency investments.

He was ordered to give Ms. deSouza about half the total number of Bitcoins he had owned before the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, leaving him with 57 Bitcoins, worth roughly $2.5 million at todays prices. Ms. deSouzas Bitcoins are now worth more than $23 million.

Not all crypto divorces involve such large sums. A few years ago, Nick Himonidis, a forensic investigator in New York, worked on a divorce case in which a woman accused her husband of underreporting his cryptocurrency holdings. With the courts authorization, Mr. Himonidis showed up at the husbands house and searched his laptop. He found a digital wallet, which contained roughly $700,000 of the cryptocurrency Monero.

He was like: Oh, that wallet? I didnt think I even had that, Mr. Himonidis recalled. I was like, Seriously, dude?

A glossary. Cryptocurrencieshave gone from a curiosity to a viable investment, making them almost impossible to ignore. If you are struggling with the terminology, let us help:

Bitcoin. A Bitcoinis a digital token that can be sent electronically from one user to another, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin is also the name of the payment network on which this form of digital currency is stored and moved.

Blockchain. A blockchainis a database maintained communally, that reliably stores digital information. The original blockchain was the database on which all Bitcoin transactions were stored, but non-currency-based companies and governments are also trying to use blockchain technology to store their data.

Coinbase. The first major cryptocurrency company to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange, Coinbase is a platform that allows people and companies to buy and sell various digital currencies, including Bitcoin, for a transaction fee.

Crypto finance. The development of cryptocurrencies spawned a parallel universe of alternative financial services,known as Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, allowing crypto businesses to move into traditional banking territory, including lending and borrowing.

In another case, Mr. Himonidis said, he discovered that a husband had moved $2 million in cryptocurrency out of his account on the Coinbase exchange, a platform where people buy, sell and store digital currencies. A week after his wife filed for divorce, the man transferred the funds to digital wallets, and then left the United States.

The rest is here:
Divorcing Couples Fight Over the Kids, the House and Now the Crypto - The New York Times

The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, says that a digital euro will not replace cash but would complement it. A digital euro would give you an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to accessibility and inclusion, the ECB explained.

ECB President Christine Lagarde talked about the digital euro at the plenary session of the European Parliament Monday on the 20th anniversary of the introduction of euro banknotes and coins.

Last year, we launched the digital euro project, she said. We will investigate how a digital euro could offer a convenient, cost-free means of payment, allowing people to pay anywhere in the euro area with risk-free digital money for example, when making payments online, which preclude the use of cash, the ECB chief continued, emphasizing:

In any event, a digital euro would complement cash, not replace it. This is also why we launched the process for redesigning our banknotes.

The European Central Bank launched a two-year investigation into a digital euro in October last year. Once the investigation phase has ended, we will decide whether or not to start developing a digital euro. We would then create and test possible solutions, working together with banks and companies which could provide the technology and the payment services, the ECB clarified.

The ECB website details: The digital euro would still be a euro: like banknotes but digital. It would be an electronic form of money issued by the Eurosystem (the ECB and national central banks) and accessible to all citizens and firms. It adds:

A digital euro would give you an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to accessibility and inclusion.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is planning to put forward a bill to lay down the legal foundation for a digital euro. The legislation will support the ECBs work on the digital euro. Our goal is to table legislation in early 2023, said Mairead McGuinness, European commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services, and the Capital Markets Union.

What do you think about ECB Chief Lagardes remarks on the digital euro? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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ECB Chief Lagarde Says Digital Euro Will Not Replace Cash But Could Offer Convenient, Cost-Free Means of Payment Regulation Bitcoin News - Bitcoin...