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SEVA announces bitcoin mining partnership to help advance the development of SunPark - WV News

For Thailands market authorities, the rout in Bitcoin has been one of the few tools to cool down the once-unstoppable Jasmine Technology Solution Pcl.

For Thailands market authorities, the rout in Bitcoin has been one of the few tools to cool down the once-unstoppable Jasmine Technology Solution Pcl.

The telecom-turned-crypto company has lost more than a third of its value in the past month, cutting its market capitalization to 260 billion baht ($7.6 billion). That tumble also pared the wealth of its seven biggest individual shareholders, who had enjoyed earlier gains after the firm unveiled a plan in July to expand into Bitcoin mining.

The only frenzy has been from the companys claim to be the pioneer of the Bitcoin-mining business in the country and region, said Jitra Amornthum, an analyst at Finansia Syrus Securities Pcl. That appeal has evaporated with the slide in Bitcoin.

The Securities & Exchange Commission in February urged Jasmine Technologys shareholders to make a careful study and decision of an independent financial advisers call to reject the companys mining plan. The investment was ultimately approved in spite of the recommendation.

Recent downturns in crypto exchanges and currencies including Bitcoin highlight the vulnerability of new fortunes, such as those of Jasmine Technologys front-runners. The company, based just outside Bangkok, rode the digital-asset wave to become the 10th most-valuable company on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, prompting the bourse to halt trading in the stock for a day in April, citing a rally without fundamentals.

The stock has also been hit by concerns about the regulatory environment, with Thailand banning the use of crypto for payments in March.

The biggest paper loss has been to the fortune of Pete Bodharamik, who controls the parent company, broadband-network provider Jasmine International Pcl, founded by his father. Pete holds no official role in either, as he was forced to resign in 2019 after being found to have traded shares of the company, then known as Jasmine Telecom Systems, using non-public information.

His stake has dropped below $1 billion since reaching a peak on April 22. Pete, 49, said he is unfazed by the drop.

JTSs target is to become the largest Bitcoin mining company in Southeast Asia, he said in an email. He said cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are key to fintech and the metaverse.

Another six shareholders have seen the value of their stock drop by about $1.3 billion in the same period.

The firm, whose net income more than doubled in the first quarter, said in its quarterly report that it aims to boost the proportion of revenue it makes from mining to 80% by late this year from less than 1% in 2021. Crypto-related activities accounted for about 5% of revenue in the first quarter.

Jasime Technology remains under scrutiny. The stock was suspended again on Friday, the second suspension in a week, with the SET citing abnormality in its trading.

The paper losses of Jasmine Technologys top shareholders pale in comparison to hits taken by some digital-asset entrepreneurs elsewhere.

Coinbase Global Inc. founder Brian Armstrong has seen his fortune plummet more than $11 billion to $2.2 billion in six months. Michael Novogratz, CEO of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital, also lost $6 billion in his fortune.

Originally posted here:
Bitcoin price slump erodes fortunes of would-be miners in Thailand - HT Tech

What happened: A Bitcoin BTC/USD whale just sent $45,870,395 worth of Bitcoin off Coinbase.

The BTC address associated with this transaction has been identified as: 3PQ4M1vitNx3vh9pDFEWjoqwQKLaHQB7xn.

Why it matters: Bitcoin "Whales" (investors who own $10 million or more in BTC) typically send cryptocurrency from exchanges when planning to hold their investments for an extended period of time. Storing large amounts of money on an exchange presents an additional risk of theft, as exchange wallets are the most sought-after target for cryptocurrency hackers.

The best way to secure Bitcoin is through holding it on a hardware wallet, which can't be done through holding digital assets on an exchange. Hardware wallets store one's private keys in an offline device, making it impossible for funds to be hacked via the internet.

According to Glassnode, only 13.23% of the total supply remains liquid across all centralized exchanges.

The removal of BTC from an exchange reduces potential sell side pressure, allowing the price of Bitcoin to increase more easily.

See Also: Best Crypto Apps 2021 and Best Crypto Portfolio Trackers

Price Action: Bitcoin is down -3% in the past 24 hours.

See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin

Public Blockchain data sourced from Whale Alerts Twitter.

This article was generated by Benzinga's automated content engine and reviewed by an editor.

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Anonymous Bitcoin Whale Just Moved $45M Worth Of BTC Off Coinbase - Benzinga - Benzinga

Bitcoin (BTC) struggled to recover its latest losses on May 21 after Wall Street trading provided zero respite.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingViewshowed BTC/USD trading dipping below $28,700 into the weekend, subsequently adding around $500.

Down 4.7% from the previous days $30,700 highs, the pair looked firmly rangebound at the time of writing after United States stocks indexes saw a volatile final trading day of the week.

The S&P 500, managing to reverse after initially falling at the open, nonetheless confirmed bear market tendencies, trading at 20% below its highs from last year.

Another wacky day in the stock market. Dow Jones -500 early in the day, then recovers it all and closes +8, popular Twitter account Blockchain Backers commented about broader U.S. market performance:

As Cointelegraph previouslyreported, various sources had called for Bitcoin to fall once again in a manner similar to last weeks capitulation event.

Continuing the conservative macro outlook, fellow Twitter commentator PlanC argued that external shifts could still bring Bitcoin down significantly from current levels.

If the Crypto market was in a bubble I would say 25k to 27.5k is the Bitcoin bottom, but there is a decent probability that macro factors drag us down to 22-24k. Significant black swan, 15-20k becomes a possibility, part of a tweet on the day read.

Beyond stocks, the U.S. dollar index (DXY) was consolidating after a strong retracement from twenty-year highs.

With ten days left until the end of the month, BTC/USD risked May 2022 being the worst in terms of returns in its history.

Related:Bitcoin must defend these price levels to avoid 'much deeper' fall: Analysis

Data from on-chain analytics resource Coinglass showed month-to-date returns currently totaling -22% for Bitcoin, the largest retreat of any year except 2021s -35%.

2022, the collective figures confirmed, was also the worst-performing first five months of the year for Bitcoin since 2018.

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.

Originally posted here:
Bitcoin ends week on the edge as S&P 500 officially enters bear market - Cointelegraph

Two significant events dominated news channels over the last week. One was the confirmation, along with the pictures, of the existence of a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The second story was a similar black hole: a crypto black hole in the center of the cryptocurrency universe.

A massive fall in the price of Bitcoin below $30,000, down about 60% from its high of November of last year and the stablecoin Luna losing more than 98% of value, shook the foundations of the crypto investment universe.

This is not the first time that a bubble fueled by the speculative desire of making quick money riding on often less understood technology unraveled.

One of the first technology-led bubbles, the railway mania in Great Britain in the 1840s, was driven by over-optimistic speculation and fatal assumptions about technology-centric value creation. Those lessons have long been forgotten.

More recently, we have fading memories of the dot.com boom and subsequent bust that led to around 75% drop in NASDAQ in 2000 and wiped out over $1.7 trillion in value.

There might be some important cues with these past bubbles and the current crypto fluctuation.

People tend to make two assumptions about digital businesses including cryptocurrencies. The first assumption is that virtual assets have unlimited supply, and this is correct.

However, the second assumption, that these assets become unconditionally valuable, is incorrect. The missing link is the economic law that demand is driven by value creation, and prices of assets such as crypto assets can be sustained only by a tug-of-war between value-driven demand and scarce supplies.

Therein lies the rub: sustainable economic value of new technology is only possible when all the foundational pillars are built. Participants in the new business ecosystems, whether they are individuals or companies, can operate only when trust, safety, and value are all present. Just one or two is not enough.

To prevent the fall into the trap of unlimited supply of an asset, the creators of Bitcoin limited the supply to 21 million coins. However, any asset must have either intrinsic economic value or represent assets that have economic value. The cryptocurrency phenomenon is based on repudiating the connection between the price of the cryptocurrency with the value of the underlying asset, if any.

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The disconnect between price and value is a hallmark of all financial bubbles. The prices of new technology-based products and services are driven by greed, fear and (oftentimes) a lack of understanding of the real-world application layer. And the value of these products and services is driven only by the real-world applications.

Just like the crypto phenomenon, the dot-com bubble was driven by missing out the business layer of ecommerce.

For all things financial, the deep foundations of trust, safety, and real economic value are required. The price of Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency for that matter) could go up to Pluto, but without an underlying economic value, it may very well go down to zero.

The dot-com businesses, mortgage-backed securities, and cryptocurrencies are all attempts to create economic value by creating new business models that resolve some of the existing frictions.

The speculators who drove the dot-com bubble provided much needed capital for risky innovation. After the dust from the dot-com crash settled, the companies that thrived from the dot-com revolution were the ones that provided real services and products. The speculators paved the way for the value-generators.

Today, the cryptocurrency universe is predominantly driven by speculators. They are, perhaps unknowingly, the angel investors in new crypto business models providing liquidity for crypto innovation. They are paving the way for new protocols (multi-signature, for example), new ecosystems (such as NFT marketplaces), new techniques (zero-knowledge proofs), and new payment networks.

The value-generators in the crypto markets are watching, experimenting, and doubling down to capture the value of blockchain-based technologies and business models. The recent shake down of the cryptocurrency markets is really a shake-up of the speculative risk-takers and a reckoning of the gamblers.

The value-generators are working behind the scenes and often away from the limelight, building products and services on top of security tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and stable coins. Crypto speculators are the true angel investors taking huge risk to create the internet of value transfer on top of the existing internet of information transfer.

The physicists assure us that Sagittarius A* is highly unlikely to swallow up the rest of our galaxy.

Let us remain hopeful that the pure speculation-fueled crypto black hole at the center of the cryptocurrency universe will not devour the universe of the economic value-generators of crypto.

Shivendu Shivendu is a University of South Florida Muma College of Business associate professor who teaches courses related to fintech, the economics of information systems, blockchain technology and IT strategy. Kiran Garimella is also an associate professor in USFs business school, an academic scholar who also has many years corporate experience related to artificial intelligence, blockchain, and information systems.

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What the heck is going on with Bitcoin? | Column - Tampa Bay Times

Bitcoin (BTC) circled $30,000 on May 18 after fresh comments from the United States Federal Reserve sparked volatility.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingViewshowed BTC/USD consolidating within a range in place since May 12.

The pair had come unstuck as Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivered economic policy insights during the Wall Street Journals Future of Everything Festival.

I dont know if financial conditions have tightened more than this in a very long time, he told the papers chief economics correspondent, Nick Timiraos, in an interview.

Powell appeared to confirm that 50-basis-point key interest rate hikes would continue in subsequent meetings of the Feds Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) and could reach neutral levels in Q4. Hikes afterward, however, could nonetheless continue if necessary to tame inflation further.

With traditional markets already pricing in such a scenario, volatility overall was limited as Powell avoided surprises.

BTC/USD saw a brief drop to $29,500 before recovering during Powells words.

With risk assets set for difficult times as financial tightening continues, however, crypto market commentators had little by way of highly bullish news.

Hawkish reminder. This is the biggest risk for markets, macro analyst Alex Krueger responded in a series of Twitter posts on the potential for ongoing rate hikes into next year:

According to CME Groups FedWatch Tool, markets expect the target rate to be between 275 and 300 basis points at the FOMCs December meeting.

Short term, some saw continued relief for BTC.

Related:Fear & Greed Index hits lowest since March 2020 even as Bitcoin price hits $30.5K

Did manage a nice close above the $28.8K range low as well as the $30K low which marked the initial wick down in May 2021. The next HTF resistance is the $33K area. A test of that area makes sense imo, popular trading account Daan Crypto Trades summarized in his latest Bitcoin-focused update.

Fellow account DonAlt meanwhile highlighted $34,500 as a crucial breaker for a more bullish perspective on BTC to enter.

An increasing number of players, as Cointelegraph recentlyreported, still favor a return below the $23,800 lows seen last week at the height of the Terra (LUNA) and TerraUSD (UST) implosions.

Bottoms take time to form, so do not expect it within the next day or two, trader Crypto Tony told Twitter followers on the day:

Others, meanwhile, feel that a $20,000 retreat is unlikely.

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 shakes off Fed volatility as analysts remain split on return under $24K - Cointelegraph

STORY: This is Crypto Weekly, with your top stories on alternative currencies. This week, how will Bitcoin fare during an extended period of rising interest rates?

The currency has scant experience of such choppiness - and that could be perilous for investors looking to capitalize on its recent dramatic drop.

Bitcoin tanked this week to its lowest level since July 2021, along with other risk assets such as tech stocks after the Fed amped up rates.

Those rates are expected to pass 3% early next year. The last time that happened was 2008. Before Bitcoin was even born.

Crypto price moves are baffling at the best of times, let alone when entering uncharted waters.

Robert Cantwell, portfolio manager at Upholdings, says for now the persistent volatility doesn't appear to overly concern investors.

"In fact this volatility is proving to be a feature within this universe. And as more folks have been coming into it and trading it, that volatility creates a lot of entertainment to the markets and potentially creates a lot of opportunity for long term investors. And so we think it's entirely plausible that crypto assets can persist with many more participants in years to come and that volatility variant may never dwindle."

Next up - Uganda's central bank has told Reuters it's considering whether to issue a digital currency.

The African nation has some concerns to work through, including consumer protection and financial inclusion.

Governments on the continent have approached digital currencies differently.

Nigeria launched its own digital currency last year, while Central African Republic last month adopted bitcoin as an official currency.

Finally, Gucci's jumping on the crypto bandwagon in some of its flagship U.S. stores.

Its high-end handbags and other luxury products can soon be bought using virtual currencies, including bitcoin.

A growing number of companies are warming to cryptos, bringing an asset class shunned by major financial institutions until a few years ago closer to the mainstream.

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Cryptoverse: rising interest hurts Bitcoin

Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.

Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $41.6 million and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation (Ebitda) of $22.5 million. Both results beat analysts' average estimates tallied by FactSet.

While quarterly revenue edged up only slightly from the previous quarter, it was up fivefold from the year-ago level and beat estimates by $400,000.

Adjusted Ebitda slipped 7% from the previous quarters $24.1 million. It was up from $1.9 million a year ago and topped estimates of $18.4 million.

While the whole industry faced macro headwinds, primarily driven by a lower average bitcoin price, we continued to execute on our infrastructure-first strategy, CEO Zach Bradford said in a statement.

Bradford noted that 100% of growth and capital spending was funded from the conversion of bitcoin (BTC). He also said the company hasn't used its shelf offering to raise capital since November.

The company ended the quarter with $1.9 million in cash and $17 million in digital currencies.

In March, CleanSpark said it aims to be among the top bitcoin miners with an expansion of up to 500 megawatts (MW).

CleanSpark's shares rose 5.3% in after-hours trading on Tuesday. They are down about 40% year to date.

Read more from the original source:
Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Tops Quarterly Estimates

Bitcoin prices bounced back today after falling below $30,000 yesterday.

Bitcoin prices have suffered some turbulence lately, dropping under $30,000 yesterday and reaching their lowest since July.

The worlds largest digital currency by market value fell to less than $29,900 last night on TradingView.

Since then, the cryptocurrency bounced back somewhat, rising to $32,650 today, additional TradingView figures show.

Following this recovery, the digital asset fell back, and was trading close to $30,750 at the time of this writing.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Key Market Drivers

Analysts have cited varying factors when explaining these recent declines, including central banks hiking benchmark rates and selling assets they accumulated during the recent pandemic.

Several market observers pointed to risk-off trading when describing the recent downward movement in bitcoin prices. Scott Melker, a crypto investor and analyst who is the host of The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast, commented on this development.

Bitcoin has fallen alongside global markets as traders and investors risk off in the face of recession and inflation concerns, he stated.

Bitcoin dropped to below 30K, the tail end of which was largely the result of the Luna Guard Foundation dumping Bitcoin on the market in a desperate attempt to fix the UST peg, said Melker.

This was insult to injury on a down day.

Technical Analysis

Melker also offered some technical analysis, pointing out key levels of support and resistance that traders should keep in mind.

The 30K psychological level remains important, although technically 33K is the area to watch for bulls to attempt to flip key resistance back to support, he stated.

Richard Usher, head of OTC Trading at BCB Group, elaborated on the subject, offering further detail.

Whilst the market has been fixated on a move below 30,000k in BTC being the key level, last night's dip below was actually the fourth such move in the last 14 months, he stated.

The key support for us is at 29,000, a break of which targets a move to 25,500 and ultimately the significant support at 20,000 which triggered the rally last year when it broke, said Usher.

Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, outlined some similar support levels.

Since mid February BTC formed some intermediate support around 33-34k. Breaking that level downward yesterday opened up the way to major support around 30k, he stated.

That level is in play since the start of 2021 and should be considered a major support level, said de Kempenaer.

A clear break lower will free more downside risk as the next serious support level is only found near 20k which is the peak of 2017 (!) and a cluster of smaller peaks/highs in November 2020, just before the break that took BTC all the way to 65k, he added.

In addition to providing this input, the analyst also spoke to resistance.

Breaking those support levels means that they will now come back as resistance and block BTC advances in the near term. The former aforementioned support level in the 33-34k area is now the first resistance level to watch.

Usher also singled out some key areas of resistance.

Resistance levels are stacking up at 33,000, 34,700 and ultimately 40,000 which needs to be regained to call a longer term low in place, he stated.

Potential Market Turbulence

Bitcoin prices could experience significant volatility in the coming months, as the uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve policy decision making impacts cryptocurrency markets, said Collin Plume, CEO and founder of My Digital Money.

There's a possibility Bitcoin could bounce around wildly in the next couple of months, said Plume.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if another selloff happens to push it down.

Investors are seeing the Fed interest rate hike, and all the uncertainties that come with it, as a buy opportunity. The next Fed meeting won't be for another month, and we are certain another interest rate increase is coming, he stated.

Only then will investors have confidence in where prices are headed, where assets are headed, and where their investments are headed.

Keeping The Faith

Regardless of what the digital currency markets do in the near-term, investors should keep the faith, said Konstantin Boyko-Romanovsky, founder and CEO of Allnodes Inc.

Whether you invest in Bitcoin or other blockchains that will rise in the next bull run, the sentiment remains the same, he stated.

We are past the point where blockchain and cryptocurrencies can become obsolete suddenly.

So a sharp swing downwards in cryptocurrency prices might be a chance to enter or re-enter the market, said Boyko-Romanovsky.

Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether, EOS and sol.

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Where Are Bitcoin Prices Heading Next After Falling Below $30,000? - Forbes

The Bitcoin 2022 conference brought over 25,000 attendees to Miami last month to discuss the future of the worlds largest cryptocurrency. The event, which attendees have described as extravagant and compared to a bacchanal, featured a now-notorious keynote speech by Peter Thiel in which the venture capitalist rallied Bitcoin supporters against a list of people whom he described as Bitcoins enemies, including Warren Buffet and Jamie Dimon.

While Thiels speech grabbed a lions share of the attention surrounding the conference, many investors, developers and founders in the Bitcoin community convened at the same event to discuss a threat that could prove far more pressing than the aforementioned personae non gratae competition.

Even as the overall crypto market has plunged this week, Bitcoin remains the most valuable crypto asset in the world, with a market capitalization of around $589 billion as of May 9. Its status stems, in part, from the advantage of having been the first cryptocurrency token on a public blockchain.

But as new blockchains continue to spring up, and after last years DeFi summer that brought new traction to Ethereum, Bitcoin investors have had to start watching their backs. Now, the blockchains backers are pouring capital into efforts to ensure it can maintain its dominance as a form of money and expand into other use cases through decentralized apps (dApps) to keep up with competitors like Ethereum and Solana.

Bitcoins edge has typically been described as its value as an asset to hedge against inflation, much like gold, because of its fixed supply. Bitcoin supporters, including Thiel, ARK Invests Cathie Wood and MicroStrategys Michael Saylor, all spoke at Bitcoin 2022 about its ability to act as a store of value when central banks relax their policies and let inflation run hot, as has been the case in the United States throughout the majority of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reality has not been so simple, as Bitcoin has oftentimes traded down amid periods of rising inflation in the U.S. But Bitcoiners argue that its value is more clearly visible in developing nations, especially those experiencing hyperinflation or with sizable proportions of underbanked individuals. They view it as a relatively safe asset that can enable faster, more efficient payments both within and across borders.

The Bitcoin network itself only supports about five transactions per second, according to crypto exchange Binance. Bitcoin has integrated with a layer-two protocol called the Lightning Network to increase its speed and efficiency while lowering transaction costs, a piece of infrastructure used by the nation of El Salvador and major crypto exchanges such as Kraken.

Startup Lightning Labs, which raised a $70 million Series B round last month, is at the forefront of developing Bitcoins Lightning Network. It is building infrastructure for the Bitcoin Lightning Network akin to Visas payments network, Lightning Labs CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Stark told TechCrunch.

Elizabeth Stark, chief executive officer of Lightning Labs. Image Credits: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Lightning Network can execute hundreds of thousands of transactions per second by settling transactions off-chain in a separate ledger, thus freeing up space on the layer-one Bitcoin blockchain while still adhering to its underlying protocol, Stark explained.

People want access to Bitcoin, the asset When youre looking at stability, security and the global payments use case, and the global transaction aspects, thats where Bitcoin and the Lightning Network will shine, Stark said.

Lighting Labs recently announced a proposal to build Taro, a protocol that would allow individuals without bank accounts to send and receive money in the form of stablecoins that represent their domestic fiat currency through mobile applications.

If I were Visa, Id be scared, because there are a lot of people out there that have mobile phones, but now dont need to tap into the traditional system, and then the merchants dont need to pay the 3% fee plus 30 cents [for a transaction]. You can have fees that are dramatically lower than the legacy system, Stark told TechCrunch.

Startup Moon, in fact, partners with Visa to enable users to buy goods and services with Bitcoin through the Lightning Network at any U.S.-based e-commerce site using Visas rails.

While Lightning Labs is focused on optimizing global payments through the Lighting Network, trading platform Robinhood has found the network useful in keeping network fees low on its new crypto offering, which it rolled out to users last month, Robinhoods crypto CTO, Johann Kerbrat, told TechCrunch.

We will support Lightning on the [Robinhood] app, so you will be able to connect it to pay merchants directly with the Lightning Network, Kerbrat said. It also means that you will be able to kind of create a channel between people using Robinhood outside of Robinhood and be able to exchange Bitcoin for almost zero fees.

Bitcoins low fees, enabled primarily by the Lightning Network, and early widespread adoption mean the blockchain has become synonymous with payments. Its closest competitor by value, Ethereum, is notorious for high network fees and is still worth less than half as much as Bitcoin by market cap. Newer challengers such as Solana offer lower transaction fees but are considered to be less secure.

But despite Bitcoins dominance in the payments realm, other blockchains are developing capabilities far beyond simple monetary transfers. As an open source blockchain, Ethereum lets developers easily build decentralized applications, or dApps on top of it, enabling use cases such as minting NFTs and offering DeFi lending products through which investors can earn interest.

As a result, Ethereum has been able to amass the largest ecosystem of tools, apps and protocols in the crypto world, and even competitors such as Polkdadot, Cosmos and Solana have more developers working on their blockchains than Bitcoin does, according to venture firm Electric Capitals 2021 Developer Report.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, ranks just fifth by number of developers, below Cosmos and Solana. Its backers are trying to give Bitcoin a boost and attract developers to work on new projects in the ecosystem.

A lot of [discourse] has been just about Bitcoin as an asset, and not necessarily Bitcoin as the network. And now I think were starting to see that paradigm shift, where people are looking at it more as an infrastructure, Alex Chizhik, head of listings at crypto exchange Okcoin told TechCrunch.

Chizhik co-chairs Bitcoin Odyssey, an initiative launched in March by Okcoin in conjunction with venture firms including Digital Currency Group, GSR and White Star Capital, to deploy $165 million into projects that will supercharge Bitcoin adoption, according to the group.

Indeed, $165 million is a lot of money, but seems like a drop in the bucket for the worlds biggest blockchain. Venture capitalists deployed more than $30 billion into web3 last year, much of which flowed to projects on chains that innately enable smart contracts, unlike Bitcoin.

Stacks, formerly known as BlockStack, plays a crucial role in expanding use cases for Bitcoin. Its open source network allows custom smart contracts to be built on Bitcoin, enabling developers to use the Bitcoin blockchain to create dApps. DApps built on the Bitcoin network with Stacks include CityCoins, a token protocol through which local governments can raise money from investors, and NFT exchanges such as Hey Layer and Gamma.io.

Ethereum definitely is leading the way in what can be done with things like DeFi and asset ownership, like NFTs, but thats largely probably in the past three years. I think Bitcoin now has this opportunity to kind of catch up, take some of the best lessons learned, and really unlock the value and the base layer chain, Brittany Laughlin, executive director of the Stacks Foundation, told TechCrunch.

Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks. Image Credits: Alex Flynn/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Stacks Foundation is a nonprofit arm within Stacks that supports governance, education and grantmaking to improve infrastructure within the Bitcoin network.

Our role is really how to support growth of the network and make sure that we can fulfill our promise, which is a user-owned internet powered by Bitcoin, Laughlin said.

Laughlin explained that without the Taproot upgrade implemented on the Bitcoin network late last year, which makes it easier and faster to verify transactions, the growth of Bitcoin as an ecosystem would have been much more limited. She noted that the Bitcoin community is generally hesitant to change anything about the protocol, and that even the Taproot upgrade was met with some internal resistance and conflict before it was finally implemented three years after it was first proposed. Still, she said, Taproot doesnt solve all of the challenges Bitcoin faces, and further changes may be needed to continue building out the network.

Ultimately, though, Laughlin believes that Bitcoin will prevail in the long-run against other layer-one blockchains because of its first-mover advantage.

Anyone whos holding $100 of Bitcoin, from El Salvador to New York City, if they want to take a loan against that [$100], or if they want to secure an asset with it, they could do that [with dApps on Bitcoin], Laughlin said.

Laughlin compared Bitcoins race against other blockchains to Apples competition with Android, wherein Apple often launches products significantly later than Android does, but has a greater focus on the user experience.

Bitcoin is going to be like Apple, and secure the brand recognition, compatibility and ease of use all of that comes to mind when I think of Bitcoin.

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Bitcoins bid to become the one chain to rule them all - TechCrunch