Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

As a result of the Chinese crackdown on cryptocurrency mining, mining firms are forced to move their operations to neighbouring countries like Kazakhstan with relatively inexpensive electricity.

Immense energy consumption in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan has been attributed to cryptocurrency mining operations, especially in massive computer farms. Kazakhstan is now experiencing power shortages with cryptocurrency winning partly to blame.

According to reports the local Kazak electrical grid operator Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) said that they will start rationing electricity for the countrys 50 registered miners after their usage reportedly involved an emergency shutdown mode at three power plants back in October. To deal with the shortages, Kazakhstan had to import electricity from neighboring Russia at a higher tariff.

According to the local government estimates demand for electricity has jumped by 8% in 2021 so far, versus the 1-2% typically seen before. It is uncontrolled electricity consumption by illegal mining farms that are the main reason for the current situation.

According to a recent statement by Dyusenbay Turganov, member of the Mazhilis, the lower house of Kazakhstans parliament, New regulatory requirements and criteria for the crypto mining industry must be adopted to streamline its operations while developing a comprehensive ecosystem for digital assets.

Starting in 2022, Kazakhstan will start making legitimate miners pay up, both to help distinguish registered miners from illegal ones, as well as to help ease power shortages. The country plans on charging legitimate miners 1 Kazakhstan tenge (approx. Rs. 0.17) per kWh.

In May this year, Chinese Vice Premier, Liu He, said that China's authorities should impose more regulation on the mining market in order to protect the financial system. He said that Beijing should crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading behaviour, and resolutely prevent the transmission of "individual risks to the social field.

According to officials, it has been suggested that the jump in demand for energy could be due to Chinas crackdown on cryptocurrency, which forced mining firms to move their operations to other countries such as Kazakhstan where electricity is relatively inexpensive.

Just this week, we reported that Google released a new report stating that malicious cryptocurrency miners were using hacked Google Cloud accounts for mining purposes. In the past, we have also brought you news of illegal massive mining rigs. It seems that crypto mining is here to stay no matter the consequences.

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Kazakhstan is facing power shortages due to cryptocurrency ...

Cryptocurrency prices are likely to remain steady over the next 24 hours. (Photo: Reuters)

Cryptocurrency prices have remained steady over the past 24 hours, maintaining a steady momentum even as the virtual coin market is expected to remain rangebound.

Bitcoin, the worlds most popular cryptocurrency, dipped slightly over the past 24 hours as it faced some resistance around its inflection point of $49,000.

The popular cryptocurrency was trading at $48,381 or 1.66 per cent lower at around 1:10 pm. Bitcoins market capitalisation stood at $914 billion and the 24-hour trade volume was $809.82 million.

Ether, the native token on the Ethereum platform, also faced some resistance as it remained below $4,000. Ether was trading at $3,947, down over 2.50 per cent over its price 24 hours ago. Ethers market capitalisation fell slightly to $464.08 billion and the 24-hour trade volume stood at $666 million.

All other small cryptocurrencies remained stable, with marginal change in prices. Commenting on the crypto market momentum, Edul Patel CEO and Co-founder of Mudrex a Global Algorithm-based Crypto Investment Platform, said market could remain rangebound for over the next 24 hours.

We saw both Bitcoin and Ether facing some resistance around their inflection points at $49,000 and $4000 respectively. It caused the rest of the cryptocurrency market to remain range bound, Patel said.

Although the traded volumes went higher, and the momentum looks steady, we might some range bound movement over the coming 24 hours, he added.

Cryptocurrency

Price (US Dollar)

24-hour change

Market cap

Volume (24 Hours)

Bitcoin

48,314.16

-1.89%

$913.53 billion

$804.08 million

Ether

3,948.40

-2.87%

$467 billion

$720 million

Dogecoin

0.174722

1.48%

$23.15 billion

$1.05 million

Litecoin

154.37

-2.09%

$10.69 billion

$57.77 million

XRP

0.978220

2.65%

$97.81 billion

$4.81 billion

Cardano

1.33

2.52%

$43.74 billion

$135.28 million

DISCLAIMER: The cryptocurrency prices have been updated as of 1:20 pm and will change as the day progresses. The list is intended to give a rough idea regarding popular cryptocurrency trends and will be updated daily.

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Cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, Ether face ...

By Katherine Greifeld and Vildana Hajric

To cryptocurrency true believers, Bitcoin is the ultimate store of value, the most solid hedge against the rampant inflation manufactured by reckless central banks and their money-printing. To skeptics, the crypto world as a whole is a mirage whose massive run-up past $2 trillion was simply the speculative byproduct of the extraordinary amount of easy cash thats been sloshing around in the global economy in effect, a big bubble.

Both of those theories are about to face their biggest test yet.

Crypto exploded after March 2020, when the Federal Reserve and Congress unleashed trillions of dollars worth of stimulus to blunt the pandemics economic blow. A bunch of that cash made its way to digital assets, turbocharging prices. Bitcoin soared 305 per cent in 2020 and notched another 60 per cent the following year, topping out at a record of almost $69,000 in early November. Since then, though, its been on a relentless slide, weighed down in large part by the central banks hawkish pivot. Now, with odds rising that policy makers will commence a series of rate hikes as soon as March just one of several steps theyre set to take in removing liquidity it remains to be seen if the crypto ecosystem can hold up without it.

Its not looking good so far: Bitcoin is already down some 40 per cent from its highs, while No. 2 coin Ether and other altcoins have also suffered steep declines.

If theyre going to hike rates three times in 2022 and keep the program, and the era of low rates is over, were going to really see how much people believed in their Bitcoin-crypto thesis, said Stephane Ouellette, chief executive and co-founder of crypto platform FRNT Financial Inc. I would expect that the Fed getting more and more hawkish is very bad for valuations.

For most of its 13-year history, Bitcoin has enjoyed an environment of easy monetary policy and zero or negative rates. While there is no straight through-line from the Feds coffers to Bitcoin buy-orders on exchanges, there is a connection, according to David Tawil, president of ProChain Capital, a crypto hedge fund. For one, the Fed buying any type of asset can have ripple effects and lift prices of other investments. All the buying power, all the investable power that exists has to go somewhere, he said by phone.

Second, with rates at rock-bottom lows, investors have been forced to scour the market for higher-yielding opportunities and many turned to crypto given its ability to post outsize gains. Think of a junk-bond investor who was accustomed to high-single-digit returns even on bad days, said Tawil. Hes going to be forced to put money into something riskier, but, more importantly, something that yields something hes used to getting.

So what happens when financial conditions become tighter? The initial move is the opposite of what happened when they put the money in everythings going to go and swing the other way, until it settles down, Tawil said. Thats why you have this immediate reaction in the market because everyones anticipating that the money is going to leave the riskier stuff.

The last time the U.S. central bank raised rates was in December 2018, its final increase in a series of hikes. Back then, Bitcoin was trading at about $3,700 and concepts such as decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens were years away from entering the vernacular. It turned out to be a rough year for the original cryptocurrency, particularly toward the end, when Bitcoin lost more than 40 per cent during the last two months a period that also coincided with a walloping in U.S. stocks.

That dynamic is playing out again now, with Bitcoin falling in step with richly-valued equities ahead of an expected new round of Fed tightening, says Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and editor of The Boock Report.

For now, its proving to be just a risk-on/risk-off asset, he said. I expect it to trade with other risk assets in response to Fed tightening. Boockvar compared the digital coin to Cathie Woods ARK Innovation ETF, which is seen as the ultimate risk asset and which has also proven highly sensitive to Fed tightening as investors start to pay more attention to valuations.

Bitcoin, though, remains a supreme shape-shifter. It has represented many things to many people for more than a decade now and its (often contradictory) narratives will continue to evolve. After all, its been written off time and again as dead, denounced as rats poison, and castigated as a bubble only to come back stronger each time.

And as institutional adoption increases, Bitcoins future may also become clearer, says Max Gokhman, chief investment officer at AlphaTrAI, which is working on an application of its artificial-intelligence algorithms for the digital-asset space.

We shouldnt discount that in the future Bitcoin use cases may evolve to where it reinvents itself and gains importance anew, he said.

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Crypto diehards are about to find out if it really was a bubble - Economic Times

As the world grapples with how best to combat climate change, we've identified fossil fuels, farming, and industrial pollution as major offenders, but in recent years, the discussion has turned to cryptocurrency. Mining, particularly Bitcoin mining, uses an immense amount of energy, while the race among would-be crypto millionaires to build the most powerful mining rig produces a lot more electronic waste than fat bank accounts.

How much does cryptocurrency cost the environment? Does mining and transacting with crypto actually contribute to climate change? Here's what we know so far.

The most obvious environmental impact of crypto is the electricity required for the mining process, which is how new digital coins are created. While most know this as Bitcoin mining, many forms of cryptocurrency rely on mining. But since Bitcoins release, its become progressively harder to mint new units of currency through mining. This was by design, as the currency was capped at 21 million units, so the more units minted, the fewer units there are available to mine, and the more computational power it takes to mint new ones.

That preprogrammed scarcity combined with the potential for financial gain (one Bitcoin is worth about $42,000 as of this writing, and the current reward for mining a new block is 6.25 Bitcoin) means more people are using more electricity to mine whats left. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index estimates that Bitcoin mining uses more power globally per year than some countries, including the Netherlands and Pakistan.

(Image: Digiconomist)

The environmental concern comes from the estimated carbon footprint generated by the power plants providing that energy. And it isnt just mining that uses lots of powera single Bitcoin transaction is estimated to burn 2,292.5 kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power a typical US household for over 78 days.

Electricity may seem like a clean source of energy, but many countries burn fossil fuels to generate it, which adds to the carbon in the atmosphere and worsens climate change. The US is estimated to be home to around 35% of Bitcoin mining operations, according to the University of Cambridge, and generates 60% of its electricity through fossil fuels.

Theres also the issue of physical electronic waste. Computers, graphics cards, purpose-built ASIC rigs, and more are used for mining. Since increased computing power translates to an advantage in the race to mine more coins, people are constantly upgrading and throwing away old equipment, producing up to 30,000 tons of electronic waste every year.

(Credit: Digiconomist)

Digital currencies were made to be difficult to mine and take a lot of computing power to generate so no one person or group could take control of the entire network. This feature is part of what makes cryptocurrencies decentralized, meaning they have no single point of control.

Popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum operate on whats called a proof of work (PoW) system, which relies on people having to solve equations of varying difficulty to mine new coins and add new blocks of information to a digital currency's blockchain. This system was developed, in part, to counteract cyberattacks where one person creates a host of fake identities and uses them to take over a majority of the network.

Because everyone on the network is fighting to be the first to solve these equations and get the monetary reward, the person with the most processing power has the best chance to win. That leads people to put together larger mining rigs (or even networks of mining rigs) that grind through equations faster. Since the amount of energy used is reliant on the size of the mining network, ever increasing amounts of energy are needed to mine new coins.

The price and availability of electricity can also affect the volume of cryptocurrency mining operations. If electricity is cheaper in one country (or even part of a country) than another, it makes sense from a business standpoint to centralize mining operations there.

One important point to note in the discussion around cryptocurrencys environmental impact is that the amount of energy it uses might not directly equate to carbon emissions. According to the Harvard Business Review, the energy mixor what sources miners are drawing fromwill affect the actual carbon emissions of cryptocurrency mining.

In the US, about 60% of the grids energy comes from fossil fuels like natural gas, coal, and petroleum. So while its safe to say that US-based mining operations are using fossil fuels for the majority of their power, that may not be the case for operations based in other countries. Given the vast amount of energy usage by just Bitcoin, though, it seems like splitting hairs to say it isnt contributing to greenhouse gases in some way.

The power plants necessary for crypto mining can also have an impact on the surrounding ecosystem. According to Columbia Climate School, the Greenidge Generation plant in Dresden, New York, draws millions of gallons of water to cool itself while running, and discharges some of that water back into Lake Seneca at 30-50 degrees Fahrenheit above normal temperature, which endangers the wildlife.

(Credit: Capital.com)

Efforts to make crypto more green include using methane gas from fossil fuel drilling that usually gets burned off, and setting up plants in areas where wind power is abundant, like West Texas. These are good ideas in theory, but if the price of Bitcoin were to crash, it may not be financially feasible to implement these projects or others like them.

Developers are instead looking to the design of future cryptocurrencies to reduce energy cost, mostly by moving to new systems of validation that arent proof of work. One example that's gaining popularity is the proof of stake (PoS) system, which relies on how much of a certain cryptocurrency a user has agreed to stake, or hold and not sell.

Each person who agrees to stake cryptocurrency becomes a validator who can validate the authenticity of transactions on the blockchain the same way a miner would. These people are chosen at random, and a certain number of validators have to agree on transactions before theyre added to the chain. Once a new block is created, validators are rewarded with coins and keep the coins theyve staked.

This uses reduced computing power compared to the race to crunch through equations that comes with mining in a PoW system. Ethereum will soon use a variation of the PoS system to verify new blocks on its blockchain. Other methods are also in development, including proof of history, proof of elapsed time, proof of burn, and proof of capacity.

Initiatives like the Bitcoin Mining Council and the Crypto Climate Accord are also developing new ways to make crypto mining and transactions more energy efficient. The Crypto Climate Accord has a stated goal of running all blockchains on entirely renewable energy by 2025. Some mining operations currently run on renewable energy, but its hard to pin down an exact percentage.

These measures can all reduce the energy cost of cryptocurrency and crypto mining, but the issues of e-waste and other environmental consequences still need to be addressed for cryptocurrency to become sustainable in the long term.

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What Is the Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrency? - PCMag

Back in 2020, PayPal began letting its users buy and sell cryptocurrency, as well as make transactions, followed by another development in 2021, in which the global payments app began letting its users withdraw cryptocurrency and relocate them to third-party wallets.

Paypal now has now announced that its exploring the idea of launching its own stablecoin, which refers to a cryptocurrency that pegs its market value to some external reference such as fiat money. According to Bloomberg, iPhone app developer Steve Moser first found hidden code and images on what was titled PayPal Coin which would be backed by the U.S. dollar. PayPal responded to the initial discoveries saying that the images found were from an internal hackathon that was conducted for idea generation and may not necessarily see a public release. However, PayPal representatives later responded to multiple media outlets saying theyre actively exploring the idea.

I dont think that we have seen a stablecoin that works well for payments yet, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of crypto and digital currencies at PayPal told Bloomberg. We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course work closely with relevant regulators. PayPal currently supports four cryptocurrencies on its app: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. Time will tell if it will add its own into the mix.

In other news, crypto scammers stole a record $14 Billion USD in 2021.

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PayPal Explores Launch Of its Own Cryptocurrency | HYPEBEAST - HYPEBEAST

Video game retailer and memestock darling GameStop is making a big bet on NFTs and cryptocurrency technology. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the company has built up an over 20-person strong team working on an online marketplace for the virtual items, which could include cosmetic skins and in-game items.

The company is said to be courting game developers and publishers to list NFTs on its marketplace, and hopes to ink deals with crypto companies to develop the underlying technology and help invest in games featuring NFT and blockchain tech. In total, the WSJ reports that GameStops investments in crypto could stretch into the tens of millions, and involve agreements made with over a dozen other companies.

A spokesperson for GameStop did not immediately respond to The Verges request for comment.

The plans are thought to be part of GameStops attempt to turnaround its business, which has been rocked in recent years as consumers turn away from physical releases in favor of buying games digitally online. In December the companys chief executive Matt Furlong (who joined the company from Amazon last year) said the company was exploring the emerging technologies, and job listings relating to Web3 and NFTs previously emerged in October.

The WSJ notes that gamers are seen as potential early adopters for NFTs in particular, because theyre already comfortable with spending money on virtual goods like cosmetic outfits and weapon skins. Square Enix and EA have publicly expressed interest in exploring the technology, and Ubisoft launched an NFT platform late last year.

But so far much of the response from gamers to in-game NFTs has been downright hostile, with many seeing them as being of little value to the overall gameplay experience, and representing a marketing exercise by companies that have for years been happy to sell virtual items without the need for blockchain technology. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl developer GSC Game World quickly walked back its NFT plans after they were widely criticised, while Valve has said it wont allow games using the technology on its game store Steam.

The WSJs report comes roughly a year after GameStop found itself at the center of a trading frenzy, as some day traders attempted to boost its share price and punish short sellers. But despite the investment and attempts at a turnaround, the company continues to be in poor financial shape. Last month it reported that its losses were widening, despite some revenue growth. The companys share price has been falling throughout the past month and a half, although CNBC reports that its share price rose by over 22 percent following the WSJs report on its NFT plans.

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GameStop reportedly has a whole unit working on NFTs and cryptocurrency - The Verge

The new opt-in feature turns your idle PC into a cryptominer, with Norton skimming 15% off the top, plus market fees.

Image: NortonLifeLock

Cybersecurity software company NortonLifeLock is coming under fire for its decision late last year to begin installing Ethereum mining software on its Norton 360 customers' PCs without their permission or knowledge.

Norton Crypto, the new Norton 360 mining component, isn't enabled without the user opting in, but that hasn't stopped users from taking to Norton's Crypto forum to register their discontent, and they aren't all upset about the sneaky installation.

SEE: NFTs cheat sheet: Everything you need to know about non-fungible tokens (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

One look at Norton's forum reveals that the vocal portion of its user base is angry because software that many consider a form of malware was installed without their consent, they're having difficulty uninstalling it, they're upset about Ethereum mining's toll on the environment and more.

There is plenty to be suspicious about when it comes to companies asking permission to mine cryptocurrency on your computer, but it's a good idea to take a step back and see what Norton is proposing.

According to the Norton Crypto FAQ, its software is opt-in can be disabled in the Norton Crypto dashboard and pays out rewards split between a pool of all its crypto-mining Norton 360 users. All you need to do is fire it up and Norton will handle everything else, including thresholds, your wallet and the decision of when/when not to mine. Users are free to transfer their Ethereum out of their Norton wallet and over to Coinbase.

Norton also probably doesn't want to build more of a reputation as selling software that fries hardware, so they've made the requirements for using Norton Crypto somewhat strict: An NVIDIA GPU with at least 6GB of memory, a 1GHz processor, 2GB RAM, Windows 7 SP1 or newer, and it won't run on Windows 10 in S mode or machines that use ARM processors.

Probably the most notable thing that detractors have hit on (aside from the unasked-for software installation) is the 15% "mining fee" that Norton scrapes off the top, which means you're immediately losing 15% of the Ethereum you mine. That's in addition to the subscription fees users are already paying.

In addition, Norton doesn't cover any transaction or gas fees associated with selling or transferring Ethereum out of its wallet to Coinbase. More than one Norton Crypto forum poster said that they were unable to withdraw their balance, as the fees would exceed what they had earned.

Then there's the problem of energy consumption: Is the additional electricity expenditures incurred by so small a contribution to the Norton mining pool enough to come out ahead once you get your share of the earnings? Like Bitcoin, Ethereum energy consumption is ridiculous: A single Ethereum blockchain transaction eats up more than 100,000 Visa card transactions, or roughly the amount of energy the average U.S. home uses in a week. Miners directly contribute to that level of energy consumption, so it's important to ask what you're actually getting back in return, which in this case may turn out to be a loss.

Several people have also raised alarms due to the fact that Ncrypt.exe, the actual application doing the mining for Norton 360, can't be easily uninstalled. Users report having to actually locate Ncrypt.exe and manually delete it with Norton deactivated. There's no guarantee, however, that it won't be automatically reinstalled when Norton 360 is next updated.

A NortonLifeLock representative informed me that the above is correct, stating that "If users have turned on Norton Crypto but no longer wish to use the feature, it can be deleted through Norton 360 by temporarily shutting off "tamper protection" (which allows users to modify the Norton installation) and deleting NCrypt.exe from your computer."

Additionally, Norton said that NCrypt.exe will be reinstalled during "a full software update," but that the reinstall won't turn it back on. The Norton representative also said that NCrypt.exe "cannot be run by other processes," which, if correct, would mean that it hopefully can't be hijacked by an attacker who manages to break through into your system.

SEE: Metaverse cheat sheet: Everything you need to know (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs said on his blog that there's another concern: Norton's reach will put cryptocurrency in front of people who may not be ready for its security challenges. "[Norton Crypto] will be introducing millions of perhaps less-savvy Internet users to the world of cryptocurrency, which comes with its own set of unique security and privacy challenges that require users to "level up" their personal security practices in fairly significant ways," Krebs said.

Norton 360 customers: Do you plan to use Norton Crypto, or have you already? Sound off below to help your fellow readers understand more about it.

This article was updated to add responses from NortonLifeLock.

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Norton 360 wants to pay you a pittance to mine Ethereum cryptocurrency - TechRepublic

The cryptocurrency market is growing rapidly in the country. Reports suggest nearly 8 percent of Indians now own cryptos. According to a November 2021 report by crypto research and intelligence business CREBACO, Indias investment in cryptocurrencies ballooned to more than $10 billion from $923 million in April 2020.

After a significant run-up in 2021, cryptocurrencies have entered a correction phase. The impending cryptocurrency regulation bill and the Reserve Bank of India's warnings against the use of cryptos have also kept cryptos under pressure. The crypto market is more volatile than the stock markets and can prove risky for investors, particularly retail investors who invest without proper knowledge. While some popular platforms such as WazirX and CoinSwitch Kuber were so far facilitating crypto trading, there was no dedicated crypto index in the country yet.

Read on to know what this index is all about and what it means for crypto investors in the country.

How does the IC15 index work?

The IC15 will feature the 15 most traded cryptocurrencies listed on leading crypto exchanges across the world by market capitalisation. The index is similar to the Nifty 50 that features the 50 most prominent players in the capital markets across sectors.

How will the IC15 index help investors?

The objective of the IC15 is to provide insights to investors about index-related products like crypto funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). A crypto ETF tracks the performance of single or multiple digital tokens that comprise the fund. Based on buying and selling activity, the price of crypto ETFs also fluctuates. Just like equities, crypto ETFs are also traded daily.

Moreover, the index will also provide information on crypto mining and the performance of the broader crypto market. While its purpose will remain to educate, it will open diversification options for investors who wish to dabble in other crypto blockchains and tokens.

The IC15 could eventually become a benchmark for fund managers to gauge the performance of underlying cryptocurrencies and related products and will be a representative of the market sentiment.

Who will decide on the 15 cryptocurrencies covered by the IC15 index?

The IC15 index will be managed by an Index Governance Committee formed by CryptoWire that will consist of crypto experts, accomplished academics, and industry veterans. The committee will select 15 cryptocurrencies out of the top 400 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation.

Which cryptocurrencies will be covered by IC15?

To qualify for a position on the list, a cryptocurrency:

How will the Index Value be calculated?

This is a pre-weighted index, which means each cryptocurrency will be given a weightage proportionate to its price per token. In the case of IC15, the weightages are as follows:

On the base date, the divisor will be computed using the total market capitalisation of all index participants. The index undergoes normalisation during every rebalancing period, during which it is multiplied with a certain normalizing factor.

The base value of the IC15 is 10,000, and the base date will be considered as April 1, 2018. This means, as of December 31, 2021, the index has made absolute gains of 615 percent to 71,475.18.

The index will be constantly monitored and scrutinised for review and rebalancing on a quarterly basis. The cut-off date for reviewing has already been set at the 15th calendar day in the months of March, June, September, and December.

(Edited by : Yashi Gupta)

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Explained: How does IC15, India's first cryptocurrency index, work? How will it help investors? - CNBCTV18