Are Wholefoods, Starbucks and Uber FOLDing? Luno News RoundUp S1E12

by Team Luno
· 4 minute read
luno round up 12

Before we jump into what’s been another whirlwind week in the crypto world, we’d like to thank all of our readers and viewers who’ve joined us on our Luno RoundUp journey as we say a bittersweet goodbye to season one!

Now we’ve got the sappy stuff out the way, let’s get right to it.

Mainstreamers pave the way for BTC

What do Amazon, Wholefoods, Starbucks, Home Depot and Uber have in common? They’re Folding! But not in the way you think… They’re joining other major names on the payment platform, Fold, where clients will be able to use the Lightning Network to pay for goods and services using Bitcoin.

The battle against big tech

Staying stateside, a draft discussion bill is doing the rounds with the House Financial Services Committee staff which has the potential to impact Facebook’s congressional hearing this week. The bill, titled “Keep Big Tech Out of Finance” sets to prevent tech behemoths from becoming financial institutions, and raises an interesting school of thought on the roles fulfilled by non-governmental institutions. We can’t say we’re too surprised, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this as more developments come to light.

Room to play for institutional investors

Blockchain Capital, along with global payments company, Visa, have led a funding round for Anchorage, a company providing crypto custody services for institutional investors. Other investors have also participated, leading the company to a total of $57 million in funding since 2017. This is more great news for institutional investors looking to enter the market.

ETH/ZAR – a match made in heaven

This one’s for our South African customers: It’s time to celebrate! We’ve launched our Ethereum/Rand pair meaning you can now buy Ethereum using Rands on the Luno Exchange. What does this mean for you? You can save time and money next time you buy or sell Ethereum, plus we’ve given you the freedom to choose your preferred method. For more on this, check out our Ethereum/Rand exchange pair announcement.

Not the time to shine if you want to mine

Right now might be a tough time to pursue your Bitcoin mining career. BTC.com recorded its largest two-week increase in mining difficulty in the past 12 months. Essentially, Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards.

The difficulty reached 9.06 trillion earlier this month, surpassing the previous record of 7.93 trillion. This strong growth is a sign that competition amongst miners is not only escalating, but doing so at an accelerated rate.

Word on the Tweet

Who said what on crypto Twitter this week?

Donald Tr*mp weighed in with his thoughts on everything that’s “not money”, aka cryptocurrencies. While we could spend time breaking down and debunking some of his hostile sentiments, we thought we’d let the responses to his tweets take the lead on this. If you haven’t got your teapot on, we’d suggest you do so immediately.

A software engineer takes us back to the future with this amazing discovery. Ken Shirriff reverse-engineered a 52-year-old guidance computer used on the Apollo missions during the famous NASA space program, which includes the first moon landing. Why? To mine Bitcoin, of course! Unfortunately, the computer was so slow, it’d take about a billion times the age of the universe to mine just one Bitcoin block.

Crypto’s best boi has done the math for us. We won’t be betting against Bitcoin either, will you?

Hmm, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em, Peter? What do you think Peter Schiff should do with his BTC? Let us know on Twitter.

Rhythm trader, you speak the truth. Don’t be that person who wished they had bought sooner.

That’s a wrap! Once again, thank you to our #LunoTV supporters, and to our team who’ve worked hard to bring you the best and latest crypto news every time. While we take a break, look out for season 2 of our Learn with Luno videos. Until next time!

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