Saturday Spotlight: Nigeria and China speed ahead of UK in digital money race April 9, 2022 A new index charting the readiness and adoption of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) has seen Nigeria top the ranking with the e-Naira, launched in October 2021. Nigeria’s lead is closely followed by other early CBDC adopters, the Bahamas, Mainland China, Jamaica and Eastern Caribbean. The findings, from the PwC Global CBDC Index, capture the [...]
Liverpool FC NFT sale: Reds raise £1.1m but 95 per cent of digital artwork left unsold April 4, 2022 Liverpool have closed their controversial NFT sale after selling just over five per cent of the available digital artworks of players such as Mohamed Salah. In the biggest project of its kind from a Premier League football club, Liverpool partnered with Sotheby’s to sell up to 171,072 NFTs for $75 (£57) each – $12.8m (£9.8m) [...]
Opinion: Crypto brands’ sporting land-grab is only just beginning March 29, 2022 As Lionel Messi and Fifa become the latest to do huge deals with cryptocurrency and blockchain-related brands, sports sponsorship expert Henry Nash of Octagon assesses the major new player in the market. I suspect I wasn’t alone in thinking the Nielsen 2022 Global Sports Marketing Report would be a story of Covid’s brutal impact on [...]
Crypto fraud up 64 per cent as investment spikes for mainstream March 28, 2022 Crypto investment fraud in the UK has continued to rise sharply in the UK with a total of 9,458 cases reported in 2021, up 64 per cent from 2020 figures according to data from Pinsent Masons.
Crypto scam: Pig butchering on dating sites makes the Tinder Swindler looks like an amateur March 24, 2022 City A.M. is increasingly receiving reports about a new crypto scam called ‘Pig Butchering’, which combines the intimacy of romance scams with the wild west of crypto cons. In this scam, the victims are referred to as pigs being prepared for slaughter: they’re raised for their meaty profit under the promise of ‘happily ever after’ [...]
‘Death by over-regulation’: Losses from one cryptocurrency cannot be used to offset gains from other crypto under new tax rules in India March 22, 2022 India has introduced a number of new tax rules for cryptocurrencies. The most eye-popping clause is without a doubt the stipulation that losses from one crypto asset cannot be used to offset gains in another. So, in other words, if you lose some in trading Bitcoin, that cannot be offset vs gains from another asset, [...]
FCA orders crypto ATM operators in UK to shut down all machines now or face punishment March 11, 2022 The Financial Conduct Authority has told the operators of all 81 Bitcoin ATMs in the UK to shut the machines down immediately, or face enforcement action.
Rich Brit kids: Number of UK millennial millionaires doubles as crypto, startups and meme stocks power fortunes March 6, 2022 The number of UK millennial and Generation Z millionaires has hit a record high, doubling to 2,000 in the most recent year from 1,000 the previous year, according to new researched shared exclusively with City A.M. this morning. The data also shows a 28 per cent increase in millennial and Gen Z taxpayers declaring income [...]
Billboard teams up with Universal Music to create NFT digital collectibles March 2, 2022 Music big names Billboard and Universal Music Group have teamed up to launch ChartStars, a non-fungible token (NFT) based project of curated digital collectibles that will leverage the environmentally friendly Flow Blockchain. The launch of ChartStars marks Billboard’s first scalable NFT product geared toward music fans. It will be a collection of artist-focused digital artwork that commemorates achievements and milestones [...]
Premier League takes slow road to first NFT deal March 1, 2022 Driven by the extraordinary early success of the NBA’s Top Shot digital collectibles, NFTs were the talk of the sports industry when the Premier League dipped its toe into the market last year. It launched a tender process, inviting bidders to submit proposals for a range of officially licensed Premier League NFTs, which was due [...]