According to the reports, Liverpool might become the first Premier League club to acquire a cryptocurrency firm as their principal jersey sponsor in 2023. Since 2010, financial services firm Standard Chartered has been the Reds’ primary shirt sponsor. The pact presently pays Liverpool £40 million each year, but it is slated to expire after next season.
Discussion with Cryptocurrency Firms
Standard Chartered is interested in extending their partnership with Liverpool beyond next year, as per The Echo. The front of the jersey sponsorship, on the other hand, is one of the club’s most valuable commercial partnerships, and the Reds are willing to talk to other possible patterners before making a final selection.
The Merseyside-based club is determined to stay up with the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United in terms of sponsorship value. They also want to capitalize on their recent achievements to increase revenue.
According to the sources, Liverpool is in talks with cryptocurrency companies about being the club’s principal jersey sponsor starting in 2023. According to reports, the Premier League giants are looking for a deal worth up to £70 million per year.
Over the previous two years, cryptocurrency has grown in prominence, with huge sponsorship partnerships with companies like Formula One and the NBA. However, because of its explosive character, it continues to be a contentious topic.
Liverpool is in contact with several multinational corporations ahead of formal discussions. Financial services, travel and tourism, consumer electronics, media, and other businesses are among those represented.
The Reds published their first non-fungible token (NFT) collection last month, but they have no interest in having a fan token company as their primary shirt sponsor. This year, they have already turned down sponsorship proposals from similar organizations, according to The Echo.
𝗘𝗫𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗩𝗘 Liverpool are talking to cryptocurrency firms about replacing Standard Chartered on the front of the club's shirts from 2023… #LFC
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 25, 2022
As per The Echo, while the Reds are in talks with several companies, Standard Chartered could remain their principal shirt sponsor beyond next season. They have the option to renew their contract, and talks between the two parties are underway.
The Reds are considering all of their possibilities before making a final decision on their primary jersey sponsor. They are anticipated to announce the matter in the summer, according to the newspaper.
Twitter’s Komachi observed a completely “approved and tested” $14,800 ASRock cryptomining server created in partnership between ASRock and AMD. The system also has twelve AMD BC-250 APUs, which boost the system’s performance to a stunning 610 MH/s. What exactly are APUs? They could be PS5 “Oberon” CPU leftovers, according to the Twitter report, and we’ve heard the same tale from a source acquainted with the situation. This means that, in addition to the AMD 4700S we tested, AMD has seemingly discovered another purpose for their problematic PS5 hardware.
Along with Biostar, ASRock is one of the most cryptomining-friendly PC and component manufacturers. You can find crypto-purposed motherboards as part of its BTC+ series, as well as handy accessories and advice to getting started in cryptomining, by browsing its website. It does, however, manufacture crypto mining servers and sells both barebones and fully filled servers to its most loyal customers.
Komachi highlighted one of ASRock’s mining rigs for sale in Slovenia. Described as an “ASRock Mining Rig Barebone 610 Mhs 12x AMD BC-250,” the system is listed at €13,499, or approximately $14,800. The advert says that what is up for sale is a “quality computer for cryptocurrency mining operations with a guarantee made by a recognized manufacturer ASRock.” It goes on to claim that the certified and tested system is the result of “cooperation between AMD and ASRock.The ASRock mining rig listing depicts the system from several perspectives. Twelve PCI cards are lined up in a top-down view with no evident branding. “12 x AMD BC-250 mining APU passive design,” according to the listing, implying that each board has a PS5 APU. There’s also 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, five cooling fans, and two 1200W power supply in the server.
You’ll see that the system CPU isn’t shown. One of the PS5 APUs, however, may include operational CPU cores for general processing and housekeeping. This notion is supported by the Sony PlayStation 5’s 16GB of GDDR6 RAM configuration.
Another feature of this ready-to-use cryptomining machine is that it can mine Ethereum at a rate of around 610 MH/s (ETH). The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, for example, can mine ETH at around 120 MH/s while consuming 300W. (Along with the newly released GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, it’s the only GPU from Nvidia that isn’t limited by the LHR limiter these days.)
A quick look via US retailers reveals RTX 3090 cards for $2,200. To match the ASRock server’s performance, you’ll need approximately five of these cards ($11,000), as well as other components such as strong GPUs that can handle 1500 watts on their own.
The AMD BC-250 appears to be a well-known cryptomining processor. A single BC-250, for example, is listed as capable of little over 50 MH/s on an ETH mining profitability calculator site in Norway, which matches the ASRock server advertisement (12 x 50 MH/s = 600 MH/s). It goes on to say that mining with one of these APUs will earn you around $3 per day, depending on your electricity costs and the ever-changing value of ETH.
Lionel Messi has agreed to promote digital fan token firm Socios.com for a fee of more than $20 million.
He joins Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers as the latest worldwide sports personalities to enter the crypto world. Messi’s agreement comes amid a growing trend of crypto-football collaborations.
Lionel Messi Signing the Agreement
Lionel Messi, whose August transfer from Barcelona to PSG included a cryptocurrency payment, will be involved in a media and advertising drive for Socios in the run-up to the World Cup in Qatar, which begins in November. According to the source, Messi’s “ambassador” pact does not include cryptocurrency payments and is a three-year deal.
More than 130 sporting companies, including PSG, Barca, Juventus, and Manchester City, have signed arrangements with Socios, which includes the creation of tokens. Fan tokens are a sort of cryptocurrency that allows holders to vote on a variety of minor club decisions.
Lionel Messi said in the statement: “Fans deserve to be recognized for their support. They deserve opportunities to influence the teams they love.”
About the Tokens
The tokens are increasingly considered by clubs as a source of fresh cash, but they have been attacked by certain supporters’ groups, who see them as a gimmick that adds to the already rising costs of supporting their teams.
Lionel Messi is becoming a global ambassador for the Socios fan token platform — and will reportedly be paid $20 million 💰https://t.co/pSuECbYp80
Brady became an ambassador for crypto exchange platform FTX Trading Ltd last year after taking an undisclosed equity position in the company.
James launched a multi-year relationship with Crypto.com in January, a company that recently signed a sponsorship contract with FIFA, the governing body of world football. Despite his terrible form for PSG, Messi remains one of the best players in the world, capable of changing a game with his left foot at any time.
In the form of CMP 100HX, NVIDIA appears to be repurposing its data centre-specific GV100 Volta GPUs for the crypto mining industry. Tensor Cores, specially created cores with customised deep learning implementation above conventional CUDA cores, were first used in NVIDIA’s 12nm Volta processor.
NVIDIA has unveiled its computational accelerator for crypto mining companies. The new graphics card from the business is said to have the same PCB layout as the Titan V. The Titan V is the company’s only consumer model equipped with the Volta GV100 GPU, which provides display outputs. Although the CMP 100HX does not appear to have any display outputs, it does have 2×8-pin power connectivity. @KOMACHI ENSAKA, a Twitter leaker, initially posted the photographs on the PC Shopping forums.
Although the original PC Shopping discussion does not provide a card image, VideoCardz claims that the comparisons to the CMP 100HX are strikingly similar. NVIDIA’s new card has a passive design, implying that it should be utilised in a server or, in this case, a collection of graphics cards for bitcoin mining schemes rather than a PC setup. The crypto mining card also includes an NV-Link port, which seems out of place given its lack of utility in digital currency mining.
The CMP 100HX is said to offer close to 81 MH/s while only consuming 250W of electricity, similar to the Titan V. The card’s unknown equation is if it will have memory configurations equivalent to the Titan, which has 12GB HBM2 memory. NVIDIA is noted for shrinking the size of its CMP line’s recollection.
During NVIDIA’s 2021 quarterly results call, the business revealed that the CMP industry has been declining for the majority of 2021, beginning in the second quarter.
The idea of NVIDIA recycling obsolete graphics cards for crypto mining sounds entirely out of the blue. NVIDIA has not stated when the CMP 100HX will be available for purchase. Viperatech now has these high-end CMP 100HX and CMP 170HX listed for £1,321.29 and £3,657.6, respectively. The store is the first to sell NVIDIA and AMD mining cards in a retail setting.
Netflix is planning a documentary series about the couple accused of laundering $4.5 billion in stolen Bitcoin (via Variety). This comes only days after Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were arrested in connection with the crimes, and not long after many of us (unfortunately) learned about Morgan’s rapping alter-ego, Razzlekhan, or the “Crocodile of Wall Street.”
Chris Smith, the executive producer of the strange smash Tiger King and director of FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, will direct the docuseries. Executive producer Nick Bilton, whose credits include The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, a documentary on the Theranos crisis. Netflix hasn’t revealed any information regarding the show’s possible debut date or cast members.
Morgan and Lichtenstein have been accused by the DOJ of being involved in the 2016 breach of crypto exchange Bitfinex, in which an unnamed hacker allegedly transferred 119,756 Bitcoin to a wallet linked to Lichtenstein. The couple allegedly tried to launder the stolen monies by engaging in a “labyrinth” of cryptocurrency transactions that included gold and NFT purchases. The stolen assets were valued at around $71 million at the time, but that figure has subsequently risen to $4.5 billion, making the Department of Justice’s $3.6 billion recoveries the “biggest financial seizure ever.”
Raja Koduri, an Intel executive, has written a blog post announcing the company’s plans to enter the crypto mining/blockchain business with a roadmap of specialised energy-efficient accelerators. Intel plans to start shipping the new chips, which include the Bonanza Mine ASICs that we recently discovered, to several significant customers this year as it joins the $2.8 billion Bitcoin mining sector. BLOCK (previously known as Square and led by Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey), Argo Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure are among Intel’s first customers.
Intel also announced the formation of a new Custom Compute Group, which would develop and construct blockchain hardware under Koduri’s Accelerated Computing and Graphics (AXG) Business Unit. Other unidentified proprietary accelerated supercomputing hardware will be built based on Intel’s current IP blocks, according to the group. It’s unclear if those devices will be able to handle other sorts of bitcoin mining, or if the unit will be used in conjunction with Intel Foundry Services (IFS).
Although Koduri’s message includes a photo of Intel’s new blockchain accelerator, it is short on technical data. However, we already know a lot about the new Bitcoin-mining hardware from the company. Intel’s Bonanza Mine chips were first spotted in a listing for a presentation at the next ISSCC conference, but the company has already moved on to its BMZ2 second-generation ‘Bonanza Mine’ ASIC. This chip has a unique architecture that allows it to compute SHA-256 (a cryptographic algorithm) faster for Bitcoin mining at ultra-low voltage. These energy-efficient chips deliver “nearly 1000x greater performance per watt than conventional GPUs for SHA-256-based mining,” according to Intel.
However, GPUs aren’t commonly used for SHA-256/Bitcoin mining, so this isn’t the most accurate comparison. Bitcoin is usually mined on ASICs, which are specialised processors intended to do a specific type of job. ASICs have efficiency and performance advantages over more complicated types of chips that can perform the same work, such as CPUs and GPUs.
Other ASIC-based devices from firms like Bitmain (which has a near-monopoly on high-end miners) and MicroBT will compete with Intel’s Bonanza Mine. These businesses have significant lead times and charge exorbitant prices for their chips (typically dependent on Bitcoin’s value). For manufacturing, they must also rely on third-party design firms and foundries. Due to the intermittent nature of crypto mining and the uncertainty of demand, foundries like TSMC don’t grant these firms privileged status in their fabs; instead, they prioritise longer-term reliable business from larger chipmakers.
Intel has a lot of production capacity, but it’s unclear if it’ll make the BMZ2 ASICs in-house or outsource them to TSMC (the BMZ2 is said to employ TSMC’s 5nm process). Intel, on the other hand, has traditionally outsourced about 25% of its silicon production and will dramatically expand that percentage in the coming years as it shifts its GPU and some CPU manufacturers to TSMC, giving it a significant purchasing advantage over competing mining gear companies. Intel also has tight control over its supply chain and its production, including packaging and test (OSAT) capabilities, a vital phase in the manufacturing process that has shown to be one of the major causes of continuous semiconductor shortages.
Intel claims that its mining hardware is made up of very small pieces of silicon (the first-generation BMZ1 chip is only 14.2mm2), thus this new venture shouldn’t influence its present product supply. Mining ASICs, on the other hand, are deployed in large numbers, as shown in the image of half of a Bitmain S19’s dashboard above. We expect Intel’s approach to following a similar pattern, implying that it will use a significant amount of silicon in total. The smaller die size, on the other hand, increases yield and maximises wafer area use (up to 4,000 die per wafer), allowing for greater manufacturing capacity (albeit it does necessitate additional wafer dicing/packaging capacity).
BLOCK (previously known as Square), Argo Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure are three of Intel’s initial customers, but the company probably has more significant customers who prefer to stay anonymous. For the past few years, the Bitcoin mining sector has been plagued by hardware shortages and exorbitant prices. This is expected to continue, given that analysts predict 1.5 to 2 million Bitcoin miners to be shipped this year. As a result of its size, more consistent pricing, and possibly more predictable supply, Intel might be a disruptive factor in this market segment.
Intel’s Bonanza Mine chips might offer them a strong foothold in the lucrative Bitcoin mining business, which is currently dominated by newcomers Bitmain and MicroBT. Intel will also not limit the mining capabilities of its upcoming standard Arc Alchemist GPUs, allowing it can compete with old competitors AMD and Nvidia in other sorts of bitcoin mining (like Ethereum).
Intel now has a dual-pronged strategy of ASICs and GPUs for the rapidly increasing blockchain/crypto mining business, which it previously avoided (at least not publicly). Connecting those devices to Intel’s global production and supply networks should help the company expand swiftly and avoid some of the production issues we’ve seen with other mining gear companies.
Whenever you sit down to talk about cryptocurrency, one of the most common pieces of advice or remarks you’ll hear is that the market is extremely volatile. And why not, given that the assertion is virtually entirely true.
There is no doubt that this sector has been labelled as a roller coaster ride since the beginning of the Bitcoin Era and the advent of other cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency has earned this moniker due to its sharp ups and downs. What, though, is the cause of its erratic behavior? What factors are responsible for the cryptocurrency’s ups and downs? Will there ever be a point of balance in this industry? If you are also interested in crypto trading, you just need to click at this link.
In this article, we will discuss everything in detail to find answers to these questions.
Why is Cryptocurrency so Volatile?
Cause of Volatility
It’s crucial to first comprehend the nature of volatility before examining the source.
Bitcoin’s value began at $20,000 in December 2020, and by January, it had risen to about $40,000. The price increased to $65,000 in April. Then, in June, the price was reduced to $30,000 for the first time. Then, by July, the price had risen to $45,000 once more. However, various factors contribute to these ups and downs.
In-Growth Market
It’s worth noting that, despite its widespread publicity on television and social media, Bitcoin remains a minor player in comparison to fiat and gold. The greatest point reached by the bitcoin market was about $2 trillion. Bitcoin still has a long road to cover compared to gold, which is worth $7,9 trillion, and even when compared to the US stock market. When it comes to price, it’s critical to remember that even the tiniest of changes can have a significant impact when the scale is small.
The market is almost impossible to get out of compared to the gold market. The market will hardly exhibit movement symptoms even if a group of investors decides to sell gold worth $400-$500 million. Take a look at what’s going on in the bitcoin market. We already know the consequence since the market cannot absorb such a loss at this moment, and as a result, it will plummet if this occurs. On the other hand, the crypto market is still growing, and there are still prospects for someone to come up with a new idea.
Digital Currency
Almost all cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that have no physical foundation. This has a huge impact because pricing depends on supply and demand. When it comes to bitcoin, the price is purely determined by the number of people interested in purchasing it, as bitcoin’s price is relatively predictable. The pricing is set based on the quantity available. There is no such thing as a backup that can cover the value and no such authority that can mandate a payment method.
This implies that bitcoin’s value is determined by faith. It can go up or down in a matter of seconds, and no one can control it. Those who do not believe that the price will remain stable will eventually sell their bitcoins. As a result, there is a disruption in the market, which results in significant market fluctuations. Due to recent market changes, even people who had no intention of selling their coins have decided. This results in a significant reduction in pricing. It is also possible for the inverse to occur. There could be a significant increase in pricing, and more people could enter the cycle, causing it to worsen.
Market Prediction
Market prediction is one of the most important factors in cryptocurrency’s volatility. Investors can bet on whether the market will rise or fall simply by selling and buying. The entire market volatility is based on traders’ predictions and investing to make more money. You can easily benefit from forecasting when the market will fly up and buy the coins before it happens. Similarly, you might benefit by selling them just as the market is about to decline.
Short selling is a common practice where a trader borrows a stock, sells it, and then buys it back to repay the lender. Short sellers make forecasts and value the shares they are trading based on those assumptions. Many cryptocurrency speculators constantly predict the ups and downs of the market.
The cryptocurrency market, as well as other high-risk investments, has taken a beating.
According to sources, Bitcoin has dropped 11% in the last five days. On Friday, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell below $40,000 for the first time since August, and is now trading at roughly $38,378. According to other analysts, it could fall even farther.
In the same timeframe, ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is down 14%. It is currently valued at $2,779.
The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were also down. This month, both cryptocurrency and technology stocks have been sliding at the same time, indicating a growing link between the two.
There’s also anxiety about the possibility of greater cryptocurrency regulation in the United States, as well as how the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy could affect the broader market if it were to change. Other regulators throughout the world are also paying attention to the bitcoin business. Russia’s central bank, for example, recommended a ban on cryptocurrency mining and use on Thursday.
This isn’t out of the ordinary for bitcoin; cryptocurrencies are notorious for their volatility. Prices might suddenly increase and then quickly fall. As a result, experts advise that before investing in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, you think about whether you can withstand the ups and downs.
Anjali Jariwala, a certified financial advisor, certified public accountant, and the founder of Fit Advisors, recently told the sources, “It’s a very volatile asset class.” She emphasised that one must be comfortable with the ups and downs of the market, as well as losing money.
The risk appetite of each investor is unique. It’s crucial to know how much you can stand on your own two feet.
According to sources, Douglas Boneparth, a licenced financial planner and president of Bone Fide Wealth, “For some people, the volatility may be OK, because it corresponds to their appetite for risk, risk tolerance, and investment time horizon,” but they still have to deal with it. Others might want a more secure investment.
Regardless of your risk tolerance, financial experts warn that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are riskier investments than a low-cost index fund, which allows investors to buy a group of equities at once rather than wager on a single asset.
If one chooses to invest, Jariwala advises, be sure it’s money that he or she can truly afford to lose.
Boneparth agrees, stating that one should be cautious about how much he allocates and what he can accept, because if 80 percent of one’s net worth is tied to bitcoin, and it drops 30%, that’s a big deal.
A lesser bitcoin exposure, depending on your financial situation, can help you hedge against market downturns.
The difficulty of mining Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of 26.64 trillion this week, as the Bitcoin network’s total hash rate reached a new high of 199 TH/s. While such a turn of events is entirely foreseeable given Bitcoin algorithms, they both occurred at a time when the price of Bitcoin is declining. Is this the start of the cryptapocalypse?
The difficulty of Bitcoin mining is automatically changed based on the cumulative compute performance of the Bitcoin network to avoid ‘oversupply’ or ‘undersupply’ of Bitcoin and the resulting reduction or increase in its value/purchase power (the estimated number of total Tera hashes per second). This is done to keep the time it takes to mine a block around 10 minutes. The difficulty of mining a coin grows as more nodes are added to the network, or lowers as fewer nodes are available. Every 2,016 blocks, the difficulty is changed (about two weeks).
The overall hash rate of the Bitcoin network plummeted from 180.666 million TH/s on May 14 to 86 million TH/s by July 4 after China stopped cryptocurrency mining in late May 21. According to Blockchain.com, the network’s overall hash rate is now 198.864 million TH/s, an all-time high. On January 21, the difficulty of mining bitcoin reached an all-time high of 26.64 trillion (up 9.32 percent from the previous high in mid-May) and will continue to rise as more mining machines come online, according to CoinDesk.
The price of Bitcoin grew as the Bitcoin network regained its performance since early July (as mining farms from China relocated to Kazakhstan, Russia, and even the United States), peaking at $67,582 in mid-November. However, Bitcoin now costs $37,962, down 44 percent from its November peak, as the Bitcoin network performs better than ever and the mining difficulty rises.
“Given the soaring price of bitcoin last year, miners booked ‘super profits,’ so they tried to get more mining capacity online as fast as possible,” said Jaran Mellerud, a researcher at Oslo’s Arcane Research, in a conversation with CoinDesk.”From July 2022 to December 2022, most of the largest miners have enormous deliveries of the Antminer’s newest ASIC Antminer S19 XP. These deliveries will make the difficulty soar throughout the whole of 2022.”
One of the things about Bitcoin is that its price no longer varies much depending on the number of Bitcoins mined, which explains why it can fluctuate between $67,000 and $38,000.
The central bank of Russia has suggested prohibiting the usage and mining of cryptocurrencies on Russian soil, citing concerns to financial stability, residents’ well-being, and the country’s monetary policy autonomy.
The move is the latest in a string of international cryptocurrency crackdowns, as governments from Asia to the United States fear that privately controlled and highly volatile digital currencies would threaten their authority over banking and monetary systems.
For years, Russia has advocated against cryptocurrencies, claiming that they may be used to launder money or fund terrorists. In 2020, they were granted legal status, but their use as a means of payment was prohibited.
The central bank warned in a paper released on Thursday that speculative demand was primarily responsible for cryptocurrencies’ quick growth and that they had features of a financial pyramid, warning of possible market bubbles that might jeopardize financial stability and citizens.
The bank proposed prohibiting financial institutions from engaging in any cryptocurrency transactions and suggested that measures be devised to stop transactions involving the purchase or sale of cryptocurrencies for fiat currencies.
Crypto exchanges are included in the proposed prohibition. Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, said it was dedicated to working with regulators and hoped that the publication of the study would spark a conversation with the Russian central bank about safeguarding the interests of crypto consumers.
According to Elizaveta Danilova, head of the central bank’s financial stability section, no restrictions on cryptocurrency ownership are planned.
Russians are active cryptocurrency users, with an annual transaction volume of roughly $US5 billion ($6.9 billion), according to the bank. The central bank stated that it would collaborate with regulators in countries where crypto exchanges are registered to collect data on Russian clients’ transactions.
Other countries, such as China, have taken steps to curtail cryptocurrency activities, according to the report. In September, China tightened its grip on cryptocurrencies by imposing a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, causing bitcoin and other major coins to plummet in value and putting pressure on crypto and blockchain-related equities.
“For now, there are no plans to ban cryptocurrencies similar to the experience of China,” Ms. Danilova said. “The approach we have proposed will suffice.” Joseph Edwards, head of financial strategy at crypto firm Solrise Group, played down the report’s significance, saying no one outside Russia would be losing sleep over it. “Moscow, like Beijing, is always rattling its saber over ‘crypto bans’, but Russia has never been a pillar of any facet of the industry in the same way as China has been at times,” he said.
