Switzerland’s crypto boom has entered another dimension with retailers rolling out Bitcoin (BTC) vouchers and gift cards. According to Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, Manor — the country’s largest department store chain — is already selling Bitcoin voucher cards in 59 of its branches. Meanwhile, the retail giant Valora will begin selling BTC gift cards in its kiosks across the country starting April 1. Dubbed “Cryptonow,” the Bitcoin vouchers are from the stables of Värdex Suisse, a cryptocurrency financial services firm. Värdex is also a subsidiary of major Swiss crypto exchange Bitcoin Suisse. According to Simon Grylka, head of operations at Värdex,

Prominent Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase could be headed for an IPO valuation of $100 billion, after shares reportedly sold for up to $375 each in a private auction. Shares in Coinbase Global Inc. reportedly traded for a price between $350 and $375 per unit on the Nasdaq private auction market last week, giving the company a pre-IPO valuation of between $90–$100 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg. Trading reportedly ended with the share price at $350. A Coinbase series E funding round in 2018 first saw the stock valued at a potential $8 billion. That valuation increased

Bitcoin (BTC) tackled pivotal $52,000 resistance overnight on March 9 to come within 6% of historical all-time highs. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: Tradingview BTC price hits 2-week highs Data from Cointelegraph Markets and Tradingview showed BTC/USD hitting local highs of $54,500 on Tuesday. The latest attempt to break out of its sideways trading corridor, the move was still consolidating at the time of writing. Amid heavy volatility, a retracement on the day targeted $53,500 — still above crucial resistance. As Cointelegraph reported, analysts were eyeing $52,000 as a line in the sand for securing the next stage of

The communities of crypto projects Keep and NuCypher are proposing a “hard merge,” with onlookers describing the move as “the world’s first decentralized protocol merger.” Proposals were published to the respective forums of Keep and NuCypher’s DAO on March 8, revealing discussions have been underway between the two projects for several weeks. If passed, the merger is expected to see the two projects integrated into a new interoperable network dubbed “Keanu.” 1/ Recently, a couple @keep_project and @nucypher community members reached out to broker a call. Two whirlwind weeks later, and the teams are putting a joint proposal in

José Delbo, an artist who illustrated the comic book series Wonder Woman during the late 1970s, has made $1.85 million in an auction selling non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, depicting the popular heroine. The 87-year-old Argentian, who also worked on Batman, Transformers, and The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine comic book, collaborated with Milan-based crypto art duo Hackatao to produce the NFT drop, dubbed “Heroines.” In total, 914 individual NFTs were auctioned, with the tokens each featuring one of seven illustrations or animated gifs depicting Wonder Woman in scenes invoking themes relating to the empowerment of women. The tokens auctioned included two one-of-a-kind

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has issued a statement announcing the fintech firm and MoneyGram International have together decided to “wind down” their partnership. However, the March 8 statement noted that both companies are committed to revisiting some form of partnership together in the future. Garlinghouse noted that together, Ripple and MoneyGram International (MGI) processed billions of dollars through Ripple’s RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) services, stating: “While the lack of a crypto reg framework has needlessly muddied the waters for U.S. businesses & consumers, there’s no denying what Ripple and MGI have achieved together.” The Ripple CEO has

Non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance are two of the hottest concepts in the crypto sector and each is altering the way projects and companies interact with the public on a wide scale.  One project that is looking to apply these concepts into a framework for sports fan engagement is Chiliz (CHZ), a blockchain platform created by the Socios fan engagement platform. The project is designed to allow fans to purchase branded Fan Tokens that let them influence their teams through the popular vote. According to the project website, all Fan Tokens are minted on the Chiliz blockchain with on-platform voting

Bitcoin (BTC) price might have re-established $50,000 as a support, but the optimism of professional traders is nowhere near the levels seen before the 26% drop to $43,000 on Feb. 28.  The current scenario is far from bearish, but derivatives indicators do not reflect the substantial purchases from institutional clients, including Microstrategy, Meitu, and most recently, Aker ASA, a Norweigian oil conglomerate. Bitcoin price, USD. Source: TradingView The longer Bitcoin stays above a certain threshold, the more confident investors get. For example, the last daily close below $45,000 was 28 days ago. Therefore it might take a couple of weeks

After months of planning, the Ethereum community has laid out a timeline for its upcoming Berlin upgrade, marking an important milestone in its development roadmap.  Berlin is scheduled to go live on the Ethereum mainnet at block 12,244,000, or Apr. 14, Tim Beiko wrote on Monday. Ropsten, the first testnet to upgrade, is scheduled for Mar. 10. The Goerli and Rinkeby networks are expected to upgrade in one-week increments on Mar. 17 and Mar. 24, respectively. Ethereum node operators are being advised to upgrade to a Berlin-compatible version as soon as possible for the three testnets and before Apr. 7

According to the World Economic Forum, at the current rate of development, gender inequality in the world will “equalize” in 99.5 years. At the same time, the most hindering sectors for women’s participation are economic and political ones. Against this backdrop, International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic and cultural achievements of women all over the world. To commemorate this important day, Cointelegraph has organized a roundtable event dedicated to hearing the unique perspectives of influential women in blockchain and cryptocurrency.  We’ve brought together some crypto’s leading women for this live stream. Our participants include: Anino Emuwa, founder and CEO

Deutsche Borse’s electronic trading platform, Xetra, is preparing to launch its first Ether (ETH)-based exchange-traded products, or ETPs. According to data from Xetra, the platform is set to debut trading of two Ether ETPs — ETC Group’s Ether exchange-traded commodity, or ETC, product (ZETH) and 21Shares’ Ethereum ETP (AETH) — on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Deutsche Borse told Cointelegraph that the two products will be the first Ether ETPs to ever be listed on Xetra. Alongside AETH, Xetra will be also listing 21Shares’ Bitcoin Cash (BCH) ETP, the firm’s global head of ETP, Laurent Kssis, told Cointelegraph. “As of tomorrow

Cointelegraph, the world’s foremost blockchain-focused media platform, is pleased to announce that tech veteran Elissa Beth Shevinsky has joined the company as Chief Technology Officer. Shevinsky began her Bitcoin journey in 2013, selling shirts for BTC as part of a fundraising campaign for her encrypted messaging startup, Glimpse, but her career in software began earlier — as employee #33 at Everyday Health, which went public in 2014. More recently, she served as Head of Product at Brave and CEO of Soho Token Labs, where she led a security audit of the 0X Project, a decentralized exchange, among other projects. “I’m

If we want to democratize finance, we need to start with practical initiatives. As women in the industry, what can we do to expand our reach to end-users or entrepreneurs who would be the last to embrace this technology? How can we improve our search for talent to cover universities and geographies that we wouldn’t normally look to?  Comparatively, there are relatively few women and people of color in the C-suite of blockchain companies or inside institutions leading their blockchain journey. According to a report by Deloitte, the global fintech founder community is still dominated by men, with women making