Timestamp Magazine

• NFTs sold on the layer-two protocol Polygon sales jumped 60% to a new record high at just short of 2 million. • The NFT user demographic looks to be more aligned to developers and gaming companies than collectibles. • The number of unique daily active proof-of-stake chain addresses on the Polygon network is assumed to exceed 556.5k.

On Thursday night, developer Samuel Dobson revealed that he is stepping down as a Bitcoin Core maintainer after three years because he “can no longer dedicate the time required, as I approach the end of my Ph.D.” as made known in a series of tweets. Dobson had direct access to the cryptocurrency’s source on GitHub as a Bitcoin Core wallet developer, with powers to approve updates and make enhancements to the Bitcoin program. He was also in charge of guaranteeing the protocol’s security.

Being inflationary encourages people to spend Dogecoin, making it a better transaction currency, said Elon Musk. DOGE price meanwhile is still down 78% from it’s all-time high. Bitcoin, according to Tesla CEO, is more suitable as a store of value and that’s why investors prefer to “HODL” it. Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer continues to promote Dogecoin (DOGE) and this time his argument towards the meme-coin is that it is a much better option as a currency than Bitcoin.

• Disney enters metaverse by patenting its technology for theme parks • The world’s largest media and theme park company was recently approved for a virtual world simulator patent. • The technology will help the company to offer headset-free augmented reality attractions at Disney theme parks. The Walt Disney Company has received a patent for immersive technologies for amusement park rides during the last week of December.

The overall BTC holding of the global private firms surged after February 2021. MicroStrategy, a prominent BI organization, is bullish on BTC with an AUM worth over $6 Billion. BTC holding of private firms increased by 400% in just a year. Source: Bitcoin.com The BTC amount held by private firms surged dramatically in 2021, building on the gains of the previous year.

Six major crypto company executives went to the US congress for a landmark hearing. Call for tailor-made regulations was made while harsh regulations were cautioned against so as not to drive away innovation.

According to a Pew Research Center poll issued on Thursday, around 16% of Americans had invested, traded, or used cryptocurrencies in some way. For people aged 18–29, the percentage rises to 31%, while for males in the same age group, it rises to 43%. Participants in the survey who identified as black, Hispanic, or Asian were all more likely to have invested in cryptocurrency than those who identified as white. There did not appear to be any inequality in terms of income.

China is urging state-owned enterprises to stop mining cryptocurrencies, and the government is proposing punitive penalties, such as higher energy costs, for those that do so. According to sources, Meng Wei, a spokesperson for China’s top economic planner, claimed during a press conference that the NDRC aims to supervise industrial-scale Bitcoin (BTC) mining and any engagement by state firms in the activity.

• Chamath Palihapitiya, the former Facebook senior executive, sold 15% of his stake in SoFi Technology. • The company’s net worth skyrocketed from $8.6 billion to $17.04 billion this year. Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya sells 15% of the total stocks of his finance company SoFi, an American online personal finance company that deals with student loans, personal loans, home loans, etc.

Fred Hampton once said, “People have to have power; it belongs to them.” Time and again, the world has witnessed the strength of people coming together for a cause and quelling down the authoritarian society. Centralized spaces have abused their power more often than we can recollect. One of the monumental examples of this is the Robinhood-Gamestop fiasco, where a group of individual investors brought the mafias of Wall Street to their knees.