Cryptocurrencies price continues to be unstable, New York State may ban crypto mining, Solana sees the second outage in a month – these and more tech news in this wrap-up for week 22.
Cryptocurrencies price continues to be unstable
Several top crypto prices have decreased in the last week, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and others.
Bitcoin’s price did show some improvement towards the middle of the week by trading above $31,000. However, it slipped back again to below $30,000.
New York State might become the first state to ban crypto mining based on Non-Renewable Energy
The new law will impose a two-year moratorium on those crypto mining firms that use carbon-based energy in the New York State. It is an Act to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to establishing a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions; and require a comprehensive generic environmental impact.
The state has been the hub for crypto mining for years, especially after China put a ban on the mining of cryptocurrency in the country in 2021. The abundance of hydroelectric power and the cheapest electricity prices also worked in favour of the state.
The new legislation is still waiting for the signature of Governor Kathy Hochul,
Solana suffered 2nd outage in a month
On April 30th. Solana announced that it suffered a seven-hour outage. The currency, which is considered to be the most popular after Bitcoin and Ether, has been in news since then. To fix this latest outage, validators had to restart, following instructions linked to their Twitter account
Following this outage, Solana’s price fell close to 15%. This outage has brought back the discussion on the validity of altcoin among the Solana community and crypto enthusiasts. Solana was considered to be more efficient and cheaper than Ethereum.
A former OpenSea employee indicted for NFT Insider Trading
Nathaniel Chastain, a former employee of OpenSea, has been arrested for wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading in Non-Fungible Tokens, or “NFTs,” by using confidential information about what NFTs were going to be featured on OpenSea’s homepage for his personal financial gain.
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael J. Driscoll said:
“In this case, as alleged, Chastain launched an age-old scheme to commit insider trading by using his knowledge of confidential information to purchase dozens of NFTs in advance of them being featured on OpenSea’s homepage. With the emergence of any new investment tool, such as blockchain supported non-fungible tokens, there are those who will exploit vulnerabilities for their own gain. The FBI will continue to aggressively pursue actors who choose to manipulate the market in this way.”
This is the first-ever time case of NFT insider trading.
Sheryl Sandberg moves on, another senior executive is also departing
Meta has been navigating through several challenges in the recent past – fell in daily active users to revenue – the departure of Sheryl Sandberg at this point of time came as a huge shock to the netizens. Considering her huge popularity and her long stay at Facebook, she has been the backbone of the organisation and is responsible for bringing many innovative products that led to the success of Facebook.
Sheryl Sandberg, in a Facebook post, wrote:
I am beyond grateful to the thousands of brilliant, dedicated people at Meta with whom I have had the privilege of working over the last 14 years. Every day someone does something that stops me in my tracks and reminds me how lucky I am to be surrounded by such remarkable colleagues. This team is filled with exceptionally talented people who have poured their hearts and minds into building products that have had a profound impact on the world.
It’s because of this team – past and present – that more than three billion people use our products to keep in touch and share their experiences. More than 200 million businesses use them to create virtual storefronts, communicate with customers, and grow. Billions of dollars have been raised for causes people believe in.
Mark Zuckerberg in a long Facebook post thanked Sheryl for her contribution. The following is an excerpt from the post:
Looking forward, I don’t plan to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure. I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way. But even if it were possible, I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products.
In a blog post, Meta has announced the exit of another executive:
As part of this transition, I am sorry to share that Jerome will depart Meta in mid-June after helping us through the early stages of this transition. We are grateful for the incredible work Jerome has done over the past 4+ years in building, leading, and scaling a world-class AI function for Meta.
AMBER Alerts on Instagram
Instagram has started amber alerts in partnership with organizations like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, the National Crime Agency in the UK, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, the Australian Federal Police and more.
While doing the announcement, the blog said:
The alert will include important details about the child such as a photo, description, location of the abduction and any other available information that can be provided. People can also share the alert with friends to further spread the word.
These alerts are rare and specific to the search area. If you get one, it means there is an active search for a missing child nearby. In order to know who to show these alerts to, we use a variety of signals, including the city you list on your profile, your IP address and location services (if you have it turned on).
“Instagram is a platform based on the power of photos, making it a perfect fit for the AMBER Alert program. We know that photos are a critical tool in the search for missing children and by expanding the reach to the Instagram audience, we’ll be able to share photos of missing children with so many more people.” – Michelle DeLaune, President and CEO at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
