American social media giant, Reddit, may soon convert users’ karma points into Ethereum-based (ERC-20) tokens and onboard 500 million new crypto users in the process, according to a newly hired Reddit engineer. A series of tweets made by Reddit engineer, Rahul, highlights Reddit’s efforts to improve user interaction through various cryptocurrency initiatives. As Cointelegraph reported in July 2021, the platform had launched its own layer-2 rollup using Arbitrum technology for its rewards points, named Community Points. According to the website: “Your Community Points exist on the blockchain, independently of Reddit, where they can only be controlled by you (just like …

U.S. tech giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the Metaverse via updates to its Teams and Xbox gaming console services, along with a new product called “Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the firm’s Metaverse plans for Teams and Spaces on Nov. 2 during the Microsoft Ignite conference. “The Metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world and to embed the real world into computing. Bringing real presence to any digital space. What’s most important is that we are able to bring our humanity with us, and choose how we want to experience this …

Bitcoin (BTC) investment firm, New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), has announced the acquisition of United Kingdom-based micropayment service Bottlepay for an estimated fee between $280 million and $300 million. NYDIG had previously participated in the company's $15.4 million seed funding round in February 2021, a raise which was led by British billionaire investor Alan Howard and saw the company valued in excess of $50 million. Utilizing the Bitcoin Lightning Network, Bottlepay’s mobile application service enables users across the U.K. and Europe to transfer small amounts, known as micropayments, of Bitcoin (BTC) and traditional fiat currencies such as pound sterling …

GameStop (GME) is assembling a team of blockchain and NFT experts to work on the firm’s upcoming NFT platform. The firm’s GME stock is a cult favorite amongst retail traders as a result of the r/wallstreetbets and Robinhood saga earlier this year. On Reddit the r/Superstonk community boasts 659,000 members, and is dedicated to hosting business and stock discussions related to GME. A post about GameStop’s job listings yesterday has received more than 10,000 upvotes at the time of writing, with many members posting bullish sentiments over GameStop’s latest move. GameStop quietly unveiled a bare-bones website for its NFT marketplace …

Social media platform Reddit appears to be hiring workers to support the design, build and maintenance of a nonfungible token (NFT) platform. According to a Greenhouse job posting, Reddit is looking for a senior backend engineer for a platform responsible for “millions of users to create, buy, sell and use NFT-backed digital goods.” The position requires at least five years of experience in backend development as well as the ability “to design and implement complex distributed systems operating under high load.” “If there is one thing we’ve noticed with NFTs, they too have an incredible power to create a sense …

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is going after pump-and-dump groups on Telegram. On Monday, an account under the name “ASIC” posted a message in the “ASX Pump Organization” on Telegram to warn around 300 members of the group that “we’re monitoring this platform and we may be investigating you.” “Coordinated pumping of shares for profits can be illegal. We can see all trades and have access to trader identities. [...] You run the risk of a criminal record, including fines of more than $1 million and prison time.” Many of the group’s members assumed the account to be …

Customers of leading United States crypto exchange Coinbase have spent the weekend panicking after the exchange mistakenly sent emails to users stating that their two-factor authentication (2FA) settings had been changed. On Friday, Coinbase accidentally sent the email to 125,000 of its customers, resulting in widespread public backlash. Coinbase took to Twitter on Sunday to apologize for the mishap, stating, “We’re laser-focused on building trust and security into the crypto community so that the open financial system we all want is a reality. We recognize that issues like this can hurt that trust.” I got the reply and panicked someone …

Popular social media platform Reddit has gained $4 billion in value since its last funding round earlier this year in February. Six months ago, the firm raised $250 million in Series E funding at a valuation of $6 billion. In the latest move, Reddit announced a Series F funding round on Thursday — which is being led by Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC and is expected to close at around $700 million with a post-money valuation of $10 billion. According to the New York Times, investment in the funding round has reached $410 million so far, with Reddit stating …

Social media platform Reddit announced it would be using scaling solution Arbitrum to handle scaling its Ethereum-based Community Points system. In a Thursday announcement, Reddit administrator jarins said the platform had launched its own layer-2 rollup using Arbitrum technology for its rewards points. Reddit said it had deployed the layer-2 solution on top of the Rinkeby testnet before it plans to migrate to the Ethereum mainnet. The platform cited Arbitrum’s features of being decentralized, being developer-friendly, and having broad ecosystem support in its decision. Arbitrum essentially “rolls up” transactions on a gasless sidechain with a separate set of security and …

Zurich-based Dfinity Foundation has announced a fund worth CHF 200 million, or around $223 million, to support development on the Internet Computer — a blockchain-based decentralized network with wildly ambitious plans to one day “replace” much of the internet. The non-profit scientific research organization announced “The Developer Ecosystem Program” on May 26, and is now accepting applicants for development grants. These grants will operate separately from the $14.5 million Beacon Fund, which was announced in September 2020, and is a dedicated venture fund that backs developers creating open internet services on the platform. In a blog post announcing the new …

A decentralized crypto exchange is being launched that is specifically designed to cater to r/Wallstreetbets and other like-minded investing groups. The creators of the Wallstreetbets.com DEX say distrust in centralized financial institutions has never been higher following the GameStop short squeeze earlier this year, which prompted the trading app Robinhood to limit transactions. Overall, the DEX intends to deliver a platform where users can trade what they want and when — complete with self-custody, no middlemen and no companies taking fees. The infrastructure that’s underpinning Wallstreetbets.com is a fork of Uniswap, but a number of changes have been made. The …

Elon Musk’s latest foray into crypto markets came a few hours ago when he tweeted he is working with the Dogecoin developers to improve the cryptocurrency’s efficiency. “Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.” According to CoinGecko, the price climbed 26% from $0.38 this morning to $0.48 at the time of writing. The tweet’s reference to “efficiency” seemed to lend weight to the idea Tesla may add Dogecoin (DOGE) as a form of payment after the CEO noted on Thursday the firm is looking at greener cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy per …