Crypto payments are becoming increasingly popular as Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets continue to go mainstream. This has become the case for both crypto holders and non-crypto owners who are primarily interested in the concept of using cryptocurrencies for payments. Recent data has found that 93% of crypto users surveyed would consider making purchases in crypto. The report further revealed that 59% of consumers who don’t hold crypto would be interested in using it to make purchases in the future.  As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that major payment providers like Mastercard have been ramping up their efforts to support crypto payments moving forward. In addition, social media giants such as Twitter are also working to enable cryptocurrency payments through mechanisms like tipping.

The Ethereum network’s long-planned upgrade to a scalable, proof-of-stake consensus model grows closer as developers set a date for the Altair upgrade.  Altair, which is described as the first mainnet upgrade to the Beacon Chain, is scheduled to take place at epoch 74240, or roughly Oct. 27, according to Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan. Ryan described the technical upgrade as follows:

Decentralized mortgage lender Bacon Protocol officially launched on Tuesday, allowing cryptocurrency investors to participate in the housing market through a new stablecoin that’s backed by USD Coin (USDC) and home loans.  In addition to launching its protocol, Bacon announced Tuesday that it is holding a public sale of bHome token, which is described as a Stable Coin that’s backed “dollar for dollar” by USDC, liens and loans on properties in the United States. Early participants in the sale will be eligible to receive additional rewards via the BACON governance token. Bacon Protocol works by giving homeowners the ability to exchange a lien on their property for a nonfungible token, or NFT, that represents a percentage of the property they purchased. The NFT gives buyers collateral to access other crypto markets, including decentralized finance (DeFi). The entire process will initially be facilitated by Virgin-backed LoanSnap, a financial services company that helps American homebuyers save on interest rates and other associated costs.

Fresh off the launch of its $25 million venture fund, OP Crypto Capital Management Ltd. seeks to play a more active role in the lifecycle of blockchain startups ranging from gaming to Web 3.0. Former Huobi executive turned founder David Gan spoke with Cointelegraph about the transition from his former company, the growth potential of crypto niches and the role his fund will play in bootstrapping the next generation of crypto startups. After more than three years at Huobi Ventures and Huobi Labs, Gan transitioned to his new role seamlessly, he said. One of the primary motivations for creating the new fund was greater flexibility and autonomy in investment decisions. “In my former firm, as we grew to 2,000 employees, it was more difficult and challenging to move fast, considering the rapid pace of innovation in the crypto industry,” he explained. A secular bull market for Bitcoin (BTC) and widespread institutional adoption of digital assets made now the ideal time to spin off a new investment fund, he added.

A filing from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, shows that BlackRock Financial Management has increased the number of its Bitcoin futures contracts since Q1 2021. According to a Tuesday filing with the SEC, the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund included 54 Bitcoin (BTC) futures contracts issued through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as of July 31. The contracts, which expired on Aug. 27, were worth $10.8 million, appreciating by $369,137. The gains from the Bitcoin futures represent roughly 0.00138% of the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund, or 8.91 BTC at the time of publication. The company holds $9.5 trillion in total assets under management.

The region of central, northern and western Europe, or CNWE, has emerged as the world’s most active cryptocurrency block, receiving over $1 trillion worth of digital assets over the past year, according to new research from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.  The report, which was released Tuesday, found that the CNWE region accounted for 25% of global crypto activity between July 2020 and June 2021. The region witnessed a sharp uptick in transaction volume across all crypto sub-categories, especially decentralized finance, or DeFi. Chainalysis describes crypto transactions as anything involving trade, investments and business dealings.

SEBA Bank AG, a fully regulated Swiss-based institution with a focus on the offering of digital cryptocurrency assets, has today announced the approval of a CISA license from the Swiss Financial Market Authority, or FINMA, to facilitate an institutional-grade custodian service for nation-native collective investment schemes. This announcement enables the bank to become Switzerland’s, and indeed one of the world’s first, digital asset centric banks to gain a custody license. The endorsement will allow the institution to provide greater investment opportunities to professional clientele in the emerging cryptocurrency markets. Founded in mid-2018 advocating a philosophy of next-generation digital banking, the firm soon rose to prominence as a pioneer in the regulated digital asset sector. One year later in August 2019, the bank attained its banking and securities firm licence which introduced their SEBAwallet app, e-banking service and SEBA card to market, supporting five major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, is ordering crypto exchange Kraken to pay more than a million dollars in civil monetary penalties related to allegations the exchange is violating the Commodity Exchange Act. In a Sept. 28 statement, the CFTC said U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken — operating under the name Payward Ventures — has failed to register as a futures commission merchant and is illegally offering margined retail commodity transactions in digital assets. The order requires the exchange to pay a penalty of $1.25 million and “cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act,” the law under which the CFTC derives much of its enforcement power on commodities and futures trading. “This action is part of the CFTC’s broader effort to protect U.S. customers,” said Vincent McGonagle, the CFTC’s acting director of enforcement. “Margined, leveraged or financed digital asset trading offered to retail U.S. customers must occur on properly registered and regulated exchanges in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

BeePool, the fourth largest Ethereum mining pool, is closing amid China's crypto crackdown. The China-based Ethereum mining pool announced on Tuesday it will suspend operations "in response to the latest regulatory policies." Effective immediately, the registration of new users and the addition of sub-accounts for existing users will be discontinued, and all mining access servers are expected to stop operating by October 15.

Social token infrastructure provider Roll raised $10 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funds raised to $12.7 million to help creators tokenize their interactions with communities.  Led by IOSG Ventures, the funding round saw participation from Animoca Brands, Alchemy, Huobi Ventures, Weekend Fund, Mischief Fund, Audacity and existing investors like Galaxy Interactive, Hustle Fund, Gary Vaynerchuk, Trevor McFederies, Ryan Selkis and Balaji Srinivasan. Social tokens are blockchain-based digital currencies that have the potential to be used as the basis of a decentralized creator economy. “Through Roll, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and communities can tokenize, trade and gate-keep content for those that are part of the community,” IOSG Ventures founding partner Jocy Lin explained, adding that a social token enables its holders to join and contribute to a community.

Dapper Labs, the creators of NBA Top Shot and top crypto derivatives exchange FTX are both turning to the National Football League as part of their expansion initiatives. Dapper Labs is reportedly working on an NFL collectibles marketplace, while FTX has signed an endorsement deal with star running back Aaron Jones of the Green Bay Packers. Dapper’s latest move comes one week after the firm teased — as part of its latest $250 million funding round announcement — that it would venture beyond its basketball-based NFT project NBA Top Shot and expand into other sporting codes and areas of entertainment.

According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is672,824.91 GH/s，mining difficulty is9,093.08T. ETH's price ：$ 2,968.62 Avg Gas Price：65.00Gwei Pending Txs ：127083

Ali Sahraee, the chief executive officer of the Tehran Stock Exchange since 2018, has reportedly resigned after the discovery of cryptocurrency mining rigs in the building. According to a report from the country’s state-run media, the Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran Stock Exchange, or TSE, market vice president Mahmoud Goudarzi will be leading the company following the departure of Sahraee. The change in leadership seems to be the result of “a number of miners” being discovered in the basement of the TSE building located in the district of Sa'adat Abad. The TSE reportedly initially denied the existence of the miners, saying the equipment was part of a research project. However, executive deputy director Beheshti-Sarsht later said the company should be held accountable for its actions.

Layer two protocols have seen monumental growth this year and one of them has briefly surpassed the network it is a scaling solution for, in terms of active addresses. The number of daily active unique addresses on layer two aggregator Polygon has surpassed those on the high fee layer one Ethereum according to protocol co-founder Mihailo Bjelic. According to his stats, Polygon had 351,000 daily active addresses on Sept. 27 whereas Ethereum had 326,000.

Talisman, a Polkadot Web3 wallet platform, has raised $2.35 million from early backers including Hypersphere Ventures, Koji Capital and Advanced Blockchain AG as well as several anonymous Flex Dapps investors. According to an announcement issued on Wednesday, with the funding round closed, Talisman is looking to launch a wallet extension by Nov. 22. Billed to be a DotSama — a portmanteau of Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama (KSM) — wallet, Talisman reportedly aims to enable cross-compatibility across the Polkadot and Kusama “paraverse.”

The floor price of Eternal Beings NFTs plunged after affiliated celebrity rapper Lil Uzi Vert deleted his promotional posts about the project. The Solana-based NFT project consists of 11,111 computer-generated alien avatar NFTs that feature similar traits to the Lil Uzi Vert, such as hair, tattoos, and fashion style. The NFTs were minted at a price of 2.5 Solana (SOL) worth roughly $337 at the time of writing. While it is unclear if the popular rapper was on the team behind Eternal Beings or working purely as a paid promoter, the 26-year-old year apparently deleted his promo posts after the project’s launch on Sept. 28.

Copernic Space and Lunar Outpost are set to launch a public sale for tokenized payload space in a lunar lander headed for the moon in Q4 2022. According to an announcement issued on Wednesday, the blockchain space outfit Copernic Space and space robotics company Lunar Outpost will sell the payload space aboard the craft in the form of nonfungible tokens or NFTs. Corporate and retail buyers will be able to buy, fractionalize and resell payload space NFTs on Lunar Outpost’s M1 MAPP rover.

The National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s chief monetary authority, has recently taken to professional social network LinkedIn to promote its blockchain developer job opening. The ad was published by the director of NBU’s IT department, Vladimir Nagornyuk. The ad goes on to list “development, implementation and modification of infrastructure services […] and distributed systems” among the prospective employee’s duties, in addition to mentioning smart contracts and Hyperledger competencies among the requirements for the job. The central bank’s interest in blockchain hires adds to other recent news coming out of Ukraine’s CBDC project, the e-hryvnia. Last week, speaking at a round table discussion on the opportunities and risks of virtual assets’ legalization, Ukraine's deputy minister of digital transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov mentioned that the e-hryvnia pilot was underway.

The judge in the class-action lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York against stablecoin issuer Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex has granted motions to dismiss many of the claims in the case. According to court documents filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla has granted motions from Tether’s and Bitfinex’s parent company iFinex to dismiss key claims in the plaintiffs’ case that the two firms manipulated the crypto market. Altogether, Judge Failla granted motions to dismiss five complete claims and part of one, while denying six others. Specifically, the judge said she would not allow investors to bring claims against Tether and Bitfinex under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, nor allegations related to racketeering or using the proceeds of racketeering for investments. She also said Tether and Bifinex investors could not “inadequately allege” the companies’ monopoly power in the stablecoin market.

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea is once again listing the Polygon-based copy of CryptoPunks after a successful Digital Millennium Copyright Act counter-notice.  In a Tuesday announcement on Twitter, the PolygonPunks project said its NFT collectibles were back on OpenSea after responding to a DMCA takedown notice from Larva Labs, the creator of CryptoPunks. The punks were booted from OpenSea in August after becoming one of the most popular collections on the marketplace. PolygonPunks ARE BACK ON @Opensea!!! The DMCA counter notice to Larva Labs was successful We have resumed trading on the largest NFT marketplace in the world We look forward to building a relationship with @0xPolygon and it's ecosystem as we grow on the Polygon network. pic.twitter.com/3qk6rK8BX8