🌎Wednesday Morning News Recap - March 8, 2023 \ stacker news ~bitcoin

The head of the US central bank (Fed), Jerome Powell, signaled that interest rates could be increased more than planned. As such, BTC price dropped, then bounced back, but in the past few hours it seems to be correcting downwards again. It seems like investors are now trying to figure out what higher interest rates could actually mean for the market as, at least in February, most people expected the Fed to be more accommodative and to expect a faster rally in the second half of the year.
US payment company Block, led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has announced another initiative - a set of software tools (mining development kit, MDK) that would help BTC "miners" to leverage their existing infrastructure for new activities.
The US court gave hope to the market that Americans may be allowed to invest in BTC through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The judges questioned representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who are currently in a legal dispute with Grayscale, asking them to explain why they futures-linked BTC ETF but not spot-based ETF, even though their risks are essentially the same. GBTC shares rose 10% as a result. However, some experts are concerned that if GBTC becomes an ETF, it could have a negative short-term impact on BTC's price, as BTC held in the fund could be released onto the market.
Glassnode analysts noted that approximately 40,000 BTC (worth USD 880 million), controlled by the US government after being confiscated, was moved from one wallet to another. While most of these transfers appear to have been internal, 9,861 BTC (worth USD 217 million) was sent to addresses associated with Coinbase. It is currently unclear what this means.
London based miner Argo Blockchain mined 162 BTC in February, down from the 168 bitcoins generated in January. The total mining revenue of USD 3.76M advanced from USD 3.42M in January.
Umbrel Bitcoin node OS developers introduced Public App Store.
Relai, a Swiss non-custodial bitcoin platform, has announced a USD 4.5 million funding round led by Ego Death Capital.
Kollider Wallet introduced a Nostr + Lightning search, which lets its users to easily search for and pay Lightning Network users.
In January, 75% of surveyed Americans (sample size - 5000) said they strongly/believe in the future of cryptocurrencies (similarly to a year ago), while 72% said they are slightly worried/completely calm about the price fluctuations seen last year, according to a survey by cryptocurrency company Paxos. In addition, 42% of respondents want to use cryptocurrencies for payments. At the same time, the number of respondents who would buy "crypto" if their bank offered the opportunity increased by 12% (to 75%).
One of the largest travel agencies in South America, Despegar, has started accepting cryptocurrency payments.
The news may not be very clear on the details, but it seems that the Thai government has approved tax incentives for companies trying to attract capital by issuing digital tokens.
General Assembly of the State of Missouri, US, has reportedly passed a Right To Mine bill which aims to protect citizens right to mine digital assets. Similiar bill was passed by The Montana Senate in February.
The state of Utah in the United States has recognized decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) with a new law.
Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital received court approval to sell its assets and transfer its customers to Binance.US in a deal valued at USD 1.3 billion, but the company faces additional hurdles before the sale becomes final.
Chinese social media giant WeChat has started supporting payments with the "digital yuan" aka China's CBDC.