Electric carmaker Tesla has started accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) payments for merchandise on its website, this is the first time the firm will accept cryptocurrency payments since suspending them last year. Following the announcement that was made by Elon via Twitter, the price of Dogecoin surged 10%.

The founder and CEO of Block, Jack Dorsey, has announced that the firm is moving forward with plans to build an “open Bitcoin mining system.” The project’s goal is to make mining BTC “more distributed and efficient,” according to the company’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton.

The Swiss National Bank, Switzerland’s central bank, has completed the second phase of Project Helvetia with its partners by integrating a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) into the existing back-office systems and processes of five major banks.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Tesla Starts Accepting Dogecoin Payments for Merch
• Jack Dorsey’s Square to Build an ‘Open Bitcoin Mining System’
• Swiss Central Bank Tests Wholesale CBDC
• Crypto Market Movers – ATOM, YFI, CELO

Tesla Starts Accepting Dogecoin Payments for Merch

Electric carmaker Tesla has started accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) payments for merchandise on its website, marking the firm’s return to acceptance of cryptocurrencies for some payments.

In a tweet, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk pointed out the feature was live saying “Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin.” On the company’s website items like a “Giga Texas Belt Buckle” are now priced in DOGE.

In December 2021, Musk announced Tesla was going to start accepting Dogecoin for merchandise to “see how it goes,” months after asking his Twitter followers whether the meme-inspired cryptocurrency should be accepted as a payment method for electric vehicles.

Tesla invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin last year and started accepting BTC payments at the time. It later dropped BTC as a payment method over environmental concerns. Musk has in the past revealed he personally invested in BTC, ETH, and DOGE.

Jack Dorsey’s Square to Build an ‘Open Bitcoin Mining System’

The founder and CEO of Block, Jack Dorsey, has announced the firm is moving forward with plans to build an “open Bitcoin mining system.” The project’s goal is to make mining BTC “more distributed and efficient,” according to the company’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton.

According to Templeton, the firm is working on a low-maintenance, affordable Bitcoin mining rig for everyday customers that’s quiet enough to be used at home. Templeton noted that current mining rigs “become non-functional almost every day, which requires a time-consuming reboot.”

As an alternative, Block, formerly known as Square, wants to “build something that just works.” The firm says it isn’t tackling the challenge alone and is putting together a team that includes systems and software engineers, as well as specialists in ASIC mining technology.

Dorsey had previously said the company was going to focus on creating a mining system that was more energy-efficient than current options.

Swiss Central Bank Tests Wholesale CBDC

The Swiss National Bank, Switzerland’s central bank, has completed the second phase of Project Helvetia with its partners by integrating a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) into the existing back-office systems and processes of five major banks.

The Bank for International Settlements and Swiss financial infrastructure service provider SIX partnered with the central bank in Project Helvetia’s second phase. The wholesale CBDC was integrated into the systems of Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Lenzburg, UBS and Hypothekarbank.

Project Helvetia itself aims to prepare banks for a future where blockchain-based tokenized financial assets are the norm. It focuses on solving operational, legal and policy-related issues regarding settlements.

The project’s second phase explored the settlement of interbank, monetary policy, and cross-border transactions on the test systems of SIX Digital Exchange, SIX Interbank Clearing, and core banking systems

Crypto Market Movers – ATOM, YFI, CELO

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 7-day period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Cosmos (ATOM) - Cosmos is a network of many independent blockchains, called zones. The zones are powered by Tendermint Core, which provides a high-performance, consistent, secure PBFT-like consensus engine, where strict fork-accountability guarantees hold over the behaviour of malicious actors. Tendermint Core’s BFT consensus algorithm is well suited for scaling public proof-of-stake blockchains.

Yearn.Finance (YFI) - Yearn Finance is a suite of products in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that provides lending aggregation, yield generation, and insurance on the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol is maintained by various independent developers and is governed by YFI holders.

Celo (CELO) - The Celo Foundation is a non-profit organization based in the US that supports the growth and development of the open-source Celo Platform. Guided by the Celo community tenets, the Foundation contributes to education, technical research, environmental health, community engagement, and ecosystem outreach—activities that support and encourage an inclusive financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity for everyone.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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