Tax filing platform TurboTax is allowing U.S. filers to get their refunds directly in crypto as part of an arrangement with crypto exchange Coinbase. In a Thursday blog post, Coinbase announced users who filed their tax returns using TurboTax would have the option to receive any returns in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and others supported on the platform. The exchange said users could send the funds to their Coinbase accounts in fiat, or automatically convert it to crypto with no trading fees. A New York Times report said that the offer from Coinbase applied to both state and federal income …

Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, has added 25 coins to the list of assets it is considering adding to its investment products including VeChain, Iota, Monero and Axie Infinity. Other assets are consideration are: Algorand (ALGO), Arweave (AR), Bancor (BNT), BitTorrent (BTT), BORA (BORA), Convex (CVX), Cosmos (ATOM), Decred (DCR), Elrond (EGLD), Enjin (ENJ), Fantom (FTM), Gala (GALA), Gelato (GEL), Helium (HNT), Holo (HOT), Oasis Network (ROSE), Secret (SCRT), Spell (SPELL), Stacks (STX), The Sandbox (SAND), Universal Market Access (UMA), and Yield Guild Games (YGG). In addition to the 25 coins added to its assets under consideration, Grayscale …

Major crypto exchange Coinbase has given a $150,000 grant to Hope for Haiti as part of a pilot program aimed at providing financial assistance to Haitians experiencing social and economic hardship. In a Tuesday announcement, Hope for Haiti said Coinbase would be making the $150,000 contribution to its pilot project with financial inclusion-driven firm Emerging Impact and the Celo Foundation. According to Celo, the project utilizes the Celo Dollar (cUSD) and Emerging Impact’s Umoja platform to provide cash-based assistance to mothers affected by some of the traumatic events in the Caribbean nation. Haiti has been struck by four major earthquakes …

This week’s Crypto Biz explores Microsoft’s Activision purchase, the new partnership between Coinbase and Mastercard and the latest funding news from the world of crypto. For a comprehensive breakdown of business developments over the last week, register for the full newsletter below. Microsoft enters the metaverse with Activision purchase It’s no secret that Microsoft has been eyeing its entry into the metaverse ever since Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to Meta. The company found its perfect entry this week by acquiring gaming giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Satya Nadella, who has served as Microsoft’s CEO since 2014, described video games as …

Today, Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York City, announced he would be taking his first paycheck in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) with the funds arriving Friday. The salary will not be directly paid out as crypto. Instead, it is first issued in fiat U.S. dollar and then converted into digital currencies on Coinbase. Due to the U.S. Department of Labor and various state-level regulations, resident U.S. employees typically cannot receive their remuneration directly in cryptocurrency. This is partly because the Internal Revenue Service classifies fiat USD wage payments as income, whereas items such as stock-based compensation or cryptocurrencies …

Credit card company Mastercard has announced users for Coinbase’s upcoming nonfungible token marketplace will be able to use their cards to make purchases as part of a new partnership. In a Tuesday blog post, Mastercard executive vice president of digital asset and blockchain products Raj Dhamodharan said under the agreement, NFTs would be considered “digital goods” and able to be purchased using a credit card. The measure is aimed at allowing non-crypto natives to get into NFTs without using a wallet and buying Ether (ETH) or other tokens. “Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are used to this process,” said Dhamodharan. “But for most …

It wasn’t just a bull run for prices last year. Careers in crypto outstripped price action in 2021, as crypto job searches soared by 395% in the United States alone according to LinkedIn. Crucially, the crypto industry outpaced the wider tech industry, which also saw remarkable development, almost doubling its number of job listings. However, at 98% growth, the tech industry dwindles in comparison to crypto jobs, which gained by a whopping 395%. Furthermore, no industry was safe from “crypto-ization” in 2021. The LinkedIn News post offered valuable insight into crypto influencing other industries: While most of the job postings …

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) skyrocketed in popularity over the course of 2021 as the wider public became enthralled with projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, but these one-of-a-kind digital images are only scratching the surface of what NFT technology is capable of. One project focused on expanding the functionality of NFTs beyond the digital art space is Propy, a protocol focused on the integration of blockchain technology with the real estate sector by automating the closing process of home buying to make the entire process faster, simpler and more secure. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows …

Major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase, the third largest in the world by 24 hour volume, intends to enter the derivatives trading markets, having acquired the FairX derivatives exchange. FairX is a Designated Contract Market (DCM) derivatives exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Despite being relatively new to the market, having launched in May 2021, FairX has secured brokerage partnerships with industry leaders TD Ameritrade and E*Trade, along with 18 others. Derivatives trading refers to the trading of various exotic products linked to the future value of underlying assets, rather than trading the assets themselves. In a Jan. …

Major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase will be giving its employees one week off each quarter in 2022 to recharge after “long days and long weeks” of intense work. In a Monday blog post, Coinbase chief people officer L.J. Brock said “nearly the entire company will shut down” for four separate weeks this year as part of an experiment in allowing workers to recuperate after completing intense workloads. Brock said the exchange’s employees aren’t necessarily limited to 40-hour work weeks and may have to “pivot at a moment’s notice,” seemingly creating the potential for burnout. “We realized in 2020 that many …

Crypto tax compliance firm TaxBit is working to unite major industry companies like Coinbase and Binance.US within one network to enable free 2021 tax forms for users. The crypto tax software provider on Tuesday launched the TaxBit Network, a certified network aiming to democratize crypto tax calculations and tax forms by providing necessary tax reporting data to all network users for free. The TaxBit Network at launch includes about 20 major crypto-related businesses in the United States, including firms like PayPal, Binance.US, Coinbase, FTX.US, Gemini, Celsius Network, Blockchain.com, Venmo, Paxos, OkCoin and BlockFi. The network will be adding new companies …

The Solana blockchain has suffered a third incident in just a few months that clogged the network and caused transactions to fail, with users debating whether it was caused by another DDos attack or if it was just network issues. The scale and nature of the incident is hard to ascertain, with Coinbase, Wu Blockchain and Redditors reporting there had been an incident causing the network to slow and transactions to fail. However Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko denied there had been a DDoS on this occasion. The latest incident comes less than a month after a previous attack which …