Ethereum Foundation Finds Ready Buyer in Crypto Token's Founder
The non-profit organization behind the Ethereum blockchain said Friday that SharpLink Gaming Inc. acquired 10,000 Ether tokens for $25.7 million, or $2,572 apiece.
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7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Voices: Labour wants us to live like working people and do whatever working people do – but what exactly is that?
There are 109 paid members of the government (there'd be more if the figure wasn't limited by law), and, as we've come to learn, each has their own definition of what constitutes 'working people'. This includes non-definition definitions, such as the one most recently offered by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves: 'I don't think we need to define more than that, really. We made a commitment in our manifesto to not increase those taxes. We didn't last year. It remains our commitment for this parliament.' To be fair, she was referring back to her party's well-known manifesto commitment ('income tax, VAT and national insurance are the key taxes that working people pay'). And that's undeniable to the point of truism. But what this fails to acknowledge is that lots of the idle rich pay considerable sums in VAT every time they buy a private jet, or dine out at a fancy restaurant. Should we consider them to be 'working people'? Reeves's deputy, Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, has been a bit more specific of late, stating that the term 'working people' covers 'anyone with a payslip'. That could be extremely broad in the figurative sense of doing paid work for an employer – or very narrow if it literally means you get a physical slip of paper on which your gross and net pay, tax, NI and pension contributions are typed out. Of course, when she was under less pressure, in those easy, balmy days of opposition, Reeves was more forthcoming – well, somewhat – when she suggested that 'working people are people who go out to work and work for their incomes', adding: 'There are people who do have savings, who have been able to save up, and those are working people as well.' How big are their savings, though? No figure has ever been suggested. The nearest we've got was when Keir Starmer said that working people are those 'who earn their living, rely on our services, and don't really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble'. That's not bad, except that even the richest people rely on the council to get their gold-plated bins collected, and for other contingencies – say, if Lord Montagu of Beaulieu had gotten run over by one of his fine classic cars, and been taken to an NHS hospital in an NHS ambulance and fixed up by an NHS doctor. More recently still, at the weekend, transport secretary Heidi Alexander had a stab at it, defining working people as folk on 'a modest income'. Then again, Lisa Nandy, culture secretary and professional Northerner, conceded that people with six-figure salaries can be 'working people' too (which is just as well, seeing as she's on £159,851 per annum). In her own words: 'I mean, if they go to work, obviously they will be working.' Unarguable, but inconsistent with the remarks of her colleagues. Over on education, meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson refused to say whether the self-employed are 'working people', confining herself to those 'whose main income arises from the fact that they go out to work every day', which must surely include small business owners who are plumbers, window cleaners or pest controllers – the ones who cannot work from home, and whose only boss is themselves. I suppose that trying to define 'working people' is like the old saying about trying to define an elephant – you know one when you see one. On that basis, the endless variety of categorisations offered by Labour politicians makes some sense, because nearly everyone works for a living, has worked for a living (pensioners), will work for a living (students) or would work for a living if they could get a job, or, come to think of it, start their own business. If Labour said that they wouldn't put taxes on 'working people' up, then they meant nearly everyone, and that's how they got to win the election – because no one thought that any prospective tax hikes would affect them. This impression was greatly amplified by the high-profile changes they did propose – VAT on private school fees, attacking the super-rich non doms and ending the use of offshore truest to avoid tax. 'Working people' was a way of saying 'not you' to the floating voter of 2024 worried about the state taking even more of their income away. It's better than 'working-class', which is pejorative, or 'middle class', which would be too exclusive – and, besides, we don't like talking about class these days. It's a bit divisive. We can see another reason why Labour relied on such a rubbery concept as 'working people' – it was based on the searing experience of previous – lost – elections. It's because as soon as a shadow chancellor mentioned any kind of figure about who might actually be worse off under a Labour government, the media went mad and the Tories used it as an 'attack on aspiration' and labelled it a 'tax bombshell', even though few people would ever have been injured by this legendary socialist missile. If Labour's tax and spend plans that would revolutionise health and education cost anyone as much as a quid a week, the press crucified the hapless Labour leader of the day. So now they don't get too specific and they left much unsaid in 2024, sticking to the equally banal slogan of 'change'. Well, we all know what happened next. And what was a meaningless but useful slogan for Opposition has turned into a terrible burden in government, precisely because every 'working person' pays council tax (up), income tax (thresholds frozen, probably for the rest of the decade), has savings and a pension (hit by capital gains tax rises), and, realistically, is affected by the rise in employers' national insurance contributions. Starmer and Reeves left themselves no room for manoeuvre even in good times, and were critically vulnerable to making their pledge sound like a sick joke in the bad times. They should never have given the British people the impression that only the richest would have to make any financial sacrifice to put the public finances on a sustainable basis. But, then again, given that the British are a devoutly cakeist people, who think they can enjoy fine public services without paying much for them, Labour would never have won the election if they'd told the truth – which is that Brexit, which we voted for, is still costing us dearly. In the end, it's all our own fault, and we 'working people' have only ourselves to blame. Still, there's always Reform UK, more than happy to tell us we can have our cake and eat it. Irresistible, isn't it?
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
1 Top Cryptocurrency to Buy Before It Soars 1,850%, According to VanEck
VanEck sees Solana's price soaring to $3,200 in its bull case scenario. To reach that price, it would need to host more than 100 million daily active users. That kind of growth would require several 'killer apps' to launch on its blockchain. 10 stocks we like better than Solana › Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) was launched on March 24, 2020 with an initial coin offering price of $0.22 per token. Today, it trades at $164 -- so a $100 investment then would be worth about $75,000 today. That 74,900% gain was fueled by the growth of its ecosystem for developing decentralized finance (DeFi) apps and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), its speed and scalability, and Solana Pay's growing number of fintech and e-commerce partnerships. Yet some investors expect Solana's price to soar even higher. VanEck, which submitted the first U.S. application for a Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) last year, expects its price to surge another 1,850% to more than $3,200 by 2030 in its bull case scenario. Let's see why the investment firm expects Solana to rally, and if investors should buy the token before it heats up again. Like Ethereum, Solana's blockchain uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to validate its transactions. That approach consumes less energy than the proof-of-work mechanism used to mine Bitcoin, since its tokens are only staked (locked up for interest-like rewards) instead of mined. PoS blockchains also support smart contracts, which are used to develop decentralized applications (dApps) and other tokens. Many developers launched new tokens on Ethereum's blockchain, but Solana operates its own independent blockchain. It differentiates itself from its competitors by upgrading its own PoS blockchain with a proprietary proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism, which helps it process transactions at much faster speeds than Ethereum's main Layer-1 blockchain. Solana has a theoretical maximum speed of 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), compared to Ethereum's theoretical top speed of 30 TPS for its Layer-1 transactions. But for real-world transactions, which face network congestion and other limitations, Solana has a daily average speed of 1,436 TPS -- versus Ethereum's daily average speed of 19 TPS. That superior speed makes Solana a popular blockchain for developing DeFi apps and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In early 2022, its developers launched Solana Pay, an open peer-to-peer payment protocol that let merchants accept stablecoins, Solana, and other Solana-based tokens at high speeds with near-zero fees. Visa, Shopify, and other companies subsequently integrated Solana Pay into their digital wallets and e-commerce ecosystems. VanEck's 2030 outlook for Solana features a price target of $9.81 in its bear case scenario and a target of $3,211.28 in its bull case scenario. Its "baseline" estimate only sees Solana roughly doubling to about $335 per token during the next five years. Its bull case relies on the expansion of Solana's DeFi ecosystem and increased user growth. Solana only serves about 1.5 million daily active users (DAUs), according to Artemis Analytics, but VanEck thinks its user base might expand to more than 100 million DAUs as it hosts more DeFi, metaverse, social, gaming, and infrastructure applications. VanEck admits that achieving that explosive growth would rely on "killer apps" that finally turn Solana into a mainstream platform for processing digital transactions. But it also warns that hosting an application with more than 100 million users on its blockchain would push its scalability "to its limits." Any congestion would also reduce the speed of its transactions, but Solana's planned Firedancer upgrade this year might allay some of those concerns. Another potential catalyst could be the approvals of the first Solana ETFs. Those listings could stabilize its price by attracting more retail and institutional investors. Declining interest rates could also drive more investors back to Solana and other cryptocurrencies. VanEck's bull case for Solana is highly speculative, but the bear case is more straightforward. Solana is an inflationary token with no maximum supply, so its value will always be pinned to the growth of its developer ecosystem instead of its scarcity. It's impressing its developers with the speed of its unique PoS/PoH mechanism, but it still faces tough competition from Ethereum's Layer-2 rollups, which bundle together its transactions and process them off-chain at real world speeds of 1,000 to 4,000 TPS. Unlike Ethereum, Solana isn't cross-compatible with other blockchains, and its Rust and C developer languages have a steeper learning curve than Ethereum's Solidity. So even if a "killer" DeFi app finally arrives, it might launch on Ethereum instead of Solana. All of those challenges could hold Solana back during the next five years. Solana's proprietary mechanism, speed, and low fees will help it stay more relevant than other blockchains for the foreseeable future. But it's simply not as compelling an investment as Bitcoin, which is valued by its scarcity, or Ethereum, which remains the top developer blockchain. So for now, I'd stick with those two blue chip cryptocurrencies instead of putting too much faith in VanEck's bull case scenario for Solana. Before you buy stock in Solana, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Solana wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $671,477!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,010,880!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,047% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 14, 2025 Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Shopify, Solana, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 1 Top Cryptocurrency to Buy Before It Soars 1,850%, According to VanEck was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
These 4 areas of the market are set to get a boost from the stablecoin boom, BofA says
Stablecoins are poised to take off as the GENIUS Act heads for a vote in the House this week. Stablecoins could drastically change the global payment landscape. Bank of America sees these four areas of the market taking off as a result. Stablecoins are in the spotlight, and the booming corner of the crypto market could lift other areas along with it, Bank of America said. With legislators in Washington, DC, kicking off Crypto Week on Monday, commentators expect stablecoins to be a major beneficiary from the new legislative push to support digital assets. The GENIUS Act would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, encouraging adoption and integration into traditional payment systems. While stablecoin technology is still nascent, Bank of America is eyeing several key areas as possible beneficiaries as the market begins to grow and evolve. For stablecoin-curious investors, investing in the picks and shovels of the technology might be a winning move, according to Ebrahim Poonawala, Bank of America's head of North American banks research. At the core of stablecoin technology lies the cryptocurrency ethereum. Ethereum is critical for stablecoin technology because it allows programmable tokens, a key feature for the smart contracts that power stablecoins. The crypto hosts over half of the existing stablecoins, making it a key part of the ecosystem for the fiat-backed tokens. In the last month, ethereum has rallied over 18%, partly due to optimism surrounding stablecoin adoption. Traditional banks, such as JPMorgan and BNY, are betting on stablecoin technology and could stand to benefit from friendly legislation. In June, JPMorgan launched its own tokenized deposit coin, JPMD, which operates on an ethereum-based blockchain developed by Coinbase. Meanwhile, BNY partnered with blockchain payments company Ripple on July 9 to serve as the primary reserve custodian for the company's US dollar stablecoin, ensuring its reserves are held securely by a major global bank. Payments companies like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal could also be set to benefit from increased stablecoin adoption, Bank of America said. These companies have been developing stablecoin capabilities for years, making them well-positioned to integrate new technology into their existing infrastructure. Mastercard has been building out blockchain capabilities since 2015. In 2020, Visa settled its first transaction with Circle's USD Coin (USDC). PayPal launched its own stablecoin called PayPal USD back in 2023. More recently, Mastercard announced in April a partnership with Circle to enable stablecoin payments on its merchant network using USDC for crypto-to-fiat conversions. Shopping and payments services like Shopify are the last area the bank flagged. The e-commerce platform has announced plans to roll out USDC payments in partnership with Circle and expand its crypto checkout options. According to Poonawala, cross-border payments could be a prominent use case for stablecoins within the payments space. He believes Shopify's stablecoin features will allow merchants to connect more easily with global customers. It could take between three to five years to fully build out the infrastructure needed for widespread stablecoin adoption, according to Poonawala. But with a friendly legislative environment and increased attention from traditional banks and payment companies, stablecoins could become a disruptive force in coming years. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
