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HK’s Bitcoin Meetup ahead of Bitcoin 2021; Banksy work offered for crypto | The Daily Forkast

Hong Kong arranged a Bitcoin gathering ahead of Bitcoin 2021 Conference in Miami as Phillips auction house offers Banksy’s work for crypto.

Hong Kong holds a Bitcoin gathering ahead of Bitcoin Conference 2021 in Miami.

State-backed Copyright Society of China launches new blockchain service.

Auction house accepts Ethereum and BTC for physical Banksy art piece.

We’ll have more on that story — and other news shaping the cryptocurrency and blockchain world — in this episode of The Daily Forkast, June 4.

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, June 4th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News. Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

It is a tale of two Bitcoin conferences — 9,000 miles apart. There’s what’s touted as the biggest crypto event in history, the Bitcoin 2021 Conference underway right now in Miami with thousands of attendees. And it’s certainly got markets excited with BTC surging in the lead up to the event, hovering near the US$40,000 mark. Now, on the other side of the world, in Asia, in Hong Kong, a smaller, more intimate gathering of those who know about crypto and those who want to learn more. Forkast.News’ Lucas Cacioli was at the event and had the chance to speak with some of the attendees about Bitcoin’s utility moving forward.

“Do you think Bitcoin is going to be something that we actually transact with in the future?”

“I think, at the moment, as a reserve value, it does serve the purpose very well. I’m not sure eventually it will be as a currency.”

“So you feel more as a store of wealth, type of thing?”

“Yes.”

“I think, it’s one of the huge potential investment tools in the future.”

“I myself actually bought some Ethereum. I invested in that as well since 2017. So I guess, Oh, okay. cryptocurrencies. Why not?”

Why not indeed. And get this, attendees of the event in Hong Kong paid for libations using what else but Bitcoin. The bar owner, Eugene Kwok, accepts the payment method via the Lightning Network. This is a layer 2 payment protocol that negates Bitcoin’s high transaction fees. So attendees probably were able to sneak in an extra beer or two.

All right. Taking a look at Bitcoin now, closing down over five and a quarter percent at the end of the Asian trading day, 4PM Hong Kong time.

And in the top ten for cryptocurrencies, A lot of red across the board. But one bright spot, ICP up just under 4% on the day. It hasn’t been flushed out of ten just yet.

Meanwhile in China, blockchain continues to be the buzzword. State-backed Copyright Society of China has officially released the China Copyright Chain. Now, this new blockchain service will provide copyright holders with copyright protection, such as storage or automated monitoring of infringements. The association conducted a survey of 27 leading enterprises and the nation. And their findings is this — all of them are actually already using blockchain for copyright verification.

And then there’s this. A Banksy for your Bitcoin. A physical work of art, by the mysterious and often controversial street artist, Banksy will be auctioned off next week in Hong Kong by Phillips Auction House, and they’re accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum as a form of payment. Phillips says the sale of the 2002 piece titled “Laugh Now Panel A”, marks the first time that a major auction house in Asia has accepted crypto as a form of payment for physical art. They tell us it was a private collector that actually had the idea.

“We started discussing the consignment and the artist and the interest of the piece. And he said, well, Banksy, is such, in a way, an outcast in the art world and cryptocurrency is something also that is very new and on the side. So why don’t we merge these two worlds and accept cryptocurrency for these specific lot?”

The work is estimated to go for between 2.8 To 4.1 Million US dollars. Now in Bitcoin, that’s somewhere between 75 and a quarter BTC to over 110 Bitcoins.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until next time.

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