Cryptocurrency Prices Today: Ethereum, Cardano, Litecoin decline

Bitcoin surged 0.59 percent to trade at Rs 33,93,244 while Ethereum fell 1.78 percent to Rs 2,52,909. Cardano declined 5.26 percent to Rs 120.59 and Avalanche dipped 0.85 percent to Rs 6,879.58. Polkadot fell 2.12 percent to Rs 2,021.25 and Litecoin declined 5.53 percent to Rs 11,264.1 over the last 24 hours. Tether rose 0.21 percent to Rs 80.05. Read more here.

Brazil’s Hashdex to Launch DeFi ETF—The Sixth Crypto ETF in Brazilian Market

Crypto asset manager Hashdex today announced that it has received approval to launch what the company is describing as the “world's first” DeFi ETF. This will trade under the ticker DEFI11 and will track the price of the CF Benchmark's DeFi Modified Composite Index. Notably, this index will itself track a basket of 12 tokens linked to the DeFi market, with Ethereum, Uniswap, AMP, and Curve making up more than half of the basket’s total value. The remaining tokens in the index are AAVE, Maker, Polygon, Chainlink, The Graph, Compound, Synthetix, and Yearn Finance. Read more here.

Intel Set to Reveal 'Energy-Efficient' Bitcoin Mining Chip

Technology giant Intel is set to enter the Bitcoin mining business, starting with the reveal of a new Bitcoin mining “Bonanza Mine” chip at this year’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference in February. For the conference itself, Intel reportedly has a presentation prepared to outline the new Bonanza Mine chip, which is described as an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC". Read more here.

Microsoft Frames $69B Activision Blizzard Deal as 'Metaverse' Move

Microsoft shook up the video game industry this morning, announcing that it will acquire publisher Activision Blizzard—the company behind Call of Duty and Warcraft—in a deal valued at $68.7 billion. And Microsoft says that it’s a move made in anticipation of the metaverse. Read more here.