Bitcoin Daily: CFTC Orders Crypto Prediction Service Polymarket to Shut and Slaps $1.4M Fine for Allegedly Not Registering; Data Shows LATAM Seeing Bitcoin Mining Growth; El Salvador’s President Predicts Bitcoin to Hit $100K; DeFi Startup Earnity Linked to Bankrupt Lending Platform Cred

Bitcoin mining could grow abundantly in Latin America, research from data analysis firm Arcane Research predicts, according to Investing.com.

The Monday (Jan. 3) report suggests that crypto’s hashrate will continue to grow in geographical distribution in 2022, partly as a result of China’s crackdown on mining in the middle of last year. Now, many miners are moving elsewhere, proliferating in the U.S., Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada and Iran, among others.

Meanwhile, Argentina’s government is looking at cracking down on bitcoin mining as a way to stave off the energy crisis in the country, CVBJ reported Sunday (Jan. 2).

Argentina saw several power outages last week, and the state wants to make sure it does not happen again.

Per the report, Argentina is looking to increase rates on bitcoin mining farms to discourage it from happening, while also looking at infrastructural investments to help sustain the large demand bitcoin mining represents.

In other news, Convex Finance has gotten over $20 billion in total value locked as of Sunday (Jan. 2), just after it became the second-largest dcentralized finance (DeFi) protocol by total value locked (TVL), according to CoinDesk.

DeFi Llama data shows Convex Finance locked in $68 million after launching in May 2021, and took a month to get $1 billion. After five months, it got to $10 billion. Because of the strong demand, the project got another $10 billion in liquidity as of the last few months.

Further, Jordan Fish, a prolific crypto trader operating under the name Cobie, is offering to pay some of the tech’s loudest detractors to start using ethereum, Investing.com reported Monday (Jan. 3).

In a social media thread discussing the backlash non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have gotten from the gaming community, Cobie offered $10,000 for a user to make an ethereum address and buy an NFT.

Once the user did so, Cobie sent them 0.27 ETH, and later sent another 2.66 ETH once the user had bought an NFT.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported Sunday (Jan. 2) that banks are going to get more into crypto this year — which will see a number of other issues, including difficult regulatory questions and a market that never stops operating.

In addition, profit and customer controversies may hide further risks. Per Reuters, digital currencies’ value has tripled to over $2 trillion since the beginning of 2020. While traditional U.S. banks are not currently able to trade the assets, customers can do so, and many banks now want a part of the crypto pie.

In further crypto news, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele predicts that bitcoin will hit a six-digit price this year and see greater adoption as the country continues to use it as a currency.

On Sunday (Jan. 2), Bukele tweeted his predictions that bitcoin could reach $100,000 in 2022 and two more countries could adopt it as legal tender.

Also, DeFi startup Earnity is now a part of the legal case of crypto lending platform Cred, CoinDesk reported Monday (Jan. 3).

In November 2020, Cred had filed for bankruptcy and had around $500 million in liabilities. Earnity, according to a court motion, could have hid its ties to Cred in order to steal intellectual property, the report says.

Finally, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has fined Polymarket, a crypto predictions service, for failing to register with the regulator.

Polymarket is a crypto betting service letting users pick one of at least two options on given trades, including things like “who might win the 2020 presidential election?”

Polymarket was fined $1.4 million and was ordered to both shut down its markets and give full refunds to users.