What happened in crypto in the past week? Kucoin airdropped $20M for 3 million users as gratitude for their support for the exchange during the SEC notice. Bitcoin halving was not such a party as everyone expected, and BTC value is still around 63-64K. The US SEC has been sued quite a bit, and it is trying to sue some companies in return, with a limited success rate. What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: BTC's recent halving event has reduced the mining awards, making some old mining systems obsolete, and we witnessed some record fees too, from people wanting to use the halving block to create some special NFTs. Luckily, this didn't last long, and the fees are now down to $10 on average, from the $128 during the halving. However, a rare satoshi, called Epic Sat, was auctioned off for $2.1M (33.33BTC). With block rewards dropping, miners will be increasingly reliant on transaction fees to maintain profitability. Bitcoin's Runes see the centralized exchanges listing early tokens. Some research analysts are warning us that the $9B BTC repayment from Mt.Gox could impact the market. No kidding, Sherlock! Bitcoin addresses holding at least $1000 worth of BTC are reaching an ATH. Grayscale unveiled details of a low-fee BTC Mini-Trust. Some good news, Bitcoin has seen lower volatility despite the market downturn, while stocks and bonds spiked noticeably. Payment giant Block unveiled plans to launch a full BTC mining system.
- Ethereum: Base Network is focusing on memecoins, as a major driver in onboarding users. Hong Kong's new sport BTC and ETH ETFs begin trading on April 30. Renzo Protocol's restaked ETH token, EZETH, briefly depegged on April 24, before rebounding to parity with ETH. EigenLayer continues to grow on TVL.
- Altcoins and stablecoins: Shiba Inu's new blockchain attracted $12M investments from some major venture capitalists. Worldcoin wants to increase its token supply by up to 19% over the next six months through private sales. Check Avalanche (AVAX) as they had some important metrics increasing QoQ, with the market cap 38% up, average daily active addresses 39%, Defi TVL 45%, average daily DEX volume 65% and stablecoin market cap growing 43%. BNB Chain is also doing well enough, with its market cap up 89%, revenue in USD 89%, average daily active addresses up 26%, Defi TVL 67% and average daily DEX volume up 193%. Stablecoins hit record highs amid inflation and geopolitical unrest.
- NFTs and blockchain games: Immutable launched a $50M rewards program called 'The Main Quest', aiming to boost user engagement and drive adoption even further. What a number! On Splinterlands, the fourth round of Conflicts airdrop started, with Legendary summoners next, and the new reward system seems to be alright, as you get Glint tokens for every match you win and double of it at the end of the season. You can use Glint tokens to buy cards, Merits, potions and even 3 different titles. You may also want to check Holozing - a soon-to-be-launched Pokemon-like game on the Hive blockchain. TON blockchain wants to create tokenized emojis and stickers next, to be used on the Telegram app. Pepe memecoin surged more than 10% last week, as it got listed on Coinbase.
- Good news: Kucoin has a brilliant referral program, if you are good at this kind of activity. Woo X launched RWA Earn Vaults, offering tokenized US Treasury bills. The Blockchain Association has initiated legal procedures against the US SEC over its contentious expansion of the dealer definition to include DEFI participants, challenging the SEC's lack of guidance on how DEFI projects can comply with regulations tailored for traditional finance. Consensys also sued the SEC, alleging an attempt by the regulatory body to exert control over the future of crypto by classifying Ethereum as a security. Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter acquired Ultimate Wallet to bolster its upcoming mobile initiative. Institutional investors in Canada ramped up their cryptocurrency exposure. Stripe enables USDC payments on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon blockchains. Pantera Capital is aiming to raise a $1B fund for blockchain investments.
- Bad news: ZKasino diverted investor funds into $ZKAS tokens, instead of the promised ETH refunds, leading to warning signs and allegations of mismanagement. Tether committed to the US sanctions over the Venezuelan oil company that used USDT to circumvent oil sanctions. A bit of drama, HBAR token value went up after some claims about Blackrock's funds' tokenization, but they clarified their stance, asserting no commercial ties with Hedera. The SEC is seeking billions of dollars in penalties against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon after a fraud verdict. El Salvador's Chivo BTC wallet experienced a data breach, with some of its source code leaking. The US Department of Justice wants to sentence the Binance founder CZ to three years in prison and a $50M fine. They are also charging Samourai Wallet founders with money laundering, in an attempt to clamp down on crypto-mixing services. European Parliament is tightening regulations on crypto operations within the EU, aiming for identity checks and surveillance on suspicious activities. The UK included regulations that empower authorities to seize crypto assets suspected of being obtained through criminal means before an arrest is made.
- Joke of the week: The FTX estate will conduct the next sale of locked Solana in the form of an auction, instead of the previous model - fixed price sale. Quite a few buyers are willing to risk buying them at a discount price, as the previous sale sold them at an average cost of around $60 per token (Solana price today is $136 per 1 SOL).
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) (Upland - real-life virtual land) (Holozing - Pokemon-like game)and (Rising Star - Music creators game).
...Get ETH while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Read.cash and Hive.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
