The prices of the leaders of the crypto market Bitcoin and Ethereum usually move together. But some weeks are an exception, and this was just such a week.
Bitcoin, the world’s No.1 cryptocurrency with a market cap of $380 billion, has fallen another 2% in the past week and is trading for around $19,860 on CoinMarketCap at the time of writing on Saturday morning. .
Ethereum, the #2 crypto asset with a market capitalization of $190 billion, has risen 3.5% over the past week and is currently trading at $1,556.
New data this week from the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) tells a more bullish story. ENS was started five years ago by members of the Ethereum Foundation to allow people to register memorable domains for their crypto wallets, instead of being limited to the heavy string of random numbers and letters that usually represents a blockchain address.
ENS recorded its third highest revenue month from August, with 2.17 million .ENS domain names created on the service. Fifteen days ago, the service reported that in the previous three months, the number of .ENS domain name registrations had doubled.
This dramatic spike in ENS activity is likely in anticipation of Ethereum’s major network overhaul coming this month. The Ethereum merger will make the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism network 99.95% greener proof of stake (PoS) algorithm.
The biggest loser among the top thirty cryptocurrencies was Avalanche. AVAX fell 10% over the week; it’s worth less than $20 this Saturday.
Two cryptocurrencies in the top 20 have had great rallies, and one of them may surprise many: Litecoin (LTC) surged 15% last week to over $60, while PolygonMATIC jumped 11% and is currently trading at around $0.90. Polygon’s meteoric rally has come amid adoption news from trading app Robinhood and social media giant Meta.
The other major cryptocurrencies barely moved this week.
Regulators target crypto risks
On Monday, the chief executive of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank and financial watchdog, Ravi Menon, said at a Green Shoots fintech seminar, the regulator will begin adding hurdles for retail investors to jump into crypto. The proposals include customer suitability tests and limiting access to credit facilities.
Menon said the measures are aimed at protecting consumers, noting that while Singapore welcomes fintech innovation, investors “seem to be irrationally unconscious about the risks of cryptocurrency trading,” but an outright ban “probably won’t work.” MAS also seeks to introduce international regulatory reviews and collaborate on risk reduction measures.
Paraguayan rulers also talked about regulation In Monday. President Mario Abdo Benítez has vetoed a bill that would have regulated various crypto activities in the country, including mining. According to the executive decreethe main reason for the veto was that the energy costs would outweigh the employment benefits.
In the United States, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi – chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, part of the House, which forms Congress with the Senate –letters sent to five of the largest crypto exchanges in the United States on Tuesday, requesting “information and documents” on how they operate at “Fighting Cryptocurrency Fraud.”
Krishnamoorthi also sent a letter to four federal agencies – the United States Treasury Department, Security and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commissionand Federal Trade Commission– to solicit policy suggestions and opinions on whether cryptocurrencies should be defined as “commodities, securities or both”.
Meta and Ticketmaster embrace NFTs
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has rolled out new NFT features for its properties that day, including the ability to post NFTs in-app for some US users.
Meta currently supports Ethereum, Polygonand To flow NFT on Facebook and Instagram. It also supports a number of crypto walletsincluding Metamaskrainbow, trust wallet, Coinbase Walletand Dapper, all of which can be connected to verify and share NFTs.
On Wednesday, ticketing titan Ticketmaster announced it would use Dapper Labs To flow blockchain to new NFT tickets for certain events. For the past six months, Dapper Labs and Ticketmaster have quietly piloted an NFT program in which Ticketmaster issued NFT tickets as souvenirs to attendees of specific eventslike this year’s Super Bowl LVI.
Over five million Flow NFTs were minted during the pilot, according to Dapper.
Crypto lenders try to solve liquidity crises
Singapore-Based Crypto Lender Hodlnaut Obtained Judicial Management organize and restructure by the country’s high courts on Tuesday. The company deposit for judicial management on August 13 seeking temporary protection from legal claims. Just five days earlier, he had customer withdrawals frozen to “stabilize liquidity” during the current industry liquidity crisis.
On Thursday, bankrupt crypto lender Celsius said in a filing in court he’s trying to come back certain client funds. The company is currently offering to release nearly $50 million in crypto belonging to customers who were part of the “custody” program — accounts that stored crypto but did not generate returns.
If Celsius’ proposal is approved, the returned funds would only cover a fraction of the lender’s obligations: the deposit accounts account for $210.02 million in crypto, according to the filing. However, clients expecting returns who have invested in crypto in Celsius’ popular ‘earn’ program account for $4.3 billion in assets; it was unclear when they would get their money back.
Bitcoin mining difficulty jumps
Bitcoin is getting harder and harder to mine. According to data from BTC.com, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty jumped 9.26% in the past two weeks. As the difficulty increases, miners may face lower profits as more computing power (and energy) is required to mine while Bitcoin’s value has remained stagnant.
Scott Norris, co-founder of private bitcoin miner LSJ Ops, Told Decrypt that “difficulty reduction is the cause for concern,” as it would mean more miners abandoning the network, making it less efficient.
Norris added: “An increase in difficulty is an indicator of a strong and growing network, it’s actually a good thing,” he said, adding that “sectors like gas and hydroelectricity champion cheap energy costs and enable a new generation of long-term mining.” emerge. »
