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🇺🇸 U.S. Sanctions Watchdog Alleges Russia-Linked Crypto Wallet Processed $5M
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) rolled out a new massive wave of sanctions against Russian industrial companies, as well as people and entities that helped Russia move money while the country has been waging war in Ukraine. Among the 22 individuals and 104 entities in the sanctions list published Friday, there is one cryptocurrency wallet, first spotted by the blockchain intelligence company Elliptic.
The wallet on the Ethereum blockchain belongs to a 48-y.o. United Arab Emirates resident from Ireland, John Desmond Hanafin, according to OFAC. A wallet related to a company he led, according to the blockchain data, received over $5.2 million in the tether stablecoin (USDT) since the beginning of the war. According to OFAC, Hanafin helped high-net-worth Russian citizens obtain passports from other countries, as well as move money across borders while Russia has been cut off from major global payment networks by previous sanctions. It’s not clear for what purposes Hanafin and his company used crypto.
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📣 Bit Digital Defies US Regulators, Expands Bitcoin Mining To Iceland
Amid growing regulatory pressure and a proposed cryptocurrency mining tax in the United States, New York-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Bit Digital is expanding its infrastructure in Iceland, placing as many as 2,500 newly bought mining machines there. The move comes as a response to current regulatory uncertainty and a broader government crackdown on digital asset companies in the US. Specifically.
Bit Digital plans to announce the sending of the new Bitcoin mining computers outside the US, in the first move of its kind for this company in two years, at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal on May 18. As Samir Tabar, chief executive of Bit Digital, explained, the company has decided to look at different jurisdictions due to instability. In the past, the machines have come to the United States, but now the company needs to take a serious look at different options. The US Treasury Department is considering taxing cryptocurrency mining firms 30% of their costs of electricity, arguing that miners raise the electricity costs on shared grids and have a negative impact on the environment due to the high power demand.
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📣 BlockFi Creditors Hotly Controversy About Poor Management Of The Company
The creditors dismissed BlockFi’s claim that it was a victim of FTX and Alameda as a false case narrative, blaming the company’s downfall on bad management choices and, later, restructuring agents. The creditor’s committee said that in the days after the FTX collapse, when crypto markets crashed, BlockFi transferred around $240 million in crypto into fiat, resulting in severe financial losses and probable tax concerns for clients.
BlockFi subsequently transferred the money as well as an extra $10 million into Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which went bankrupt later that year. But, no one at BlockFi, including the restructuring team, followed through on this, and no bond was issued, according to the creditors. The creditors claimed that BlockFi also used consumer cash to obtain a $30 million insurance policy for its directors and executives. Bitcoin has risen more than 60% from the November 2022 lows, and creditors claim that approximately $100 million in value was lost as a result of the decision to liquidate then. A significant chunk of this document has been deleted, notably critical passages.
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🪙 Ethereum Client Prysm Releases v4.0.3 Hot Patch Version
Prysm, an Ethereum client, has released the v4.0.3 hot patch version. This patch version attempts to reduce node CPU pressure and memory use, as well as to prevent beacon nodes from utilizing excessive resources during chaotic moments. Users are recommended to update if node consumption is excessive. Prysm is a Go-based version of the Ethereum consensus layer built by the Ethereum core development team Prysmatic Labs that enables anyone to host a node and participate.
v4.0.3 contains a number of important fixes, and it is recommended that all users upgrade. This release includes fixes for vulnerabilities in the external block generator code path and key manager. Prysm allows users to participate in the decentralized economy of Ethereum by operating a node and, if they have 32 ETH to the stake, a validator. If they’re new to Ethereum, they may like its Nodes and networks explanation. The major goal of the security audit is to safeguard both the project and its users by making suggestions to the team on how to improve and cure any security weaknesses discovered.
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💰 Do Kwon set to be released after Montenegro court accepts $436,000 bail: local press
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is set to be freed from jail pending trial after a court in Montenegro accepted a €400,000 ($436,000) bail, according to a report in local news site Pobjeda. Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March and charged with using a fake passport to attempt to leave the country. The country's interior ministry says Kwon and fellow South Korean national Han Chang-joon, Terraform's former chief financial officer, attempted to board a private flight to Dubai with false Costa Rican travel documents.
The court also agreed to release Han on a €400,000 bond, according to Pobjeda. The prosecution has three days to appeal the decision. TerraUSD, the stablecoin created by Terraform Labs and often known by its ticker, UST, collapsed a year ago this week — wiping out tens of billions of dollars for investors. The crisis was the first of many to hit crypto markets over the course of 2022, including the bankruptcies of crypto lender Celsius and exchange giant FTX. South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September, saying he breached capital markets laws. Korean prosecutors had reportedly traveled to Serbia, which borders Montenegro, in February to try to track him down.
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📣 Digital Asset Will Start Global Blockchain Network With Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Others
Financial technology company Digital Asset will start a privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network designed to provide a decentralized infrastructure for institutional clients, the firm announced on Tuesday. Participants of the network, which is called the Canton Network, include BNP Paribas (BNP), Deloitte, Cboe Global Markets (CBOE), Goldman Sachs (GS), Broadridge (BR), S&P Global, and Microsoft (MSFT), among many others.
“The Canton Network is a powerful answer to industry calls for a solution that harnesses the potential of blockchain while preserving fundamental privacy requirements for institutional finance,” Chris Zuehlke, partner at DRW and global head of Cumberland, another participant, said. “This unique approach, coupled with the ability to execute an atomic transaction across multiple smart contracts, is the building block needed to bring these workflows on chain.” The network connects applications built with Daml, Digital Asset’s smart-contract language, allowing various systems in financial markets to interoperate and synchronize.
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🪙 Circle USDC Continues Circulation Fall After March Crisis
Circle has enough reserves in its treasury to support its stablecoin USDC. Notwithstanding the belief in its stablecoin, USDC underperformed. According to official data, in the past 7 days, Circle issued a total of $600 million in USDC and redeemed $1 billion in USDC, and the circulation decreased by about $400 million. As of May 4, the total circulation of USDC was $30.1 billion, and the reserve was $30.2 billion.
USDC’s substantial reserves, which include a large amount in short-term US Treasury bonds, may help reassure consumers that their holdings are backed by dependable and safe assets. Circle generated 140 million USDC yesterday and transferred it to Coinbase on behalf of a significant buyer, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham. USDC Coin was the most troubled stablecoin when its Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) holdings failed. Notwithstanding the challenges that USDC has experienced, Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, has continued to profit from its development. US government acts quickly and offers more clarification on the stablecoin area, the market may improve.
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💰 Bitcoin’s Frenzy of Activity Pushes Average Transaction Fee Over $7, Nearly 2-Year High
Bitcoin blockchain involving Ethereum-style tokens and non-fungible token (NFT)-like “inscriptions” has driven up congestion on the network, pushing the average fee rate to the highest in nearly two years while showering miners of the cryptocurrency with extra revenue. For comparison, the rate so far this year had fluctuated between roughly 50 cents and $4, data from BitInfoCharts shows.
Bitcoin’s total transaction fees, which are paid by users to miners, jumped to around 124 BTC or roughly $3.5 million, on May 3, representing a 484% increase in the past 14 days. “This current fee spree is an anomaly,” wrote Colin Harper, head of content at Luxor Technologies, a full-stack Bitcoin mining pool. BRC-20 (a play on Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard), which facilitates the issue and transfer of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, has accounted for about 6% of all Bitcoin activity since its inception in early March, according to pseudonymous analyst and yield farmer Dynamo DeFi. This year has also seen the rise of Ordinals inscriptions, which are similar to NFTs.
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🇺🇸 Biden administration reiterates desire for 30% tax on Bitcoin miners' electricity usage
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration reiterated that it wants all crypto mining operations to pay a new tax priced at 30% of their electricity costs. Proof-of-work crypto mining — which is overwhelmingly dominated by Bitcoin mining — is controversial because it uses vast amounts of electricity to compute and verify transactions on the blockchain. Bitcoin now uses more electricity than Finland, Belgium or the Philippines, according to Digiconomist.
The computational effort involved in mining can be substantial and can therefore require a correspondingly large amount of energy. The increase in energy consumption attributable to the growth of digital asset mining has negative environmental effects and can have environmental justice implications as well as increase energy prices for those that share an electricity grid with digital asset miners. Digital asset mining also creates uncertainty and risks to local utilities and communities, as mining activity is highly variable and highly mobile. An excise tax on electricity usage by digital asset miners could reduce mining activity along with its associated environmental impacts and other harms. Biden's proposals may struggle to make it into law.
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🇳🇬 Nigeria's SEC Mulls Allowing Tokenized Equity, Property but Not Crypto: Bloomberg
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing tokenized coin offerings backed by equity, debt or property – but “not crypto” – on licensed digital asset exchanges, Bloomberg reported Monday. “We always like to start, as a regulator, with a very simple, clear proposal before we go into the complex ones," Abdulkadir Abbas, head of securities and investment services at the Abuja-based commission, reportedly said.
The regulator is also processing applications for digital exchanges on a trial basis, intending them to undergo one year of “regulatory incubation” with limited services offered and under SEC monitoring to determine the firms' fitness to provide services. According to the report, the SEC will not start registering digital asset exchanges until it reaches an agreement with the nation's central bank, which has blocked local financial institutions from interacting with crypto services providers. Before the central bank doubled down on its restrictive rule, Nigeria was one of the fastest crypto adopters in the region.
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💰 Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev tweets for first time following prison release
Alex Pertsev, the Tornado Cash developer arrested in August 2022, is back on Twitter. Pertsev was released from prison on April 26, as previously reported by The Block, and is subject to ankle bracelet monitoring. The Dutch courts had shot down previous efforts to secure Pertsev's release. Pertsev was arrested in the days after the U.S. government sanctioned Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based transaction mixer frequently used to launder stolen coins.
Law enforcement authorities worldwide have long targeted transaction mixers and most recently seized $46 million in bitcoin as part of an operation against a service called ChipMixer. Pertsev's arrest and subsequent incarceration drew some criticism on the grounds that Pertsev shouldn't be penalized for developing open-source code. The incident also raised questions about the future of law enforcement actions against distributed protocols like Tornado Cash. Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev has returned to Twitter following his release from prison in the Netherlands. “Sorry I was afk for a while, what did I miss?” he wrote.
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🇬🇧 UK Allowing Crypto Charity But Warning About Risks
According to the British Charity Commission’s instructions announced on April 26, UK organizations that take cryptocurrency donations must maintain accurate records and follow taxes and money laundering regulations. Authorities have cautioned organizations that receiving assets like BTC or NFTs is risky since they are extremely unpredictable in price, vulnerable to hacking, difficult to identify donations, and of little use.
Nonetheless, the Commission tackles the hazards connected with cryptoassets in addition to authorizing charity contributions in cryptocurrency. These include the volatility of their value, which can fluctuate rapidly, the possibility of fraud or theft by hackers, and the lack of protection compared to traditional currencies or financial products – because cryptoassets are largely unregulated, you are unlikely to have access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) if something goes wrong. Moreover, cryptoasset regulations differ by country; some governments prohibit cryptoassets, while others have extensive regulatory requirements.
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📣 Bitget’s BGB Token Gets New Utilities And Burn Mechanism
Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange, has revised the whitepaper for its native token BGB. The new paper details the advantages that BGB offers as a utility asset on the Bitget platform, such as the BGB lottery, a trial fund for futures trading, a zero withdrawal charge, and special earning opportunities. A BGB repurchase and burn mechanism are also being investigated as part of the token’s economic side in order to limit.
BGB is a utility token having a total supply of 2 billion and a circulating supply of 1.4 billion. It grants users special advantages and rights on the Bitget exchange. The BGB token will provide expanded access to established products like as the native Launchpad and Launchpool, and users can expect to gain more from participation and input. BGB has been steadily increasing in value since February 2023, when it peaked at $0.51 and had a 500% rise in total trading volume – an achievement that presently places it ninth on the Coingecko list of CEX tokens. The latest whitepaper for the BGB token emphasizes this point, highlighting additional capabilities that will catapult the asset into Web3 via tighter integration with the platform’s expanding portfolio of services.
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⬜️ OKX Started The SUI IEO Subscription, OKB Loans Interest Rate Soared To 200%
OKX is the first exchange to open the sale of SUI tokens in the form of IEO. OKX has started the SUI IEO subscription today, and the annual interest rate of OKB loans has risen to over 200%. Originally, the exchange said that the SUI token sale event on OKX Jumpstart would take the shape of a token distribution lottery on April 23. OKB holders may use their OKB to purchase raffle tickets, and winning tickets will allow them to purchase SUI.
An extra appreciation sale will be held only for Sui ecosystem contributors. Users must be formally whitelisted by the Sui Foundation in order to participate in the Gratitude Sale. Whitelisted users may buy up to 1,500 SUI from a total supply of 25,000,000 SUI for only $0.03, and the tokens will be completely unlocked when the mainnet becomes live. Then, during the OKX Jumpstart event, whitelisted users may utilize OKB to buy SUI. The token allocation lottery is still open to participants of this special event. While the Sui Network is in its early phases, it has captured the attention of the wider cryptocurrency sector.
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📣 Privacy-Focused Network Horizen Expected to Undergo Node Upgrade in June
The Horizen network is expected to undergo a node upgrade on June 7, developers confirmed earlier this week on GitHub. Per Messari data, the hard fork has been scheduled on Horizen mainnet at block 1,363,115, estimated to arrive on Jun. 7, 2023, at approximately 13:00 UTC. Node operators have been asked to update to Zen v4.0.0 before May 31, 2023. The upgrade would bring enhancements to Horizen’s sidechain version 2 and fix minor bugs encountered in the current node version.
Sidechains refer to independent networks that operate atop a main blockchain, such as Horizen in this case. These are similar to layer 2 networks, but different in one key aspect: Sidechains have their own security mechanism, unlike layer 2 networks which rely on the security of their mother network. Different sidechains can be customized to serve specific purposes, such as having a governance-focused sidechain or a decentralized finance (DeFi)-focused sidechain. This ensures an exploit in one sidechain doesn’t impact the other. Horizen’s ZEN tokens have gained 8% over the past week, as per Coingecko.
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💰 Binance Will Support For Terra Classic And Kava 13 Upgrade
Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Wednesday that it would support the Terra Classic v2.0.1 network update as well as the Kava 13 mainnet upgrade. The exchange will support the Terra Classic (LUNC) network update, which is slated for May 17 at 16:45 at block height 12,815,210. The blockchain will be stopped at the block until the update is finished. Binance will halt LUNC and USTC deposits and withdrawals on the Terra Classic (LUNC) network on May 17 at 13:30 UTC.
The Terra Classic blockchain will be upgraded with various improvements, including a minimum starting deposit for governance proposals, an upgrade to Cosmos SDK v0.45.13 and Tendermint v0.34.24, and necessary security upgrades. Proposal 11511 by the Joint L1 Task Force was formally approved with 99.5% of the vote. Moreover, the proposal has received support from significant validators including as Allnodes, StakeBin, JESUSisLORD, Lunanauts, and SolidVote. Moreover, Binance will support the Protocol 13 network update, which is planned to occur at block height 4,832,500 on May 17 at 15:00 UTC. From May 17, the exchange will halt KAVA deposits and withdrawals.
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📣 Ribbon Finance's Decentralized Exchange Aevo Unveils Altcoin Options Trading
The Ethereum-based structured product firm Ribbon Finance's decentralized exchange Aevo began offering options tied to alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), a crypto term used to describe digital assets other than bitcoin (BTC) and sometime even ether (ETH). Aevo users can trade options tied to Lido's LDO, Pepecoin (PEPE), Sui's SUI, Arbitrum's ARB, Litecoin (LTC), Aptos (APT).
Users can pick the options strike price and tenure of these options and get instant quotes from crypto market makers Galaxy, GSR and OrBit Markets. Options are derivative contracts that offer the purchaser protection against bullish or bearish moves. A call option confers the right to purchase the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date, while a put option offers the right to sell. The availability of onchain altcoins options means crypto traders that focus on tokens with small market caps can now set strategies, such as spreads or spot/futures and options combinations.
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🇨🇦 Binance Announces Exit from Canada, Citing Regulatory Tensions
Crypto exchange Binance has announced that it would cease operations in Canada, citing the challenging regulatory environment. “We had high hopes for the rest of the Canadian blockchain industry,” the company said in a Friday tweet. “Unfortunately, new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges makes the Canada market no longer tenable for Binance at this time.”
In February, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) revealed new guidance that prohibited crypto asset trading platforms within the country from allowing customers to buy or deposit stablecoins without the CSA’s prior approval. Obtaining approval would require the crypto trading platform to pass the CSA’s various due diligence checks. In its Friday tweet, Binance added that it did not agree with the new regulations but still hopes to work with Canadian regulators to further develop a regulatory framework around cryptocurrencies. Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) is a Canadian citizen, with the company describing its exit from the country as holding “sentimental value.”
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🪙 Binance’s VC Arm, With Over 200 Investments, Focuses on 'Explosive' Potential for Web3
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume, may have found itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. regulators, but its venture capital (VC) arm, Binance Labs, continues to invest across the Web3 ecosystem. Despite the looming U.S. regulatory uncertainties and a continued bear market, Binance Labs has been able to grow its assets to $9 billion at the end of the first quarter from $7.5 billion last August.
The VC arm expanded because it believes Web3 is still in its early stages and that blockchain technology has yet to see an “explosive” use case outside of financial instruments, Yibo Ling, the chief business officer of Binance Labs, said during an interview with CoinDesk. “We are very much long-term investors in this space. We're not a fly by night – come in, and try to get a quick hit and move on because our core business is obviously long on the entire industry,” Ling said. He also added that his firm looked for investment opportunities that haven’t been rocked by market conditions or potential regulations.
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🐸 Crypto Whales Accumulate Millions in Pepecoin as Trading Volume Shifts to Binance
Pepecoin (PEPE) traders remain unfazed by the recent price correction and are adding to their holdings in a move that suggests bullish price action for the tokens in the coming weeks. On-chain analytics tool Lookonchain said on Tuesday that three whales, a colloquial term for holders of large amounts of any tokens, started to accumulate pepe tokens earlier this week amid a nearly 50% price cut.
“3 whales started to buy $PEPE after the price dropped,” Lookonchain said in a tweet. “0x50C1 withdrew 1.4T $PEPE ($2.76M) from #Binance when the price was $0.000002054.” “0x2Baa bought 212B $PEPE($429K) with 223 $ETH($412K) at $0.000001942. 0x3AE8 bought 424B $PEPE($864K) with 450 $ETH($831K) at $0.000001957,” the firm added, pointing to each individual wallet holding. The data further shows trading volumes have shifted from decentralized exchange Uniswap to crypto exchange Binance after the latter listed the tokens in its innovation zone last week.
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📣 Web3 Firm Artifact Labs Raises $3.25M From Blue Pool Capital, Animoca, Others
Artifact Labs, a Web3 company that works to preserve records of historical events on the blockchain, has closed a $3.25 million funding round. The round was led by Blue Pool Capital, with Animoca Ventures also participating. Blue Pool Capital, is a fund that principally invests the wealth of Alibaba founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai. Artifact Labs said in the release it plans to utilize the funds to expand the company's operations.
Artifact Labs was initially incubated by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP). In 2021 the SCMP launched a non-fungible token (NFT) standard called ARTIFACT for recording historical data. Throughout 2021 and 2022, the newspaper had a brisk business of selling NFTs of its historical front pages, including the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the Avian flu outbreak, the Asian Financial Crisis, and the death of the U.K.'s Princess Diana. Artifact Labs said in a release that it will be releasing NFT collections as a revenue stream for preservation organizations as well as developing and releasing technology to help institutions preserve their archives on-chain.
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🇺🇸 DOJ investigating whether Binance violated U.S. sanctions against Russia: Bloomberg
The Justice Department is investigating whether crypto exchange giant Binance was used to let Russians evade U.S. sanctions, Bloomberg reported. The probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange is tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Justice Department’s national security division is leading the investigation, which is running in parallel to another inquiry by the agency’s criminal division.
“In 2021, Binance launched an initiative to completely overhaul its corporate governance structure, including bringing in a world-class bench of seasoned executives to fundamentally change how Binance operates globally,” Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our policy imposes a zero-tolerance approach to double registrations, anonymous identities, and obscure sources of money.” Binance messages included in the CFTC complaint show that Binance executives discussed transactions by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas on the exchange in 2019, for example. Binance officers even acknowledged some of their customers are “here for crime” on the platform, but said, “we see the bad, but we close 2 eyes.”
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🏦 Coinbase Ventures Backs $10M ZkLink Raise Ahead of Mainnet Launch
ZkLink, an infrastructure layer that makes it easier to trade assets across blockchains, raised $10 million in a strategic funding round from a lineup of investors that included the venture capital arm of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN). The fundraise will help drive zkLink towards its mainnet launch in the third quarter. Crypto venture capital funding rode the bull market of 2021 off a cliff as the bear market and post-scandal turbulence hit.
The race to launch zk-based technology has started to intensify. Polygon and Matter Labs announced in March the mainnet launch of dueling zk-EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) offerings within days of each other. For zkLink, the company will launch a community campaign called “Odyssey” and the “Dunkirk” asset withdrawal test ahead of its own mainnet launch. Still, infrastructure projects proved to be resilient, and noted venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted the promise of zero-knowledge (zk) technology in its recent annual report on the crypto industry.
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📣 Decentralized Exchange Maverick Rolls Out Liquidity Incentives for Price Stability
Decentralized exchange (DEX) platform Maverick Protocol has unveiled a novel incentive system that can help stablecoins, ether (ETH) liquid staking derivatives keep their price pegs, the protocol said in a press release on Tuesday. The incentive system allows token issuers such as liquid staking protocols or stablecoin issuers to create so-called “boosted positions,” offering extra rewards to liquidity providers.
Maverick is built around an automated market maker (AMM) algorithm, where traders can swap digital assets without any intermediary in liquidity pools. Token holders can also deploy their assets in the pools to provide liquidity for trading while earning a share of the trading fees. The protocol’s latest upgrade comes as DEXs are fiercely competing to attract traders and traffic onto their platforms as crypto investors seek decentralized trading venues after multiple blowups of centralized marketplaces and increasing regulatory stranglehold. Maverick’s tool is more efficient than existing offerings because it allows token issuers to concentrate reward payouts.
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📈 Meme Coins Surge: PEPE, WOJAK, And AIDOGE Increase Over 50% In 24 Hours
Spot On Chain reports significant gains for meme coins: PEPE, WOJAK, and AIDOGE. Meanwhile, the trader who spent 0.125 ETH to buy 5.9T PEPE sold 100B PEPE for 21 ETH. The latest news from Spot On Chain has reported that meme coins are hot again. In particular, PEPE, WOJAK, and AIDOGE have seen significant increases in value, with each coin increasing by over 50% in the past 24 hours.
The report also includes a review of some whales mentioned ten days ago. The PEPE whale 0x4a2C is one of these, having swapped 1.11 billion PEPE to ETH and realized a profit of 356.162K. They still hold 4.8 billion PEPE, with an unrealized profit of 2.3 million. Meanwhile, Lookonchain found the trader who spent 0.125 ETH on buying 5.9T PEPE, making an impressive profit of around 1.14 million in just four days, translating to over 4,500 times their initial investment, sells PEPE every time the price increases, and they recently sold 100 billion PEPE for 21 ETH at 0.0000004007. So far, they have sold 800 billion PEPE, which is 14% of all PEPE, and got 117 ETH, with an average selling price of 0.0000002744.
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📣 Zcash Launched Version V5.5.0, Introducing A Proportional Fee Mechanism
According to a statement by Zcash’s creator, Electronic Coin Corporation, Zcash, a crypto privacy technology, has released version V5.5.0. This version has corrected many problems and implemented a proportional fee structure, which may aid in the future resolution of the problem of heavy transaction load on the blockchain. A proportional fee system is a scheme that guarantees transaction fees accurately reflect the processing expenses needed for completing certain transactions.
Zcash is a blockchain-based payments network that focuses on privacy by using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to shield transactions, keeping the contents of a transaction secret even on a public blockchain. Zcash, which arose from the Zerocash protocol, diverged from the Bitcoin network in 2016. ZEC is the ticker sign for its native token. The blockchain is one of the main digital currency blockchains that aims to solve this growing problem and give its users back control and privacy. ZKPs are the result of a cryptographic approach developed in the 1980s. They let two parties verify information with each other without disclosing the underlying data.
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🔴 Avalanche Activated The Important Cortina Upgrade On The Mainnet
According to the official announcement, Avalanche’s Cortina upgrade went live on the mainnet yesterday around 16:00 UTC. According to previous reports, the Cortina upgrade includes migrating X-Chain to run the Snowman++ consensus, implying that the entire network has been migrated to a single consensus engine, reducing the size of the trusted computing base and increasing the leverage of existing R&D efforts.
The Cortina upgrade also includes batch authorization rewards and a 1500 gas cap on the C-Chain. Protocol improvements in the Cortina update are incompatible with AvalancheGo v1.10.0 versions. Before activating a node on Fuji, verifiers’ software must be upgraded to AvalancheGo v1.10.0. The price of Avalanche, like the rest of the cryptocurrencies, has dropped in recent days, much to the chagrin of many investors ahead of the Cortina upgrade. Following a successful testnet launch earlier this month, the next upgrade went live on the mainnet on April 25, exceeding AVAX holders’ expectations.
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💰 Wrapped Bitcoin Token Goes Live on Cardano Testnet
Wrapped bitcoin token cBTC has gone live on the Cardano testnet as the project’s developers seek to attract bitcoin (BTC) holders to the nascent Cardano decentralized-finance, or DeFi, network. Users can now mint cBTC tokens from the anetaBTC protocol and use the tokens to fund, trade or provide liquidity to Cardano's test network. These wrapped tokens are a 1:1 representation of bitcoin, but on the Cardano blockchain.
Wrapped tokens make it easy to transfer value across blockchains, which otherwise lack interoperability, allowing users to access different DeFi protocols without the native tokens of that protocol. Various DeFi enhancements have aided the rise of such protocols on Cardano since the start of 2023, with the total value locked on Cardano-based platforms rising to over $150 million from less than $50 million. DeFi exchanges such as Minswap, Indigo and Wingriders hold most of the TVL on Cardano, with stablecoin project Djed attracting over $15 million since it went live in early March. The anetaBTC project aims to attract bitcoin liquidity to the Cardano ecosystem.
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🪙 Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Spurs Institutional Investment Into Staking
Early signs show that Ethereum’s seamless Shanghai upgrade has spurred institutional investors’ interest in staking. Top institutional-grade ether (ETH) staking service providers have already recorded about three times larger inflows in April compared to all of last month, Michiel Milanovic, analyst of Ethereum blockchain developer firm ConsenSys, told CoinDesk.
Ethereum’s highly anticipated tech update, often referred to as the Shanghai or Shapella upgrade, starting April 12 enabled withdrawals of some 18 million tokens, worth $35 billion, previously locked up in staking contracts. After the upgrade, ETH’s price rallied to $2,100, its highest level in 11 months, defying earlier concerns the unlocking could lead to significant selling pressure and a price crash. The token recently has dropped below $1,900, aligning with a broader crypto market decline. Allowing withdrawals also reduced the liquidity risk associated with locking up ETH for staking, which has kept some investors at bay before.
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