What happened in crypto the past 2 weeks? What a rollercoaster! What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: Augustin Cruz proposed a hard fork to protect BTC from the Quantum computing threat, as ECDSA, the digital signature Bitcoin uses, can be broken in the future by post-quantum cryptography. Following its US success, BlackRock is launching a bitcoin exchange-traded product in Europe, to be listed soon in Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam. GameStop is raising $1.3B via convertible debt to create a Bitcoin Treasury. Funny enough, GameStop shares dropped 25% after the bond plan was revealed. Strategy purchased an additional $1.92B worth of BTC last week, bringing total holding to over 500.000 BTC. BlackRock's Larry Fink warned that the US Dollar could lose its global economic dominance, with Bitcoin as a potential challenger. And then the Hell came loose, as President Trump's reciprocal tariffs were unveiled, with BTC losing 4.5% of its value, and ETH 5.4% at the beginning. All the crypto prices fell once again once Trump's deal with China was ruled out, with another 9.5% drop for BTC, and an even bigger 18% drop for ETH. But market analysts like Tim Peterson are telling us that this downturn is relatively mild and Bitcoin will recover in 90 days. BitMex co-founder Arthur Hayes came with a bold prediction that BTC will retest $76k before going to $110K. Well, we had the retest part, now we need to wait for the good bit. Looks like Mt Gox is panicking a bit, as they moved 11501 BTC worth over $1B, we should prepare for another dump? According to the Polygon co-founder, the four-year cycle is dead anyway.
Ethereum: Ethereum completed the final successful test for Pectra upgrade on Hoodi testnet, after two initial test failures on Holesky and Sepolia testnets. There are some interesting features, allowing wallets to function more like smart contracts, offering tools such as paying gas fees in tokens other than ETH. The launch day for the Pectra upgrade is set for May 7, introducing 11 ETH improvements, one of them being EIP-7251, letting you increase the maximum ETH stake per validator from 32 to 2048. I tell you something, according to the research, most of the addresses holding 10 K-100 K ETH or more are steadily accumulating ETH, while all the weak hands sell. Fidelity has filed with the SEC to register a blockchain-based share class of its Fidelity Treasury Digital fund, holding cash and US Treasury bills designed to operate on the Ethereum blockchain, competing with the products already launched by BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, while they are offering a new individual retirement account with direct access to Bitcoin, ETH and Litecoin, available to any US adults over age of 18, with no account fees.
Altcoins and stablecoins: A coalition of UK digital economy trade groups is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make crypto a strategic focus. And there we have it, as the SEC said that dollar-backed stablecoins do not require registration as securities. The US House Committee advanced a stablecoin legislation bill on late Wednesday. Stablecoin issuer Circle (the USDC guys) filed an S-1 form with the SEC for a potential ICO. USDC hit a new ATH market cap crossing $60B for the first time. Tether (USDT) is working with the Big Four accounting firm to complete a long-promised audit of its reserves. But then, we may believe it when we see it! A German regulator ordered the halt to the Ethene's USDe stablecoin, citing major compliance failures under the EU's MiCA. Fidelity is seeking regulatory approval to list a Solana ETF, as they are testing their own stablecoin too. Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, is exploring USDC and working to launch USYC, a tokenized money fund. XRP and Solana are stealing the spotlight in the investment game, while ETH bleeds. And memecoins are having a comeback, as one called ROUTINE exploded all the way up to $19M, after an X video went viral, accumulating 667M views in just four days. BONK, FARTCOIN and SPX6900 also went up by 23%, 80% and 68%. With the new ChatGPT Ghiblifi feature, a new wave of strange memecoins was launched. And just when you may think this is enough, we had Vitalik's video of meowing at a four-legged robot, sending us a new wave of silly memecoins. By the way, did you know that Polymarket predicted the future with 94% accuracy? They are facing some intense backlash after some controversial outcomes in a high-stakes political bet, when a rare earth mineral deal with Ukraine before April was settled as 'YES' despite never happening, as someone used their voting power to manipulate the oracle and profit from false results. Knowing the UMA oracle, I know that you can contest a result if it is not right; if Polymarket lacks this technology, then it is defective. And then we have a mysterious JELLY trader that exploited the memecoin, making a $6.26M profit, and he/she still controls nearly 10% of its total supply, worth nearly $2M. In a totally expected move, the PI token price dropped 77%.
- NFTs and blockchain games: I have enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite profitable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics introduced on March 18. I hope this may help the game by increasing speed and stability. Check my Holozing article to learn about a new blockchain game that looks full of potential. I am also playing a cute little game called Chain of Legends, which reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic, even if the overlap is not 100%. Sony Electronics Singapore is now accepting USDC payments via CryptoDotCom integration.
- Good news: Ripple reached a settlement with the SEC, reducing a previously imposed $125M fine to only $50M, and closing the regulatory action. They are also considering ending the legal battle with Gemini Exchange. Bpifrance, a French state investment bank, is launching a $27M crypto fund to support the country's blockchain sector. Terraform Labs will launch a claims portal on March 31 to allow investors to file for potential recovery tied to the company's 2022 implosion. FTX is also set to start repaying major creditors using a cash reserve of $ 11.4 B. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said that the banks no longer need prior approval to engage in crypto-related activities.
- Bad news: After the Coinbase staff abuse, now Binance has suspended one of its own Wallet Team employees, accused of front-running a token launch using confidential information obtained during a previous role at BNB Chain. This is not helping, as Coinbase users are already losing millions to scammers, in sophisticated address poisoning and wallet spoofing scams. One suspected theft had 400 BTC sent from a single wallet address, that is $34.9M gone in the wind. Brazil banned the major pension funds from investing in BTC or any other crypto assets. In the second major exploit of this year, AbracadabraDotMoney lost $13M in a sophisticated hack targeting the GMX token pools. SBF is doing something; maybe a presidential pardon is coming soon? This would be a mistake, given that he intentionally stole our money and used it to get even richer, buy politicians' favors and lawmakers alike. But then, we did have Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, the BitMex guys, pardoned this week. And X2Y2 Ethereum marketplace is closing its trading platform doors at the end of April.
- Joke of the week: As I did not consider them dodgy enough after resurrecting some crypto from a burning wallet, now CryptoDotCom teamed up with Trump Media to launch some digital asset ETFs. This is coming right after World Liberty Financial has launched its own stablecoin called USD1, backed by treasury bills and other cash equivalents. Is this some state-level pump and dump scheme, or will we find out about the biggest, most daring Ponzi scheme soon? But then why did the Senate Committee approve Trump picks to lead the SEC and the OCC? There is a bit of protest from the likes of Elizabeth Warren over his crypto consulting ties worth $25-50M, and for the first time ever, this time I completely agree with the Senator.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto 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 Hive.
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