Luck is where opportunity meets preparation! (weekly crypto updates)
The last post for this year, and I hope to find all of you healthy, better than in the last one, and full of hope for the next year. Today's post will be a short one, as even crypto people are taking a break between Christmas and New Year's Eve, in order to celebrate it. What happened this week? Read below:
Bitcoin: BTC hashrate is recovering from the 40% drop last week, due to freezing temperatures in the US. The hashrate dropped to 170.6 EH/s on the 25th of December, from a previous peak of 276, and now returned back to 241. The United States accounts for approx 37.84% of the total hashrate. MicroStrategy plans to release Bitcoin Lightning Network-powered software and solutions in 2023.
Ethereum: Average daily volumes dropped 74% this year, to $203M in 2022, compared with $781M in 2021. The primary goal of ETH validators is to ensure the secure, decentralized operation of the network. Yet, the majority of staked ETH is controlled by just a handful of staking-as-a-service providers, and this is concerning. Not too much of a decentralization, isn't it?
Altcoins: Cardano is playing on its strengths, PoS, and modularity, combining Ouroboros Classic as a PoS consensus mechanism with an unspent transaction output (UTXO) model for a planned smart contract network. 1inch upgrades to offer gassless custom swaps and MEV protection. Japan's Financial Services agency considers allowing exchanges to list foreign stablecoins like USDC and USDT. Binance CEO warns about widespread API Key leaks from 3Commas. If you ever used an API key in 3Commas, from any exchange, disable it immediately. Even the FBI is investigating after what seems to be a leak of 100K finance and Kucoin API keys linked to 3Commas were reported, and the CEO repeatedly ignored the warning signs that the platform leaked user data. Ampleforth is going up, again and again, after they launched the SPOT token.
Blockchain games and NFTs: The financial services giant Fidelity Investments will launch an NFT Marketplace and financial services in the metaverse. This is something that made me curious to check when it will happen. Another airdrop was reached on Splinterlands, but it will be given in January. I understand, everyone is on a little break.
Good news: A higher probability of fed rate cuts will accompany decisive institutional actions in 2023. Bahamian regulators reported that they have taken custody of $3.5B worth of FTX customer deposits. Turkey completed their first payment transaction of its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital Turkish Lira and it will continue the tests in 2023. FTX will refund their Japanese customers starting from February 2023.
Bad news: Decentralized finance protocol Defrost Finance suffered a $12M exploit, via flash loan. Some people believe this is a rug pull. Now there is only $95K TVL remaining on the protocol. Then, most of the funds were returned by the 'hacker', which is funny, as one exploit using a flash loan wanted to drain funds from its V2 product, but a second larger attacker used the owner key to exploit V1. Dodgy AF! Nexo wanted to buy its rival crypto-lender Vauld, but the negotiations were abruptly terminated after 6 months of discussions. One of the issues was that Nexo is terminating and phasing out its service in the US, while more than 40% of the Vauld clients are from the US, and they will not have access to the Nexo platform after. I would just say this, if you have funds on Vauld, take them out! This is how almost everything bad started this year, with a terminated acquisition attempt. Midas investments shut down the DEFI platform following significant losses experienced in 2022. Kraken exits Japan over the weak crypto market and they will de-register from the Financial Services Agency by January 31, 2023.
Joke of the week: Judge Ronnie Abrams needed to withdraw himself from the legal proceedings involving FTX after it was found that his husband is a partner at Davis, Polk, and Wardwell, a law firm that served as an advisor for FTX in 2021. Darn, they are everywhere, those little FTX supporters. It is not like Alameda Research is still selling tokens worth millions amid criminal charges, right? Wait, they just sold $1.7M last week, and they still have $112M left, down from $140M in mid-November. What is happening in there?
That's all for today.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favorite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) and (Rising Star - Music creators game).
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