During the last days of last September, Bitcoin was able to recover some of its value that it lost at the beginning of the month, as its price was about to exceed $ 11000 on the last day, but on the first day of October the currency lost about $ 400 of its value with a decrease of approximately 3.5% And then it continued to fluctuate for a short period before returning to rise at a low pace, with its price today reaching approximately $ 10670.
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One of the most prominent digital currency news that this week witnessed is the decrease in the amount of Bitcoin reserves available on various trading platforms, as the market witnessed a significant decline in the amount of Bitcoin that is traded on these platforms, and a new study indicated the many benefits that digital currencies achieved when they were adopted as a method of payment In addition to the traditional methods, as for the bad news, the most prominent of which was the hacking of one of the trading platforms, which resulted in the theft of currencies from users of approximately $ 150 million.
The amount of Bitcoin reserves on trading platforms has decreased significantly this year
During the past months, the rise in the price of Bitcoin currency after the month of March coincided with a significant decline in the amount of currency reserves on trading platforms, as that reserve represents all Bitcoin currencies that are within the portfolios of those platforms that are used for trading and not for long or medium-term storage, according to data from the site CryptoQuant The value of Bitcoin reserves decreased by about $ 5 billion until October.
In October of 2019 there were 2.8 million bitcoins on the trading platforms, and this month the number decreased to 2.4 million only, which indicates that Bitcoin Whales and individual investors are still reluctant to sell their holdings of the currency, in the past two months The value of Bitcoins released to trading platforms has in fact become negative, at a steady rate of almost 20,000 BTC.
Given the good Bitcoin performance during the past months in terms of high price and somewhat low volatility, it is natural for individual investors and even Bitcoin whales who own large quantities to move towards storing the currency as a long and medium-term investment instead of trading it permanently, although trading platforms allow By storing currencies without the need to trade them, the increasing number of hacks targeting trading platforms have made many people away from this idea, the most recent of which was the hacking of the KuCoin platform, which resulted in the theft of about $ 150 million in digital currencies.
A new study indicates the effectiveness of using digital currencies for electronic payment
The American company Bitpay that specializes in electronic payment services through Bitcoin published a new study to clarify the positive impact of Bitpay currency specifically among the rest of the digital currencies on the stores that use it as a method of payment, and it included four main stores that have not been named from several different sectors, including a gold broker and a store To sell Gift Cards, an online hosting service, and an electronic retail store.
In that study, traders pointed out the importance of Bitcoin and the features it provided to them in this field, especially its effectiveness in avoiding fraudulent practices associated with Chargeback requests that customers may make, which is a major problem that many sellers still suffer from with payment systems. Traditional, as some customers used to submit a refund request to the bank with which they deal directly, instead of returning to the seller himself.
The study also included some information about Bitcoin's role in attracting new customers to stores, which was an increase of about 40% compared to the percentage of Bitcoin transfer transactions related to sales, which ranged between 0.5% and 6.5% only.
The increase in the use of renewable energy to fuel mining farms
The increasing energy consumption required to mine digital currencies is one of the most controversial topics in this field, due to the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm used by most of those currencies, on top of which is Bitcoin, as it needs high processing capacity in order to be able to mine enough to make profits and thus More electrical energy consumption. Today it appears that miners are becoming more interested in this topic, as a study published by the University of Cambridge indicated that about 76% of miners around the world have begun to use renewable energies alongside other known sources.
According to the study data, more than 39% of the energy consumed for mining currencies that use proof of work, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cash Formation comes from renewable energy sources, in contrast to the previous study published by the university, which indicated that this percentage does not exceed 28% only. In any case, according to the recent study, about 62% of miners use hydroelectric energy, as it is considered the most widespread in this field.
Known energy sources such as coal and natural gas come second and third respectively after hydroelectric power , and other sources such as oil , solar energy and wind energy are also somewhat prevalent, but looking at the rest of the study data, things are not that improvement in reality, as The miners present in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) are responsible for about 77% of Bitcoin's mining energy, but they are the least dependent on renewable energy sources, while North America, which is responsible for 8% of the mining energy, in which miners depend on renewable energy, at 63% Almost.
Hacking a trading platform and stealing $ 150 million in digital currencies
Despite the constant allegations from trading platforms about improving the security of their platforms and preserving user data, this was not sufficient to deter hackers, as the KuCoin trading platform was exposed to a cyber-hacking incident that resulted in the leakage of many private keys (private keys) to some of its digital wallets. As a result, nearly $ 150 million in digital currencies were stolen from users' wallets, according to current estimates.
After the confirmation of the hack by Johnny Lyu, CEO of the platform, the value of Bitcoin remained somewhat stable without any sudden declines, so that some other currencies such as Ethereum remained stable even, which is considered strange, given that users usually resort to selling their assets when a new breach occurs. And the theft of large quantities of currencies for fear of the hackers selling what they stole within a short period and affecting the price.
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