Millions of BTC Wallets Are Upside Down and Under Water

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17.5 million bitcoin addresses are now upside down. This coincides with an earlier report that more people than ever are hodling long-term. Either these long-term hodlers are extremely confident in a bitcoin bounce back or they’ve been fooled into thinking holding bitcoin long-term is wise in a downward-spiraling market. To be truthful, this is news only if you believe bitcoin is headed to zero. If you believe bitcoin is destined for $100,000, it’s business as usual. On another note, Berkshire Hathaway has shifted 60 percent of its cash to Treasury bills. What will that do to the bitcoin price? Mt. Gox creditors are much closer to a payout on their losses and some analysts fear a bitcoin crash. Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s bitcoin futures traded at 2 1/2-year low on Monday. If investors are bearish on bitcoin, that will undoubtedly lead to more lows. This is a negative feedback loop. That doesn’t spell doom and gloom for bitcoin. It simply means it’s likely to go lower. Many will see the next month or two as a time to buy. Bitcoin transaction fees fall below $1.

Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) gets update to prevent replay attacks. According to Santiment data, Ethereum ranks first among all blockchains for development activity within the last 30 days. Polkadot and Kusama are not far behind. Bitfinex is now offering Ethereum Chain Split Tokens. If Ethereum does split with the Merge, leaving one PoW chain and one PoS chain, you can bet there will be people profiting from the fork. After the Merge, “most” Ethereum PoW miners will begin mining Ergo. Proof of Stake could make transactions easier to censor.

Coinbase is moving away from fees and toward subscriptions. Coinbase is the target of a lawsuit for allegedly failing to secure customer accounts.

Celsius countersues KeyFi. And goes after Prime Trust for allegedly not turning over $17 million in crypto. Celsius claims KeyFi was “incompetent” and “deceitful.”

DAOs and GameFi catapult Solana to new highs.

Telegram contemplates Web3 integration. TON developers build first ever crypto wallet inside Telegram. Web3 is a natural fit for Telegram.

Binance chief communications officer says scammers created a deepfake hologram of him to scam people.

EOS soars after announcement that Antelope will be underlying protocol for EOSIO-based blockchains.

46 percent of American crypto investors say it’s performed worse than expected. Maybe these Americans weren’t aware of the inherent volatility in crypto. The problem here is not the performing of cryptocurrencies. It’s the expectations.

The crypto market could be in for another 20 percent drop.

Ontario crypto exchanges limit altcoin buys to $30,000 CAD per year. I don’t understand this logic. How does imposing a buy limit make investors aware of risks? Isn’t it just as risky to buy $15,000 CAD worth of shitcoin as it is to buy $50,000 worth of shitcoin?

Meta rolls out metaverse ID system.

Bitcoin ATM machines have been exploited by hackers.

How the market regulates cryptocurrency crimes.

Nomad Bridge hackers are being incentivized with whitehat-themed NFTs if they return stolen funds. That’s a novel approach. Can you imagine someone sitting in their plush lounge chair and having a Eureka moment: You know, this NFT could be worth a LOT more than that $190 million I stole. Can you imagine it? I can’t either. Still, kudos for creativity.

Y Combinator alumni raise $80 million to back crypto startups with a DAO.

Movie writer and producer Ivan Atkinson is adopting a DAO structure for his production company One Van Films and issuing NFTs for future feature productions. This is a bold move. The movie industry is adopting NFTs like wildfire. It’s just a matter of time before audience participation in creative projects is commonplace. In fact, Decentralized Pictures is using a crowd curation model to fund new movie projects with the backing of some Hollywood heavy weights.

Invesco launches multi-million dollar metaverse fund.

Nike, Gucci, and other big brands have made $260 million in NFT sales. Are NFTs a bubble that has popped for good? How NFT wash trading takes place and how to spot it. In any unregulated market, wash trading is bound to occur. Investors would do themselves well to learn how to spot it.

World of Women is the only NFT collection in the top 25 by market cap to confer intellectual property rights to purchasers, says Galaxy Digital Research.

Blockchain hacks are on the rise.

Ready Player Me raises $56 million.

Interview with Polygon metaverse officer.

Metaverse and NFT tokens have fallen more than 20 percent this week.

If Web3 is ever going to be built, it will need new talent.

Patent infringement in virtual worlds.

How to spot and avoid crypto scams.

Inworld AI raises $50 million for metaverse smart characters.

Republican Congressman Tom Emmer questions Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about Tornado Cash sanctions. Speaking of Tornado Cash, its code, banned from GitHub, has been reuploaded. This is a “shot over the bow” of GitHub’s wayward ship. If the code is removed, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will sue. EFF has been on the forefront of digital privacy rights, and internet freedom in general, since the beginning of the World Wide Web. Literally. The foundation opened its doors in 1990. If you want an interesting read, delve into the history of its making. They’ve been doing great work ever since.

Mural raises $5.6 million to help brands build DAO treasuries.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission chair says it isn’t his job to be a crypto cheerleader. Besides, he wouldn’t look too good in a miniskirt.

China begins second phase of CBDC launch.

Ukraine blocks crypto wallet used by Russians.

Snark and commentary in italics. Pancakes in my belly.

Cryptocracy is a decentralized newsletter published several times a week. I curate the latest news and crypto analysis from some of the brightest minds in crypto, and sometimes offer a little insightful and snarky commentary. Always fresh, always interesting, and always crypto.

First published at Cryptocracy. Not to be construed as financial advice. Do your own research.