Krystal Newsflash (8th July 2022)
Welcome to our recap of the major stories in the crypto world! Here’s what has happened over the past week:
⛽️ Low gas fees on Ethereum
With the crypto bear market in full swing, the cost of gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain has plummeted.
A drop in gas fees is usually correlated with a drop in demand and the number of transactions, which seems to be happening because of the bear market.
In other news, the Sepolia Mainnet has successfully merged to operate using a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.
This is huge news as the Ethereum developers will need to successfully perform The Merge on one more testnet (Goerli), before the Mainnet gets merged.
You can find out more about the implications of The Merge on Ethereum in our article here.
Cardano hard fork a success ✅
Similar to Ethereum, the Cardano Vasil hard fork was a success on the testnet.
The Vasil hard fork is focused on scalability, so as to ensure that the network is able to cope with the increased number of transactions brought about by smart contracts.
While we do not have the Cardano network on our platform, we support assets on 10 different blockchains (including Ethereum, Aurora, Klaytn and Solana) where you can store and receive them all within the convenience of one app!
USDC > USDT? 🪙
While USDT has been the go-to stablecoin in the crypto world, USDC is hot on their heels.
The market capitalisation for USDC has grown significantly, while USDT has taken quite a beating during this bear market.
Following this news that the volume on Ethereum for USDC has overtaken USDT, USDC’s market cap is just $10 billion short of USDT.
Tether has been mired in controversy, mainly due to concerns regarding its reserves.
While Tether recently announced that they have reduced the number of commercial paper assets in their reserves, it will be interesting to see their attestation report that may be announced soon.
You can find out why USDT reserves are so controversial in our analysis here.
SHIB Stablecoin?
One of Shiba Inu’s lead developers, Shytoshi Kusama, posted updates regarding the SHIB ecosystem, with the most interesting one being that they’ll be launching a decentralised stablecoin.
Shytoshi mentioned that the stablecoin is ‘an experimental protocol’, and should be released in 2022.
Apart from that, the developers plan to launch Shibarium, a Layer 2 blockchain, and a reward token (TREAT), which will benefit the SHIB ecosystem holders.
Ronin bridge hack 💻
More details have followed regarding the Ronin bridge hack, which amounted to a loss of over $450 million.
It seems that a senior engineer received a job offer from a fake company.
When he downloaded a PDF file that contained the offer, this allowed spyware to take control of 4 out of the 9 validators in the Ronin blockchain.
This meant that they almost had full control over the blockchain, and after gaining control over the last validator, they were able to perform the hack.
Amidst all the turmoil, Sky Mavis recently relaunched the Ronin bridge which allows you to bridge assets from the Ethereum blockchain to the Ronin sidechain.
You can find out more about what a bridge is in our article here.
This is a key lesson for all of us, as hackers are now targeting crypto wallets with multiple phishing scams and ransomware.
There are new scams that will take over your browser’s data if you download them, and we strongly urge you to be extremely careful about which links you click, or software that you download!
DeFi loan to TradFi institution 🤝
The MakerDAO governance proposal (MIP #6) was passed, which approved Huntingdon Valley Bank to open a stablecoin vault.
Huntingdon Valley Bank was founded in 1871, and Maker will now be creating a vault with 100 million DAI, which is their algorithmic stablecoin.
With this vault, it will strengthen the ties between the DeFi and traditional finance (TradFi) worlds.
DAI is an algorithmic stablecoin, which is similar to TerraUSD Classic (USTC). However, DAI managed to survive while USTC plummeted, and you can find out more in our analysis here.
Will USDC overtake USDT to become the #1 stablecoin? Do you think the SHIB stablecoin will be a success? Tweet us or send us a message on Telegram to let us know!