Bitcoin Price: US$ 65,126.61 (+0.54%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,444.13 (-1.13%)
On July 16, Mt. Gox, a major player in the cryptocurrency market, made a significant move by transferring over 140,000 Bitcoin, equivalent to almost $9 billion, to a known cold wallet and two unknown addresses. This massive transaction caused a ripple effect in the market, leading to a drop in BTC price to lows of $63,000 within hours. Interestingly, this move came after Mt. Gox’s announcement on July 5 about its plan to start repaying its BTC and BCH debts to creditors, raising the possibility of these repayments coming to fruition before August. In parallel to these developments, BNB Chain introduced a new layer-2 chain, opBNB, to tackle its “scalability challenge”. This system, compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), was met with scepticism by Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran, who pointed out that BNB Chain’s scaling issues stemmed from centralising an Ethereum fork and increasing the gas limit to an unsafe level. Amidst these events, the crypto market is bracing for the imminent launch of the first spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a development that has opened the floodgates for more crypto exchange-traded products, including a potential Solana-based ETF. With the United States Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly delivering final instructions to asset managers, the first spot US Ether ETFs could start trading as soon as July 23.
Polygon Labs has recently announced the production readiness of Plonky3, its next-generation zero-knowledge (ZK) proving system, which is designed to offer developers modular and flexible options when building zero-knowledge virtual machines and Ethereum Virtual Machines. This upgrade, a significant improvement from the previous Plonky2 model, is expected to considerably enhance Ethereum’s scalability. Meanwhile, CoinGecko’s latest crypto industry report reveals that Memecoins, real-world assets (RWA), and artificial intelligence were the dominant narratives in Q2 2024, capturing as much as 36% of all CoinGecko web traffic categories during the quarter. Memecoins, cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes or trends, led the crypto narratives, accounting for 14% of all listed crypto categories on CoinGecko, while RWA and AI contributed 11% and 10% respectively. In another significant development, Ether became inflationary in Q2 2024, indicating a decline in its purchasing power due to increases in supply. According to CoinGecko, Ethereum added 120,000 ETH to the circulating supply in Q2 2024 out of 228,543 ETH emitted. Lastly, Craig Wright issued a legal disclaimer on his website, emphatically denying that he is the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. This follows a legal battle in which the Crypto Open Patent Alliance presented evidence dismantling Wright’s claims, leading to a conclusive ruling that Wright was not Satoshi.
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, co-founders of a16z, plan to support Donald Trump’s presidential bid following his selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a seasoned venture capitalist and crypto advocate, as his vice presidential nominee. Their support is part of a growing trend among Silicon Valley insiders, who have donated almost $9 million to America PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee. Meanwhile, the Ethereum layer-2 Blast network has halved its withdrawal times from 14 to 7 days, a change announced from a new X account, @blast, replacing the previous @blast_l2 account. Critics speculate that this change indicates Blast’s transition from a layer-2 of Ethereum to a standalone ‘fullstack chain’, a claim supported by a June 26 “vision” statement and an accompanying video by founder Tieshun Roquerre. Additionally, crypto phishing app Angel Drainer has reportedly been shut down after its developers were potentially identified, according to blockchain security firm Match Systems. The app, blamed for over $25 million in crypto losses from phishing scams, is one of several drainer apps to have recently ceased operations, indicating an increasing difficulty in draining users as Ethereum wallets improve their scam detection capabilities.
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju suggests that the impact of Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin repayments on the market is overestimated and will likely be used by whales to buy BTC at a discount, noting that the sales represent just 1% of the realised cap increase this bull cycle. Meanwhile, institutional investors in the U.S. injected $295 million into Bitcoin ETFs during the week of July 8, reversing recent trends and showing renewed confidence. Lastly, Tokenised U.S. Treasurys could reach $3 billion by the end of 2024, driven by growing interest from decentralised autonomous organisations and offerings from giants like Securitize and BlackRock.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com
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