Bitcoin Price: US$ 66,819.32 (+2.89%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,200.20 (+1.67%)
The potential return of over $9 billion worth of Mt. Gox-era Bitcoin might negatively impact the market, according to K33 Research analysts, with creditors possibly seeing Bitcoin returned as soon as next month. Over $9.4 billion in Bitcoin and $72 million in Bitcoin Cash is owed to Mt. Gox’s 127,000 creditors, along with $445.8 million (69 billion Japanese yen). In separate news, Cosmos developers have fixed a “critical” security bug in its Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol which put at least $126 million at risk, says a blockchain security firm that privately notified Cosmos of the issue. The bug could have allowed a reentrancy attack allowing a hacker to mint infinite tokens on IBC-connected chains like Osmosis and other decentralised finance ecosystems on Cosmos. Meanwhile, The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will delay its decisions on the BlackRock and Grayscale applications for spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The SEC decision on converting digital asset manager Grayscale’s ETH Trust to a spot ETH exchange-traded product on NYSE Arca was due on April 24, but will now be extended 60 days to June 23.
Payments firm Block, formerly known as Square, has announced plans to develop a Bitcoin mining system in response to challenges faced by mining operators, with a prototype design of a five-nanometre BTC mining chip completed in May 2023. The Bitcoin halving on April 19 cut the block reward for miners from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, shaking up the market as miners compete for fewer rewards. In other news, Fidelity’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has achieved a new record as the largest single investment in a Bitcoin fund, attracting $40 million from two traditional United States financial advisers, Legacy Wealth Management and United Capital Management of Kansas. Despite newcomers and growing adoption among traditional investors, Bitcoin ETFs are experiencing a slowdown in demand, with net outflows of $36.7 million experienced on April 15. Additionally, The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed a potential decision of an application for a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) from Franklin Templeton until June 11. Many analysts have speculated that the SEC will reach a final decision on whether to approve or deny a spot Ether ETF for listing and trading on U.S. exchanges in May.
In the wake of reports that Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, was using the stablecoin USDT to bypass new oil sanctions imposed by the United States, Tether, the issuer of USDT, has pledged to freeze addresses linked to sanctioned entities. PDVSA has reportedly been using cryptocurrencies to facilitate its crude oil and fuel exports and has reworked its spot oil deals to require prepayment for exported cargo in USDT. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, the state-operated Bitcoin wallet, Chivo, has been targeted by hackers who have exposed sensitive information related to the wallet, including part of the source code. Despite reports of a personal data hack on Chivo surfacing in early April, the Salvadoran government has not addressed the issue, leading to confusion about the situation. In Europe, some of the largest banks are looking to enter the crypto industry due to the clarity offered by the bloc’s adoption of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). With this new regulatory framework, European banks are more confident in developing crypto services but lack the technical knowledge and infrastructure, leading them to tap crypto services providers such as Bitpanda.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com
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