Welcome to another news article! Today is an important day, as the crypto market has had a few red days which we’ve not seen for over a year. What will happen, and what has happened?
In this issue:
1. Binance discontinues anonymity for Litecoin transactions!
2. According to a survey, NFT flipping is not very profitable for more than half of purchasers.
3. Exodus of Celsius: $320M in crypto moved to FTX, user withdrawals stopped.
4. The Bitcoin ecosystem experiences a turnaround in worldwide ATM installations.
5. Jack Dorsey is developing Web5 with Bitcoin.
6. Bitcoin miners assert that New York’s prohibition will be ineffectual and would “isolate” the state.
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Binance has stated they would no longer handle Litecoin (LTC) transactions submitted using the most recent MimbleWimble (MWEB) update.
Since the crypto exchange cannot validate the sender’s address, Binance cautioned that any transactions made through the MWEB function will be lost.
The news comes only days after major South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges delisted LTC as a result of a recent update that renders transaction information private. The delisting occurred only weeks after five other cryptocurrency exchanges issued similar warnings.
S.Korea is notorious for its strong privacy rules that prevent anonymous transactions on crypto exchanges, therefore the delisting was not unexpected.
After being suggested over two and a half years ago, the MWEB upgrade for LTC is one of the crucial enhancements that went live earlier this year. The update included various privacy features and increased the scalability of the LTC network.
Another major cryptocurrency trading site, Gate.io, has ceased supporting MWEB Litecoin transactions, saying that the platform does not permit anonymous transactions.
Numerous traders “flip” nonfungible tokens (NFTs) because to their widespread usage. 64 percent of respondents claimed that they purchased NFTs to “make money.”
From May through June, DEXterlab questioned 1,300 Twitter users about their NFT purchase habits. Despite the fact that most traders want to profit from NFTs, less than 42 percent have done so far. 15% said that they purchased an NFT in order to join a community and “flex.”
People are social creatures, thus it is not uncommon for them to desire to show off, as DEXterlab observed.
The team highlighted the success of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which incorporates celebrities and unique incentives such as holder-only events and new NFT releases.
Some NFT collections, such as the BAYC’s, may have floor prices in the tens or hundreds of thousands, however almost half of respondents said they were only willing to pay between $50 and $500 on an NFT. Surprisingly, one-fifth of respondents said they would pay over $2,000 for each NFT.
In the preceding 30 days, the floor prices or market values of CryptoPunks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), BAYC, and Moonbirds all declined. Despite this, these collections remain at the top of the NFT sales charts.
Exodus of Celsius: $320M in crypto moved to FTX, user withdrawals stopped.
Celsius may be dealing with a liquidity shortage by transferring $247 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) from Aave to FTX.
The crypto community is speculating as the project transfers massive amounts of wBTC, Ether (ETH), and other cryptocurrencies and halts withdrawals.
Users of Celsius believe the project misappropriated funds when the Anchor Protocol on the Terra Classic blockchain failed. Recent efforts to stabilize liquidity might alleviate these concerns.
If Celsius fails, it may sell its substantial stack of staked ETH (stETH), further decoupling it from ETH. stETH is a Lido DeFi token that serves as evidence that a user has staked ETH. It is 4.4% less than ETH.
On Sunday at 6 p.m. EST, Celsius’s principal DeFi wallet started removing wBTC from the Aave staking and lending platform, where it earned interest on deposits.
Aave redeemed 9,500 wBTC tokens with a market value of $247 million. Following a series of transactions, all of these tokens were sent to FTX for unknown reasons.
In addition to wBTC, FTX has received 54,749 ETH worth $74.5 million.
The company may be attempting to protect its liquidity by substituting volatile currencies such as WBTC and ETH with stablecoins.
The Bitcoin ecosystem experiences a turnaround in worldwide ATM installations.
Bitcoin (BTC) ATM installations reversed their five-month decreasing trend in June 2022.
May had the lowest number of ATM installations at 205. In June’s first 10 days, 882 ATMs were installed.
May 2022’s dip was similar to 2019’s. In 2020 and 2021, Bitcoin ATM installations surged due to friendlier regulations and a profitable market when several cryptocurrencies reached all-time highs.
El Salvador’s legalization of Bitcoin also boosted crypto ATM installations in the recent year. China’s ban on crypto trade and mining also slowed worldwide ATM installations. Despite the crypto prohibition, China is the second-largest Bitcoin mining center.
December 2021 saw 1971 crypto ATMs built. By May 2022, the numbers had plunged 89.75%, but they quickly recovered in June.
Based on Coin ATM Radar’s gauge scale, 23 crypto ATMs are deployed each day on average worldwide.
As of this writing, 38,000 ATMs are functioning across the globe. Crypto ATMs enable consumers and investors to exchange fiat currency for Bitcoin and vice versa.
The US has 33,403 crypto ATMs, or 87.9% of the overall network. Genesis Coin (40.9%), General Bytes (21.6%), BitAccess (16.1%), Coinsource (5.4%), and Bitstop are market leaders (4.8%).
Jack Dorsey is developing Web5 with Bitcoin.
Block subsidiary TBD has revealed ambitions to construct a new decentralized web focused on Bitcoin (BTC), highlighting founder Jack Dorsey’s view that the biggest blockchain network will play a significant role in the future of the internet.
The new initiative, dubbed “Web5”, marks Dorsey’s most recent Bitcoin-centric attempt since resigning as Twitter CEO in November 2021.
Web3 leverages blockchain technology and tokenization to decentralize the internet, while Web5 is envisioned as an identity-based system that employs just one blockchain: Bitcoin. Namcios, a Twitter user, laid down the notion of Web5 in a series of tweets in which he demonstrated how several software components collaborate to better the user experience and allow decentralized identity management.
Web5 uses ION, which Namcios describes as an “open, public, and permissionless DID network that operates on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.”
The Web3 Foundation defines DIDs as “verifiable, decentralized digital identity” enabling decentralized identification.
According to TBD’s concept materials, Web5 is basically a decentralized web platform (DWP) that enables developers to construct decentralized web applications using DIDs and decentralized nodes. Web5 will also have a BTC-centered financial network, reflecting Dorsey’s conviction that the digital asset will one day become the internet’s native currency.
Bitcoin miners assert that New York’s prohibition will be ineffectual and would “isolate” the state.
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