Cryptocurrency News: First Week of July 2024

July 6, 2024

Increased Activity in Dormant Bitcoin Addresses

This week saw the reactivation of three long-dormant Bitcoin addresses. One address, inactive since February 2012, transferred 119 BTC (approximately $6.8 million) in two transactions to a new address. On July 2, another address, inactive since June 2011, moved 33.99 BTC, distributing over $2.1 million in assets to two new addresses. Additionally, a wallet dormant for over a decade moved 1,004 BTC, valued at $57 million, to a new address. This wallet initially acquired cryptocurrency at an average price of $731 between 2013 and 2014, marking a 77-fold increase in value over 10.6 years.

Vitalik Buterin's Proposal to Accelerate Ethereum Transactions

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced a new method to expedite transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. His proposal suggests shifting from the current epoch and slot mechanism to a single-slot finalization (SSF) system, potentially reducing Layer 1 confirmation times from seconds to milliseconds. Buterin highlighted that The Merge hard fork, which transitioned Ethereum from a Proof of Work to a Proof of Stake consensus, already reduced transaction confirmation times to 5-20 seconds. However, he believes there is room for further improvement.

One potential enhancement involves restructuring slots and epochs. Currently, slots are 12-second periods during which a randomly selected validator can add a block to the network, with 32 slots forming an epoch. Buterin pointed out that the current system’s finalization method is problematic, causing block confirmation to take about 12 minutes. To address these issues, Buterin proposed the SSF approach, though it remains in development and could face challenges, such as increased network load. The Orbit SSF proposal aims to address these challenges and is in its early stages.

Manta Network Founder Criticizes Polkadot's Value

Viktorji.eth, founder of the Manta Network, a second-layer protocol for scaling Ethereum, criticized Polkadot, claiming it lacks significant value for Web3 and is a "toxic" project. He accused Polkadot of discriminating against participants, favoring European and American teams over their Asian counterparts. As an example, he cited the February Polkadot Academy in Hong Kong, which cost over a million dollars but had only a quarter of Asian participants.

Viktorji.eth also mentioned a meeting with Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, alleging that Wood was unaware of Manta Network’s prominence in the ecosystem. He criticized Polkadot's team for not being decentralized enough and supported former developer Web3 Philosopher’s critique of Polkadot's "unjustified" spending and "inappropriate" marketing. Web3 Philosopher compared the actions of Wood and his team to those of FTX and Crypto.com.

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Decreases by 5%

The recent recalculation of Bitcoin mining difficulty resulted in a 5% drop, bringing it to 79.5 T. The average hashrate since the previous adjustment was 568.75 EH/s, while the block interval increased to 10.5 minutes. The average network computing power fell to 580 EH/s, down 11.5% from the May peak of 656 EH/s. On July 4, the hash price was $44.9 per PH/day, nearing historical lows seen in May.

Some experts noted a capitulation among miners over the past week. Many cryptocurrency miners are shutting down unprofitable equipment post-April halving and selling off Bitcoin reserves to sustain their operations.

Aave Founder Announces Partnership with Aptos

The Aptos Foundation proposed deploying the third version of the Aave lending protocol on the Aptos blockchain, leveraging parallelization technology for improved efficiency. The proposal is in the "temperature check" phase, gathering community input and feedback. Following this stage, the proposal will be put to a vote.

If approved, the proposal will be formatted as an Aave Request for Comments (ARC) for further discussion of asset parameters and implementation details, followed by the creation of an appropriate AIP, testing, auditing, and deployment. Aave Labs has already prepared and activated the integration code on the test network. If the community supports this initiative, it will mark the first deployment of the Aave platform on a non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain.

Account Hacking Promotes Meme Tokens

Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney's X account was hacked to promote a meme coin as part of a Pump & Dump scheme. After several posts from her account, the trading volume for the Solana-based SWEENEY token exceeded $10 million within two hours of its July 2 launch. Shortly after trading began, the token's price plummeted by nearly 90%, then stabilized.

In now-deleted messages, the attacker claimed responsibility for recent hacks of X accounts belonging to rapper 50 Cent and former wrestler Hulk Hogan to promote fake tokens. The hacker also threatened to target another celebrity's account but provided no details.