Down and down goes bitcoin price. A resolution of the debt ceiling drama should have boosted the cryptocurrency’s price. But last weekend’s round of profit taking for investors turned out to be a brief respite. As of this writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands for $26,881.68, unchanged from a day earlier. While the price is… Read More Notes 6/1: Bitcoin Price, LDO Liquidity
Bitcoin price cannot seem to make up its mind. It jumped past $28,000 over the weekend after the announcement of a debt ceiling deal between Democrats and Republicans. But it has shed those gains since. As of this writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands for $27,112, down 2.4% in the last 24 hours. The Debt… Read More Notes 5/31: Bitcoin Price
While the crypto world’s attention is transfixed by the decline in bitcoin price, Ethereum’s native token, ether, is quietly undergoing its own price spiral. According to analytics firm Glassnode, ether balances at exchanges are at their lowest level since 2016. The firm says that only 14.85% of all ether was held in wallets at… Read More Notes 5/26: Ether Supply Problems
When it was launched, the vision for Ethereum was simple. It was to be a smart contract platform with low fees that settled transactions occurring on other applications. That simple vision has transformed into a corporate juggernaut today. Investors and stakeholders use the venue to boost staking rewards and prices for worthless tokens. Examples include… Read More Ethereum’s Latest Bad Idea: Restaking
Lido’s stETH token has a liquidity problem. Lido uses the token to ensure liquidity for staked ether locked at validators. Thus, stETH acts as an ether substitute in transactions on decentralized finance (DeFi) even as the actual token resides inside a staking smart contract. The promise here is that stETH price will mirror that of… Read More Notes 5/24: Lido’s stETH Liquidity Problem
Bitcoin price moved slightly higher on news that Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) will begin accepting applications from exchanges to offer cryptocurrency trading to retail investors from June 1 onwards. As of this writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands at $27,299.15, up 1.2% from its price yesterday. An Asian Bull Run? According to… Read More Notes 5/23: Bitcoin Price and Asian Bull Runs, Ether Deposits
Bitcoin price remained stagnant over the weekend and continues to trade sideways in the $26,000 range. As of this writing, it is at $26,904.77, roughly unchanged from its price a day earlier. A Tight Range The days of frothy trading in the cryptocurrency’s ecosystem, when its price regularly notched up double-digit gains and set records,… Read More Notes 5/22: Bitcoin Price, Tornado Cash’s TORN, and Proof of Reserves in Texas
Bitcoin price rallied past the $27,000 mark yesterday morning but is back in the $26,000 range today. As of this writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands at $26,923, down 1.2% from a day earlier. Amid regulatory crackdowns and investor defections in the United States, there is a sliver of positive news from Asia. CoinDesk reports… Read More Notes 5/19: Bitcoin Price Is Stagnant, Ether Use Cases Dwindle While its Staking Rewards Multiply
The Tornado Cash case is serving as an entry point to make Ethereum less resistant to censorship by authorities. Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service, came under fire from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) because it was used by North Korean hackers to launder funds worth hundreds of millions of dollars.… Read More The Tornado Cash Case and Ethereum Censorship
Tether is Bitcoin’s new savior. The crypto world’s biggest stablecoin plans to increase bitcoin holdings in its reserves by investing 15% of its future profits into bitcoin. According to its latest attestation report, Tether had $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin on its books. The firm said it will use “realized profits”, or profits accruing to… Read More Notes 3/17: Bitcoin in Tether’s Reserves
Staking platform Lido’s pile of $12 billion worth of ether came online yesterday after the platform commenced staking withdrawals. Lido is Ethereum’s biggest staking platform, accounting for approximately 32% of all staked ether as of this writing. Mass withdrawals from the platform could have had a catastrophic effect on ether price from individuals selling their… Read More Notes 5/16: Lido Begins Withdrawals, Aragon DAO Drama
Bitcoin price is rebounding after last week’s lows. The cryptocurrency fell below $26,000 over the weekend but has recovered sharply. As of this writing, it is changing hands at $27,428.55, up 1.2% from a day earlier. The cryptocurrency’s price action has defied rational explanations in the past and this time is no exception. Choose Your… Read More Notes 5/15: Bitcoin Price Rebounds, Ethereum Staking Reaches Record Levels, and the Magic of Lido
Blame it on multiple open tabs. Or on a lizard brain. In the post on Tether’s reserves day before yesterday, I forgot to mention the most important risk facing the stablecoin: a debt default. Unlike past years, the prospect of a debt default by the US government is a very real threat this year. Both… Read More How Does A Debt Default Affect Stablecoins?
Bitcoin price rose yesterday after the release of positive consumer price inflation (CPI) data and sparked hopes that it was making another bid for the $30,000 mark. But the slight increase in its price turned out to be false narrative. A familiar one of declining prices took over shortly afterwards. As of this writing, the… Read More Notes 5/12: Bitcoin Price, Ethereum Staking, and Withdrawing Ether from Lido
Controversial stablecoin Tether released its latest reserves report for the first quarter yesterday. As usual, there are many red flags. The stablecoin has released an attestation and not an audit, meaning the accounting firm responsible for verifying Tether’s reserves only checked the state of its finances at a particular moment in time. What’s more, their… Read More Tether Releases Attestation Report
It is yesterday once more in the bitcoin ecosystem. The recent spike in bitcoin transaction fees has surfaced memories of similar occurrences in the past. Those fee hikes were also instigated by spurious activity on bitcoin’s network and set off a debate in its community about the size of blocks on bitcoin’s network. The Importance… Read More The Future of Bitcoin and its Transaction Fees
Crypto exchange Bittrex has decided to “bury the baby” after being charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month for breaking securities rules even as it minted $1.3 billion in profit. The Seattle exchange filed for bankruptcy yesterday in Delaware. It listed 100,000 creditors and liabilities of between $500 million to $1 billion.… Read More Notes 5/9: Bittrex Buries the Baby, Bitcoin Price Falls
The crisis of congestion in bitcoin’s network shows no signs of abating. The average fee to conduct bitcoin transactions reached $19.20 yesterday. While those fees are funding miner profits, bitcoin traders are left holding the bag. As of this writing, the cryptocurrency’s price is $27,962, down almost 4% in the last 24 hours. It has… Read More Notes 5/8: Bitcoin’s Evolution
The average price to commit a transaction on Ethereum shot up amid hysteria for a meme coin last week. It remains high, as of this writing. According to data from online publication The Block, the average transaction price on the world’s second biggest blockchain is $15.63, up from $9.52 a week earlier. The total number… Read More Notes 5/7: Minting Profits from Ethereum’s Problems, Bitcoin Price
In the chill of depressed prices and volatility for cryptocurrency tokens, transaction fees for at the world’s two biggest blockchains, Bitcoin and Ethereum, are red hot. Average fees on bitcoin’s blockchain climbed to $7.25 last week per transaction on the back of frenzied demand for Ordinals – bitcoin’s version of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). A similar… Read More Notes 5/6: As Bitcoin and Ethereum Transaction Fees Spike, Validator and Miner Profits Multiply
It is mostly difficult to make sense of opaque crypto markets and their jargon. Coinbase’s earnings provide a window into their workings. The company, which is a flag bearer for crypto in North America, had a mixed bag of numbers to report for the past quarter. While its revenue increased on the back of increased… Read More Notes 5/5: Coinbase Earnings