S&P Dow Jones Indices launches new cryptocurrency indexes – Crypto weekly update

This week, the total market capitalization exceeded 1.11 trillion EUR. Decrease at the 7-day interval is 10.1 %. Bitcoin decreased by 2.13 % during the week to a current value of over than 27,000 EUR. Bitcoin dominance is 46 %.

S&P comes with new indices

S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), the world’s leading index provider, announced today the launch of its latest cryptocurrency indices including the new S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market (BDM) Index.

The S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market provides a wide performance snapshot of the cryptocurrency market and includes more than 240 coins at launch.

The index is part of S&P Dow Jones Indices’ cryptocurrency expansion. In addition, four more indices were created, each tracking the different components of the broad digital market:

• S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Index
• S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-MegaCap Index
• S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-LargeCap Index
• S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Ex-MegaCap Index

All the indexes rely on pricing information from Lukka, a crypto-focused data provider, to determine the composition of each respective benchmark.

S&P Dow Jones Indices first revealed its intent to track cryptocurrency prices in December 2020. Indexes tracking the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) debuted in May of this year. Source

Ethereum DeFi ecosystem with new record

Although the cryptocurrency market is currently experiencing a relatively dull period, the adaptation of the DeFi ecosystem shows no signs slowing down.

According to data from Dune Analytics, the total number of unique addresses interacting with the DeFi sector passed 3 million users on Tuesday, July 13. As of Tuesday, the analytics tool found 3,004,620 addresses using at least one of the 24 DeFi applications tracked by the platform.

A dashboard compiled by crypto enthusiast Richard Chen tracks a range of Ethereum-native protocols to find the total number of unique wallets interacting with the ecosystem. Established favorites like Compound, Uniswap, Aave, Curve, and Balancer are tracked on the dashboard.

Uniswap came in as the most popular DeFi protocol by far, with over 2.3 million unique addresses. Compound, a decentralized money market, is currently placed second, racking up 325,000 addresses since launch. Source

China shuts down crypto mining in another province

The Chinese government continues cracking down on the cryptocurrency mining industry.

Authorities at Anhui, a small province in eastern China, have announced a set of measures to tackle growing electricity demand and an associated power supply shortage.

As part of Anhui’s efforts to curb energy consumption, the province plans to shut down crypto mining projects and scrutinize other initiatives that require large amounts of energy consumption.

The Anhui province of China is known for once being one of China’s poorest provinces, having only been removed from the country’s official list of impoverished areas in 2020. Anhui is the eighth largest province in the country by population. The province’s power grid reportedly comprises mostly coal-based power plants in addition to several hydropower facilities.

However, some reports and speculation suggest that the latest regulatory crackdown in Anhui is part of a broader country-wide initiative to shut down all crypto mining operations across China. Source

Steve Wozniak supports Bitcoin

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak expressed support for cryptocurrencies and bitcoin, after calling bitcoin as the “digital equivalent of gold” and as a “mathematical miracle and miracle of technology.”

This happened during a virtual conference named „Talent Land Digital 2021“, a major virtual event in Latin America devoted to technology and innovation.

According to Thursday a report by local news agency El Sol de México, the Apple co-founder has also indicated that Bitcoin is better than gold, implying that it’s easier to mine Bitcoin blocks than finding and extracting gold.

While gold is limited by physical supply and the difficulty of extraction, Bitcoin mining is capped at 21 million coins by its source code, meaning that there will be no single new Bitcoin once the last coin is mined in 2140. Source

Ethereum ETF approved on Brazil

Brazil’s Comissão de Valores Mobiliários, the country’s securities regulator, has approved an Ethereum ETF, according to an announcement by QR Capital, the holding company of QR Asset Management.

The fund, which trades under the ticker QETH11, will trade on Brazil’s highly reputable B3 stock exchange, which operates as a regional exchange and serves customers worldwide.

In its announcement, the fund’s issuer pitches the product as “a simple, safe and regulated option for any investor to gain direct exposure to Ethereum through their preferred brokerage, without worrying about registrations in exchanges, wallets or private keys.”

QR asset Management will purchase ETH for its clients, while ensuring a high level of transparency and security for its investors. Source

Curiosity : The whale from 2012 just woke up

Earlier this week, a relatively rare curiosity happened on bitcoin’s blockchain. The old bitcoin whale, which has stored 740 bitcoins at its address since 2012, spent these bitcoins after more than nine years.

The bitcoin sat for approximately 3,330 calendar days. The owner of this address acquired bitcoins on May 31, 2012, when one bitcoin was worth about $5 at the time of acquisition. The stash of crypto was only worth $3,800.

The present value of Monday’s transaction is more than $25 million. According to the statistics of this transaction, 640 bitcoins were sent to one address and the remaining 100 bitcoins were moved to another address.

While the movement of inactive whales is relatively rare, this is not the first big move this year. For instance, on June 9, Bitcoin.com News reported on the “mystery whale” from 2010, which has moved over 10,000 BTC that sat idle for over a decade.

You can find a link to the blockchain transaction here.

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