back
Crypto weekly update
6. April 2023  • clock 3 min •  Daniel Mitrovsky

Dogecoin as the New Twitter Logo – Cryptocurrency Market Overview (24.3. – 6.4.)

Over the past two weeks, the total market capitalisation exceeded €1.09 trillion. The increase in market capitalisation over a 14-day period is 2.83%. The price of Bitcoin has risen by 1.18 % over the last 14 days to a current value of over €25,700. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently around 45.7 %.

Source: Coinmarketcap

Dogecoin as the New Twitter Logo

Meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin surged nearly 30% on Monday after Twitter CEO Elon Musk replaced the blue bird on his social network’s website with the Dogecoin logo.

After the Twitter logo was changed to an image of a Shiba Inu dog breed, Musk shared a meme about the change with his more than 130 million Twitter followers. The Dogecoin symbol initially only appeared to some users, but now everyone should see it when they open Twitter.

Source: Twitter

This isn’t the first time Musk has similarly promoted the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. Musk has been posting various posts and funny pictures related to this cryptocurrency on his profile relatively frequently. Every time he does so, high volatility is seen in the traded volumes. However, it is no wonder, as Musk is one of the most followed and popular people on the planet.

Dogecoin is currently the eighth-largest cryptocurrency on the market, with a market capitalisation of over $13 billion. Currently, one Dogecoin is trading for approximately $0.095, reaching its peak in May 2021, when it traded for $0.73. Source

Terra Founder Was Arrested

More than a week ago, Montenegro Minister of the Interior Filip Adžić published a post on the social network Twitter that Montenegrin police had apprehended a person linked to the blockchain project Terra. Back in May 2022, Terra was the victim of a coordinated attack, and its token $LUNA plummeted in value from $80 to approximately $0.0001.

As it turned out, the person detained was the founder of the Terra platform himself, Do Kwon – who was detained at the airport in the capital city of Podgorica with fake documents. South Korean authorities had revoked Kwon’s travel documents back in September 2022, so the only way Kwon could travel was by creating fake documents. Police found forged Costa Rican and Belgian passports on him. However, from the information available, it was initially unclear whether the Terra founder was trying to enter or leave the country. Eventually it turned out that Do Kwon had been detained while attempting to board a flight to Paris.

An eight-count indictment was filed against Kwon a few hours after his arrest in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, including charges of securities fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy to defraud. Source

Ethereum at 7-Month High

Ethereum, the most popular smart contract platform, has surpassed the €1,750 price threshold after more than 7 months. This happened just a week before the Ethereum network’s major Shanghai update, which is scheduled for April 12.

Data from the Coinmarket website shows that Ethereum was last above the $1,750 price level as recently as August 16, 2022, amid a major price drop in the cryptocurrency market. The last year has been accompanied by significant declines across the cryptocurrency market, mainly due to the Fed’s monetary tightening policy.

The Ethereum Shanghai update, which will go into effect in less than a week, will allow validators and stakeholders to withdraw their ETH from the Beacon chain. This is a long-awaited update that is an important milestone in Ethereum’s journey to become a global platform for decentralised applications.

However, besides Ethereum, other cryptocurrencies have also been growing in recent days. The token of decentralised exchange Thorchain (RUNE) has risen as much as 16% in the past week, and Lido Dao (LDO) has gained more than 10% in the past week. The improved sentiment in the cryptocurrency market is driven by expectations that the Fed could soon ease up on its quantitative tightening, as high interest rates are causing significant damage to the global banking sector. Source

Marathon Digital With a Record in the Number of BTC Mined

One of the leading cryptocurrency mining companies, Marathon Digital, mined a record 2,195 BTC during the first quarter of this year, increasing its Bitcoin holdings to 11,466 BTC, worth a total of $320 million.

The company’s positive mining result contrasts with its 2022 performance, when the company’s mining capacity was severely crippled due to a massive storm in Montana, as well as issues at its Compute North data centre.

Fred Thiel, the organisation’s chairman and CEO, said Q1 was the most successful quarter in the company’s history. For comparison, Marathon Digital mined 1,259 BTC in Q1 of last year and 1,562 BTC during the last quarter of 2022. Thus, the number of bitcoins mined in this quarter increased by up to 74% compared to the first quarter of 2022.

At the same time, the company significantly increased its mining hash rate, or computing power, up to 11.5 exahash. This is an increase of almost 65% compared to the 7.0 exahash of computing power the company had at the end of last year. The company aims to reach a performance level of 23 exahash by mid-2023 by deploying its previously purchased mining equipment. Source

U.S. Government Will Sell off BTC

According to the latest information, the United States government plans to sell off more than 41,000 bitcoins seized as part of a case related to the investigation of the founder of the illegal black market Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht.

A 31 March filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding the conviction of James Zhong in the Silk Road case states that U.S. government authorities have begun disposing of approximately 51,352 BTC seized in the case. According to the filing, officials sold roughly 9,861 BTC for more than $215 million on 14 March, with roughly 41,491 more BTC still pending sale. The U.S. government plans to sell off the seized Bitcoins in four more incremental batches over the course of this calendar year.

In November, James Zhong pleaded guilty to fraud charges in connection with the creation and execution of a scheme to steal bitcoins from the illegal Silk Road market in 2012. U.S. authorities seized more than 50,000 bitcoins at his Georgia home in November 2021, worth more than $3 billion at the time. This is the second largest seizure of cryptocurrencies by the U.S. government in history, just after the seizure of $3.6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies stemming from the Bitfinex case.

The illegal Silk Road marketplace, which has been defunct for 10 years, originally allowed users to buy and sell illegal goods, including weapons and stolen credit card information. The marketplace was dismantled in 2013, and its founder, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested and is currently serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Source

Interesting Fact: The First Quarter From Bitcoin’s Perspective

After an unfavourable end of 2022, the cryptocurrency market has reawakened and got into the green numbers with the arrival of the new calendar year. In the following lines, we bring you an overview of interesting statistics and events from the past quarter:

  • Bitcoin rose by 70% during the first quarter,
  • Bitcoin surpassed 800 million transactions in the first quarter with a cumulative value of $107 trillion,
  • In the area of distributed supply, the number of entities with less than 10 BTC has increased to 17% of the total supply,
  • • The emergence of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin was enabled by the Taproot soft fork, which took effect last November. While this has been controversial, a tremendous increase in the adoption and utilisation of Taproot was observed,
  • The increase in transaction fees, as well as the increase in the percentage of miners’ income from fees, signals a sustainable security model of Bitcoin,
  • The Bitcoin network’s hashrate exceeded 400 EH/s in March, signalling the ever-growing interest in bitcoin mining,
  • The capacity of a scaling solution built over Bitcoin called the Lightning Network has risen above $50 million,
  • The correlation between Bitcon and gold increased significantly in the first quarter. Conversely, the correlation between BTC and the S&P 500 index declined.

INVEST WITH FUMBI
Avatar photo

Daniel Mitrovsky

Autor

linkedin
Share with others
Odporúčame

More articles with Fumbi