Weekly Highlights: Cardano’s Chang Hard Fork and CFTC’s Fine on Uniswap Labs

The CFTC fined Uniswap Labs $175,000, Cardano underwent the Chang hard fork, experts noted the ‘death’ of the Bitcoin halving cycle, EigenLayer announced a second airdrop, and other events of the week.

Bitcoin Price Tests $53,000 Level

The leading cryptocurrency began the week below $58,000. On Wednesday, September 4, prices tested the $56,000 level, and by Friday, September 6, they had plummeted to $54,000. The following day, digital gold fell below $53,000 but soon recovered.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $53,800.

All top 10 digital assets by market capitalization ended the week in the ‘red zone’. Ethereum lost the most (-8.4%).

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stands at $2 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index is 56.8%.

CFTC Fines Uniswap Labs $175,000

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Uniswap Labs $175,000 for offering digital asset derivatives using a DeFi protocol.

The company is also required to refrain from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.

The regulator’s claims concerned a ‘limited number’ of leveraged tokens traded on the decentralized exchange. The CFTC classified these products as derivatives.

The Commission noted that such ‘commodity operations’ without actual delivery within 28 days can only be offered to retail users by CFTC-registered market participants. Uniswap Labs is not among them.

According to the statement, the regulator acknowledged the company’s substantial cooperation in the investigation and reduced the civil penalty.

Cardano Completes Chang Hard Fork

The Cardano network successfully completed the Chang hard fork at block #10,764,778. The update marked the beginning of the Conway ledger era and the ecosystem’s transition to decentralized governance.

ADA token holders will be able to participate in voting, determining the network’s future.

The implementation of CIP-1694 established a new governance structure with three components: the Constitutional Committee (CC), delegate representatives (dReps), and staking pool operators (SPOs).

“Today’s Chang hard fork marks a significant milestone for the Cardano blockchain, ecosystem, and community, bringing to life the promise of a truly self-governing, decentralized network,” stated the Cardano Foundation in a tweet.

During the first phase, the network will be overseen by a Temporary Constitutional Committee. The body has limited powers, presumably for 90 days, to ‘ensure security and continuity’ as the governance model takes shape.

The second phase involves the full launch of the new structure. 

Topics to Discuss with Friends

• The Polygon team has begun converting MATIC to POL.
• Experts have declared 96% of NFTs ‘dead’.
• Ethereum competitor Pump.fun consumed 150 ETH in gas in one day.
• Hamster Kombat’s pre-market trading volume on Bybit and OKX exceeded 2 million USDT.

Experts Note the ‘Death’ of Bitcoin’s Halving Cycle

The poor performance of digital gold following the April halving has ‘buried’ the previously observed four-year cycle associated with this event, according to Outlier Ventures.

Specialists urged investors not to rely on the previously observed pattern.

“The halving of miner rewards no longer has a fundamental impact on Bitcoin and other digital assets,” the report states.

125 days after the April halving, the leading cryptocurrency lost about 8% in value.

This contrasts with previous periods at a similar distance. In particular, Bitcoin rose by 739% in 2012, 10% in 2016, and 22% in 2020.

Experts noted that since 2016, the halving has lost its former fundamental significance due to the asset’s maturation. However, its psychological impact on investors remains relevant.

EigenLayer Announces Second Airdrop

The organization behind the EigenLayer restaking project, Eigen Foundation, announced the distribution of 86 million EIGEN tokens (~5.15% of the issuance) as part of the second season of the Stakedrop airdrop campaign. 

Tokens will be distributed among participants in three categories:

• stakers and node operators — ~70 million EIGEN, distributed proportionally to the staker’s share of ETH-hours;
• ecosystem partners — up to 10 million EIGEN;
• community participants — ~6 million EIGEN, requiring wallet address linkage to social networks by September 11.

A snapshot was taken on August 15 at 22:26:59 UTC (August 16, 01:26:59 Moscow/Kyiv time). Token distribution will begin ‘on or before September 17’.

Also on ForkLog:

• A ‘sleeping’ address moved $2 million in Bitcoin after 10 years.
• A trader achieved a 134-fold profit on the VISTA token.
• Solo miners have mined at least 329 Bitcoin blocks over 11 years.

OpenAI’s Paid Subscribers Surpass 1 Million

AI company OpenAI announced surpassing 1 million users who purchased a paid subscription to corporate versions of ChatGPT.

The figure reflects the total number of people registered to use Team, Enterprise, and Edu services.

Just under half of the subscribers are in the United States. Outside the US, the chatbot is most popular in the business environments of Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. 

In August 2023, OpenAI launched the ChatGPT Enterprise version with additional features and privacy guarantees. In January 2024, the startup released ChatGPT Team for small companies, and in April, ChatGPT Edu for university students. 

What Else to Read?

This week, ForkLog explained why Ethereum’s price is falling, what carry trade is, and how the decentralized exchange KiloEx operates.

The traditional digest compiled the week’s main events in cybersecurity.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is evidenced by new infrastructure investments and the growing attention companies are paying to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s review.