The crypto-lending platform Celsius Network filed for bankruptcy, Ethereum developers agreed on a PoS transition timetable, and Three Arrows Capital founder Su Zhu accused creditors of harassment, among other events of the past week.
Ethereum prices tested a range above $1,400
Against the backdrop of the upcoming migration of the Ethereum blockchain to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, ETH tested a range above $1,400. At the time of writing, the asset was trading near $1,350.
After July 13 inflation report in the United States, Bitcoin fell below $19,000, but by the end of the week the asset recovered and is trading around $21,130.
According to CoinGecko, top-10 digital assets by market capitalization closed the week with mixed results. The best performer was Ethereum — the price of the cryptocurrency rose by more than 10%. The worst was Dogecoin — the coin’s price fell by 8.5%.
The cumulative market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market stood at $1 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index fell to 40.2%.
Celsius files for bankruptcy
The crypto-lending platform Celsius Network and some of its subsidiary structures filed for bankruptcy in a New York court. The company said restructuring would aim to \”maximize value for all stakeholders\”.
Celsius reported that as of July 13 it held assets of $4.3 billion. Its liabilities to customers and creditors totaled $5.5 billion.
In the filing, a \”private lending platform\” used to fund its operations from September 2019 to February 2021 is mentioned. As a result Celsius \”incurred\” debt of $509 million, which it reduced to $439 million. Financial Times found, that the said counterparty is EquitiesFirst.
Ethereum developers approve PoS transition timetable
During another call, leading Ethereum developers preliminarily approved the migration to the PoS consensus algorithm on September 19, 2022.
The final date will largely depend on the Goerli PoS testnet transition, scheduled for August 11. Two weeks before the Merge on the mainnet, the Bellatrix upgrade will be activated.
Hackers attacked Uniswap liquidity providers
Malicious actors sent malicious tokens masquerading as an Uniswap airdrop to over 70,000 addresses. Victims were redirected to a fraudulent site. In this way the hackers exfiltrated 4,295 ETH (~$4.6 million) from the protocol and sent them to the Tornado Cash mixer.
Twitter files suit against Elon Musk
Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk over his refusal to proceed with the $44 billion acquisition. The platform intends to compel the Tesla chief to fulfill his obligations and close the deal. The filing states that the entrepreneur \”staged a show\” and behaved in bad faith.
Creditors of 3AC point to lack of dialogue with founders. Su Zhu accuses them of harassment
Creditors seek to seize the hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) assets before liquidation. Co-founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies attempted to engage with plaintiffs’ lawyers via Zoom without video, but only the lawyers replied to the questions directed at them. The whereabouts of 3AC’s leadership are unknown, and the Singapore office is not functioning, the creditors said.
In response, Su Zhu called the creditors’ harassment claims and questioned whether they fulfilled their obligations during the liquidation process.
JPMorgan says miners will weigh on Bitcoin price formation
JPMorgan noted a drop in Bitcoin’s cost of production. In June, the metric fell from about $24,000 to about $13,000. Primarily due to reduced electricity consumption by more efficient setups, according to analysts. They added that this could pose an obstacle to the price rise of the cryptocurrency.
Glassnode warned that in the next quarter the risk of further Bitcoin selling by miners would persist if the price does not recover meaningfully.
This week Bitcoin miners ceased operations in Texas amid heat-driven peak electricity demand. On July 10 the state’s power-grid operator ERCOT urged residents and businesses to conserve energy, warning that daytime demand could exceed generation capacity.
Later the network’s daily hash rate fell to February levels (~160 EH/s). fell to February levels (~160 EH/s).
Meanwhile the cost of Bitcoin mining hardware per unit of hash rate fell to December 2020 levels.
KuCoin to host trading contest with prize fund of $1 million
The competition is timed to KuCoin reaching 20 million users on the platform. Since the start of 2022, the exchange has attracted 9.5 million users.
Traders will be able to win up to $20,000, as well as receive exclusive bonuses and airdrops. KuCoin will publish detailed rules and prize lists by the end of July.
What to discuss with friends?
- Unknowns pumped up the token of the failed Voyager Digital by 500%.
- In Kyiv, suspects in Bitcoin scams had seized 50 million hryvnias and about a ton of silver.
- Pierre Schiff said he is ready to sell Euro Pacific Bank for Bitcoin.
- Changpeng Zhao revealed Binance ecosystem metrics for the company’s five-year anniversary.
CELO blockchain halted after Uniswap smart contracts deployment
On July 14 the CELO blockchain halted activity on block #14,035,018. Shortly before the incident, decentralized exchange Uniswap v3 deployed its smart contracts on the CELO network.
Restarting the network on the second attempt succeeded only after a day. The team stressed that user assets were not affected and promised to share details after analysis.
STEPN reports quarterly profit of $122 million
In Q2 2022, the move-to-earn platform STEPN generated a profit of $122.5 million from app usage fees. The team will allocate 5% of the amount to a GMT token buyback and burn program.
Other initiatives include strengthening fraud protection, optimizing the app, and expanding the team.
Polygon to join Disney Accelerator; Terra migration spills over to Ethereum ecosystem
More than 48 projects from the collapsed Terra ecosystem have begun migrating to the Ethereum Layer-2 network Polygon, said Ryan Wyatt, CEO of Polygon Studios.
Over the past week Polygon (MATIC) rose by more than 25%. The main driver was the announcement of participation in the Disney Accelerator program. This year the program focuses on augmented reality technologies, NFTs and artificial intelligence.
President of Kazakhstan signs law on mining tax rates
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law introducing differentiated mining taxes. The rate is determined by the average price of electricity during the reporting period:
- 5-10 tenge per kWh — 10 tenge;
- 10-15 tenge per kWh — 7 tenge;
- 15-20 tenge per kWh — 5 tenge;
- 20-25 tenge per kWh — 3 tenge;
- 25 tenge per kWh and above — 1 tenge.
When using renewable energy sources, regardless of electricity costs, the mining tax rate is 1 tenge per kWh.
G20 and IOSCO announce regulatory rules for crypto industry
The Financial Stability Board within the G20 will present recommendations for crypto regulation in October 2022. The regulator noted that losses among crypto investors threaten to \”infect\” some traditional financial markets, such as the short-term lending sector.
To develop regulatory standards for digital assets by the end of 2023, has undertaken this work, and IOSCO also committed to it.
Bored Ape Yacht Club creators publish lite paper for Otherside
The company behind the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs published the lite paper for the Otherside project.
Otherside is a \\”platform for creating worlds\\”. It will launch on MSquared (M²), the interoperable metaverse network from Improbable. M² uses the Morpheus project stack, designed to optimize network traffic and rendering efficiency.
The Otherside launch will occur in stages. In Phase One, access will be granted only to Otherdeed NFT holders and selected external developers. They will be able to complete The Voyager’s Journey storyline and become the platform’s first content creators.
Also on ForkLog:
- Multicoin Capital announced a $430 million venture crypto fund.
- CFTC added six crypto companies to the list of unregistered entities.
- CoinGecko named 2022 the year of crypto industry \”horrors\”.
- Charles Munger called cryptocurrencies an \”investment in nothing\”.
What else to read and watch?
Educational cards discuss FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried, Algorand, fiat currencies, the Merkle tree, the MVRV indicator and the \”digital gold\” thesis.
In traditional digests, ForkLog collects the week’s main events in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
The decentralized finance sector continues to attract strong attention from crypto investors. ForkLog summarises the most important events and news of the past weeks in the digest.
On July 11, ForkLog LIVE discussed current news and potential Bitcoin price moves. Guests included ForkLog resident Tone Vays, Stepan Gershuni of Credentia and Pavel Prigolovko of Strategy and governance.
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They also released a new special report on cross-chains and parachains.
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