Week in review: Ethereum hits a new high as Tesla halts Bitcoin payments

Ethereum price reached a new all-time high above $4350, Tesla halted Bitcoin payments for its cars, Vitalik Buterin dumped the Dogecoin clone-token market, and other events from the week just ended.

Ethereum price hits a new high, while Bitcoin falls more than 18% over the week

On Wednesday, May 12, the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum surpassed the $4350 mark, reaching an all-time high.

According to CoinGecko, the price reached $4356.99.

During the week, price records were set by several large altcoins. On Monday, May 10, Litecoin rose to a high of $410.26.

On Saturday, May 15, Cardano (ADA) rose above $2.15, and the following day reached $2.45. Over the last seven days the coin gained more than 40% — the best performer among the top-10 by market cap.

On May 15, Polkadot (DOT) rose to $49.35. Only two of the remaining top ten assets by market cap ended the week in the green.

According to CoinMarketCap, on May 11, the first trading day, the governance token of the DFINITY project entered the top-7 by market capitalization at $51.6 billion. CoinGecko’s market share for the token is not yet included in the ranking.

Bitcoin price over the week declined by 18.4% at the time of writing. The rout occurred on May 13, when it fell from $54,800 to $45,700 (Bitstamp). The decline began after Tesla announced the suspension of sales of electric vehicles for the first cryptocurrency.

However, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju pointed to a sharp influx of Bitcoin to exchanges ahead of the drop.

If you’re a long-term $BTC investor, don’t worry. Your portfolio is the same as institutional investors in the States.

If you’re a derivative trader, be careful in the short term. (Relatively speaking) whales are depositing $BTC to exchanges.

Chart👉 https://t.co/85uqqy8KLQ pic.twitter.com/RKjUAiganR

— Ki Young Ju 주기영 (@ki_young_ju) May 14, 2021

Bitcoin dominance fell below 40%, Ethereum’s market share rose to 18.5% with total market capitalization of $2.26 trillion.

According to Messari, the top ten by weekly price gains were largely small-cap altcoins. The leaderboard was led by Peercoin (PPC), up 285%, while Revain was second, its market cap surpassing $2.4 billion after a 125% rise in price.

Over the seven days, Polygon (MATIC) rose by more than 66%, lifting it to 18th place in the market-cap ranking with a value of $8.34 billion (per CoinGecko).

Tesla halts Bitcoin vehicle sales

Tesla announced the suspension of sales of electric vehicles for Bitcoin due to concerns about the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. The asset’s price reacted with a decline, and the community with criticism.

Earlier, founder Elon Musk proposed to users on Twitter to vote on whether his company should accept payments in Dogecoin. 78.2% of poll participants voted “yes”.

Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2021

Bitcoin mining difficulty hits a new record

On May 13, as a result of another recalculation, the mining difficulty of the first cryptocurrency rose by 21.53%, reaching a new high of 25 trillion hashes.

The percentage rise was the largest since June 2014.

Samsung embeds Bitcoin wallet into Galaxy smartphones

Samsung added Bitcoin wallet support to most Galaxy devices.

Users will be able to connect the Samsung Blockchain Wallet to hardware wallets, including Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X.

The blockchain wallet supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, ERC-20 and TRC-20 tokens. It is available only on devices running Android 9.0+.

SpaceX will send a Doge-1 satellite to the Moon. Mission paid in Dogecoin

Elon Musk said that in 2022 SpaceX will launch the Doge-1 satellite to the Moon. He stated that the mission would be fully paid for with the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

Canadian Geometric Energy Corporation plans to launch the satellite using a Falcon 9 rocket in the first quarter of 2022. Doge-1 will collect data about the Moon.

During the week the meme-coin theme featured in Musk’s messages several times. On May 14 he stated that he is “working with DOGE developers to improve the efficiency of system transactions.”

The Dogecoin team confirmed that it has been working with him since 2019.

Subsequently, Musk listed how much the Dogecoin network’s capabilities must be improved for the meme cryptocurrency to surpass Bitcoin and become world money.

«In an ideal world Dogecoin would increase the speed of block production and their size by 10x, and reduce fees by 100x. Then it would win easily», — wrote he.

The statement drew criticism from blockchain developers, and some suggested it was mere trolling.

Average Ethereum transaction fee hits $60 amid Shiba Inu hype

On Tuesday, May 11, the average transaction fee in the Ethereum network reached an all-time high of $60. This was driven by the hype around Shiba Inu (SHIB), the meme-coin clone of Dogecoin.

Experts estimate SSD wear from Chia mining

Chia mining shortens the lifespan of a 512 GB SSD from five years to two months, experts established.

In 40-50 days of coin mining, a 512 GB SSD rewrites 256 TB of data, though the normal daily write volume for such drives is no more than 20 GB.

A 1 TB SSD wears out in less than 3 months when mining Chia, and 2 TB drives in six months.

Since SSD manufacturers do not provide warranty on worn-out drives, experts assume most will go to the secondary market.

Despite the lower price, speed and lifespan of such SSDs will be significantly constrained.

Tether reserves report

Cash and cash equivalents formed 76% of Tether Holdings Limited’s reserves. The data are contained in the issuer’s quarterly USDT report as of March 31, 2021.

The remaining 24% consisted of secured loans (12.55%), fund shares, bonds and precious metals (9.96%), and investments in digital assets (1.64%).

According to the document, secured loans were issued to entities not affiliated with Tether Holdings Limited.

In the structure of cash and cash equivalents, the share of promissory notes stood at 65.4%, their US Treasury equivalents at 2.94%, and repos at 3.6%. Fiduciary deposits accounted for 24.2%, with cash making up 3.87%.

Vitalik Buterin: UNI from Uniswap should become an oracle token

Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin proposed that the native token of the decentralized exchange Uniswap become an oracle token for the further development of the DeFi ecosystem.

In a proposal published on the Uniswap governance forum, he noted that the operation of several DeFi sectors depends on price oracles, including algorithmic stablecoins, synthetic assets and secured loans.

According to Buterin, UNI is in an “excellent position” to become a decentralised oracle token.

MicroStrategy further invested $15 million in Bitcoin

The Nasdaq-listed company MicroStrategy purchased 271 BTC for $15 million. The firm increased its digital-gold reserves to 91,850 BTC.

The average purchase price of the latest batch of Bitcoin was about $55,387 per coin.

Vitalik Buterin dumps meme-coin tokens

Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin disposed of substantial amounts of SHIB, AKITA and Dogelon Mars that had been gifted to him. He donated the funds to charitable organisations.

The creator of the second-largest cryptocurrency sent 49.3 trillion AKITA (over $400 million at the time of the transaction) to the Gitcoin address, a platform for open-source software development.

Then Buterin transferred more than 50 trillion SHIB (over $1 billion) to a COVID-19 relief fund in India.

Recipients also included GiveWell, Methuselah Foundation and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.

The consequences of Buterin’s actions were a collapse in meme-token prices. Lesser-known tokens nearly vanished.

Emily Ratajkowski’s model sells NFT at Christie’s for $175,000

American model and actress Emily Ratajkowski sold a non-fungible token (NFT) Buying Myself Back: A Model for Redistribution at Christie’s for $175,000.

The NFT’s title nods to Ratajkowski’s The Cut essay for New York Magazine dated September 15, 2020, in which the model criticised artist Richard Prince for using her photograph for his exhibition.

Among other news from the increasingly popular segment:

• Nine CryptoPunks NFTs sold at Christie’s for almost $17 million.
• eBay allowed users to trade NFTs.
• Tor Project will sell the first .onion domain as an NFT.

In China a trial begins against a major Bitfinex and Binance investor

The XiHu district court in the Chinese city of Hangzhou began proceedings against Zhao Dong, a well-known off-exchange crypto trader and investor in Bitfinex, Tether and Binance. He faces up to three years in prison.

Dong is accused of “aiding online criminal activity.”

The case is reportedly related to the operations of a money-laundering platform with a turnover estimated at 50 billion yuan (~$7 billion).

ForkLog has also reported:

• Diem withdrew its license application in Switzerland.
• Mark Zuckerberg called a goat in honour of Bitcoin.
• A cryptocurrency scam using Elon Musk’s name brought scammers more than $100,000.
• An unknown person exchanged Unisocks worth $875,000 for nine pairs of socks.
• Block.one invested $10 billion in launching its own Bitcoin exchange.
• In April, Bitcoin-bourse traffic neared a 2018 high.
• MoneyGram will open Bitcoin access to customers in its branches.
• A user made $2 billion from 37 ETH thanks to the Shiba Inu rally.
• Anthony Scaramucci: Dogecoin could become digital silver.

What to read and watch next

The creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared ten years ago — on 26 April 2011. For Bitcoin Magazine, journalist Pete Rizzo told the story of the last actions before handing the project over to a community led by Gavin Andresen. ForkLog produced an adapted translation.

The magazine has compiled the most notable recent developments in artificial intelligence and blockchain technology in traditional digests. A summary of the most important DeFi sector events covers a longer period.

On Monday, May 10, ForkLog LIVE hosted trader Tone Vays in a live broadcast. They discussed Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Chia, Taproot and the market at large.

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