Ray Youssef, Paxful chief, announced the closure of the P2P trading platform; in macOS a hidden file containing the Bitcoin white paper was found; the Dogecoin symbol briefly became Twitter’s logo, and other events from the week.
Bitcoin holds above $27,000
Since Monday, Bitcoin quotes moved in a relatively narrow range of $27,200 to $28,775. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading near $27,900.
Over the week, almost all top-10 cryptocurrencies by market cap finished in the red. Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) posted modest gains.
Total market capitalization stood at $1.22 trillion. Bitcoin dominance fell to 44.3%.
Dogecoin symbol briefly became Twitter’s logo
The Dogecoin (DOGE) symbol — a Shiba Inu — briefly took the place of the logo on Twitter’s homepage on the evening of April 3. The image also appeared in the center of the loading screen. The cryptocurrency rose more than 30% in response.
By the evening of April 6, the logo returned to the blue bird, which caused a price drop.
That week, Elon Musk’s lawyers asked to dismiss the $258 billion lawsuit over promoting the asset, calling the claims a fanciful fabrication.
According to them, investors never explained how Musk intended to deceive anyone. According to the defendants’ statement, the entrepreneur’s tweets were not fraudulent.
Hidden Bitcoin white paper file found in macOS
In Apple’s macOS operating system, a hidden PDF document containing the Bitcoin white paper was discovered, according to programmer Andy Baio. To open the file, you need to enter a special command in the Terminal app.
The document exists in all macOS versions from Mojave (10.14) to the current Ventura (13.3), but is absent in High Sierra (10.13) and earlier.
Paxful chief announced closure of trading platform
Paxful CEO Ray Youssef announced the closure of the P2P trading platform for cryptocurrencies:
“This is probably going to be a big shock to many. While I can’t share the full story right now, I can say that, unfortunately, some key staff have left us.”
Youssef also cited regulatory issues, “in particular in the P2P segment and especially in the United States.” He said users would be able to withdraw funds from Paxful Wallet.
Later, media reported as a likely reason for the closure a stalemate dispute between Arthur Shabaka and Ray Youssef. The parties leveled a series of accusations against each other, including embezzlement, money laundering and even evading US sanctions against Russia.
Bitcoin and BNB slide on rumors of Binance CEO arrest
In the night of April 3, Bitcoin and BNB prices fell amid rumors that Interpol would issue a red notice for Binance chief Changpeng Zhao.
A post with coded content was published by a well-known community member on Twitter under the alias Cobie. Later he admitted the information was false.
Media reported Justin Sun’s intent to sell stake in Huobi
Tron founder Justin Sun called the report of selling a stake in the Huobi exchange “an April Fool’s joke.” Bloomberg had previously reported this, citing a source.
Later, CoinDesk wrote that Sun allegedly approached Binance with an offer but was rejected due to the platform’s ties to China.
Mt. Gox trustee begins payouts to creditors
A payout window opened for Mt. Gox creditors after the deadline for submitting documents expired. The period will run until October 31, 2023, according to trustee Nobuya Kobayashi’s letter.
The process “will take some time.” The timings of base, interim and early lump-sum payments may be adjusted with permission from the Tokyo district court.
MicroStrategy buys 1,045 BTC
The analytics software firm MicroStrategy also bought 1,045 BTC, founder Michael Saylor said. Between March 24 and April 4, 2023, MicroStrategy purchased bitcoin for $29.3 million at an average price of $28,016.
In total, the company holds 140,000 BTC worth about $4.17 billion at $29,803.
What to discuss with friends?
- Digital euro used for “control”: pranksters staged the ECB chief in Zelensky’s likeness.
- The media uncovered anonymous Binance VIP clients in the CFTC case.
- In Ukraine authorities shut down a $40 million financial pyramid.
- Yuga Labs, in collaboration with Gucci, will release jewelry and related NFTs.
Allbridge co-founder discussed cross-chain attack
On April 2, an unknown person attacked Allbridge’s cross-chain bridge. Exploiting the mathematical formula by which the liquidity pool operates, he withdrew about $570,000 in digital assets. Soon after, another attacker repeated the attack and took around $160,000 in stablecoins.
BNB Chain developers were able to identify the hacker. AvengerDAO also aided the investigation. The attacker was invited to contact the Allbridge team to discuss a reward for returning funds. After that, he transferred 1,500 BNB to the protocol’s address.
Allbridge Co-founder Andrey Velikiy shared with ForkLog details of the incident.
Earlier this week a similar situation occurred with the Sentiment protocol. The hacker stole $500,000, and after communication with the team returned 90% of the funds.
Solana developers created a tool to reduce NFT minting fees
The Solana project team introduced a state compression technology based on a Merkle tree, enabling significant reductions in on-chain operation costs.
The new approach could be used, for example, when issuing non-fungible tokens — creating 100 million “compressed” NFTs would require only 50 SOL (~$1,000).
BitRiver: Russia rises to second in crypto mining
For Q1 2023, Russia for the first time ranked second in the world by mining power, at 1 GW. According to BitRiver, the United States remains the leader with 3–4 GW of mining capacity.
On April 7 another recalculation of Bitcoin mining difficulty occurred — the metric rose by another 2.23%, to a peak of 47.89 T. The average hash rate stood at a record 342.16 EH/s.
First Arbitrum community vote fails
The Arbitrum Foundation declined to hold a community vote on the first governance proposal due to negative user reaction.
Concerns mainly focused on transferring control of 750 million ARB tokens (~$0.9 billion at the time) to the Arbitrum Foundation. It was proposed that the fund would use these funds to award grants for ecosystem development.
Users also noted that the organization sold 50 million ARB from the treasury before the vote. In response, the Arbitrum Foundation proposed new proposals. Amid their consideration, the DAO’s major holders increased the number of tokens in their wallets.
Also on ForkLog:
- dYdX will suspend operations in Canada.
- Bitcoin mining difficulty reached a new maximum.
- The media disclosed anonymous Binance VIP clients in the CFTC case.
- Digital ruble faced problems even before launch.
What else to read?
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