Developers revived the Terra 2.0 project, the Beacon Chain of the Ethereum 2.0 platform underwent a reorganisation, Bitcoin mining difficulty fell by more than 4% and other events of the week.
Developers launched the Terra 2.0 mainnet
On 28 May the launch of the Terra 2.0 mainnet, which bears the Phoenix-1 identifier, took place. LUNA airdrop participants received the promised tokens.
Bybit, one of the first to list the updated asset, saw its price initially surge from $0.50 to $30 before retreating substantially.
LUNA also appeared on other exchanges, including Huobi, Bitfinex, Bitrue, Gate.io, which previously announced support for the “reborn from the ashes” token.
The largest by trading volume platform Binance will begin trading the asset on May 31 at 09:00 (Kyiv/Moscow time).
As of writing, LUNA is trading around $5.8, according to CoinGecko.
Notably, the LUNA tokens in vesting have automatically been entered into staking. Users can choose a validator by redelegation or by undelegating; in the latter case a 21-day waiting period applies.
Earlier, the developers clarified that the “revival plan” for the project envisions not forking the existing network but creating a new one. In addition, the release timeline for Terra 2.0 had to be postponed somewhat.
On May 26, the Terra Classic community approved a proposal regarding burning TerraUSD (UST) held in the community pool, as well as stablecoins issued as part of the latest liquidity-mining incentive on the Ethereum blockchain.
Shortly before the Terra 2.0 launch, analyst FatManTerra accused Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon of fraud related to the Mirror protocol.
The Beacon Chain network of Ethereum 2.0 was reorganised to a depth of seven blocks (#3 887 075 — #3 887 081).
According to Preston Van Loon, the glitch occurred due to a “non-trivial segmentation” of the new and old client software.
“We suspect this is caused by an incomplete implementation in the network of the Proposer Boost fork”, he noted.
Another lead developer Terence Cao confirmed that the reorganisation became possible due to different client software update timelines.
Solana’s internal clocks diverged from real time
Recently it emerged that the internal clocks of the Solana blockchain lag behind real time by about 30 minutes.
However, developers stressed that the issue does not affect network performance.
“While this does not affect performance or operation of the network, the time reported to observers and dapps may be displayed incorrectly”, the project’s representatives wrote.
Coinbase top executives sold $1.2 bln worth of stock
Co-founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, as well as top executives Emily Choi and Surojit Chatterjee, collectively sold shares worth $1.2 billion during the period from the IPO through February this year.
The sales occurred in a range from $189 to $422 per share.
During the period, Brian Armstrong netted $292 million. Emily Choi and Surojit Chatterjee sold shares for $226 million and $110 million respectively.
Fred Ehrsam, who left Coinbase, became nearly $0.5 billion wealthier. On behalf of his venture firm Paradigm, he subsequently purchased Coinbase shares worth $75 million.
Bitcoin mining difficulty fell by 4.3%
On May 25, following another adjustment, the mining difficulty of Bitcoin fell by 4.33% to 29.9 T.
The decline was the largest since July 2021.
Average hashrate over roughly a two-week period since the previous difficulty adjustment stood at 214 EH/s, also retreating by 4.3% from the peak.
Ukraine’s Foxtrot stores integrate Binance Pay
Binance announced a partnership with the Ukrainian electronics and home appliances retailer Foxtrot.
Customers will be able to pay for purchases through the Binance Pay crypto-transfer service. The technology enables users to make payments, send and receive digital assets and supports more than 40 cryptocurrencies.
For online purchases at Foxtrot, select Binance Pay among payment options and confirm the transfer in the Binance app; in retail locations — scan a QR code with a cashier.
Head of the Belarusian Investigative Committee discusses crypto seizures
The Investigative Committee of Belarus has already actively seized crypto assets, according to a statement by the agency’s head, Dmitry Gora.
He said investigators faced the need to seize crypto assets amid their use in various crimes.
“What is cryptocurrency? As my senior subordinates say – digital trash. Based on this, I tasked our state with obtaining money to compensate the damage; let’s think how to turn trash into money. I will not go into details, but we learned how to do this”.
He noted that both state bodies and private organisations are involved in the process.
Gora stated that as a result of the department’s actions, more than hundreds of millions of rubles in real money are already on the Committee’s accounts.
What to discuss with friends?
- JPMorgan analysts called the fair price for Bitcoin at around $38,000.
- Vitalik Buterin listed the signs of robust algorithmic stablecoins.
- STEPN will discontinue servicing users in China.
- The fraudulent Elon Musk deepfake spread on Twitter.
Optimism team removed 17,000 addresses from airdrop participants
The Optimism developers reduced the list of addresses expected to participate in the upcoming airdrop by 17,000. The drop was marketed as involving roughly 14 million native tokens, intended by the organisers of the Sybil attack.
The freed 14 million OP from potential participants will be distributed proportionally among those not implicated in the farming of the airdrop.
Glassnode analysts note continued market uncertainty
Weak on-chain metrics and prevailing fears in the derivatives market hinder Bitcoin’s recovery from the price decline since late March, experts say.
In their view, the ratio of open put- and call-options in Bitcoin has risen from 50% to 70%, signalling rising investor demand to hedge against further downside.
US State Department urges not to cut Russia off from the Internet
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price stated that Russia should retain access to the Internet. This is necessary for residents to obtain information from independent sources.
Price also noted that the U.S. will support journalists in Russia, whose work has become more difficult since the start of the war.
Russia develops covert social-media-based surveillance system
In Russia, a system for covertly surveilling people in public spaces based on activity on social networks has been developed.
Head of the Radiotechnical Institute named after Academician Mints, Yuri Anoshko, said the system has already attracted the interest of the security services.
“We have developed basic profiling tools, based on users’ activity on TikTok, YouTube, VKontakte, Facebook, Yandex and other services. The system allows a profile of a person to be created and to assess the degree of threat to others as they pass through the screening complex”.
Duma in Moscow registers new bill on mining in the Russian Federation
In the State Duma a revised bill on mining in the Russian Federation was registered. The previous document was withdrawn.
From the new draft, regulations concerning the registry of mining participants and an “amnesty” for the latter were removed.
Bithumb and Upbit permit Litecoin delisting after MimbleWimble upgrade
Major South Korean crypto exchanges Bithumb and Upbit issued warnings to users regarding Litecoin after the MimbleWimble Extension Block upgrade, which aims to improve scalability and privacy.
The exchanges emphasised that they operate in line with local laws, which require anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing measures.
Wormhole team paid white-hat hacker $10 million for disclosed vulnerability
The Wormhole project team paid $10 million to a white-hat hacker who uncovered a critical vulnerability in the cross-chain protocol.
On 24 February 2022, a researcher known as satya0x discovered a vulnerability in Wormhole’s core bridge contract on the Ethereum side. The exploit could potentially have locked users’ funds.
For the discovered bug, satya0x received the maximum bounty allowable under the programme.
Also on ForkLog:
- The Solana community duped the hacker to return stolen NFTs.
- Ethereum transaction fees fell to levels last seen in July 2021.
- The DeFi segment has shrunk by $130 billion so far this year.
- Ex-Binance executives launched a $100 million fund focused on metaverses.
What to read and watch?
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A series of educational cards were released: about Grayscale Investments, Helium, ApeCoin, the Tor browser, and a Bitcoin ETF.
In our traditional digests we’ve gathered the week’s key events in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Blockchain technology remains one of the hottest trends among financial, state and corporate actors worldwide. The most notable recent initiatives are in ForkLog’s overview.
During ForkLog LIVE we marked Bitcoin Pizza Day with guests Vladimir Ponimayushchiy and Alex Petrov.
On ForkLog channel the second part of the special report from Blockchain Life 2022 was released.
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