Review of current news of the crypto space

The past week has been filled with events in the crypto space. Our digest will briefly tell you about the most important and significant events in the crypto industry.

News digest for the past week

Another bullish week is ending for the crypto industry. While last Monday we were talking about a $ 16,000 cue ball, now the price on the PTS is close to $ 19,000, and the price of Ethereum ETH has now exceeded $500.

A parabolic rise in the BTC price, which portends a good correction at some point, expects a reset of about 30%, as is often the case with Bitcoin even in a bullish cycle.

The crypto community is looking forward to seeing the bitcoin price return to its previous high of around $ 20K. The number 1 cryptocurrency on the market is currently receiving a lot of positive news from institutional investors, as well as billionaires and millionaires who are starting to buy the crypto asset EN masse.

Over time, the demand for BTC increases, and the price of the coin logically increases.

The crypto week was also marked by other news, such as in just one hour, the number of new bitcoin addresses created increased to 24,807, amendments to the Russian rules of crypto regulation, Ethereum 2.0 is not ready, and DeFi must find other networks to grow, fork Bitcoin Cash and halving Zcash.

So let’s take a closer look at this news.

The number of Bitcoin addresses is growing

Bitcoin’s progress continues, and its price is approaching its historical highs. The proof of this is the number of new bitcoin addresses created: 24,807 in just one hour.

This level has not been seen since January 2018. It must be said that in recent weeks, Bitcoin continued to break records and approach the historical figures – $ 20,000 in December 2017.

On the other hand, a bull run is sure to attract new users. According to Glassnode, 24,807 new Bitcoin addresses were created on November 18. And in just an hour.

The last time this level of address creation was observed in January 2018, just after 20 thousand dollars. However, according to experts from Decrypt, new addresses do not necessarily mean new users.

Nothing prevents one cryptocurrency holder from creating different addresses and distributing their assets there. This is even preferable for privacy and security reasons. In addition, many addresses do not have funds.

Overall, according to Glassnode, 32.5 million bitcoin addresses now show a positive balance. And this indicator has been growing steadily since March 2018.

Russia introduces amendments to the rules of crypto regulation

At the moment, each country is thinking independently about crypto regulation, and is developing projects in this direction. Russia recently reported on the latest proposed amendments to cryptocurrency regulation.

Last week, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced the latest amendments that integrate the project of cryptocurrency regulation in the country. According to the business newspaper RBC, the law incorporating these norms will come into force in January 2021.

One of the flagship measures announced concerns the need to report cryptocurrency transactions, as well as the number of crypto wallets. Thus, all persons who have made a total amount of transactions more than 600,000 rubles for a calendar year will have to report this to the tax authorities.

While this amount may seem small, remember that just a few months ago it was even smaller. In fact, in September, when the Ministry made its proposal, it was about the amount of 100 thousand rubles. This statement on cryptocurrencies must be made by April 30, 2022. Another important step is to force exchanges and miners to register with Federal financial services.

Any violation of these new provisions will be severely penalized with a fine. Depending on the circumstances, this may also be accompanied by forced labor and imprisonment.

Regulation has become an important issue for cryptocurrencies. With the growing use of cryptocurrencies, it’s not surprising that governments are paying close attention. By putting in place a regulatory system, they see a way to get back in the game. It should be recognized that many governments do lose sight of the cryptocurrency until now. There is a more official reason. As the Russian Finance Minister says, regulation will clean up the system. If there is a strict framework, fraud and dishonest practices will be limited if not eliminated.

Ethereum 2.0 is not ready for launch

With about 2 weeks to go before the launch, Ethereum 2.0 is far from welcoming enough ETH in its Deposit agreement. There are only 10% of the required 524 588 ETH. According to the FTX CEO, Ethereum 2 is not ready, and DeFi should find other networks to grow.

Initially, developers may have hoped to move to the zero phase of the network at the beginning of next month, but apparently the schedule for launching the update is likely to undergo some changes.

However, it is likely that the conditions are not quite suitable for users. At least 16,384 validators must participate in the staking of 32 ETH. Ethereum 2.0 will be really launched only after the total amount of 524,288 ETH is reached, and this is 7 days before December 1.

The Deposit contract is not enough to place a sufficient amount of ether. According to ETH 2 Launchpad, only about 10% of the required funds are currently in escrow. Still not enough 471 295 ETH.

And the trend of recent days is hardly encouraging. An analysis of the history of deposits under the Ethereum contract shows that the majority of investors are those who joined the blockchain in the very first days.

Altcoins are showing strong fluctuations today. With the cost of Ether above $ 500, cryptocurrency holders may be tempted to keep their assets, rather than invest them in ETH 2.0.

Indeed, validators who have paid at least 32 ETH will not be able to get their share back until the second phase of Ethereum. And this is about two years of waiting. Therefore, the bid is a risk. The development of cryptocurrency prices is probably not in favor of the project.

But there could be another reason. For the founder of the FTX exchange, Ethereum simply doesn’t meet DeFi. Thus, the network is unable to support the growth of decentralized Finance, says Sam Bankman-fried.

He even believes that the Ethereum blockchain is holding back the progress of DeFi. Therefore, it is only possible to overcome these limitations by relying on other networks.

• The bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork occurred at block 661647.

After the first fork, which led to the appearance of Bitcoin SV (BSV), the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain underwent a new hard fork on block 661 647, as we mentioned in the news earlier.

The fork thus led to the emergence of Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA) and Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN).

As expected, it is the Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) blockchain that concentrates block mining and verification activities, while Bitcoin Cash ABC has not received any hashing power and has not yet extracted a single block.Before the fork, 80% of miners demonstrated their support for Bitcoin Cash Node.

This fork is based on a conflict between two clans within the Bitcoin Cash community: Bitcoin Cash ABC wants to introduce an 8% tax on Bitcoin Cash mining (infrastructure Finance plan) to Fund future development. The node opposing it is Bitcoin Unlimited.

The Bitcoin Cash node is supported by Roger Ver, the symbolic character of BCH. Binance also support this blockchain, which should be the dominant chain after this controversial fork.

But Kraken said that it will support the Bitcoin Cash node regardless of the result of the fork. Recall that Bitcoin ABC is managed by French developer Amory Seshe.

Thus, with this fork in Bitcoin Cash, it is planned to distribute tokens to all BCH token holders.

Currently, a new token from the airdrop Bitcoin Cash ABC-BCHA, on the Poloniex exchange costs about $ 14. A token that will no longer be worth anything if the Bitcoin Cash ABC blockchain eventually disappears, because it is ignored by miners, since currently, no blocks have been mined in this new chain yet.

Therefore, we will have to wait to find out the final result of this controversial fork, which again affects the Bitcoin Cash community, and see if the Bitcoin Cash node (BCHN) confirms its position as the dominant chain.

• Anonymous cryptocurrency Zcash has experienced halving for the first time

Traditionally, Zcoin (XZC), Monero (MNR), Safex Cash (SFX), and Zcash (ZEC) exist in the form of an anonymous cryptocurrency.

Zcash (ZEC) was launched in October 2016, and this anonymous token is based on the Zerocoin cryptocurrency Protocol published in 2013.

For the first time in its history, the zcash cryptocurrency experienced a halving on the block 1,046,400.

Halving rewards means, as in the case of Bitcoin, halving the reward for ZEC miners for each block mined. The reward was reduced from 6.25 to 3,125 ZEC.

This evolution of the Zcash blockchain occurred during an update called Canopy. Improvements have also been made to the network, which are detailed on the Zcash website.

The specifics of the Zcash blockchain are such that miners will receive only 80% of their remuneration, and 20% is intended to reward the development of the blockchain, and not the founders, as was previously the case.

According to the Zcash proposal, the large grants Fund will support development through “long-term large-scale projects managed by the Zcash Foundation, with additional input and review from the community.”

A 20% tax on ZEC cryptocurrency mining was introduced in January 2020. Paying founders the interest charged on payments to miners was not popular in the Zcash community.

This is the same type of problem that the Bitcoin Cash blockchain just faced, when two clans clash over a tax on BCH miners to Finance the development of the network. Conflict that ended with a hard fork of the blockchain.

Zcash may have wanted to avoid future conflicts by canceling the founders ‘remuneration, while retaining this” tax ” intended to Finance the development of the project.

The price of Zcash is currently around $ 69.15.