Bitcoin and Nasdaq are the worst performing assets so far in 2022

Bitcoin

Honduras Establishes Bitcoin Center to Promote Bitcoin Use

On July 31, Bitcoin Magazine reported that the Honduran tourist town of Saint Lucia has established a local Bitcoin center. This private project called "Bitcoin Valley" aims to create a Bitcoin circular economy and increase the number of tourists in the area by promoting Bitcoin in local stores. The project was officially launched on Thursday and was jointly launched by the Honduran Blockchain Organization, the Guatemalan cryptocurrency exchange Coincaex, the Polytechnic University of Honduras and the Saint Lucia Municipal Government. About 60 stores will participate in the project. Coincaex will provide merchants with the necessary equipment to accept Bitcoin payments. In addition, the plan also plans to popularize Bitcoin and cryptocurrency education locally, and local students and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to participate in Bitcoin courses lasting more than a month.

Bitcoin and Nasdaq are the worst performing assets so far in 2022

On August 1, Mohamed El-Erian, dean of Queen's College, Cambridge University, recently released a comparative data on asset performance from the beginning of the year to date compared with the previous two years. The data shows that most asset classes are in a loss in 2022, with Bitcoin (BTC) and the Nasdaq index suffering the largest losses, falling by 48.60% and 20.80% respectively. (Finbold)

Bitfarms mined 500 BTC and sold 1,623 BTC in July

On August 2, Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms announced that it increased its total power capacity by 21% to 166 megawatts (MW) in July, and its hash rate increased to 3.8 exahash (EH/s), and is expected to reach 4EH/s by the end of August. Bitfarms mined a total of 500 BTC in July and sold 1,623 BTC. As of July 31, it still held 2,021 BTC.

Data: Bitcoin whales increased their holdings by 132,878 BTC in July , worth more than $ 3 billion

On August 2, an unmarked Bitcoin address (1LQoWist8KkaUXSPKZHNvEyfrEkPHzSsCd) increased its holdings of 132,878 BTC in three days in July, with a total value of more than $3 billion. On July 19, the address increased its holdings of 15,499 BTC. On July 20, the address purchased another 45,499 BTC. On July 21, the whale increased its holdings of 71,879 bitcoins again. It is reported that the address currently has 131,882.78 BTC, accounting for 0.7% of the Bitcoin circulation, and has risen to the third place in the list of available BTC wallets counted by the BitInfoCharts website. (beincrypto)

Glassnode : Declining Bitcoin network activity suggests bear market will last longer

On August 2, Glassnode said that as several on-chain indicators of Bitcoin (BTC) remain in a bearish range, the continuation of the recent price recovery will require increased network demand and fee expenditures. Analysts pointed out that the horizontal growth in transaction demand, active Bitcoin addresses are still in a "clear downward channel", and low network fees are reasons to ease investors' excitement about the 15% surge in Bitcoin prices in the past week. Glassnode said that the decrease in network activity can be explained by the lack of new demand for the network from speculative traders and investors who have high confidence in network technology. The additional demand needed to maintain further price increases is not currently seen. Glassnode calls the steady decline in active addresses a "low bear market demand condition," which has basically existed since December last year. (Cointelegraph)

Foreign media: 91% of the 21 million bitcoin supply has now been mined

According to Golden Finance, Bitcoin Magazine tweeted that 91% of the 21 million bitcoins in supply have now been mined, and only 9% will be available for mining in the next 118 years.

Oxford City Football Club in the UK accepts Bitcoin for match-day tickets

On August 3, the British Oxford City Football Club (OCFC) reached a multi-year partnership with the Isle of Man-based Bitcoin company CoinCorner, which will become the club's sponsor. Through this cooperation, OCFC will accept Bitcoin as match-day tickets, and OCFC players will have the BTC logo printed on the back of their jerseys. It is reported that Oxford City Football Club is a team in the English Football Southern Premier League. (Cointelegraph)

Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark sold 426 Bitcoins in July

According to Golden Finance, Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark disclosed that the company generated approximately $8.8 million in revenue after selling 426 BTC in July. The company expects to use the proceeds to fund its own growth and operations. CleanSpark announced that it purchased 2,861 mining equipment between June and July to take advantage of favorable market conditions to get better deals. CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford said: We see unprecedented opportunities in this market. (The Block)

Data: Bitcoin miners' reserves exceeded 1.86 million in July, a record high

On August 3, data from the on-chain analysis company Crypto Quant showed that miners' Bitcoin holdings increased significantly by 6,885 in July. As of July 29, their total balance was 1,865,272 BTC, a record high. Bitcoin miners' reserves have fully recovered the outflow/sell-off that occurred in June.

Analyst: Lack of funds is still the main reason limiting the rise of BTC and ETH prices

On August 4, on-chain analyst Phyrex tweeted that according to Glassnode's data statistics, there is currently no obvious data showing that a large amount of funds have been transferred from outside to the cryptocurrency circle, so according to the current situation, the shortage of funds is still the main reason limiting the rise in BTC and ETH prices.

Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 1.74% to 28.17T

According to Golden Finance, according to BTC.com data, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining has increased by 1.74% to 28.17T, after three consecutive reductions.

Ethereum

Ethereum’s on-chain NFT sales in July were slightly above $500 million, a 12-month low

Golden Finance reported that according to the latest NFT transaction data, the sales of NFTs on the Ethereum chain were only US$535,698,216.54, a new low in the past 12 months, but still higher than the same period last year (NFT sales on the Ethereum chain in July 2021 were US$410,229,362.36). At the time of writing, the total sales of NFTs on the Ethereum chain were US$28,963,820,891, with a transaction volume of 13,033,622.

Hedge Fund Arca Analyst: Ethereum "Very Possibly" Overtakes Bitcoin

Golden Finance reported that according to Bodhi Pinkner, an analyst at crypto hedge fund Arca, Ethereum is "very likely" to surpass Bitcoin. Bodhi Pinkner predicts that the second largest cryptocurrency will experience deflation after the merger event expected to occur in September. Lucas Outumuro, an analyst at cryptocurrency research firm IntoTheBlock, previously estimated that in the case of deflation, Ethereum issuance will be between -0.5% and -4.5%, which means that Ethereum will become increasingly scarce, and the impact of the continued decline in circulating supply will be reflected in cryptocurrency prices. At the time of writing, Ethereum's market value was approximately US$201.5 billion and Bitcoin was approximately US$445.9 billion. (Bloomberg)

Data: In the past week, the Ethereum network added 1.49 million NFT assets

Golden Finance reported that NFTScan data showed that in the past week, the Ethereum network added 1.4955 million NFT assets, with an average of 213,600 new NFT assets minted every day.

ENS's revenue in July reached 5,400 Ethereum, setting a new monthly record

On August 1, ENS released data for July 2022. A total of 378,000 new domain names were registered in July, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 1.86 million; total revenue in July reached 5,400 Ethereum, setting a record high for this data in a single month; 48,000 new accounts held at least one domain name in July, bringing the total number to 508,000. In addition, ENS accounts for more than 99% of domain name transactions on OpenSea.

Data: 50,000 ETH transferred from Crypto.com to an unknown wallet

On August 2, according to Whale Alert data, 50,000 ETH (worth US$81,995,679) was transferred from Crypto.com to an unknown wallet.

Ethereum's second-layer network zkSync has provided a new development environment v1 on the Goërli testnet

On August 3, the Ethereum second-layer network zkSync announced that it has provided a new development environment for v1 on the Goërli testnet. Due to potential network stability issues caused by the merger, we have migrated from Ropsten and Rinkeby to Goërli and Sepolia. zkSync said that if developers encounter problems during the migration, they can send a message to the official on Discord.

Ethereum L2 NFT Platform Mint Square Launches StarkNet Mainnet

On August 3, Ethereum L2 NFT platform Mint Square announced the launch of the StarkNet mainnet. Users can log in to the platform through Argent X wallet and Braavos wallet and mint NFTs.

Messari : ETC price rally triggered by Ethereum merger will not last

According to Golden Finance, Messari analysts said that the Ethereum merger narrative will not drive the continued rise of Ethereum Classic (ETC). ETC may soar a few days before the merger, but it has no long-term upward momentum. Messari said that Ethereum mining currently accounts for 97% of graphics processing unit (GPU) mining revenue, with a daily income of US$24 million. After the Ethereum merger, miners will be forced to sell their equipment or switch to ETC mining. Currently, ETC accounts for 2% of GPU mining revenue, with a daily net income of about US$700,000. This huge gap in profitability means that even if a "meaningful part" of miners migrate to ETC, the difficulty of mining will increase sharply and make many miners unprofitable. According to Messari, the number of active addresses of Ethereum Classic is less than half of that of Cardano, and the current level of development of the network is less than one-tenth of that of Ethereum and Cardano, and there has been no meaningful growth in transaction volume since 2018. Analysts said: "Ultimately, prices should have some fundamental connection with network usage and potential economic activity. Unfortunately, for ETC holders, neither is available." (Coindesk)

Ethereum testnet Sepolia is expected to upgrade its execution layer on August 17

On August 4, Ethereum testnet Sepolia will upgrade the merged execution layer at block height 1735371 (expected on August 17). This upgrade will cause clients on the execution layer that have not yet converted to PoS to lose connection, and node operators need to upgrade the execution layer client before this. The Ethereum Foundation said that after the Sepolia upgrade is completed, Goerli and the Ethereum mainnet are expected to undergo similar upgrades. (blog.ethereum.org)

Vitalik : Ethereum does not need to standardize on a single ZK-EVM implementation for Layer 1

According to Golden Finance, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has published an article explaining "Different types of ZK-EVM and ZK-EVM-like projects, and the trade-offs between them". V God cited a classification of different "types" that describe the equivalence of multiple EVMs, as well as the benefits and costs of trying to implement each type. V God concluded that, personally, I hope that over time, through the combination of improvements in ZK-EVM and improvements in Ethereum itself to make it more friendly to ZK-SNARK, everything will become Type 1. In such a future, we will have multiple ZK-EVM implementations that can be used for both ZK rollups and for verifying the Ethereum chain itself. In theory, Ethereum does not need to standardize on a single ZK-EVM implementation for Layer 1; different clients can use different proofs, so we continue to benefit from code redundancy. However, it will take quite a while to achieve such a future. In the meantime, we will see many innovations in different paths to scaling Ethereum and Ethereum-based ZK-rollup.

Ethereum's 7-day average gas fee reached 14.57Gwei, a new low this year

On August 5, according to the OKLink multi-chain browser, the current Ethereum network gas fee has dropped to 12 Gwei, and the ETH average gas fee (7-day average) has hit a new low this year, at only 14.57 Gwei.

One year after Ethereum’s London upgrade, annual inflation rate dropped by more than 53%

According to data from the OKLink multi-chain browser, on the first anniversary of the Ethereum London upgrade, as of block height 15280850 (15:00 Beijing time on August 5, 2022), the total amount of Ethereum destroyed reached 2,571,826.68, about US$4.28 billion. In the past year since the implementation of EIP-1559, the inflation rate of Ethereum has dropped by more than 53%.

Other Projects

Ripple ’s Creator Fund Second Wave Application Process Now Open

Golden Finance reported that Ripple released the XRP market report for the second quarter of 2022. The report stated that through Ripple's Creator Fund, creators who build NFTs on XRPL can get technical, financial and joint marketing support to participate in their communities. So far, creators have received funding for NFT projects that span games, ingots, entertainment, art, and more. For those who want to participate in Ripple's Creator Fund, the second wave of applications is now open.

DigitalBits Blockchain Launches Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation App

Golden Finance reported that the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation application built on the open source blockchain DigitalBits allows donors to donate in DigitalBits cryptocurrency and purchase NFT tickets for specific events, and can also support various FPA2 projects dedicated to marine protection, protecting iconic species and promoting sustainable development. The FPA2 application and embedded cryptocurrency wallet will also be used in some events held in Monaco and abroad throughout the year. It will allow attendees to register and enable DigitalBits cryptocurrency as a donation to support various FPA2 projects. The foundation's mobile application was unveiled today at the Monaco Cryptocurrency Summit.

Monero mining pool MineXMR announced that it will close on August 12

On August 1, the Monero mining pool MineXMR announced that it would be closed on August 12. Before that, Monero miners need to reconfigure to use different mining pools. Officials recommend that miners transition to decentralized p2pool, because there are no mining pool fees when using p2pool, and decentralized mining pools help support the Monero network. After the mining pool is closed, the remaining pending rewards will be automatically sent. Earlier in February, it was reported that MineXMR controlled 44% of the computing power, and community members were worried about the possibility of a 51% attack.

Report: Blockchain games and metaverse projects are least affected by the Terra incident

On August 1, a report recently released by DappRadar analyzed the impact of the Terra incident on the crypto industry and found that blockchain games and metaverse projects were the least affected by the Terra incident. The report said that since the Terra incident, blockchain game transactions have bucked the trend and increased by 9.51% since the first quarter. The transaction volume and number of transactions of NFT projects related to the metaverse increased by 97% and 27% respectively. Investment in games and metaverse projects remained at US$2.5 billion in both the first and second quarters. In addition, since the Terra incident, overall blockchain activity has remained relatively level, with the overall number of transactions falling by 1% since the first quarter, while DeFi-related transactions have decreased by 15% since May, and the overall average number of daily UAWs (unique active wallets) has fallen by 12% since the first quarter. Although NFT transaction volume and transaction number have fallen by one-third compared with the first quarter, interest in NFTs remains high in regions such as North America, Oceania, and parts of Europe. Axie Infinity is the most searched NFT project in 112 countries.

NFT aggregation platforms Gem and Genie have accumulated transaction volumes exceeding US$1.5 billion

According to Dune data, the cumulative transaction volume of NFT aggregation platforms Gem and Genie exceeded 1.5 billion US dollars. The data showed that the cumulative transaction volume of Genie was about 460 million US dollars, and the cumulative transaction volume of Gem was about 1.05 billion US dollars.

Ripple opens Toronto office, plans to hire hundreds of people

On August 1, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company will hire 50 new employees in its Toronto office by the end of this year and another 100 to 200 employees in the next few years. He believes that Toronto is a region with "excellent engineering talent." (Finbold)

ZigZag : The new version of ZigZag DEX will be launched simultaneously with the release of zkSync 2.0

On August 1, ZigZag stated that as the only DEX on the zkSync 1.0 network, it will launch a new version of ZigZag DEX simultaneously after the release of zkSync 2.0, and will gradually deploy smart contracts with more comprehensive functions, including placing multiple limit orders at the same time, margin trading, perpetual contracts, liquidity pool staking and other functions.

dYdX launches “free trading”, eliminating trading fees for accounts with monthly trading volume below $100,000

On August 1, according to official news, dYdX announced that it would become a cryptocurrency trading platform that provides truly free transactions to all users in all markets, but transactions exceeding $100,000 per month will still incur lower fees. "Free transactions" means that dYdX has canceled the fees associated with orders placed by accounts with a trading volume of less than $100,000 in the past 30 days; other fees still apply, including but not limited to perpetual funding, deposits and withdrawals, and potential liquidations.

ENS's revenue in July reached 5,400 Ethereum, setting a new monthly record

On August 1, ENS released data for July 2022. A total of 378,000 new domain names were registered in July, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 1.86 million; total revenue in July reached 5,400 Ethereum, setting a record high for this data in a single month; 48,000 new accounts held at least one domain name in July, bringing the total number to 508,000. In addition, ENS accounts for more than 99% of domain name transactions on OpenSea.

Aleo will launch Aleo Virtual Machine next week

According to Golden Finance, the programmable privacy network Aleo will launch its third testnet featuring a virtual machine next week. This testnet implements privacy-preserving applications on Aleo for the first time. In addition, the Aleo team plans to launch the mainnet in the fourth quarter.

The number of euro stablecoins has increased by 1,683% since 2020, but has fallen by 14.17% since January this year

According to Golden Finance, the issuance of euro-anchored stablecoins has increased by 1,683% from $31.9 million on January 3, 2020 to $569 million today. Since November 2021, the number of euro stablecoins has increased by 85.34%, but from January 2022 to date, the number of euro stablecoins has fallen by 14.17% in the past seven months.

Nomad Bridge may be attacked, and $126 million in contracts may still be at risk

On August 2, @0xfoobar tweeted that the cross-chain interoperability protocol Nomad Bridge is being hacked, and WETH and WBTC are being transferred out at a frequency of millions of dollars each time. There is still $126 million in the contract that may be at risk. Remind users to withdraw funds as soon as possible. The most recent transfer was 10,000 Ethereum (about $16 million), and there is still $80 million of USDC flowing out of the Nomad Bridge.

Cross-chain communication protocol Nomad suffered a hacker attack, with losses exceeding $150 million

On August 2, according to defillama data, the cross-chain communication protocol Nomad TVL quickly drained from $160 million to only $1,794 in three hours. Paradigm security researcher samczsun confirmed that Nomad was hacked and drained of more than $150 million, and said that its copy contract had a fatal flaw. A routine upgrade marked zero hash as a valid root, which had the effect of allowing information to be deceived on Nomad. The attacker took advantage of this to copy/paste transactions and quickly exhausted the assets on the bridge in a frenzy of free competition. According to morning reports, the Nomad bridge may be attacked, and there is still $126 million in the contract that may be at risk.

W3BCloud to go public via SPAC, with a post-merger valuation of $1.25 billion

On August 2, W3BCloud, a company dedicated to building global data centers for the Web3 and blockchain fields, announced on Monday that it will go public through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Social Leverage Acquisition CorpI. Social Leverage Acquisition CorpI is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has a $345 million trust fund, and has received an additional $50 million in new investment commitments from AMD, ConsenSys, SK Inc. and other companies. The merged transaction values ​​W3BCloud at $1.25 billion. W3BCloud provides storage, staking and computing infrastructure services, and Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum, serves on the board of directors of W3BCloud. The company reported that its seven data centers in the United States had sales of $40 million last year, 85% of which used renewable energy. Revenue in 2023 is expected to increase 685% from 2021. (businesswire)

Crypto lending aggregator FujiDAO integrates Connext to expand cross-chain capabilities

On August 2, FujiDAO, a crypto lending aggregation platform, announced that it has expanded its cross-chain capabilities through integration with Connext. By leveraging Connext, developers can obtain trust-minimized cross-chain communications to make blockchains composable. The Connext Bridge application is built on Connext's Nxtp protocol. Connext Bridge supports asset transfers between L2 and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains. It is reported that the FujiDAO application is already running on Ethereum and Fantom networks, and will soon be available on Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism. (Cryptoninjas)

The first free and permissionless NFT Collection building tool on the Flow public chain is launched

On August 2, Matrix Market, an NFT trading platform under Matrix Labs, stated on social media that it is the first completely free and permissionless NFT Collection building tool on the Flow chain.

Polygon plans to distribute nearly 1.4 billion unclaimed MATIC tokens to the team, foundation and staking rewards

On August 2, according to the announcement of Polygon's official Telegram channel, the Polygon Foundation will claim the 1386,609,632 MATICs unlocked since April 21 last year because no one claimed them. Among them, 640 million MATICs (6.40%) will be allocated to the team, and will be directly pledged by the co-founders after claiming; 546,609,632 MATICs (5.46%) will be allocated to the foundation, and the team will update the community in advance on the movement of the foundation wallet; 200 million MATICs (2%) will be allocated to the staking rewards from May 2021 to December 2021. Earlier news, Blockworks researcher Sam discovered that the Polygon token attribution contract released about 1.4 billion MATICs 9 hours ago, accounting for 14% of the total supply. Polygon co-founder Sandeep said that the movement and staking activities of nearly 1.4 billion MATICs were related to the foundation's treasury plan and were not contract unlocked.

KuCoin Launches Immersive Office in the ERTHA Metaverse

On August 2, the crypto trading platform Kucoin announced a partnership with the metaverse ERTHA to build the KuCoin Office on the ERTHA NFT Land virtual plot. It is reported that the world of Ertha is a complex game space where players can create new governments, economies, and form unstable alliances with other players. (AMBCrypto)

Luno obtains digital asset license in France

Golden Finance News, Luno, a cryptocurrency trading platform under DCG, said it has obtained a digital asset service provider (DASP) license issued by French regulators. The move means that Luno can now provide its services directly to customers in France. The company said it is now moving towards obtaining an optional license issued by the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorité des Marchés Financiers, AMF)-the country's stock market regulator-so far, no DASP has obtained this license. "We believe that regulation is crucial on the road to mass adoption of cryptocurrency, and our DASP registration is a key step in achieving our strategic growth plan," said Marcus Swanepoel, CEO and founder of Luno. (theblock)

Waves ’ “Waves DeFi Revival Plan” passed, ending Vires Finance’s liquidity crisis

On August 2, the public chain project Waves announced on Tuesday that the Waves blockchain community has passed the "WavesDeFi Revival Plan" governance proposal with a three-quarters vote support rate to solve the liquidity problems currently faced by ViresFinance, a DeFi lending protocol based on Waves. As part of the plan, these whale users now have two options. The first option is to fully liquidate their positions into USDN and add a one-year vesting period and a 5% liquidation bonus. Otherwise, they can continue to use ViresFinance, but will not receive income from all USDT or USDC funds that exceed the $250,000 threshold. Earlier, at the end of May, the public chain Waves launched the "WavesDeFi Revival Plan" to enable all Waves protocol users to avoid losses and restore the full functionality of the DeFi protocol in its ecosystem.

Security team: Funds from more than 5,000 Solana wallets were stolen, and the vulnerability may affect ETH users

On August 3, blockchain audit security team OtterSec posted on social media that more than 5,000 Solana wallet funds were stolen in the past few hours. OtterSec analysis showed that these transactions were signed by the actual owner, indicating that there was a private key leak. The vulnerability may also affect ETH users.

The number of independent wallets affected by the Solana vulnerability incident has exceeded 9,000

Golden Finance reported that according to Dune Analytics data, the number of independent wallets affected by the Solana vulnerability incident has exceeded 9,000, and as of the writing of this article, it has reached 9,214, and the total size of the affected assets, including SOL, USD, BTC, ETH and mSOL, has reached US$4,088,068. According to previous news, Solana’s vulnerability caused malicious actors to steal funds from multiple Solana wallets.

Litecoin is expected to undergo its next halving in early August next year

On August 3, Litecoin officially tweeted that around this time next year, in early August 2023, Litecoin will undergo its next halving. At that time, the block reward will drop from 12.5 to 6.25.

Data: 93 Tiffany NFTs “NFTiff” have been minted

On August 4, according to Dune Analytics data, 93 Tiffany NFT "NFTiff" have been minted by 70 independent minters, of which 66 have not yet been redeemed. Earlier news said that only 250 Tiffany NFT "NFTiff" will be sold this time, and pre-sale will start at 10:00 am Eastern Standard Time on August 3, 2022. It is reported that Tiffany NFT "NFTiff" will not be airdropped.

Celer cBridge announces integration with Klaytn to enable cross-chain asset transfers

On August 4, Celer Network announced the successful implementation of bridge support for Klaytn. Users can now connect USDT, USDC, WETH, DAI and WBTC in a fast, secure and low-cost manner through the open specification token standard between Ethereum and Klaytn.

Solana Chain Transaction Count Exceeds 10 Billion

Golden Finance reported that according to Dune Analytics data, the total transaction count on the Solana chain has exceeded 10 billion, and as of now it is 10.45 billion, of which 8.84 billion are successful transactions and 1.73 billion are successful non-voting transactions.