The first cryptocurrency soared above $48,000, MicroStrategy increased its Bitcoin reserves to 190,000 BTC, another failure occurred in the Solana blockchain, Bluesky opened general access and other events of the past week.
Bitcoin price surpassed $48,000
Digital gold started the week below $43,000. On Thursday, February 8, Bitcoin quotes exceeded $45,000, and the next day they surpassed $47,000.
At the time of writing, the first cryptocurrency is trading at $48,000.
BTC/USDT hourly chart of the Binance exchange. Data: TradingView.
All digital assets from the top 10 by capitalization ended the week in the “green zone”. The biggest gains were made by Bitcoin (+12%), Solana (+12%) and Avalanche (+11.5%).
Data: CoinGecko.
The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is $1.9 trillion. Bitcoin dominance index – 53.75%.
MicroStrategy increased Bitcoin reserves to 190,000 BTC
In January, MicroStrategy purchased an additional 850 BTC for $37.2 million and brought the reserves in the first cryptocurrency to 190,000 BTC (~$9.1 billion).
According to the report, in the fourth quarter of 2023, MicroStrategy purchased an additional 31,755 BTC at an average price of $39,411.
As of February 5, the cost of acquiring 190,000 BTC by the company was $5.93 billion. The average purchase price was $31,224.
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor said that the company will be positioned, among other things, as “a developer of Bitcoin and products based on it.” Previously, she focused on creating and supporting analytical software.
The Solana blockchain experienced a glitch. Experts named the reasons
On February 6 at 09:52 UTC, Solana stopped processing blocks. The network was resumed four hours later.
Laine, a blockchain software developer and Solana validator, clarified that the failure occurred due to a “decreased performance” of the main network.
A team of experts led by journalist Colin Wu concluded that the reason for the intermittent failures is the inability of the blockchain to cope with the growing volume of transactions.
Experts recalled that this is not the first failure that has occurred on the network:
- in May 2021, many transactions could not be finalized due to the unstable operation of the blockchain;
- in September, network performance dropped sharply for about an hour;
- later this month, the volume of transactions associated with the Raydium project IDO caused memory to become full;
- in January 2022, the activity of arbitrage bots caused a network shutdown for 30 hours;
- then the blockchain could not withstand the surge in NFT transactions;
- in June, a vulnerability in the nonce signature function caused a suspension of work;
- in October, the network went down due to a bug in the centralized Sentry service;
- the subsequent failure was caused by an error in the node configuration;
- in February 2023, the network stopped processing transactions, which necessitated a restart (it was only possible the second time).
“In hindsight, we understand that the emergence of a large number of transactions is the main reason for historical network failures, which can be associated with the Solana mechanism,” commented Hu Zhiwei, president of Boundary Intelligence Research Institute.
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Monero price plummets 28% following reports of delisting on Binance
On February 20 at 3:00 UTC, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange will remove Aragon (ANT), Multichain (MULTI), Vai (VAI) and Monero (XMR) from the list of traded instruments.
In response to the company’s decision to delist, Monero developers said they would never compromise on privacy issues and advised trading XMR on other platforms.
Over the past week, the price of the anonymous cryptocurrency token has lost 27.9%, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing, XMR is trading below $120.
XMR/USDT hourly chart of the Binance exchange. Data: TradingView.
SEC approves rules to oversee “dealers” in the DeFi sector
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has expanded the definition of “dealer” to include more financial transactions, including cryptocurrencies, under its jurisdiction.
Three of the department’s five commissioners voted to accept the proposal. The proposal was opposed by digital asset advocate Hester Pierce and her colleague Mark Ueda.
Under the new regulations, market participants managing and holding assets over $50 million are required to register with the SEC as a dealer.
“The Commission is not excluding any specific type of securities, including digital assets, from the final rules. […] Dealer structure is a functional analysis based on the entity’s securities trading activity and not on the type of security traded,” the SEC said in a statement.
The text of the rules notes the objections and confusion of crypto industry participants who commented on the SEC amendments regarding their application to the DeFi sector.
“While some have stated that the proposed rules should not apply to so-called DeFi, whether a dealer is involved in any particular transaction or structure (regardless of what it is called) is a fact-and-circumstances analysis. There is nothing in technologies such as blockchain protocols and smart contracts that could prevent activities with cryptocurrencies from being defined as dealer activities,” the department explained.
According to the document, the Commission considered excluding digital assets from the rules, but decided that this would lead to “negative competitive consequences” because it would give crypto firms an advantage over traditional organizations.
The provisions will take effect in 60 days and will take full effect in April 2025.
Also on ForkLog:
- Web3 smartphone Saga 2 received 60,000 pre-order applications.
- Access to data from Binance and Coinbase has been put up for sale on the darknet.
- Another Ukrainian people’s deputy revealed his cryptocurrency portfolio.
- Epic Games Store has started selling the blockchain shooter SHRAPNEL.
Decentralized social network Bluesky has opened public access
On February 6, Bluesky, a decentralized alternative to social network X backed by Twitter co-founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey, went public after beta testing with more than 3 million users.
“When you go to Bluesky, it may seem familiar – the user experience should be simple. But inside it’s designed to take back control [над лентой] into your hands. Here, your online experience is not at the disposal of one company. Whether it’s a time period or content filters, Bluesky allows you to easily customize your personal social experience,” says the project’s blog.
The interface and functionality of the social network really resemble early Twitter. The platform logo is a white butterfly on a blue background.
However, according to the developers, Bluesky’s algorithms and moderation mechanisms differ significantly from the approach of its competitors. The project is built on the decentralized AT Protocol, which is “virtually uncensored and does not collect personal data.”
When registering on a social network, the user is immediately prompted to select several areas of interest in the form of tags. On this basis, the algorithm selects suitable accounts for subscription.
In addition, Bluesky has implemented a system of feed channels that relay content on a specific topic.
The social network’s personalized moderation mechanism, in which algorithms and users themselves mark specific content, allows you to customize its display in the feed.
What else to read?
This week ForkLog talked about a quantum computer and the bill on regulation of cryptocurrencies in the European Union Markets in Crypto Assets.
The traditional digest collected the main events of the week in the field of cybersecurity.
The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is evidenced by new investments in infrastructure and the increasing attention that companies are paying to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in the ForkLog review.
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2024-02-11 16:33:10
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