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Ethereum rises to glory in BTC over last 8 months

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On alternative markets, there is a lot of movement as Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin after a 2022-long conflict. Due to a resurgence in interest in cryptocurrencies, Ether (ETH) is now worth more in Bitcoin (BTC) than it has been since the beginning of the year.

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Source: TradingView

Data from TradingView confirm that on 13 August 2022, ETH/BTC passed 0.08 BTC after overcoming important barrier. The increase is significant for Ethereum, the most popular alternative currency, as the region around 0.075 had been a problematic sell zone that had previously held bulls in check since January.

Overnight, ETH/USD crossed $2,000, a crucial psychological threshold that hadn’t been reached since May.

On-chain analytics company Glassnode saw a tendency of investors increasing their risk exposure as altcoin investments became more popular. Co-founders Jan Happel and Yann Allemann wrote in their most recent “Uncharted” newsletter,

“According to Swissblock’s Altcoin Cycle Signal, some of bitcoin’s force tempered as investors divested into altcoins in a lower-risk environment. Since ethereum’s merge became clearer, ethereum has outperformed bitcoin, driving altcoins higher.”

According to data from TradingView and CoinMarketCap, the total market cap of altcoins also surpassed $700 billion this week, marking its highest level since the end of May.

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Source: TradingView

Ethereum price analysis remains bearish

Despite months of price growth, traders remained cautious when looking at Ethereum price objectives. The famous Twitter account, Crypto Chase, detailed,

“Once untapped highs start getting tapped (and no reversal is given), the rest of the highs typically meet the same fate. Don’t have my eyes on an exact level or setup for long opportunity just yet, but will update if I see one.”

While this was going on, trading company QCP Capital reiterated the necessity for caution in order to make further gains in the developing altcoin market in its most recent market report to Telegram channel users.

Staff noted that open interest (OI) on futures markets was particularly noteworthy, with ETH activity nearly double that of BTC. It also suggested that the September Merge event for Ethereum might serve as a market turning point.

Russian BTC-e operator extradited to the US

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According to BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik’s French attorney Frederic Belot, Vinnik has been extradited from Greece to the United States. The first to report on the extradition was CNN.

The Russian national is charged with operating an exchange for cryptocurrencies worth many billions of dollars that reportedly made money from several hacking and extortion activities.

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The Justice Department claims that Alexander Vinnik, who is in his early 40s, controlled a cryptocurrency exchange called BTC-e that transacted business with identity thieves, drug dealers, and ransomware gangs. He is accused of operating an unregistered money service business in the US as well as money laundering in the US Northern District Court of California.

The extradition of Vinnik represents a significant victory for US law enforcement officials who had been engaged in a high-stakes extradition battle with Russia to get Vinnik’s custody.

The BTC-e owner is likely to make an initial court appearance in the US Northern District of California, according to Frédéric Bélot, Vinnik’s French attorney, who told CNN on Thursday afternoon that his client was traveling to the US from Athens, Greece, via plane.

The accused’s attorney further stated that Vinnik continues to maintain that he is innocent.

BTC-e runs its course

U.S. authorities had withdrawn their request for the Russian national’s extradition from France a few weeks prior. Vinnik’s attorney had previously stated that by withdrawing the extradition request, he could instead be transported to Greece and then the United States.

Belot did not elaborate on the legal strategy being employed at the time, choosing instead to say,

“By withdrawing their request, the U.S. reactivate the Greece request.”

Belot did not elaborate on the legal strategy being employed at the time, choosing instead to say that “by withdrawing their request, the U.S. reactivate the Greece request.”

Vinnik is well-known for being the owner of BTC-e, one of the early bitcoin (BTC) exchanges. BTC-e was connected to the heist of Mt.Gox, the first bitcoin exchange, which was forced to close down in 2014 after 744,408 BTC were stolen.

When American authorities shut down BTC-e in 2017, Vinnik was detained in Greece while vacationing on a beach with his family, and its servers were seized. Since then, Vinnik has been the target of extradition requests from the US, France, and Russia, each of which has a distinct set of accusations.

Vinnik was sentenced to five years in prison there by a French court in 2020, and the conviction was upheld last summer. France, however, triumphed in this case.

TRON Founder Justin Sun Believe Warren Buffett Still Holds BTC & TRX

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Tron founder Justin Sun thinks that multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett holds Bitcoin [BTC] and Tron [TRX] despite being a hardcore crypto skeptic.

Sun met the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at a charity feast, in 2020. Buffett has auctioned off a dinner with himself every year since 2000, with participants’ funds directed toward charity.

The crypto entrepreneur placed a record-breaking $4.5 million bid to win the dinner with the “Oracle of Omaha.”

Sun also gifted Buffett a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 phone loaded with 1 Bitcoin and 1,930,830 TRX tokens, making one of the most influential investors a cryptocurrency holder. Some users noticed that the wallets containing gifted crypto had remained inactive.   

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TRON Founder Justin Sun Believe Warren Buffett Still Holds BTC & TRX 5

However, after the dinner, Buffett reportedly told Sun that he gave the phone to the GLIDE Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit saying, “I don’t own any cryptocurrency. I never will.”

Hence, it is likely that the billionaire no longer has anything to do with the gifted crypto given that he has a strong distaste for cryptocurrencies.

The Berkshire Hathaway boss, the seventh richest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $97 billion, is known as one of the bitter crypto critics who once called bitcoin as “rat poison squared.”

The comment caused a huge uproar in the crypto community with many advocates declaring him as crypto’s arch-enemy.

TRON Boss Refuse To Disclose What Transpired With Warren Buffett

Recently, the veteran investor said that he wouldn’t spend $25 for ‘all of the bitcoin in the world’, indicating that he would not be adding BTC to his portfolio any time soon.

Although TRON declined to comment on what was discussed over the meal, Sun had originally said he hoped the meal would “bridge the gap between institutional and traditional investors and the realm of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.”

The founder of the major blockchain network threw his weight behind FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried a.k.a SBF in offering financial support to firms in the digital asset space that are struggling amid the market downturn.

In a tweet earlier this month, Sun stated that he and the Tron protocol are “ready to serve.” According to a report from TronWeekly, Sun said he could spend up to $5 billion on acquisitions.

Celsius Network Moves $529M Worth WBTC to FTX After Receiving the Collateral

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Troubled loan provider Celsius moved roughly 25,000 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) valued at $528.9 million to cryptocurrency exchange FTX. As a result, concerns have been raised by some in the community over the possibility of a dump.

The significant payment to the exchange was made when the lending platform cleared the remaining $41.2 million in Maker (MKR) protocol debt, freeing up all of the wBTC collateral for its loan.

The community is confused about how to interpret the move, with some people worrying that a dump of wBTC on the exchange may soon occur, driving down the price of Bitcoin.

Celsius moving the WBTC could be hopeful for the users

Others have expressed greater optimism that the action may be a prelude to Celsius exchanging their wrapped Bitcoin for BTC, which may be encouraging for depositors who have been anticipating the return of Bitcoin withdrawals on the Celsius platform.

Bitcoin has increased by 8% in the last day to trade above $22,100, indicating that market players are ignoring the news.

Following today’s announcement that 150,000 BTC might potentially be released into the market when Mt.Gox creditors finally receive their BTC after an eight-year wait, 25,000 wBTC were delivered to FTX.

As of now, neither Celsius nor its CEO Alex Mashinsky has made any radio announcements on the transit of cash.

According to cryptocurrency attorney Joni Pirovich, Principal of Blockchain & Digital Assets, Celsius’ settlement of its loan position with Maker would eventually benefit its clients.

BTC Markets Becomes Australia’s First Domestic Crypto Exchange To Score AFSL License

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Australia’s home-grown crypto exchange- BTC Markets announced that it has bagged the Australian Financial Services license [AFSL] via its sister firm, BTCM Payments.

An AFS license is mandatory to conduct a financial services business in the country. It authorizes the holder to provide service, advice, deal, or create a market for a financial product. Besides that, it also allows the provision of custodial or depository services, and so on.

Three months ago, FTX’s Australian subsidiary gained the AFS Licence by acquiring an unnamed entity that previously held the permit.

BTC Markets founded in 2013, rose to become Australia’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It boasts of having over 325,000 local users who have traded $21 billion on its platform.

The fintech firm was instrumental in providing remitters access to Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity [ODL] payments solution. This in turn made cross-border payments completed in seconds, the first of its kind technology in the nation.

Even though licensing would not be a deal-breaker, BTC Markets says it would prepare the firm for upcoming regulations.

That said, the nation’s lack of regulatory clarity has acted as a roadblock for financial firms.

The country’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank [CommBank] had recently planned to launch its crypto trading app. But due to regulatory hassles, it had to halt the release of the pilot program.

Although the fall of Terra’s stablecoin UST along with the recent price drop in the broader crypto market might have also acted as a catalyst.

However, Australia’s newly-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reportedly tasked his cabinet to deal with three top agendas. One of them is regulating the digital assets industry.

Australia’s New PM Includes Crypto As A Top Priority

Caroline Bowler – Chief Executive Officer of BTC Markets and a member of Blockchain Australia has doubled down on the newly-elected government to continue the work of the previous one and create a regulatory bill focused on digital assets.

According to the chief exec, the authorities’ “primary concern” will be to maintain a balance between formulating suitable rules and “leaving room for innovation.”

“There is a real opportunity for the government to assist with innovation and support it, relating to the significant role that financial services play in the Australian economy, but also its position globally,” Bowler concluded.

Terraform labs employee investigated by S.Korean police for alleged BTC fraud

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According to a Korean news site, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency is reportedly initiating an investigation against a Terraform labs employee who allegedly embezzled Bitcoin, LUNA and Terra company cash, following the disappointing utter collapse of original Terra.

According to the report, the police received information in the preceding period that a person suspected of being a Terraform Labs employee was embezzling business assets, so they sought that the funds be frozen using a virtual currency exchange and then launched an investigation.

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However, it has been stated that the link between Terraform Labs CEO Kwon Do-hyeong and embezzlement has yet to be established. A police official said,

“It was intelligence about an employee’s personal embezzlement.”

Furthermore, separately, the Joint Financial and Securities Crime Investigation Team of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office had also received and is interpreting evidence of possible violations of the Act on the Regulation of Fraud and Similar Receipts under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, including allegations against CEO Kwon.

Terra’s biosphere crumbled after the Terra UST depegging in May. After a sharp price drop, the original LUNA lost all of its value, causing billions of dollars in losses. Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, said that the company lost $1.6 billion on its LUNA investment.

New Terra blockchain under-performs

The new Terra blockchain, which has only been operational for a week, is already falling short of expectations. Terra 2.0 went live on May 28 as part of Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s community-approved “Terra resurrection” strategy. The original Terra blockchain was abandoned after its collapse and rebranded as Terra Classic.

LUNA 2.0 got off to a shaky start, losing about 70% of its value in the first 24 hours, as many had predicted. Since then, the price of the LUNA 2.0 coin has remained unchanged. LUNA was trading at $4.49 at the time of publication, down 15.55 percent in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap statistics. The previous LUNA was trading for around $86 when the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin lost its dollar parity on May 6.

Bitcoin Pizza Day! Two Pizzas Bought For 10K BTC On May 22, 2010

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It’s Pizza Time! Today marks the world’s first Bitcoin trade- 2 Large Papa John’s pizzas bought for 10,000 BTC, exactly 12 years ago. On May 22, 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz from Florida, US never knew that his craving for pizza would go down in history.

What’s even more interesting is that he paid 10,000 BTC, which today is worth more than $80 million, for the two pizzas.

The road, however, wasn’t easy.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Hanyecz had to wait for a while for his order. In fact, Hanyecz first posted on the Bitcoin.org forums on May 18, saying,

“I’ll pay 10,000 BTC for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some leftover for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later … If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.”

A British man Jeremy Sturdivant a.k.a Jercos took up Hanyecz’s offer and bought the two pizzas for him in exchange for the 10,000 Bitcoins.

In 2018, Hanyecz again became the first person to buy a pizza over the Lightning Network, though he paid a mere 0.00649 BTC at the time.

Jercos ultimately sold his Bitcoins

As the Bitcoin Pizza Day holiday grew, Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant again grabbed the limelight. He’d give his only interview to a website called “Bitcoin Who’s Who” in 2015, five years after the historic trade.

At that time, Sturdivant had said, “a currency is meant to be spent,” noting that the 10,000 BTC he had received “made it back into the economy quickly” by the time they were worth about $400 in total.

“Naturally there will always be people hoarding coins, trying to get rich, and quite a few people did get quite rich, but they wouldn’t have got that way without economic growth allowing it,” he said, before adding that Bitcoin was meant to be more similar to a PayPal or Stripe.

Sturdivant also spewed some other notable details and said that the transaction was finalized over IRC chats. Jercos was 19 at the time of the transaction.

Justin Tron’s DAO amass 600M TRX & 500 BTC echoing Nayib Bukele’s ‘Buy The Dip’

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Justin Tron’s DAO is the latest to join the ‘Buy the dip club’ netting 600 million TRX and 500 BTC worth $45 million and $15 million, respectively, mirroring El Salvador’s recent buy the dip move.

The Tron DAO Reserve took to Twitter to explain that TRX and USD are sailing amidst high market volatility and that its main goal is to “safeguard the overall blockchain industry and crypto market.

Adding it intends to “prevent panic trading caused by financial crises, and mitigate severe and long-term economic downturns.”

Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRX network hosts the largest circulating supply of USD Tether stablecoin across the globe, overtaking USDT on Ethereum since April 2021. The network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO.

Tron’s stablecoin project launched

Most recently, the algorithmic stable coin USDD was announced on the TRON blockchain, backed by the first-ever crypto reserve for the blockchain industry – TRON DAO Reserve, marking its’s official entry into decentralized stablecoins.

Apart from that, the DAO Reserve plays the role of a lender of last resort to market participants and maintains reserve assets of various blockchains and blockchain-powered financial institutions. It also manages the permissions of USDD as its early custodian.

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On May 5, Tron’s algorithmic stable coin USDD went live and so far, the fiat-pegged token has been listed on a number of decentralized finance [DeFi] protocols.

Two days later, the DAO Reserve announced it has bought 504.6 million TRX to fuel the algorithmic stablecoin.

The project has a number of partners now and USDD is listed on Pancakeswap, Kyberswap, Sunswap, Sun.io, Curve Finance, Uniswap, and Ellipsis.

Tron’s USD stable coin runs in a similar fashion to that of Terra’s UST mechanism, which is backed with Bitcoin and TRX cryptocurrencies. But with Terra’s recent fall from grace and the broken dollar peg spooking the broader market sentiments, it might not look feasible of keeping a stable peg to the dollar.

Previously, The TRON DAO Reserve has announced Alameda Research as the first Member and Whitelisted Institution to mint Decentralized USD [USDD], a fully decentralized stablecoin supported by mathematics and algorithms. 

Infamous Bitcoin Critic Wouldn’t Trade BTC For Even $25

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Long-time Bitcoin critic and billionaire business magnate Warren Buffett has once again voiced his cynical stance on the world’s largest crypto asset. Speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting held on 30 April, Buffett stated it’s not a productive asset and it doesn’t produce anything tangible.

Despite gaining acceptance from the traditional finance and investment world in recent years, Buffett refuses to budge saying.

“Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything. It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”

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The Berkshire Hathaway CEO and the chairman who infamously called bitcoin “probably rat poison squared,” in 2018 went on to describe the asset, as a “mirage,” “not a currency,” and “tulips” among others.

His old-time business associate Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger also labeled the asset a “turd,” and said that trading cryptocurrencies are “just dementia.”

“Bitcoin lacks value”

Ranting about why he doesn’t see value in bitcoin, compared to other things, the business tycoon said,

“If you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.”

His partner Munger too reiterated saying Bitcoin makes him look “stupid, evil and bad and praised China for banning it.

“In the first place, it’s stupid because it’s still likely to go to zero. It’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve System and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China.”

Interestingly, the latest SEC filings of Berkshire Hathaway show that the company has placed a huge bet on the crypto space. Recently Berkshire Hathaway bought a stake worth $1 billion in Brazil-based digital neobank NuBank, which is the largest digital financial services provider in Latin America.

At the same time, the investment firm has also been reducing its stake in traditional financial companies such as Visa and Mastercard.

Dubai Real Estate Giant Now Accepts Payments in BTC and ETH

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A Dubai-based firm stated that allowing cryptocurrencies to be used to purchase real estate will revolutionize the industry’s future. It will also offer simplicity and flexibility to real estate investors worldwide.

On Wednesday, Damac Properties, a real estate developer, revealed that it would offer properties in exchange for cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum.

“This shift toward clients holding cryptocurrency is one of our endeavors to advance the new economy for younger generations and the future of our business,” Ali Sajwani, Damac’s general manager of operations and leader of the company’s digital transformation projects, said.

“It is crucial for global businesses like ours to stay at the top of evolution. Offering yet another transactional mode is exciting, and we are glad to recognise the value this technology brings to our customers.”

Dubai – a growing crypto hub

In the United Arab Emirates, cryptocurrency usage is growing exponentially. Bake N More and delivery firm YallaMarket, both located in Dubai, recently announced that they would accept bitcoins as a form of payment.

The UAE’s drive to grow the crypto business has recently attracted significant corporations. Major crypto exchanges are relocating their headquarters to Dubai due to the government’s decision to award virtual asset licenses under the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

Dubai is on the verge of becoming a crypto powerhouse. The Emirate is also promoting other virtual assets with crypto-friendly policies.

Crypto.com and Singapore-based Bybit, the world’s two largest cryptocurrency platforms, announced intentions to establish regional and global headquarters in Dubai in March.

Damac, data center business Edgnex, luxury jeweler de-Grisogono, and fashion label Roberto Cavalli revealed a proposal to enter the metaverse and create their own digital towns earlier this week. The company intends to invest up to $100 million in the project.

Ali Sajwani will direct the group. It will operate under the name ‘D-Labs.’ The project is part of its more extensive plans to go into digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFT).

The chasm between the bitcoin and real estate markets has been closing quicker than anticipated! Before purchasing a home, many consumers had to convert their cryptocurrency into US dollars. The circumstance, though, has most likely altered.