2024-10-23 19:46

The former president's probability of retaking the White House slid to 59% Wednesday before rebounding. Donald Trump's odds on Polymarket of winning the U.S. presidential election temporarily dipped Wednesday after the prediction market's second largest holder of "yes" shares in a victory for the Republican nominee placed bets on his opponent. Theo4 has amassed 12 million "yes" shares in a Trump victory, second only to Fredi9999. These whales' trades have come under scrutiny from market watchers and media outlets in the last week or so (Some observers have speculated that these two, and three other Polymarket accounts, are controlled by the same individual or group, outside the U.S.). Wednesday afternoon in New York, however, Theo4 appeared to hedge his (or her or their) bets, buying blocks of "no" shares for Trump and "yes" shares for Kamala Harris, before resuming Trump "yes" share purchases. Each share pays out $1 (in the USDC stablecoin) if the prediction comes true and zero if not, so the price, expressed in cents on the dollar, reflects the market's assessment of a candidate's probability of winning (in the case of "yes" shares) or losing (for "no" shares). Trump's odds slipped from 65% before Theo4's uncharacteristic trades to as low as 59%, before rebounding to as high as 64%. At press time they were at 63%. Flip Pidot, a veteran prediction market trader who has been closely tracking Polymarket whale trades, attributed the short-lived dip to Theo4 in a post on X (formerly Twitter). In recent days, a flurry of mainstream media outlets and (often pro-Harris) social media posters have suggested, with varying degrees of certainty, that pro-Trump forces are manipulating Polymarket to make his chances look higher than they are. These claims cite heavy buying by Fredi9999, Theo4, and other Trump whales. Betting market proponents counter that anyone who tried to distort these markets would create opportunities for traders with solid information to eat their lunch. Polymarket bars U.S. traders under a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, although clever Americans have circumvented the geofencing using VPNs. Bloomberg reported this week, citing unnamed sources, that Polymarket is taking fresh steps to make sure U.S. users are not trading on its platform, though the article did not spell out those measures. The CFTC has been trying to stop election betting at exchanges it regulates, proposing a rule against such activity and unsuccessfully fighting the Kalshi prediction market in court. Nevertheless, political betting is one of the 2024's big trends, with Polymarket logging $2.3 billion in volume on its main U.S. presidential contact. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/23/trump-polymarket-odds-briefly-dip-after-his-no-2-bull-adds-bet-on-harris/

2024-10-23 18:21

Solana was the best-performing asset in the CoinDesk 20 Index through the week, advancing 11%, while BTC and ETH declined. Solana's SOL has outperformed ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC) as blockchain activity is booming on the network. The latest memecoin trend of artificial intelligence agents promoting and investing in tokens is mostly centered on Solana. Open interest for solana futures increased by almost 3 million SOL, or $506 million through the past four days. While the broader crypto market has been consolidating following the quick runup from the early October lows, Solana (SOL) has been on a tear against the largest cryptocurrencies. SOL is the best performing asset in the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index through the past week with a 11% gain, while almost all other constituents lost value, bitcoin's (BTC) 2.5% decline and ether's (ETH) 3.5% drop among them. The action has brought SOL to a new all-time record price against rival layer-1 network Ethereum's ether on Tuesday, surpassing the 0.064 level first hit in August, TradingView data shows. Meanwhile, SOL has also shown relative strength against bitcoin, reaching its highest price versus BTC in more than two months. The price action happened alongside resurgent speculative activity in memecoins, a big jump in network revenues and rising bullish bets on crypto derivatives markets. Solana activity booms with memecoin frenzy Solana has greatly benefitted from the resurging speculative frenzy with memecoins, with most of the activity centered around Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. The latest trend, or fad, of artificial intelligence (AI) agents pumping memecoins is also predominantly based on the Solana network. A primary example is the Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) token, which skyrocketed to over $600 million market capitalization from zero in only two weeks, with Marc Andreessen-funded AI bot known as Truth Terminal heavily promoting it on social media. The token was created on October 10 by an anonymous developer using Pump.fun and got endorsed by Truth Terminal. "With that, a whole narrative was born from the intersection of AI, memecoins, and crypto," David Zimmerman, DeFi analyst at K33 Research, wrote in a Wednesday report. "AI memecoins have gained massive attention over the last two weeks, with many tokens reaching over $100 million market cap." The memecoin frenzy drove blockchain activity on Solana to fresh highs. Network revenues from transaction fees surpassed $4 million per day on Tuesday nearing the records in March, increasing by tenfold since early September lows, Token Terminal shows. Meanwhile, active users on the chain rose to record highs of over 8 million. Higher revenues also dampen the token's inflation, with now over 15% of newly issued tokens being destroyed, or burned, per Blockworks data. Open interest soars Open interest on the SOL futures markets climbed to over 18 million SOL, or $3.09 billion, the highest amount in notional value since January 2023, CoinGlass shows. In the past four days alone, open interest has increased by almost 3 million SOL worth $506 million. Open interest refers to unsettled futures bets or the total amount of funds allocated in open futures contracts. It is one of the best ways to determine whether new money is entering the market. It can be measured in a native token terms like solana (SOL) notional value. Native token is the preferred denominator as the notional value is influenced by the rise or fall of the asset's price. A spike in leverage can contribute to market volatility, and if prices start to move one way or the other, we could see a high amount of short or long liquidations. Funding rates for perpetuals stand at 10% annualized, which measures the price longs have to pay to short traders to keep their perpetual futures position open, indicating that most of the bets are longs, anticipating prices climbing higher. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/23/solana-hits-record-vs-ether-outperforms-bitcoin-as-ai-memecoin-frenzy-and-surging-revenues-fuel-rally/

2024-10-23 13:52

AI clusters and bitcoin mining operations have vastly different needs. Core Scientific's chief development officer gets down to the nitty gritty. Core Scientific is expanding its AI deal with CoreWeave. Russell Cann, Core Scientific’s chief development officer, talked to CoinDesk about the particulars of the bitcoin miner’s multi-billion dollar infrastructure agreement with CoreWeave. AI fleets and bitcoin mining operations have very different requirements, Cann said, with AI clusters being much more capital intensive. Bitcoin miner Core Scientific (CORZ) revealed a deal on Tuesday to help cloud-computing firm CoreWeave expand its artificial intelligence capabilities. It’s easy to think that Core Scientific is simply jumping on the AI bandwagon with this agreement (which it hopes will generate $8.6 billion in revenue over 12 years) to build 500 megawatts of infrastructure. Mining has gotten brutal following the fourth Bitcoin halving in April (which hammered profits), and other firms – such as Hut 8 and HIVE – are now dedicating significant resources to AI computation instead of single-mindedly extracting bitcoin (BTC). The truth, however, is that due to its unique business model – a heavy focus on building application-specific infrastructure for data centers – Core Scientific was almost always guaranteed to have a leg up on other bitcoin miners with AI. Not only that, but Core Scientific had a head start. The company entered the AI game in 2019, far ahead of the rest of the industry, and while it briefly entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the crypto market’s collapse in 2022 before re-emerging at the beginning of 2024, it still has technical know-how. "Core Scientific started out as a data center operator primarily providing colocation services rather than for proprietary mining. So it may have a relatively longer history than other public peers in terms of constructing and operating proprietary infrastructure," Wolfie Zhao, head of research at mining advising firm BlocksBridge Consulting, told CoinDesk. "The investment requirements for purpose built infrastructure and GPUs for AI workloads are so high that capital allocators cannot afford to take operational risks by partnering with inexperienced operators," CJ Burnett, chief revenue officer at bitcoin mining marketplace Compass Mining, told CoinDesk. "A track record of performance and deep industry relationships can create a defensible moat for the first movers in the space." Core Scientific’s second ace in the hole? This multi-billion-dollar deal only marks another step in its fruitful relationship with CoreWeave. “It wasn't something that just came out of nowhere,” Russell Cann, the miner’s chief development officer, said in an interview with CoinDesk. “We were their largest GPU hosting provider,” he said, referring to graphics processing units, the high-performing computers that form the basis of AI clusters. “We've had a long-standing relationship with CoreWeave. There's been a lot of trust there. We worked on a lot of engineering pieces together as they developed their GPU cloud business.” So it isn’t so much that Core Scientific is diversifying into AI, but rather that the seven-year-old company – one of the biggest mining operations in the world in terms of hashrate, per TheMinerMag data – is growing in a way that plays to its core strengths. Differences between AI fleets and bitcoin mining The agreement separates responsibilities between Core Scientific and CoreWeave, with the former being in charge of building a data center suited for AI clusters, while the latter – which ultimately owns the machines, and the software stack – provides high computational services to its clients. Any modification to Core Scientific’s existing infrastructure is funded by CoreWeave. “We build our infrastructure, in most cases, from the substation all the way down to the chip itself that mines bitcoin,” Cann said, and the same level of detail applies to building the machines dedicated to AI. There’s a lot to take into consideration. Data centers for AI fleets and bitcoin mining may look the same from the outside, but once in the building, everything changes, said Cann. That’s because Core Scientific doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all – the firm’s competitive advantage stems from its ability to customize every bit of infrastructure to make it application-specific. For example, the power infrastructure is completely different for mining and AI applications. If the power goes down in a bitcoin mine, it’s not the end of the world, because the ability to switch your machines on and off depending on the price of electricity is an essential facet of bitcoin mining, to the point that many firms use that function in a strategic manner. But AI fleets need constant uptime, and that means implementing expensive power redundancy measures, including batteries, backup generators and uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, systems. Another example: Whether you’re mining bitcoin or running an AI cluster, machines must be cooled to avoid overheating – but the optimal cooling method will depend on the application, Cann said. Most bitcoin rigs are cooled by fans or by being submerged in a pool of dielectric fluid, which comes at little cost. The GPUs used for AI, on the other hand, require some form of air conditioning, or to pass fluid over the machine’s silicon chip – two methods that consume large amounts of energy. Other differences emerge when you look at the kind of hard drives used for AI fleets compared to bitcoin mining operations, or the amount of fiber and connectivity that is needed for each site. Big picture: AI sites tend to be much more expensive and less versatile than bitcoin mining operations, which can be plopped in all kinds of remote locations all around the world. That’s why Core Scientific, as a rule of thumb when examining a new site, will determine whether the economics of it makes sense for AI purposes first, and, if not, look at it from a bitcoin mining perspective. “If I built a world-class air-cooled bitcoin mining site, I'm going to spend probably between $500,000 to $750,000 per megawatt,” Cann said. But that cost climbs up to $10 million to $12 million by megawatt for AI-related GPUs, he said. That certainly puts the size of the 500-megawatt deal with CoreWeave into perspective. By that measure, it will cost roughly $5 billion to build the infrastructure CoreWeave needs. The project will be big enough that it could power roughly 100,000 homes, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas – the Lone Star State’s electrical grid operator. Most of that power will be coming online in 2025 and 2026. It’s still just a fraction of Core Scientific’s total footprint. The firm currently owns 1,600 megawatts worth of heavy electrical infrastructure and has 1,200 megawatts of power purchase agreements. Lots of experience to draw on According to Cann, the reason Core Scientific is so good at building application-specific infrastructure is because the firm has a wealth of experience using all kinds of high compute machines. For example, the company used GPUs to mine ether (ETH) back before Ethereum switched its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in 2022. Using similar GPUs, Core Scientific started hosting AI clusters in early 2019, Cann said, way before ChatGPT and chipmaker Nvidia shook the world. The firm stopped running its unit in November 2022, soon before entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Core Scientific emerged from bankruptcy in January after receiving approval for its restructuring plan. “A lot of people talk about us pivoting into AI, but we've been doing AI for a long time,” Cann said. “We’re taking advantage of market conditions and expanding our AI piece back again.” And the fast-paced world of bitcoin mining has shaped the team – which counts people with decades of experience building traditional data centers – in a way that gives it an edge over their competitors who’ve never been involved with bitcoin, Cann said. “Bitcoin is a 24/7, 365 days a year, global market. It's always moving,” Cann said. “Some of the traditional guys that don’t have experience mining bitcoin, they're just going to be a little bit behind, because they have to catch up on that fast iteration,” he added. “AI is the only thing I've ever seen that iterates as fast as bitcoin mining.” https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/10/23/bitcoin-miners-are-pivoting-to-ai-to-survive-core-scientific-entered-the-race-years-ago/

2024-10-23 13:49

Robert Liu, a member of the board of Hong Kong-based BiT Global, which was recently added by BitGo as an additional custodian to the bitcoin-on-Ethereum token known as wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), notes in an exclusive interview that Tron founder Justin Sun has come to the aid of customers in the past. Robert Liu, a member of the board of Hong Kong-based BiT Global, spoke to CoinDesk in an interview. Liu defended Tron founder Justin Sun's role as an advisor to the project, arguing that the blockchain he founded is trusted by holders of tens of billions of Tether's stablecoin, USDT. The business plan for WBTC is to increase the outstanding amount by five to 10 times what is now, just under $10 billion – using a geographically diversified custodial setup that might be more appealing to buyers outside the U.S. The project is being positioned as a crypto-native alternative to bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Regarding purportedly more decentralized alternatives to WBTC, he said: "There's no accountability if something goes wrong. Those people don't even go by their real names, right? They go by all kinds of strange animal names. Nowadays, I know identifying with the animal is quite trendy in the U.S., right? But at least we go by our real names." In August, the mere disclosure that Tron founder Justin Sun was involved in the custody operations related to wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) – a popular token in decentralized finance – was enough to rattle the crypto industry. At least one major decentralized finance (DeFi) project considered eliminating WBTC completely as a collateral option, and several major crypto players, including the exchange Coinbase, rushed out competing products. Sun is seen as controversial by some crypto industry analysts, owing to his involvement in various stablecoin projects that turned turbulent, and in other instances where a lack of transparency was cited. BitGo, the original and longtime custodian of the bitcoin backing WBTC, announced on Aug. 9 that it would distribute control over the project's custody to three entities globally instead of just one – as a way of helping to decentralize the operation. According to the release, BiT Global is a global custody platform with regulated operations based in Hong Kong, registered as a Trust and Company Service Provider (TCSP), and is a "a strategic partnership between BitGo, Justin Sun and the Tron ecosystem." WBTC is a token that allows investors to use bitcoin (BTC) on other blockchains, and plays a key role in lending DeFi as collateral, with a $9 billion market capitalization. BiT Global is now one of three holders of the keys overseeing the bitcoin in custody, project officials have confirmed. But what if Sun's involvement is a strength rather than a liability? This argument was made to CoinDesk this week by BiT Global director Robert Liu, in an exclusive interview. What exactly is Sun's role with the project? And who owns it? We got some clarity, but not total clarity. This interview that follows has been edited for clarity and brevity. How did this deal with BitGo come about? Liu: The conversation started last year. That was shortly after BitGo's deal with Galaxy fell apart. At the time we were already anticipating the bitcoin spot ETF being given the green light at some point. And , the idea came about that WBTC stands out as an alternative play, almost like a shadow play on the virtual side with the spot ETF. The spot bitcoin ETF is basically the wrapper of underlying bitcoin in a financial ETF structure, right? Whereas this WBTC basically is the virtual wrapper of Bitcoin to be utilized in the DeFi project? So that's when BitGo was also looking for potential partners to strengthen the WBTC project after the merger deal with Galaxy fell apart. So we put a company together. Ok, well let's get to Justin Sun and what his role is. Obviously you were very intentionally transparent in the initial press release about the fact that he was involved. But I don't know if it's been clarified exactly what his role is. Liu: He really was instrumental in making the initial contact with BitGo happen. Myself, obviously, coming from the tradfi space, I personally don't know BitGo. I know the company, the business model, the significance of WBTC. So just having obviously collaborated with him in the past on some financial transactions. He is instrumental to put together the initial data for myself with BitGo and [BitGo CEO] Mike Belshe. So he plays no other roles than just serving as advisor, strategic advisor, and also helping to basically put together the two teams. There's no reason to hide the importance of Justin, both in terms of his role in the overall industry, and his influence in in particular in Asia, in the crypto space. He sees the opportunity. But he has no management role within Global Trust, which is a licensed fiduciary platform in Hong Kong. He's not an employee. He's not a shareholder. He is not in possession of the keys, which is a focal point in the media, in terms of what it means to have this restructuring, in terms of access to the private keys and how the smart contracts are governed and so on, right? So he has none of those specific, specific roles that some of the unfounded market speculations are suggesting. To clarify, Robert, you are the CEO of the company? Liu: I'm actually just director on the board. The CEO, really it's more of operational and technological project. So we have a CEO who's got a very diverse background in custody and DeFi. Maxwell Fu is the CEO. OK, thank you, Robert. And are you the principal shareholder or majority owner of the company? I'm not. We have six institutional holders, holding the shares of BitGlobal Trust. I'm certainly financially incentivized. But in terms of shareholding structure, it's all fairly straightforward. BitGo is among one of them. OK, and who are the others? Liu: There are six others. We can send you the detailed names at a later stage, like later today or later on. [EDITOR'S NOTE: We did not receive the names later in the day, but CoinDesk's Sam Reynolds did manage to track down the corporate records from the Hong Kong Companies Registry, showing the names of the institutional shareholders – all with the same number of shares held, and listed with the same addresses in the British Virgin Islands – where information on directors and beneficial owners is not easy to come by. Asked if Sun has any ownership relationship, direct or indirect, to any of the listed shareholders of BiT Global, a spokesperson told us, "Justin Sun has no direct or indirect involvement on the cap table."] Well OK, so regarding Justin Sun, he is obviously is a pioneer in this space, founded the Tron blockchain, and he's been super successful in a lot of ways. But then a few things have kind of maybe put some question marks in people's heads. Personally, as an editor, we were writing about the Huobi deal, and he said he was an advisor, and he said he didn't own it, and then later he acknowledged he a huge percentage of the tokens, so he basically controlled the project. So it didn't seem like he was being entirely straightforward, and I think stuff like that might be part of the reason for a gap in the trust here from some folks. But so you're saying he does not have any role besides being an advisor to the project. Is that correct? Liu: Correct, Brad, I wanted to echo your remarks about Justin a little bit right now. Now, I know you are spot on with Justin's propensity to attract certain attention for good or bad reason. And I wanted also to highlight his success with the Tron blockchain, because, I'm not gonna really comment on some of the more subjective media coverage of him. But just very objectively, we all know that Tron blockchain is probably the most successful layer-1 blockchain in terms of providing the most successful RWA project to today, which is the USD stablecoin [including Tether's USDT]. The Tron blockchain has more than 50% of global market share. They have the highest turnover rate. So people have no issue putting more than $60 billion of the stablecoin assets circulating on Tron blockchain. Nobody questioned that, right? I see people try, but then you didn't go anywhere, right? So then, in terms of Huobi, you know, Huobi is a very touchy feeling project. Because we all know the history in China. It's highly sensitive. This is not something I personally want to comment on, right? There was a well covered incident of a hack last year. OK, if you Google it, anyone can find that. And personally, what I can tell you is, if not for Justin, the users would be in big trouble, right? So he basically is the reason why the users still feel safe and comfortable. So I think, just purely from my observation of facts, the market should give him the benefit of doubt. Interesting. I haven't seen that point made anywhere, but I think it's a smart one to make. OK, well, let's just talk about – and this changed right from the initial press release: BiT Global was going to have two of the keys, and then they changed the structure so they only have one of the keys. Is that correct? Liu: The plan was to continue to use BitGo U.S. as the hot wallet validation key, they hold that one right? So then BiT Global Trust, being the custodian, takes two keys, the main key and then the backup key. And that's actually, almost, mandatory. As a licensed custodian of public assets, we have to demonstrate, and seriously, we have to demonstrate we are in the majority control of the vault, right? Because otherwise we are not a fiduciary. And what if something happens? Whose fault is it? Whoever has two keys, will be at fault, right? So, so that's for that reason we have to have two keys, compared with, say in the past, before the deal, there are three keys, always BitGo, right? So then what happens, we all know what happened. All kinds of chatter, speculations, FUD, right? And then we had a community call. It was actually very, very helpful that call. A lot of people signed up. Some of the OG's, who originated the WBTC idea. They hosted the call. They made a bargain plea. Basically, they say, Look it's too dramatic a change. We have no prior information about this. We don't know who is BiT Global Trust. We don't feel comfortable, right? We thought about it, and then BitGo proposed that we probably should think about it, because at that time, they offered a very helpful alternative. At the time during much of the time of the restructuring process, right, BitGo did not yet have a license in Asia. They were looking to set up a footprint in Asia. But it was the same month of the announcement, when BitGo Singapore officially gained a license from MAS in Singapore. So that's what made it possible for us to say, look, OK, so we cannot just give the key to a third party, because one of the community members mentioned that, can we vote credible community members, to hold the key? We're like, it cannot be, It would be a breach of our fiduciary, and we're licensed, right? So BitGo volunteered to use BitGo Singapore, newly licensed by MAS. So that this is truly a three-party, all licensed entities, to collectively hold three different keys, right? So now we hold the main key for the wrapping and unwrapping, BitGo validates it, and the backup key sits in a safe location under the custodian of BitGo Singapore. Alright, and so that arrangement has been approved by the Hong Kong regulator? Liu: Well, that's actually within our discretion, and we do have agreement to validate the arrangement by referencing the MAS license, because just like the banks, the banks can put some of their safe deposit in the safe safe box in a licensed security company as well. So something like that was arranged. Well let's just talk about the business a little bit. Why is this business attractive? Because, looking at some of the dashboards, the number of BTC that are wrapped has kind of flattened out, right? And it's widely reported that the revenue comes from the wrapping and the unwrapping. But if you're stable, there's no revenue. So what's the opportunity? Liu: That was actually the catalyst for BitGo to be willing to talk with someone like us. OK? You're spot on. Right now, while bitcoin is already surpassed the previous peak in '21, WBTC is only 50% of where it used to be, right? And then we all know some of the major financial players, like BlackRock. They have gone all in with their spot ETF. So if the ETF offers this type of attraction to the biggest names in the traditional space, it's a virtual equivalent, WBTC, to us. We want it to grow it. We wanted to not only help it to go back to the previous peak. We want it to go, make it 10 times, if not even a lot more than the current $10 billion, right? That's number one. Number two, based on our communication within our channel, there are a couple of reasons why WBTC has not been growing. One of the reasons being, the U.S. regulatory contact is not particularly conducive. And you may be aware that nearly 100% of the WBTC comes from international platforms. Okay, so WBTC doesn't deal with end users directly. They deal with merchants. And virtually 100% of merchants are offshore entities, and they engage offshore users to meet WBTC. But think about it, personally, I don't see reason for international – the whales, right? To put their WBTC in the vault sitting somewhere in the middle of the U.S., against a regulatory environment that we all know, up until these days, maybe seems to change next year, but so far has not been the case, right? So that's one of the major holdbacks of WBTC growth potential. Have you talked about potentially changing that revenue model to where, instead of just fees from going in and out, there might be some kind of a yield so you could get, like, some recurring revenue? Liu: We're not thinking of any new revenue model until we grow this thing to at least five to 10 times, OK, and then we would definitely not want to have any exposure to fees that is coming from the circulation side. We are the custodian, and the reason institutions don't cost certain platforms in a crypto space is, you mix custody with commercial circulation of your assets. We wanted to focus solely on the custodian side. For now our objective is to make it secure, and regulatory compliant, so that the users would feel confident to come back and grow it. What do you think about all the competition coming into the space, including from some competitors that say they're more decentralized? We have the unique competitive advantage here on a couple fronts. Number one, we have a truly diversified jurisdictional and geographic control of the vault and private key, right? No one can compete with that, and that's very important, until we have a harmonized global regulation. Without that, this is the foolproof setup. There's no single point of failure. It's virtually impossible for three different jurisdictions to collude if they don't like it. So that's number one. Number two, we strike the right balance between centralized and decentralized. The centralized element is absolutely necessary if you want to grow an important strategic asset like wrapped bitcoin, if you want to grow by scale, you have to have a trusted party to hold billions of multi billions, tens of billions of Bitcoin, right? You cannot. I'm personally not aware of any decentralized project that can just take away your bitcoin and say, trust me, it's always there, the minute you want it, it's always there. I am personally not aware of anything like that. On the decentralized front, they say, trust me, right? And just leave your bitcoin with us, and there's no accountability if something goes wrong. Those people don't even go by their real names, right? They go by all kinds of strange animal names. Nowadays, I know identifying with the animal is quite trendy in the U.S., right? But at least we go by our real names. And then on the centralized side, compared with [Coinbase's] cBTC, we're not subject to a constant subpoena by some government regulator, like in the case of Coinbase, right? They will get the subpoena on any given time in relation to any assets, any clients who onboard with CBTC, right? We don't have that in Hong Kong, in Singapore. The regulation is very different, very clear cut, very different, right? https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/10/23/justin-sun-might-be-good-for-wrapped-bitcoin-says-new-custodians-director/

2024-10-23 11:56

Reuters reported that the government did so to allow Gambaryan to seek medical treatment abroad. A local news outlet reported the money laundering charges against Tigran Gambaryan have been dropped by the government. The charges were dropped to allow him to seek medical treatment abroad, another report said. The government's charges against Binance itself remain. Nigeria's government has withdrawn the money laundering charges against Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan days after a court denied him bail, local news outlet Punch reported first on Wednesday. "People are on the way to give the order" to the Kuje prison and then he should be released "immediately," Gambaryan's lawyer Mark Mordi told CoinDesk on the phone. He did not share any other details about when Gambaryan is expected to leave the country. Reuters reported that the government did so to allow Gambaryan to seek medical treatment abroad, citing the "government's lawyer" who also said the Nigeria would continue the money laundering case against Binance without Gambaryan. Binance is facing a tax-evasion trial with Nigeria demanding $10 billion in penalties for enabling some $26 billion of untraceable funds which purportedly led to the Nigerian naira weakening to record lows against the dollar. Gambaryan, Binance's head of financial crime compliance, has been detained in Nigeria since February, when he came to the nation at the invitation of the government to discuss issues related to the company. He had come with Nadeem Anjarwalla, Binance's regional manager for Africa, who escaped detention in March. During his time in prison Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen, developed malaria, pneumonia and tonsillitis.But he was also suffering from complications tied to a herniated disc in his back which left him in need of a wheelchair – though in a video from his last court appearance, Gambaryan did not have a wheelchair and instead had to struggle on a single crutch, CoinDesk reported earlier. Pressure had been mounting on the Nigerian authorities given Gambaryan's ill-health. Gambaryan's wife, Yuki Gambaryan illustrated the family's ordeal through a recent podcast and a video, besides other frequent efforts to bring attention to the case. During one of the earlier hearings, Mordi, told the court that former Internal Revenue Service agent needed surgery since July 18. Binance CEO Richard Teng and members of the U.S. Congress had urged Nigeria and U.S. authorities to help bring him back to the U.S. The Gambaryan family, Binance and Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for comment. Read More: 'Is Daddy on the Airplane?' Jailed Binance Exec Gambaryan Family’s Ordeal in New Podcast https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/10/23/tigran-gambaryan-free-to-leave-nigeria-for-medical-treatment-after-money-laundering-charges-dropped-reports/

2024-10-23 10:48

Bitcoin mining difficulty jumps 3.9%, hits 95.67T on Tuesday, amid record hashrate. Bitcoin difficulty hits an all-time high of 95.67T, which coincides with a record hashrate that went above 700 EH/s for the first time. The 3.9% jump in difficulty becomes the 13th positive adjustment for 2024. Once the 365-SMA total miner revenue is claimed, this typically coincides with bull runs in bitcoin. Bitcoin's (BTC) mining difficulty hit an all-time high of 95.67 terahashes (T), rising by 3.9%, on Tuesday, Glassnode data shows. Mining difficulty measures how hard it is to mine a new block on Bitcoin. So far, in 2024, there have been 22 difficulty adjustments, with 13 being positive. As a result, the difficulty has jumped from 72T to 92T, a 27% increase, year-to-date. The network automatically adjusts every 2,016 blocks, which is approximately every two weeks, to ensure that blocks on average are mined every 10 minutes. The surge in mining difficulty has coincided with record hashrate, which also made all-time highs of over 700 exahashes per second (EH/s). Hashrate is the combined computational power to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain. As difficulty increases, the mining industry faces further pressure as it becomes harder to generate profits. Therefore, operational costs increase as more computational power is needed to invest in more efficient mining equipment. Weak miners being purged Part of the downward pressure on bitcoin, since the April halving, has come from unprofitable miners selling holdings. These miners, mainly small private miners, couldn't sustain themselves due to higher costs. After the halving, these miners started to unplug from the network leading to a 15% decrease in hashrate or started selling bitcoin in order to fund operating costs. Looking at Glassnode data, we see that miner balances dropped this year as weaker miners knew the halving was approaching and were trying to fund operations to get ahead of the game. From November 2023 to July 2024, we saw over 30,000 bitcoin leave miner wallets, one of the longest distribution periods from miners on record. However, we can now observe that since July, miner balances have been relatively flat and have shown signs of accumulation, telling us remaining miners on average can handle the new environment. The mining industry will continue to consolidate into stronger hands, with public miners controlling a record share of almost 30%. Bitcoin bull run commencing soon Bitcoin bull runs and surging miner revenue coincide; as price increases, so does mining revenue. Glassnode data shows that on a 7-day moving average (7-DMA), the total dollar mining revenue is over $35 million, an increase of over $10 million since the September low. Since the halving in April, the mining revenue has been below the 365-simple moving average (SMA), currently priced at $40 million. Historically, once the total miner revenue climbs above the 365-SMA, this coincides with a bitcoin bull run, which has been seen historically. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/23/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-hits-all-time-high-as-mining-revenue-rises-signals-upcoming-bull-run/