- Bitcoin Plunges Below $25K, Lowest Level Since December 2020
Bitcoin (BTC) plummeted under $25,000 on Monday morning amid weakness in the macroeconomic environment and systemic risk from within the crypto market, data shows.
The asset has slid for nearly twelve straight weeks, falling from nearly $49,000 in March 2022 to under $25,000. It showed some signs of bottoming out in mid-May, but worrying U.S. inflation data released last week did little to cushion falling sentiment.
The consumer price index (CPI), the most widely tracked benchmark for inflation, rose 8.6% on a year-over-year basis in May, topping expectations that it would decline to 8.2% from April’s 8.3%, as reported.
- Do Kwon Accused of Cashing out $2.7B Before UST Collapse, Terra Founder Says Allegations Are False
The LUNA 2.0 rebirth token has been extremely lackluster in terms of market performance during the past two weeks. However, as Bitcoin.com News reported six days ago, a myriad of decentralized finance (defi) protocols have re-joined the ecosystem.
Terra’s 2.0 chain has roughly $1.32 billion locked in the Stader defi application according to defillama.com stats. The Terra Classic chain still has $10.54 million total value locked in defi today as well, with $3.11 million held on Terraswap and $2.47 million locked into Anchor.
During the past two weeks, after LUNA 2.0 tapped a high of $11.33 per unit, the new LUNA has lost 54% during the last 14 days. It is still down 86% from the all-time high at $18.87 per coin when the 2.0 blockchain was first launched.
At the time of writing, LUNA 2.0 has $135 million in global trade volume, which pales in comparison to the volume luna classic (LUNC) saw prior to the fallout. The top exchanges in terms of trade volume for LUNA 2.0 include Bitrue, Okx, Huobi Global, Kucoin, and Gate.io. LUNA 2.0’s top five trading pairs today include USDT, USD, USDC, EUR, and ETH, respectively.
- Ethereum Core Devs Delay Crucial ‘Difficulty Bomb’ for Two Months
Ethereum core developers met on Friday and decided to delay the handling of the “difficulty bomb”, a crucial catalyst in Ethereum’s long-anticipated “Merge,” which will migrate the network from a proof-of-work consensus to proof-of-stake.
The difficulty bomb was planted in Ethereum’s code in 2015 as a measure to force validators to accept the merge. An implementation of the merge dubbed went live on the Ropsten testnet earlier this past week.
Following the testnet merge and after discussing a number of bugs revealed by the test merge, developers proposal EIP-5133 to delay the difficulty bomb to August 2022. It has been delayed five times before.
“In short, we agreed to the bomb delay,” tweeted lead developer Tim Beiko after the call on Friday. “We are aiming for a ~2 month delay and for the upgrade to go live in late June.”
https://decrypt.co/102703/ethereum-core-devs-delay-crucial-difficulty-bomb-for-two-months
- PayPal Allowing Crypto Off Its Platform Heralds a First Step Away From Fiat World, CEO Schulman Says
PayPal’s recent move to allow transfers out of the firm’s cryptocurrency walled garden is the opening step from a fiat-orientated world to a digital currency one, according to the fintech giant’s CEO Dan Schulman.
Schulman, who was joined on stage at Consensus 2022 in Austin, Tex. by PayPal crypto lead Jose Fernandez da Ponte, said that his firm is playing a long game with crypto.
Adding crypto buy, sell and hold capability in late 2020, greatly expanded the population of the fintech’s users, Schulman said. Now moving on chain opens up the ability for them to use crypto as another funding source inside the PayPal wallet.
“We will instantaneously take your crypto and translate it in to fiat, and you will be able to use that in any one of our 35 million merchant accounts, so we are trying to add functionality,” Schulman said. “But what we just did with transfers, is kind of like the opening step as you might think about us moving from a fiat-orientated world to a digital currency one.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7129478
- Binance ends support for anonymous Litecoin transactions
Crypto exchange Binance announced they are ending support for Litecoin (LTC) transactions sent through the latest MimbleWimble (MWEB) upgrade.
Binance warned that any transaction sent through the MWEB function would be lost since the crypto exchange can’t verify the sender’s address. The crypto exchange didn’t respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comments at the time of publishing.
The announcement comes just days after major South Korean crypto exchanges delisted LTC due to the latest upgrade that makes transaction information confidential. The delisting came just weeks after five crypto exchanges issued warnings similar to Binance. However, the delisting didn’t come as a surprise as S.Korea is known for its strict privacy laws that prohibit anonymous transactions on crypto exchanges.
The MWEB upgrade on LTC is one of the critical updates that went live earlier this year, nearly two and half years after it was first proposed. The upgrade added several privacy features and made the LTC blockchain more scalable.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-ends-support-for-anonymous-litecoin-transactions
- Crypto Market Cap Falls Below $1T for First Time Since Early 2021
The market capitalization for cryptocurrencies fell by some 12% in the last 24 hours to nearly $970 billion on Monday morning, data from CoinMarketCap shows.
A similar capitalization was previously seen in January 2021, data shows. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin (BTC) lost 13% while ether (ETH) slid 17%.
Bitcoin dominance increased to over 47% over the weekend, suggesting investors held bitcoin and risked off from alternative cryptocurrencies.
The fall came amid a decline in global stocks after poor U.S. Consumer Price Index data for May was released last week. Inflation rocketed to over 8.3% on a year-on-year basis, denting investor sentiment.
Bitcoin has declined for nearly twelve straight weeks, marking one of the asset’s biggest slides in its lifetime.
- Human Rights Advocates Insist Bitcoin ‘Provides Financial Inclusion’ — Refutes Claims in Critics’ Letter to US Congress
About 21 human rights advocates from 20 different countries have sent a letter to the U.S. Congress wherein they defend bitcoin as well as rebut claims recently raised by some 1,500 computer scientists, software engineers, and technologists. According to the human rights defenders, “bitcoin provides financial inclusion and empowerment because it is open and permissionless.”
In their open letter to U.S. congressional leaders, the advocates point to how bitcoin and stablecoins have offered an “unparalleled access to the global economy for people in countries like Nigeria, Turkey, or Argentina, where local currencies are collapsing, broken, or cut off from the outside world.”
- Dogecoin Down Over 90% Since Elon Musk’s SNL Appearance
Last May, as Dogecoin’s price approached an all-time high of $0.72, the cryptocurrency’s devoted fan base hoped that Dogecoin superfan Elon Musk’s upcoming appearance on “Saturday Night Live” would shoot the joke coin’s value “over the moon.”
In the year since, its price has instead cratered back down to Earth.
As of this writing, DOGE is currently valued at a little over $0.06, down almost 91% since the eve of Musk’s SNL appearance on May 8, 2021. That night, Musk performed a series of monologues and skits that referenced Dogecoin, often mockingly.
During the show’s signature “Weekend Update” sketch, Musk conceded when pressed by cast members that Dogecoin was a “hustle.”
https://decrypt.co/102711/dogecoin-down-over-90-since-elon-musks-snl-appearance
- American Express Adds First Crypto Product With Abra Rewards Card
AUSTIN, Texas — While American Express (AXP) has scotched hopes of a cryptocurrency-linked credit card any time soon, the card giant has confirmed hints made earlier this year that it would be offering crypto rewards, teaming up with digital-assets services major Abra.
Announced Friday at Consensus 2022, the Abra Crypto Card will allow users to earn back crypto on any purchase, no matter the amount or category. Cardholders can choose from any of the more than 100 cryptocurrencies supported on the Abra platform, with no annual or foreign transaction fees. The card will also come with Amex Offers for shopping, travel, dining and services as well as presale ticket access and purchase protections.
“This has been a long time coming and is the first American Express crypto product,” said Abra CEO Bill Barhydt in an interview with CoinDesk. “Amex retail offers from hundreds of merchants are integrated into the app with the whole fraud and purchase protection all integrated with the Abra wallet.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7129202
- USDD stablecoin falls to $0.97, DAO inserts $700M to defend the peg
While the market has not yet fully recovered from the onslaught caused by the TerraUSD (UST) depeg, another stablecoin project shows signs of distress, causing fears and speculation within the community.
Stablecoin protocol USDD’s price dipped to $0.97 on major crypto trading platforms on Monday. Because of this, the market started to keep an eye on the project with fears that the project will follow the footsteps of Terra (LUNA). CurveSwaps, a bot that monitors large asset transfers flagged that $1 million USDD was recently swapped to 997,339 Tether (USDT).
On the other hand, blockchain analytics platform Nansen has also detected that one of the funds that capitalized on the UST depeg has started actively transferring larger amounts of USDD and other stablecoins.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/usdd-stablecoin-falls-to-0-97-dao-inserts-700m-to-defend-the-peg
