A Rise in Bitcoin NFT Transaction Fees, and Ethereum Withdrawals of Staked ETH

In a report published by CryptoCompare earlier this week, it was found that the price of Bitcoin moved mostly sideways throughout the week, starting at $23,000 and then dipping to a low of $22,500 before moving strongly upward to $24,000. Cryptocurrency prices have decreased since then, and now trade at a value of $22,700, which is the lowest since June.

‍

By way of comparison, Ethereum's Ether, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, also moved similarly to Bitcoin this week. After falling to $1,550 at the beginning of the week, it surged to near $1,700 by the end of the week. However, ETH is currently trading for $1,625, outperforming the flagship cryptocurrency.

‍

Ethereum's developers moved staked ETH withdrawals closer to reality by launching a new testnet called "Zhejiang" over the past week, allowing users to test Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895, which enables staked ether withdrawals. As part of the next large upgrade, the Shanghai hard fork, these features will be included.

‍

A testnet is a duplicate version of a main blockchain, which enables developers to test upgrades and applications in a live environment without putting the main blockchain itself at risk. There will be a new testnet that will facilitate the withdrawal of staked ethereum.

‍

The testnet users will be able to deposit ETH to validators before they can withdraw staked Ether, in order to be able to withdraw Ether that has been staked. The tokens are testnet tokens without any real value.

‍

There has also been a rise in transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain as users have been minting thousands of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the last few months after a protocol called Ordinals started allowing people to mint them directly on the BTC network, thereby increasing the transaction fees.

‍

Trade Algo reports that Bitcoin's transaction fees, which are based on the total block rewards from the blockchain, increased to over 2.5% on January 31 and are continuing to rise, according to the report.

‍

Although Ordinals are designed to provide a discount on fees for NFT creators, the quantity of data required for them is much higher than what is required for normal transactions. It has been reported that hundreds of new NFTs have been minted on the Bitcoin blockchain since late January, and these NFTs can include a wide variety of data, including images, videos, and even video game files ”.

‍

On the stablecoin front, there have been a variety of depegs over the years. According to CryptoCompare, which recently examined stablecoins & CBDCs, concerns about Huobi's solvency were revealed in their Stablecoins & CBDCs Report, which coincided with the depegging of stablecoins on the Tron network in response to those concerns. In January, USDD dropped to $0.973, backed by TRX, BTC, USDT, and USDC.

‍

There has been a struggle to recover Gemini Earn users' funds after Genesis' bankruptcy caused a drop in the value of Gemini's GUSD. Since the beginning of September 2022, NeutrinoUSD has been out of its peg.

‍

A $5 million legal fund will be set up by Maker's Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) using stablecoins to cover legal defense expenses incurred by active MakerDAO participants in the event of legal action ”.

‍

Initially, the coverage will be provided to "Recognized Delegates, Core Unit Facilitators, Core Unit permanent contributors, and active holders of MKR cards". Legal actions against beneficiaries will be covered if they are directly related to MakerDAO activities.

‍

Silvergate acquires a 9.32% stake from State Street

Fund management giant State Street took a 9.32% stake in troubled cryptocurrency bank Silvergate Capital over the week, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

‍

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has revealed that its holdings in Silvergate have been boosted as of the end of 2022, taking its 6.3% stake in Silvergate to 7.2% as of the end of 2022, up from its 6.3% stake in the crypto bank earlier this month.

‍

Four advisors wrote a blog post titled "The Administration's Roadmap to Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Risks" the same week the White House announced the new investment. In the blog, the author presents the “first-ever framework for developing digital assets in a safe, responsible manner while taking into account the risks they pose ”.

‍

In FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried's case, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the judge to ban him from communicating with current or former employees due to allegations of witness tampering.

‍

Payments in Crypto may be Added to Twitter

There has also been a lot of activity this week as Twitter has started pursuing licensing in the US and is developing software in order to be able to accept payments on its platform. According to Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, the system will first and foremost be a fiat currency system, but it will also support crypto currencies in its functions as well.

‍

In order to open up fresh revenue streams for Elon Musk's microblogging platform, he is said to be planning to allow payments through it as part of his plan to increase revenue. Despite Musk's acquisition of the platform in 2011, the platform's $5 billion-a-year advertising business has cratered since Musk acquired it.

‍

It has been reported that Musk would like Twitter to offer a number of fintech services, including peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts, and debit cards, in the future. As part of the plan to launch an "everything app," which will combine messaging, payments, and commerce, the features are part of what he plans to launch.