Crypto Daily News from ZBG Exchange

1. Market Wrap: Bitcoin Trades Sideways as Institutional Demand Expected to Rise

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are consolidating near recent highs.

Bitcoin is roughly flat over the past 24 hours as short-term momentum fades. The past few days have been relatively quiet in the crypto market, which typically precedes periods of higher volatility. Some analysts expect crypto prices to consolidate, albeit with the continued relative outperformance of altcoins such as ether and cardano.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was trading at around $45,400 at press time and is up 55% year to date, compared with a 19% return for the S&P 500 and a 30% return in commodities over the same period.

Latest prices

Cryptocurrencies:

Bitcoin (BTC) $44,888, -0.98%

Ether (ETH) $3026.5, -2.31%

Traditional markets:

S&P 500: 4400.3, -1.07%

Gold: $1785.3, -0.03%

10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.272%, compared with 1.262% on Tuesday

Analysts are also watching institutional flows throughout the crypto market. A review of regulatory documents reveals that a parade of megabanks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America, and even states such as Tennessee, have told securities regulators they held Coinbase stock (NASDAQ: COIN) on June 30.

But not all investors are dedicated to their crypto holdings. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest continued to reduce its holdings of COIN and the Grayscale Investment Trust (GBTC) in the past week, according to Chainchatter and Wu Blockchain. Wood is a noted crypto investor. Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group.

2. Crypto Made the Agenda at Last Month’s Fed Meeting

This appears to be the first time the topic has come up in the seminal monthly FOMC meeting.

Top Federal Reserve officials are so concerned about the potential danger posed by cryptocurrencies to the financial system that they discussed it during a seminal monthly closed-door meeting in July.

“Some participants cited various potential risks to financial stability including the risks associated with expanded use of cryptocurrencies,” according to minutes of the July 27–28 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). This is the panel at the U.S. central bank that sets monetary policy, and the interest-rate decisions announced after its monthly meetings are the subject of much soothsaying and Kremlinology (in the figurative sense).

While officials from the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and regional Fed banks have expressed a range of views about crypto in recent months, from welcoming to wary, this appears to be the first time the topic has come up in the FOMC.

As such, it’s another sign the industry has “arrived,” following its role holding up the $1 trillion infrastructure bill in Congress.

3. Poly Network Attacker Threatens to Delay Return of Funds

“WHAT A FUNNY GAME,” the Poly Network attacker wrote into a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain.

The hacker who carried out a $600-million-plus exploit on the blockchain protocol Poly Network has threatened to delay the full return of funds until at least next week.

“YOUR ESSAYS ARE VERY CONVINCING WHILE YOUR ACTIONS ARE SHOWING YOUR DISTRUST, WHAT A FUNNY GAME,” the attacker, identified on the blockchain-tracking website Etherscan as “Poly Network Exploiter 1,” wrote Wednesday in a transaction data field on the Ethereum blockchain.

The saga has already dragged into its second week, as executives behind the project plead with the attacker to return the looted funds from the Aug 10 attack. They have created a destination account for the return of the funds, but it requires multiple signatures to unlock the funds, and the attacker’s cooperation is needed.

4. Bitcoin Use Will Be ‘Totally Optional’ in El Salvador, Finance Minister Says

According to Alejandro Zelaya, the use of the cryptocurrency will be optional, and businesses will not be penalized if they do not accept it.

The use of bitcoin (BTC, +0.97%) and a digital wallet in El Salvador will be “totally optional,” and businesses that do not accept the cryptocurrency will not be sanctioned, El Salvador’s finance minister Alejandro Zelaya said Tuesday.

In a televised interview during the program Frente a Frente hosted by journalist Moisés Urbina, Zelaya said that the dollar will remain as the main currency of reference in the country, and will be the one which businesses, the government and all others will use for their accounting.

Zelaya’s comments contradicted article 7 of the bitcoin law passed in June, which stipulated that bitcoin must be accepted as a form of payment by “every economic agent.”

5. Bitcoin Lightning Network Growth Passes New Milestones

However, only about 58% of nodes are operating channels and earning yield.

The Lightning Network — a layer 2 payment product built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain that enables secure, private and near-instantaneous transactions at little to no cost — has surpassed 25,000 active nodes for the first time, an indication that the network is growing stronger with more nodes and more channels.

During the past 30 days, the number of active nodes has risen 8% to 25,010. A node is essentially a “user” on the network who sets up their computer to interact with other nodes. That way, they can send, verify and receive information — in this case, bitcoins.

As a decentralized network, the Lightning Network has no central data server that stores all of the transactions or interactions between users. Instead, its decentralized network of distributed nodes keeps track of the data, or part of it.

In order to reduce congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain, the Lightning Network allows users to route their transactions through off-chain channels. All of the transactions that pass through a channel are rewritten into a single transaction and settled on the Bitcoin network, allowing for millions of transactions to be made in a matter of seconds. These channels run between the various nodes that have chosen to connect in this way.

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August 19, 2021