Kategorie: Crypto News

Daily crypto headlines and news about bitcoin, ether, ripple, solana, altcoins, nft, market, business, analysis, nft, metaverse, minting and mining.
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Ethereum suppy: whales add 561,000 ETH in just two days

  • Ethereum’s large investors holding at least 100 ETH and up to 1 million ETH increased their overall bags by 2.1% in November.
  • Amid price fluctuations, sharks and whales scooped 561,000 ETH in two days between 5th and 6th December 2022.
  • These large investors now hold approximately two-thirds of Ethereum supply.

Large Ethereum investors have been busy these past few days, snapping up more Ether (ETH) amid the latest price downturn for cryptocurrencies.

According to recent data on ETH supply distribution, large addresses holding at least 100 ETH (sharks) and those holding up to 1 million ETH (whales), have aggressively added to their overall holdings. The cumulative holdings for sharks and whales increased by more than 2.1% in the 30 days to 6 December 2022.

Analytics firm Santiment indeed highlighted that the overall Ethereum supply held by the addresses with 100 to 1 million ETH jumped by 561,000 in just two days – between 5th and 6th December.

The cohort has now returned its cumulative bag holdings to pre-merge levels, according to Santiment. Overall, large ETH addresses now hold over two-thirds of the coin’s total supply of 122,373,876 ETH.

Negative funding rates eases

A report by crypto exchange Bitfinex showed that the aggressive accumulation by the large investors came despite ETH prices continuing to fluctuate below $1,300. The increased shark and whale activity has also eased negative funding rates, as noted in the Bitfinex Alpha Report.

While funding rates on Ethereum perpetual contracts remain negative, the report highlights that these have improved significantly month-to-date.

Selling pressure on ETH is also very low compared to other crypto large caps, and there’s no significant liquidation levels at current price levels. 

On-chain data suggests that Ethereum would have to plummet to $800 to trigger about $50 million in liquidations. Short sellers would have to push prices to around $650 to force $400 million in liquidations.

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Bitcoin mining difficulty falls 7.3%, largest since July 2021

  • Bitcoin’s mining difficulty fell by 7.32% over the past two weeks, the largest negative adjustment in almost 18 months.
  • Mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks or roughly two weeks and depends on average block time (10 minutes) and hashrate.
  • Bitcoin’s next mining difficulty is expected to increase by 4.24%.

Bitcoin mining difficulty, a measure of how hard it is for miners to find and ‘mine’ a new block, fell by 7.32% last week.

The downward adjustment occurred at block height 766,080,  the largest negative adjustment in the metric since July 2021. As of 15 December 2022, and according to data on BTC.com, the last biggest downward adjustment occurred at block height 689,472 in July 2021 when difficulty fell by 27.94% . 

Incidentally, that negative adjustment is the largest in Bitcoin mining history and happened at a time when the crypto industry recorded a massive exodus of miners from China following the country’s crackdown on Bitcoin. Other huge downward adjustments occurred in May 2021, March and November 2020 and December 2018.

Next difficulty estimated to jump 4.24%

Mining difficulty is a metric that looks at the number of hashes or guesses a miner needs to make to arrive at the correct one and be able to mine BTC. It’s been increasing since Bitcoin’s inception and adjusts every two weeks, or after about 2,016 blocks – going up or down to keep the creation of new coins within the network’s average block time.

The current difficulty is 34.24 trillion and the next difficulty adjustment is expected to rise by 4.24% to an estimated 35.69 trillion.

How does mining difficulty work?

This is how difficulty works – it will adjust downwards if it takes less than 10 minutes to create a new block, or upwards if the average block time is above 10 minutes. 

Also critical to difficulty adjustment is Bitcoin’s hashrate, which is the total computing power of all the miners on the network. Hashrate increases with an increase in the number of miners dedicating their computing power to processing transactions and secure the network. 

The metric falls when miners decrease. In this case, the more miners join the network, the higher the difficulty adjusts and the more miners switch off their equipment, the lower the adjustment.

Bitcoin’s hashrate has increased slightly from 245.10 exahashes per second (EH/s) at the last difficulty adjustment, with on-chain data showing its currently at 257.04 EH/s. 

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Bitcoin whales gorge on another $726 million worth of BTC

  • Bitcoin wallet addresses with 100 to 10,000 BTC bought another $726 million worth of coins in 9 days.
  • The sharks and whales activity highlight the continued accumulation of BTC as market navigates the recent FTX- fueled crash.
  • Bitcoin price rose to highs of $18,385 on Tuesday, before retreating late Wednesday following US central bank interest rate hike.

Bitcoin rallied well above $18,000 this week as the crypto market moved higher amid exuberance in the risk asset market over cooling inflation in the US.

The flagship cryptocurrency hit highs of $18,385 ahead of Wednesday’s 50% rate hike from the US Federal Reserve.

While the Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish remarks helped dampen sentiment to push BTC below $18k again, the crypto remains poised for a fresh upside given bulls’ holding of prices above the key support base established in the aftermath of the FTX implosion.

Whales continue to buy the dip

Bitcoin’s retreat from $18,385 suggests bulls might have to rely on the buffer at $17,200 – the immediate resistance level that’s likely to act as a key support base. Below that, bears could target $15,700.

Despite the rejection at intraday highs above $18,300 seen this week, its likely bitcoin will look to retest the price level given its strong fundamental outlook.

According to o-chain data shared by market platform Santiment, more bitcoin sharks and whales have scooped coins this past week. This happened amid the FTX fallout and as the firm’s data shows, addresses holding 100 to 10,000 BTC have added over $726 million BTC in just nine days.

About 15,900 wallet addresses in this category hold 8.5 million bitcoins worth over $149 billion (at current prices).

Notably, it adds to the accumulation seen since Bitcoin price registered a sharp decline on news of FTX’s implosion in early November. 

As well as whales and sharks, shrimps and crabs have also been grabbing some alpha. The two wallet cohorts have aggressively been buying BTC. As we highlighted here, the group has added more than 96,000 BTC worth over $1.6 billion in 30 days.

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Microsoft bans cryptocurrency mining on its online services

  • Microsoft users will require pre-approval from the firm to mine crypto using Microsoft Azure.
  • Microsoft is taking measures to increase the stability of its cloud services.
  • Microsoft introduced the new restrictions as part of its universal license terms of Microsoft Online Services.

Cloud computing giant Microsoft has introduced new restrictions on activities like cryptocurrency mining and users will now require a written pre-approval from the company to be allowed to use Microsoft Azure for mining cryptocurrencies. The new restrictions are aimed at increasing the stability of its cloud services.

Microsoft updated its ‘Acceptable Use Policy’ on December 1 noting that “mining cryptocurrency is prohibited without prior Microsoft approval.” Users will therefore be required to get pre-approval from Microsoft to be allowed to use any Microsoft Online Services for cryptocurrency mining.

According to a report by British technology news agency The Register, Microsoft quietly banned crypto mining from its online services to protect its clouds and customers. The move comes amid a declining crypto market after the FTX debacle.

Microsoft stated:

“We made this change to further protect our customers and mitigate the risk of disrupting or impairing services in the Microsoft Cloud.”

Permission to mine crypto for research and testing

While the company introduced restrictions on crypto miming Microsoft Online Services, it also noted that it may consider permission for mining cryptocurrencies for research and testing purposes.

Microsoft Online Services is a key component of the firm’s software-as-a-service strategy. The online services include the Microsoft Azure cloud computing network, which users use for cryptocurrency mining. Microsoft had previously experimented with launching Ethereum Blockchain as a Service on Azure sometime in 2015 before quietly terminating the Azure Blockchain service in September last year.

Cloud computing providers increasingly banning crypto mining

By adopting the new cryptocurrency mining restrictions, Microsoft joins other major cloud computing providers in banning crypto mining activities. Google prohibits engaging in crypto mining without prior written approval from Google. Digital Ocean also requires customers to get written permission for mining.

Other providers like Oracle have completely banned crypto mining on their cloud.

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FLOKI price surges by more than 10%: here’s why

  • FLOKI has hit a daily high of $0.00001066 today.
  • OKX has promised to list FLOKI this week.
  • At press time, FLOKI had risen by 10.47% over the past 24 hours.

FLOKI is today’s biggest gainer after surging by more than 10% in a day when the general crypto market is bearish. The global crypto market cap has dropped by 1.72% to $859.37 billion today.

With the recent market plunge, it is evident that the bearish market sentiment after the FTX collapse is likely to reverse the little gains that the market had made in the past month. Bitcoin, for example, is threatening to go below 17000 while Ethereum has dropped below $1300.

Why did FLOKI price surge today?

The main reason for the Shiba Inu-inspired meme coin FLOKI to stage a bullish rally at a time when the general crypto market is on a downward trend is the announcement by the OKX crypto platform.

OKX has announced that it will list FLOKI trading pairs starting December 16 at 10 AM (UTC). According to the press release, OKX will list FLOKI/USDT and FLOKI/USDC.

The move offers an opportunity for OKX users to expand their trading portfolio while also giving FLOKI investors an opportunity to trade the token on OKX.

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