Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Bottoms up, Bitcoin!

DATE: 08-03-23

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Hey Cryptonews, here's our curated daily bundle of crypto news.

Bitcoin's NUPL indicates a market transition phase

  • Bitcoin's prevailing price movements resemble previous bear market bottom

  • Short-Bitcoin products saw inflows of $1.8 million

Recently, Glassnode, an on-chain analytics company, reported that Bitcoin's prevailing price movements resemble previous bear market bottoms. According to the data provider, last week's price decline to a low of $22,199 occurred alongside important price levels related to whale entities that have been active since the 2018 cycle.


"The current state of the market can be reasonably described as resembling a Transitional Phase, which is common in the later stages of a bear market," Glassnode noted. The typical BTC holder now holds a net unrealized profit of approximately 15% of the market cap, resembling transition phases in previous bear markets. 


According to CoinShares, last week, investors funneled funds into Short-Bitcoin products. As a result, Short-Bitcoin saw inflows of $1.8 million. Citing concerns over regulatory uncertainty for the asset class, CoinShares added that the discrepancy in performance suggested that short positions are yet to deliver the returns that some investors are expecting. 

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FTM mainnet sees 33% hike in revenue

  • FTM recently launched its new mainnet upgrade

  • Go-opera version 1.1.2-rc.5 includes faster processing speeds

Fantom [FTM] recently launched a new mainnet upgrade named go-opera version 1.1.2-rc.5. The latest upgrade comes with improvements in batched Genesis block processing, configurable DB management, parallel EVM log search, and optimizations in the P2P protocol. 


Fantom also mentioned in the official announcement that the mainnet upgrade will increase Genesis file processing by three times, except for archive Genesis files. Searching logs has become five times faster and each log search should take only 1/5 of the time it took previously. Block processing time has increased by about 30% as a result of major improvements in P2P and block processing.


While the new upgrade was being released, Fantom Insider's monthly recap highlighted a hike of 33% in both fees and revenue, suggesting greater usage of the network. However, FTM's daily active addresses declined steadily over the last 30 days. 

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Ethereum co-founder offloads $700K of tokens  

  • Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin exchanged tokens amounting to $700K 

  • A wallet under Buterin offloaded 500 trillion SHIKOKU for 380.3 ETH

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has exchanged tokens, amounting to almost $700,000. The tokens were previously airdropped to him for Ether.

According to Etherscan, a wallet under Buterin offloaded 500 trillion SHIKOKU for 380.3 ETH, 50 billion Mops for 1.25 ETH, and 10 billion Cult DAO for 58.1 ETH. In May 2021, Vitalik Buterin initiated a similar offload, selling tokens such as Dogelon Mars and Shiba Inu that resulted in price drops of 40% and 90% respectively.

This has stirred debate among the community. While some within the crypto-community share frustration at Buterin's decision to sell, considering the outsized effect it had on the tokens, others felt it was motivated by the tax implications of receiving airdrops, which are subject to income tax in most countries.

Voyager wins court approval for Binance.US deal 

  • Voyager received approval to sell over $1 billion of its assets to Binance.US

  • The same will ensure a minimum of 73% repayment to impacted customers 

After four days of arguments between the SEC and Voyager Digital, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles granted approval to Voyager to sell over $1 billion of its assets to Binance.US. Wiles granted Voyager permission to close the Binance.US sale and issue repayment tokens to impacted customers, which would give them back approximately 73% of what they're owed.


Wiles rejected several arguments by the SEC that alleged - redistribution of the funds from Voyager to Binance.US would violate U.S. securities laws. He said,

"...I cannot put the entire case into an indeterminate deep freeze while regulators figure out whether they believe there are problems with the transaction and plan."


Voyager is now to decide whether to complete the Binance.US sale or liquidate on its own and turn over the proceeds to Voyager account holders. However, Peter M. Aronoff, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, said that the department is considering appealing Wiles' decision.

Coinbase L2 network to include AML controls 

  • Base will include transaction monitoring and AML controls

  • The L2 network may impose KYC rules

Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong that the company's upcoming layer-2 blockchain network Base may be launched with transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering controls. Additionally, he claimed that Base currently has some centralized components, however, with time it will be more decentralized.


 Furthermore, Armstrong clarified that users of the new layer-2 network will be subject to the transaction monitoring and AML rules. He added,

"...I think that the centralized actors are the ones that are probably going to have the most responsibility to avoid money laundering issues and having transaction monitoring programs and things like that."


Notably, the single sequencer for Base will be run by Coinbase, a licensed money transmitter. The aforementioned, has raised the issue of whether Base will become the first-ever L2 to formally impose KYC rules.

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Bitcoin miner Canaan reports 82% revenue drop in Q4

  • Canaan's net income noted a $63.6-million loss in Q4 2022

  • Mining revenue simultaneously improved by 368.2%

According to a filing with the U.S. SEC dated - 7 March, Chinese Bitcoin miner and manufacturer of ASIC mining machines, Canaan reported a 82.1% year-over-year decline in its revenue to $56.8 million in Q4 2022. During the quarter, Canaan sold 1.9 million Th/s worth of computing power for Bitcoin mining, not accounting for lower ASIC prices, representing a 75.8% decline from Q4 2021. 


Notably, Canaan's mining revenue simultaneously improved by 368.2% year-over-year to $10.46 million. The firm's CEO, Nangeng Zhang said that to mitigate demand risks during the market downturn, the firm continued to improve and develop the mining business. Additionally, investments in boosting production capacity and expanding mining operations to varied geographic regions had been made. 


However, Canaan's net income noted a $63.6-million loss in Q4 2022 compared to a profit of $182.0 million in Q4 2021. The firm's CFO, Jin Cheng, cited inventory write-downs and research expenses related to the firm's new fleet of ASICs as reasons for the same.

Thailand to waive taxes for token issuers

  • Corporate income tax and VAT will be waived 

  • Investment tokens are expected to generate over $3.7 billion in 2 years

On 7 March, deputy government spokesman Rachada Dhnadirek announced that Thailand's cabinet has agreed to waive corporate income tax and VAT for companies that issue investment tokens. He added that companies will be able to access alternative ways of raising capital through investment tokens in addition to conventional methods like debentures. 


Furthermore, Dhnadirek said that the government expects investment token offerings to generate 128 billion Thai baht ($3.7 billion) over the next two years. Notably, estimated potential losses of tax revenues worth 35 billion baht ($1 million) are also expected. 


The government of Thailand has taken several steps to clarify local crypto-related taxation rules. Previously, the government exempted crypto traders from the 7% VAT on authorized exchanges. Meanwhile, the Thai SEC continues to work on stricter crypto regulations to protect investors. 

Bitcoin & co. continue to spiral

Coin

Price

24hr

Market Cap

↓BTC

$22,124

-1.3%

$435 Billion

↓ETH

$1,559

-0.4%

$187 Billion

↓ADA

$0.32

-0.9%

$11 Billion

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