Showing posts with label ethereum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethereum. Show all posts

Ethereum Loses 'Deflationary' Title - #2 Cryptocurrency Hit With INFLATION For First Time...

Ethereum inflation

Ethereum just lost one if it's biggest bragging points, and its transition from a deflationary to an inflationary asset marks a potentially pivotal moment in its trajectory. While the platform continues to be a dominant player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, these economic and market shifts warrant close observation by investors and stakeholders. 

What Happened?

Ethereum's shares the most common cause of currency inflation with governments around the world, specifically when they print too much money. There have been 68,000 new ETH issued, compared to its burning 38,000 ETH over the last 30 days - add this excess together with a bearish month, and the additional supply enters the ecosystem as inflation.

Ethereum has a system where a portion of the transaction fees (or "gas") is burned, reducing the overall supply of ETH, while another portion compensates validator nodes.

Typically this causes ETH to be deflationary - that is, when network activity is stronger, the amount of ETH burned can surpass the amount issued.

Some Perspective...

It's crucial to note that Ethereum's annual inflation rate remains relatively subdued at 0.3%, especially when compared to Bitcoin's 1.6% and certain fiat currencies, which hover around 3.7%.

Bitcoin has been categorized as inflationary due to its capped supply of 21 million coins and the halving of its block rewards approximately every four years, which restricts its issuance and, by extension, its inflationary potential. In contrast, fiat currencies, like the US dollar, can be issued without an upper limit, leading to inflation when the supply outpaces demand.

So, while 0.3% is an insignificant amount and there's no need for investors to modify their outlooks, yet, this is something worth keeping an eye on.  Unless hit with large downturn (which I haven't seen anyone predicting) Ethereum can re-take it's 'deflationary' title fairly easily. 

Plus, For the First Time in YEARS - Ethereum Users Didn't Pay the Most in Total Transaction Fees...

Another interesting thing stood out when reviewing Ethereum's previous month - a significant drop in total transaction fees. After 3+ years embarrassingly high, sometimes absurd fees - this is a good thing.

In the last 30 days, the Tron network generated $87.4 million in fees and $65.8 million in token incentives, resulting in net profits of $21.6 million. Ethereum, on the other hand, generated $82.2 million in fees but offered token incentives of $82.9 million, leading to losses of $20.6 million.

Other platforms including Lido Finance ($46.9 million), friend-tech ($30 million), Bitcoin ($27 million), Uniswap ($23 million), Aave ($8.8 million), and BNB Chain ($ 8 million), surpassed Ethereum in generating fees.

-----------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP Breaking Crypto News


*UPDATED* Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin's Reveals How His Twitter was Hacked, Leading to Nearly $700,000 in Stolen Crypto...

Vitalik twitter hack

Story Published Sept 10

Update Added Sept 16: Jump to update

In a shocking turn of events, Vitalik Buterin's official Twitter account was compromised by hackers on Saturday, September 9, 2023. The breach led to a loss of nearly $700,000 in cryptocurrencies, highlighting the vulnerabilities even high-profile figures face in the digital realm.

The Deceptive Tweet

The hackers, with just a single tweet, managed to deceive a significant number of Buterin's followers. The tweet announced a purported free NFT giveaway from Consensys, a renowned blockchain technology company.


This was supposedly in celebration of the release of proto-darksharding, a much-anticipated update to the Ethereum protocol. The update, as claimed, would reduce the costs associated with Ethereum sidechains, commonly referred to as rollups.

The 'Drainer' Exploit

Many followers, seeing the tweet from the official account of Ethereum's creator, were lured into a trap. The link provided in the tweet redirected users to a malicious website designed to exploit their trust.

This type of scam, known as a 'drainer' tricks users into connecting their cryptocurrency wallets to a seemingly legitimate website. Once connected, the hacker can then transfer all assets from the victim's wallet to their own.

High-Value NFTs Stolen

In addition to the stolen cryptocurrencies, the hackers made away with two high-value 'Crypto Punks' NFTs. These digital collectibles have gained immense popularity and value in recent years.

The stolen NFTs were priced at a staggering 153.62 ETH (approximately USD 250,000) and 58.18 ETH (USD 95,000) respectively.

Update: 

We finally have a response from Vitalik, apparent a sim swap was the method used.

Yweety

Considering this involves ;social engineering' AKA fooling an employee of the phone company in to switching a phone line from the legitimate customer to phone controlled by the hacker.


While the hacker is blame,, at least a little of the blame  must go to T-Mobile whos employees should be properly trained to spot a scam that is several years old.

-------

Author: Mark Pippen
London Newsroom
GlobalCryptoPress | Breaking Crypto News


Ethereum's Next Big Upgrade Goes Live TODAY, and $33.7 BILLION Worth of Locked Staked ETH Becomes Tradeable Again...


Ethereum's next big upgrade, Shanghai (aka "Shapella") set for Wednesday at 22:27 universal time, 6:27 p.m. Eastern US. 

With the upgrade those who staked ETH for the ETH 2.0 merge will be given access to their coins again - about 15% of the total ETH supply wroth around $33.73 billion will become tradeable again. 

Will there be a sell-off?
Ethereum's price is lower than when most people initially locked up their staked coins, so we're expecting people will continue to HODL if possible.  

Video Courtesy Of CNBC

A Long-Gone Ethereum Co-Founder Speaks Out - The DANGER of Ethereum 2.0...


While no longer part of the Ethereum Foundation, Anthony Di Iorio was one of the developers behind Ethereum when it launched in 2015. While he has since moved on to other ventures, he resurfaced this week, sharing concerns on ETH 2.0 in an interview

These concerns revolve about the level of centralization that Ethereum could reach now that the merge to Proof of Stake is complete.

Di Iorio's concern revolves around the possibility of major exchanges becoming an overwhelming number of the total validators on the network. 

At the root of the issue is the requirement to hold 32 ETH to launch a node -so exchanges holding thousands of ETH have an obvious advantage...

That's a little over $42,000 worth of Ethereum at the time of publishing - and it is reasonable to say this prices out the average person, who previously could have started mining for under $1000 if they were interested in contributing to the network. 

So\when the rule is "More ETH = more nodes" you immediately see the potential power major exchanges have by holding thousands of users Ethereum. Even many mid-size exchanges hold enough to launch hundreds of nodes.

However, users need to agree to use any ETH that they actually own, exchanges cannot decide how to allocate your holdings without permission.

So they're getting user permission by offering to share the profits - this factor is the reason many people see these nodes as decentralize.

The nodes may be initially launched by an exchange but they're made from the Ethereum of many different people, the exchanges just brought them all together.

More importantly, all these people have the power to pull out whenever they wish. 

Can these really be considered exchange-owned nodes if their users have the power to shut them down by collectively pulling out?

Still, ETH 2.0 is off to a more centralized start than many expected.  Last week nodes launched by just 2 addresses were validating 46% of total transactions.  One is a known pool, the other an 'unknown entity'... which nobody likes to hear. 

The move away from GPU mining is a double-edged sword when it comes to decentralization...

It may not be as simple as looking at who now has an easier entry to becoming a validator, but for a large number of people, Ethereum's update represents a door opening.

On that note, Di Iorio also acknowledged that the Proof of Stake model allows people from countries that have banned GPU mining to participate again (such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesi and more) many of them pointing to the large amount of electricity consumed by miners as their reasoning, an issue the new Ethereum now solves.

-------------------
Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle Newsdesk  / Breaking Crypto News

 

Traders Who Shorted Ethereum Are Having a Bad Day - Over $110 MILLION in ETH Shorts Now LIQUIDATED as Gains Near 10%...

Ethereum up

Be glad you didn't bet against ETH. If you did, my condolences.

ETH's price surge began at a time a lot of people thought it would continue going down, now these leveraged positions are being liquidated at a rapid pace.

Total liquidations in the past 24 hours have reached close to $200 million...

Most occurred on Ethereum short positions, with more than than $110 million worth of liquidated assets. Notably, the largest in the overall market was a $2 million BTCUSD position that occurred on Bybit.

Other exchanges experiencing large liquidations include OKEx, Binance, ByBit, FTX, CoinEX, Huobi, and Bitmex, among others. OKEX reported up to 75% of short positions being liquidated for a total of $4.28 million, followed by Binance with $3.36 million in total liquidations.

The Ethereum community will likely prefer the upcoming update to a proof-of-stake system. Even as the Merge approaches, the price of the coin continues to fluctuate. Today's view is more optimistic, but the preceding days were not particularly inspiring.

From August 30 to September 5, the ETH price ranged between $1533 and $1577. It saw a slight increase above that threshold on September 6, however, that was the day when Bellatrix was upgraded. After the surge, the price fell to $1560 the following day, September 7, but ended at $1629.

It is not unexpected, given these price fluctuations, that liquidations are currently pushing the limits of the markets. A large portion of traders cannot maintain their positions, and exchanges are going to close them.

Things are abnormally unpredictable right now, play it smart...

While many would argue the smartest play is simply not using any leverage, the reality is that advice will be ignored by many people regardless.  So, at least meet in the middle, and perhaps use a bit less leverage than you normally would, and set stop losses so you always sell before you liquidate your positions. 

Even while many experts believe that the best move is to avoid using any kind of leverage at all, the fact of the matter is, many people are going to disregard that advice regardless.

At the very least, come to a compromise and consider using less leverage than you typically would. If you're not using stop losses so you always sell before you liquidate your positions, start using them now (you already should have been, in any market condition).

------- 

Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk Breaking Crypto News