Bitcoin Held on Exchanges Plunge as 50K BTC Leave Coinbase; Aptos blockchain criticized scalability
The biggest news in the cryptoverse for October 18th includes Do Kwon claiming the charges against him are illegitimate, Apto’s blockchain criticized for processing only four transactions on launch day, and Roofstock selling its first on-chain house as an NFT for $175,000.
Thousands of Bitcoin are leaving Coinbase for the first time since June
Coinbase saw around 50,000 BTC leave the exchange on October 18th. There has been a gradual decline in Bitcoin reserves since early March and more aggressively in June following the Luna collapse.
As of press time, Coinbase has approximately 525,000 Bitcoins in reserve, representing a 22% decrease from the approximately 680,000 Bitcoins it started the year with.
FTX-backed Aptos blockchain under fire for low scalability on launch day
Layer-1 blockchain Aptos launched on October 17, but failed to impress the crypto community as it only completed 4 TPS as opposed to the promised 160,000 TPS.
However, Aptos developers claimed that 4 TPS was a result of the network’s low activity, which would improve as user activity picks up.
Internet Computer 2.0 is expected as Aptos opponents enjoy listing Binance futures
The future looks bleak for the Aptos blockchain as many traders said they want to short the APT token, similar to what happened to Internet Computer in May 2021.
The shorts could start anytime from October 19 as Binance and OKX plan to launch the APT futures contract with up to 25x leverage.
Jack Dorsey introduces AT protocol for unified social applications
Jack Dorsey announced the launch of the AT Protocol as a decentralized, open source, ad-free network for unified social applications.
Users will be able to communicate with cryptographic URLs that will be identified by their domain names, and easily transfer their identity across social networks on the AT protocol without losing their data in the chain.
Terra co-founder Do Kwon tells Laura Shin fraud allegations against him are illegitimate
Speaking to Laura Shin on the Unchained Podcast, Do Kwon said that the Terra collapse was the result of a failure in the protocol’s design and an intentional ploy to defraud investors.
He added that he found the charges against him illegitimate as cryptocurrencies are not classified as securities under South Korea’s Capital Markets Act (CMA).
Do Kwon regretted his arrogant attitude and dirty posts on Twitter, and apologized to investors affected by the LUNA collapse.
Fed deputy warns banks about crypto liquidity, calls for stablecoin regulation
Fed Deputy Chairman Michael Barr has urged banks that provide deposit services to crypto firms to be aware of liquidity risks that could arise in the event of a crypto contagion.
Barr asked the US Congress to provide a federal framework that would allow regulation of stablecoins, as it could pose a risk to the financial stability of the country’s economy.
BitKeep suffers from $1 million hack
Multichain wallet BitKeep lost $1 million to a hacker who exploited the BNB chain. Victims of the hack will be refunded by the protocol.
The development team has intervened in the situation by launching a Safety Assurance feature for users to verify their risk status.
Buterin advocates censorship tolerance in special cases
Ethereum validator latetot.eth created a pool that questions the fate of a solo validator who lives in a belligerent country but refuses to validate a block that includes transactions of funds moved to the military of the enemy country.
In his response, Vitalik Buterin explained that given the particular case under consideration, the solo validator should be tolerated rather than punished or asked to leave the network voluntarily.
Ripple’s XRPL will soon support NFTs
Ripple’s Vice President Emi Yoshikawa has implied on the possibility of enabling support for the creation of NFTs on Ripple’s XRP Ledger.
In addition, Ripple announced that it will offer $250 million in funding for Web3 and NFT creators who want to build their projects on XRPL.
The German crypto-neobank Nuri closes down after failing to find a buyer
Nuri, which filed for insolvency earlier in August, announced it will stop offering crypto services and shut down.
Customers have been asked to withdraw all their funds from the platform by December 18.
Roofstock sells first chain home as NFT for $175K
A three bedroom property located at 149 Cottage Lake Way, Columbia was sold by Roofstock as an NFT for $175,000.
The property identity was created as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain and transferred to the homebuyer’s wallet.
Research highlight
Bitcoin held on exchanges at 4-year low
Since the crypto market started to decline from its peak in November 2021, over 300,000 Bitcoins have left crypto exchanges. This has lowered the balance on exchanges to the lowest in 4 years, with only 2.4 million circulating across exchanges.
Despite losing over 50,000 BTC on October 18, Coinbase emerged as the most preferred exchange for users to buy and hold their Bitcoin.
News from the entire Cryptoverse
Germany tops the list of favorable crypto economies
A recent report from Coincub has ranked Germany as the most favorable crypto economy globally for Q3 2022.
The United States, which came out on top in the last quarter, fell to seventh place in the recent ranking.
Coinbase partners with Primer to make crypto a standard payment method
Coinbase has teamed up with e-commerce platform Primer to allow merchants to add cryptocurrency as a default payment method for customers to choose from during checkout.
Crypto market
Bitcoin (BTC) fell by -0.83% to trade at $19,340 in the last 24 hours, while Ethereum (ETH) declined by -1.11% to trade at $1,312.
