The crypto industry plummeted during the week along the red zone with world leading digital assets Bitcoin and Ethereum losing their grip on their $24,000 and $1,700 highs last weekend, with the prices of Bitcoin and ETHEREUM now trading at $22,900 and $1,535 respectively. The circulation of institutional funds witnessed a decline due to the Security and Exchange Commission’s overhang on Crypto Staking Services which spurred many CEXs to stop offering the services. The global crypto market cap is set at $1.Trillion up 1.2% in the 24-hour zone but down 2.2% on the seven-day global chart.
Ethereum Shanghai Fork
$25B in Ethereum is about to become unexpired as soon as the Shanghai upgrade goes live. A recent report from JPMorgan has revealed that the upcoming Shanghai upgrade, due in March, could bring more capital to the network. The investment bank estimates that Shanghai will bring Ethereum’s ownership percentage to the number of other popular proof of stake networks that have more than four times the ether stake at the moment.
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Assuming the staking rate converges over time to the 60% average of other major networks, the number of validators could increase from $0.5 million to $2.2 million, and the annual return in ETH would drop from 7.4% today to around 5%.
14% of Ether issuance is currently staked and cannot be withdrawn until the Shanghai update is finally deployed. Other protocols, such as Solana and Cardano, have about 70% of the issuance stake, according to data from Staking rewards.
Kraken Is In The Process Of Abandoning Its Crypto Staking Service Due To SEC Overhang
On Thursday, the SEC and Kraken, one of the largest crypto exchanges globally, announced a settlement in which Kraken agreed to suspend its staking-as-a-service program in the United States and pay a $30 million fine. While Brian Armstrong’s judge Coinbase Exchange doesn’t appear to see an immediate threat to its Earn program as a result of Thursday’s settlement, our sense is that the market believes recent SEC action is not a one-time event. Consequently, the bigger question for Coinbase and its peers going forward will be around what other products and services the agency may seek to regulate next, with near-term headline uncertainty spooking investors,” the analysts said.
ZK and AI trends
How to get a crazy return in crypto is by identifying trends. Just like the AI trend, here is another fresh trend coming up on crypto now. The name is “Zero Knowledge Proof Coins” (ZK). Over the coming days, coins on this section will see some pumping.
During the week AI and ZK—like tokens ran amazingly, among the Layer-2 and ZK coins, this one coin $ROSE from Layer-1 caught my attention. It successfully formed the Cup and Handle formation indicating a bullish trend.
It will face a little local resistance, and if the market condition is good, we can soon reach the profit target. Looking for high utility lowcap is the best way to get maximum profit as ZK trends are on.
Binance Upgraded Proof of Reserves
Binance recently upgraded its Proof of Reserves system with zk-SNARKS. Over the past few months, Binance’s development team has been hard at work building advanced proof-of-solvency solutions. Such tools have become critical for centralized crypto exchanges amid the crisis of confidence that engulfed the industry in the wake of the FTX collapse. User funds stored on Binance are backed 1:1 plus reserves, and finding a way to prove this to the public seamlessly has become an important part of Binance’s plan to restore confidence in the industry.
