Hyperbitcoinization is underway, RFK seeks Bitcoin donations…

Prime Tales This Week

Hyperbitcoinization coming, says Bitcoin OG as ‘wholecoiners’ hit 1 million

Bitcoin has crossed a major threshold this month — there are over 1 million addresses that maintain no less than 1 BTC. Information from Glassnode exhibits an escalating sample with regard to the quantity of so-called Bitcoin “wholecoiners.” If the pattern continues, Bitcoin worth escalation might quickly make shopping for it not solely a luxurious however one thing doubtlessly unattainable altogether, in keeping with Adam Again, co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin agency Blockstream. This hyperbitcoinization refers back to the second when the advantages of Bitcoin for monetary transactions will ultimately result in the substitute of established monetary establishments by a public-driven system, with Bitcoin turning into the world’s default worth system.

FTX pursues $244M clawback from ‘wildly inflated’ Embed acquisition deal

FTX’s management is trying to claw again greater than $240 million from insiders and executives that benefited from FTX’s “wildly inflated” acquisition of stock-clearing platform Embed in September. In keeping with courtroom filings, Embed’s personal chief know-how officer, Laurence Beal, was shocked that FTX paid a lot for the corporate after one brief assembly with its then-CEO, Michael Giles. Beal described FTX’s due diligence course of with a cowboy emoji. Legal professionals accused FTX insiders of disproportionate payouts to Embed shareholders, together with $55 million paid to its CEO.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to simply accept marketing campaign donations in Bitcoin

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be the first presidential candidate in United States historical past to simply accept marketing campaign donations in Bitcoin, he introduced throughout his first look as a presidential candidate on the Bitcoin 2023 convention. He praised the cryptocurrency as a “image of democracy and freedom” in the course of the occasion. By having attended the Bitcoin occasion, RFK Jr. is just not solely concentrating on voters but additionally a possible supply of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in donations. The democratic candidate is incumbent President Joe Biden.

Voyager chapter plan permitted, clients could get well 35.7% of claims initially

Voyager’s chapter plan was permitted on Could 17 and its clients might now anticipate to obtain 35.72% of their claims initially, both in crypto by way of the Voyager app or in money, after 30 days. In keeping with Voyager, it had $1.33 billion of property for restoration as of Could 8, of which $629.8 million was accessible for preliminary restoration, on claims of $1.8 billion. If FTX/Alameda Analysis’s declare for preferential restoration is unsuccessful, collectors’ preliminary restoration might enhance. For that declare, Voyager is holding again $445 million. Voyager may be capable to get well funds from bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

Coin Cafe ordered to repay $4.3M in charges that ‘worn out’ buyers’ Bitcoin accounts

Cryptocurrency buying and selling platform Coin Cafe has been ordered to repay $4.3 million to its customers after allegedly charging “exorbitant and undisclosed charges” for storing Bitcoin on the platform — resulting in some accounts being drained solely of their funds. One New York investor incurred charges exceeding $10,000 in a single month, whereas one other investor was hit with charges amounting to $51,000 over a span of 13 months, mentioned the workplace of the New York State Lawyer Basic.

Winners and Losers

On the finish of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $26,889, Ether (ETH) at $1,813 and XRP at $0.46. The overall market cap is at $1.13 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the many largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are Render Token (RNDR) at 29%, Conflux (CFX) at 20.52% and SingularityNET (AGIX) at 19.94%. 

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are Pepe (PEPE) at -11.58%, Klaytn (KLAY) at -5.75% and Bitcoin SV (BSV) at 5.38%.

For more information on crypto costs, make certain to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Most Memorable Quotations

“What makes ordinals attention-grabbing on Bitcoin, versus some other platform, is that they’re constructing on essentially the most safe blockchain on the earth.”

David Tse, professor at Stanford College

“We’re seeing one other wave of Bitcoin curiosity, largely pushed by enterprise and institutional adoption.”

Alex Leishman, CEO of River

“You create a [virtual] world the place you see new experiences, new content material, new concepts, and the sum of that’s at all times extra optimistic than destructive.”

Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox

“If the general public is investing cash and anticipating revenue primarily based upon the efforts of others, in a typical enterprise, that’s a safety.”

Gary Gensler, chair of the US Securities and Change Fee

“For it [BRC-20] to essentially have the extent of integrity that’s provided by Bitcoin, there have to be a tough fork that permits these items to be verified and validated and have the integrity of Bitcoin.”

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkWare

“Whether or not it’s Bitcoin or digital foreign money, no one has been capable of articulate what downside it’s truly fixing. […] I can ship anyone on this room $5 proper now utilizing Venmo. […] So what’s it {that a} central financial institution digital foreign money can try this Venmo can’t do?”

Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Financial institution

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin worth danger? US debt deal to set off $1T liquidity crunch, analyst warns

Bitcoin stares down potential losses heading into the third-quarter of 2023 as U.S. lawmakers will doubtless attain an settlement on elevating the debt ceiling.

Elevating the debt ceiling means the U.S. Treasury might challenge new bonds to boost money to satisfy its earlier obligations, draining liquidity from riskier property like Bitcoin. Such macroeconomic hurdles might forestall Bitcoin from reclaiming its yearly highs of over $30,000 within the coming months, mentioned pseudonymous unbiased market analyst Revenue Sharks.

“We almost definitely vary between 20k to 30k and even get an altseason,” the analyst famous, including that “new cash isn’t coming in; it’s all simply rotating. […] Until we get a brand new narrative or Shares to discover a solution to rally, it’s wanting extra doubtless that the U.S. elections in 2024 would be the subsequent large catalyst.”

FUD of the Week 

SEC warns that Filecoin ‘meets definition of a safety’ — Grayscale

The U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) has asked Grayscale Investments to pull its application for a Filecoin Trust, warning that its underlying asset, Filecoin (FIL), can be seen as a security. Grayscale initially lodged a Form 10 application with the regulator to launch an updated Filecoin Trust product in April. This week, it received a letter from the SEC warning that FIL “meets the definition of a security” under federal law and asked the firm to withdraw their application.

‘Trusted’ marketplace sold fake Trezor wallets stealing crypto — Kaspersky

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has reported an issue with fake hardware wallets impersonating major wallet firm Trezor. According to the Kaspersky team, attackers managed to access users’ crypto assets by replacing the inner firmware. The fake Trezor wallet allowed fraudsters to steal Bitcoin via a replaced microcontroller, which enabled attackers to take control of the user’s private keys. A standard set of wallet functions were provided by the fake wallet, which resembled a genuine Trezor Model T wallet.

‘Inferno Drainer’ scam as a service has stolen $5.9M since March

A new scam as a service called “Inferno Drainer” has reportedly stolen nearly $6 million from unsuspecting crypto users, according to Web3 scam-detecting firm Scam Sniffer. Inferno Drainer advertises that it provides ready-to-go code to scammers, allowing them to steal crypto in exchange for a 20% cut of the scammer’s crypto “loot.” The identified address was associated with over 689 phishing websites created since March 27 and had drained millions from victims on various networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon and BNB Chain.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Ordinals turned Bitcoin into a worse version of Ethereum: Can we fix it?

Deluged by NFTs and memecoins, Bitcoin has suddenly become a worse version of Ethereum. There are conflicting ideas about how to fix it.

Make 500% from ChatGPT stock tips? Bard leans left, $100M AI memecoin: AI Eye

The man who used ChatGPT to create a $100 million meme coin, AI stock market tips return 500%, and why AIs lean left.

‘Moral responsibility’: Can blockchain really improve trust in AI?

Decentralized ledger technology is arguably everything that AI is not: transparent, traceable, trustworthy and tamper-free. Could it offset the opaqueness of AI’s black-box solutions?

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Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.