An Ethereum blockchain improve, crypto regulatory battles, and Bitcoin worth dialogue: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 1-7

Hodler’s Digest comes every Saturday and helps you keep track of every single important message that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, introductory and regulatory highlights, leading coins, predictions, and more – one week on Cointelegraph in one link.

This week’s top stories

Square is acquiring Australian fintech Afterpay in a $ 29 billion deal

Jack Dorsey’s digital payments company Square signed a $ 29 billion share deal this week to buy, pay, and buy Australian company Afterpay (BNPL) now.

Just like the name Afterpay means Square will essentially buy the company now and pay for it later, with the transaction slated for the first quarter of 2022 and paid entirely in Square common stock.

Bitcoin (BTC) Proponent Anthony Pompliano was pleased with the news and noted on his web series The best business show that Square is one of the few stocks he owns since he predicted the Value will explode after the takeover.

In an August 3 YouTube video, Pomp chose pure clickbait titled, “SQUARE Will Be Worth $ 1 Trillion,” highlighting the potential of rollout of Afterpay’s BNPL services to 70 million cash app users and 2 million squares Dealers.

Ethereum London Hard Fork goes live

The London hard fork arrived almost on schedule on August 5th and initiated the Ethereum Improvement Proposal in 1559. An interesting feature of the upgrade is that it also has some bullish sentiments from Ethereum (ETH) Advocates and some sour grapes of Bitcoin maxis.

Ethereum has now moved from a bid-based fee market to a fixed-price-and-burn mechanism that can cause the asset to become deflationary if more ETH is burned than is spent in block rewards. However, this may be more likely after switching to Proof-of-stake with ETH 2.0. If the asset does indeed go deflationary, it would attain “ultrasonic money” status, a term that too long lasting meme in ETH communities mocking Bitcoiners’ description of BTC as solid money as the supply is limited to 21 million.

BREAKING: The White House confirms support for minor changes to the crypto tax proposal

The White House has officially backed a last-minute change to the controversial U.S. infrastructure plan, proposing expanded taxation on cryptocurrencies to impose an additional amount $ 28 billion in sales. The change maintains strict reporting requirements for blockchain developers and validators, while also exempting miners.

However, the vague wording of the change and lack of clearly defined terms suggest that crypto developers and proof-of-stake validators are still subject to expanded reporting and taxation that some have called “impractical”.

For some reason, White House members seem eager to crack down on tax evasion in cryptocurrencies without understanding the nuances of the industry. They also seem to overlook the blatant rape of the system by multinational giants who are essentially sucking capital out of people’s pockets while paying no taxes.

Mike Novogratz beats up US officials for poor understanding of the crypto industry

Against the backdrop of looming crypto regulations that will most likely raise taxes and lower profits, Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, responded in response to statements by Senator Elizabeth Warren that cryptocurrency is “the wild west” of the US financial system designated.

The billionaire crypto advocate’s jabs were of course delivered over social media, with Novogratz heading to Twitter August 3-8 assert that most U.S. officials have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to crypto:

“Crypto is the future of our financial system and our citizens deserve officials who do their homework to understand this new technology. Most of our executives have not yet done this. We also need regulators and politicians who understand that new ideas need room to grow. “

Circle and Unstoppable Domains introduce username-based USDC payments

Circle and Unstoppable Domains are working to introduce username-based addresses as an alternative to lengthy alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses to help the less tech-savvy folks known as newbies and boomers.

According to an August 4th announcement, blockchain domain name provider Unstoppable Domains and stablecoin issuer Circle are collaborating to provide readable “.coin” usernames for USD Coin (USDC) Transfers.

As part of the partnership, the two companies will work together to enable support for .coin username extensions across wallets and crypto exchanges listing the second tier stablecoin.

Under this agreement, USDC transfers become similar to sending an email, which likely mitigates the problem of transferring coins to the wrong address, losing funds forever, and regret for lack of care on someone.

Winner and Loser

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $ 42,651, Ether at $ 2,867 and XRP at $ 0.74. The total market capitalization is $ 1.73 trillion, according to to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the three biggest altcoin winners of the week are Voyager tokens (VGX) at 94.22%, THORChain (RUNE) at 50.69% and Ravencoin (RVN) at 44.13%.

The three biggest altcoin losers of the week are Amp (AMP) at -14.97%, XinFin network (XDC) at -4.74% and Telcoin (TEL) at -1.66%.

For more information on crypto pricing, be sure to read Market analysis by Cointelegraph.

The most memorable quotes

“We can see Bitcoin on the balance sheets of cities, states, governments, businesses, small” [and] Major investors. “

Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO

“We are now moving into a world where we have these non-fungible software objects with unique identities that can actually accept money, pay money, and participate in its administration, either in decentralized autonomous organizations or possibly other types of self-governing can govern. ”

Joe Lubin, Founder and CEO of ConsenSys

“I spend five hours a day doing everything from regulation to licensing and everything in between.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO

“First and foremost, crypto assets offer digital, scarce vehicles for speculative investments. In this sense, one can say that it is a matter of highly speculative stores of value. “

Gary Gensler, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission

“Crypto is a bit like the parable of the blind man and the elephant. People touch it from different sides. You will be distracted, carried away and energized by these various issues. “

Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz general partner and co-founder

“When you put a gun to my head and say, ‘I can only have one.’ I would choose gold. “

Ray Dalio, billionaire hedge fund manager

“Just so we are all clear here, the SEC has no authority over pure commodities or their trading venues, regardless of whether these commodities are wheat, gold, oil … or #crypto investments.”

Brian Quintenz, US CFTC commissioner

“The more people with stablecoins in their pockets, the more people can participate in decentralized finances.”

Matthew Gould, CEO of Unstoppable Domains

Forecast of the week

The Bitcoin chart fractal suggests that the BTC price will have risen to at least $ 80,000 by September

If this latest bullish BTC forecast turns out to be true, then Bitcoiners may soon be able to start driving their Lambos to the moon.

Nunya Bizniz, an independent market analyst, released a bullish forecast on Aug. 1 when she highlighted that the latest rally of around 40% at the end of July included 10 straight days of beautiful green candles rather than those terrible red candles that carry so much love a lot of.

The analyst noted that each of BTC’s previous 10-day bull runs resulted in at least a 100% price spike in 30 to 60 days. As a result, if history repeats itself, the price of Bitcoin could double, rising to new all-time highs around the $ 80,000 mark.

FUD of the week

South Korean regulator reportedly to close 11 crypto exchanges

South Korea’s crypto regulations could tighten after news broke this week that South Korea’s leading financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), is reportedly planning to shut down a dozen local cryptocurrency exchanges on allegations of fraud.

According to local media, the FSC will cease operating at least 11 medium-sized crypto exchanges in South Korea due to allegedly illegal activities and fraudulent collective accounts.

The publication cited anonymous industry sources who claimed the names of the exchanges had not yet been disclosed, so Koreans would not know exactly what to do with FUD until the names came to light. The sources argued that the mentioned crypto exchanges will not receive approval to operate from the FSC.

The report also notes that the agency plans to introduce stricter regulations for smaller crypto exchanges in South Korea, which means any company wishing to engage in illegal behavior must do so on a large scale.

Monero’s former custodian arrested in the US on unrelated cryptocurrency charges

Speaking of allegedly illegal behavior, Riccardo Spagni, the former supervisor of the Monero (XMR) Cryptocurrency, was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee last month, but not for anything related to crypto.

Spagni was charged with alleged criminal offenses in South Africa between 2009 and 2011 while serving as an IT manager at a company called Cape Cookies.

Spagni allegedly created additional invoices from a Cape Cookies supplier that included inflated prices for goods and services, as well as their bank details in place of the suppliers. He will now face a hearing on August 5th to see if he will be held pending trial. If convicted in South Africa, he faces 20 years imprisonment.

Breaking: BSV reportedly suffered a “massive” 51% attack

Bitcoin SV reportedly suffered a “massive” 51% attack on August 3, which resulted in up to three versions of the chain being mined simultaneously.

Regarding the attack, Lucas Nuzzi, a network data product manager at Coin Metrics, stated on Twitter that “someone is seriously trying to destroy BSV,” adding:

“Attackers were able to take over the chain for over 3 hours. All exchanges that received BSV deposits during this time may have been issued twice. “

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