Terra has made significant strides in its restructuring efforts following a bankruptcy court order in Terraform Labs’ (TFL) Chapter 11 case.
The court has authorized TFL to take crucial steps, including reopening the Shuttle Bridge and destroying a substantial amount of LUNA tokens.
In a post on X, the blockchain platform noted that TFL will reopen the Shuttle Bridge, allowing users to redeem sealed assets on Terra Classic as part of the court’s directives.
The Shuttle Bridge, a key infrastructure for transferring assets between Terra and other blockchains, had previously been closed.
TFL plans to transfer all assets held in the Shuttle Bridge wallet to a new wallet and introduce a simplified interface to facilitate the redemption process.
According to Terra, users will have a 30-day window to redeem their wrapped assets from the Bridge wallet.
After this period, TFL intends to permanently close the Shuttle Bridge, and any remaining assets in the wallet will be destroyed.
In an effort to reduce the circulating supply of LUNA, the court order has authorized TFL to cancel the distribution and destroy 150 million LUNA tokens obtained from Terra community funding.
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This destruction is part of a broader strategy to stabilize the value of LUNA and restore confidence among the community and investors.
Additionally, TFL will begin the process of deactivating the 125 million LUNA currently staked by 49 validators recommended by Terra.
Once deactivated, these 125 million LUNA tokens, along with 2.5 million LUNA used for liquidity provision, will be destroyed.
TFL’s proposed Chapter 11 plan, which includes these measures, has not yet received full approval from the bankruptcy court and is not expected to take effect until late September 2024 at the earliest.
The plan is part of TFL’s comprehensive strategy to emerge from bankruptcy and reposition Terra as a stable and reliable player in the cryptocurrency space.
These actions follow a settlement reached between TFL and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
This settlement aims to address regulatory concerns and ensure compliance with federal securities laws, further contributing to the restructuring and stabilization efforts.
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Bitcoin is poised for a “significant” rise amid upcoming intense volatility, according to new analysis.
Julien Bittel, head of macro research at Global Macro Investor, predicted a BTC price of up to $190,000 in a post on X on July 19.
Bittel highlighted the “compressed” Bollinger Bands, a key crypto volatility indicator, suggesting a potential surge in Bitcoin prices.
“Bollinger Bands are crazy tight by historical standards,” Bittel noted.
“Only two other months in history have we seen the weekly Bollinger Bands so compressed: April 2016 and July 2023.”
Bollinger Bands are crucial for assessing crypto volatility and price trend strength. Currently, the gap between the upper and lower bands is exceptionally narrow.
Historically, such compression has led to significant price increases.
“During both of the previous episodes, Bitcoin prices rose significantly over the following twelve months,” Bittel explained.
“A similar move this time around would target Bitcoin within a range of $140,000 to $190,000.”
This is not the first time Bollinger Bands have indicated major BTC price increases.
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In late 2023, their constriction preceded a rise to local highs just before the launch of U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Bittel has made similar forecasts recently, emphasizing the need for “patience” amid the bull market’s deepest price drawdown.
As of July 19, BTC/USD is trading around $64,000, up 11% over the past week, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
While trader confidence is increasing and price metrics suggest the bull market should continue, not everyone is convinced the timing is right.
A lack of mainstream retail investor interest contrasts with the accumulation behavior of institutions and whales.
Popular trader Rekt Capital pointed out that September could be a critical moment for Bitcoin’s recovery.
“If history repeats, a Bitcoin breakout from the Re-Accumulation Range would occur in September 2024,” he told X followers this week.
Overall, while the indicators suggest a potential for significant price gains, the absence of retail investor enthusiasm remains a notable concern.
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The Greek government is planning to implement a tax framework for cryptocurrencies and digital assets, which are currently not recognized.
According to a report by the Greek daily paper Ekathimerini on July 15, a special committee is expected to present its findings to the Ministry of National Economy and Finance by September.
The committee’s proposal aims to integrate cryptocurrencies into the tax system by January 2025.
Profits from crypto and digital asset trades will be taxed as capital gains from the sale of securities at a 15% rate.
The findings will focus on three main areas: defining and recording all cryptocurrencies, establishing a taxation method, and setting up a monitoring process.
Due to the absence of specific legislation in Greece, profits from crypto investments are often “exploited” by investors, with “very few” declaring their earnings from such transactions.
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Ekathimerini notes that these investors are typically “mainly unemployed individuals or taxpayers with no income but substantial real estate holdings.”
Accountants and tax experts have observed an increase in crypto activity, especially among people around the age of 30.
The crypto scene in Greece is experiencing significant growth, reflected in the rise of user activity and events in Athens, the capital city.
In December, Cointelegraph attended ATHDAOx, a multi-day event held for the second consecutive year.
The event saw a fourfold increase in attendance compared to its inaugural year.
The event’s head told Cointelegraph that the local decentralized finance and crypto community is working to “scale” both the community and its in-person events in Greece.
In April, the Greek stock exchange and the Sui blockchain announced a potential collaboration, which later materialized.
This partnership introduced a new fundraising mechanism through the Sui ecosystem.
A representative from Sui highlighted that the Greek stock exchange’s Electronic Book Building system positions it “at the forefront of innovation […] in comparison to exchanges around the world,” in an interview with Cointelegraph.
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Nigerian cryptocurrency analysts have voiced strong criticisms following the exit of the crypto exchange OKX from Nigeria.
This departure has sparked significant concerns about the country’s regulatory landscape and its impact on the rapidly growing blockchain and cryptocurrency sector.
Speaking with Cointelegraph, Rume Ophi, a local crypto stakeholder, expressed frustration over the sudden exits of several crypto exchanges from Nigeria.
He questioned how these exchanges entered the country and are now swiftly leaving.
“It is shocking to know that we, as industry leaders, are trying to engage the government on the way forward to good regulation, and exchanges are already leaving because of regulations that we don’t even know about,” he stated.
The slow regulatory progress is seen as a significant setback for Nigeria, especially compared to countries like South Africa, which is emerging as a leader in the continent’s cryptocurrency market.
Ophi noted the stark contrast between the prominence of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the forthcoming US elections and the regulatory confusion in Nigeria, calling the situation “embarrassing, to say the least.”
Drawing comparisons to the European Union’s approach, Ophi pointed out that the European Union’s (EU) Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) law continues to undergo amendments and refinements through collaborative efforts.
He urged the Nigerian National Assembly to engage in meaningful discussions to establish effective regulations.
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“Regulations are an overtime thing; gradually, we get better,” Ophi noted, emphasizing that regulators should focus on regulating rather than making laws.
Obinna Uzoije, a data and policy expert with Africa Policy Conversations, emphasized the need for a quicker, transparent, and more welcoming regulatory framework, highlighting the industry’s potential to create numerous employment opportunities for Nigerian youths.
“This is not just about cryptocurrency; it has been labeled a crime in Nigeria to deal with digital assets. This is an entire industry of marketers, community managers, developers, traders, and so much more,” he explained.
The departure of OKX and other exchanges is seen as a missed opportunity for Nigeria, reminiscent of the lost potential during the 2021 bull market.
Uzoije argued that Nigeria needs to demonstrate leadership in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector, not just in words but in action.
OKX exchange announced on July 18 that Malta will serve as its MiCA hub to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements in the European Union.
“This contrasts with its decision to cease services in Nigeria due to “recent changes in local laws and regulations.”
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Monad, a new layer-1 smart contract platform, recently raised $225 million from venture capital firm Paradigm.
Although not yet launched, Monad expects to go live on its public testnet in late 2024, with a mainnet launch in early 2025.
Monad is a parallel Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) project, akin to Aurora and Sei, designed to parallelize EVM instruction execution, enabling concurrent transaction processing.
This approach increases transaction throughput and reduces costs.
Parallelization breaks down transaction execution into smaller, independent tasks processed simultaneously.
Monad introduces four optimizations: MonadBFT, deferred execution, parallel execution, and MonadDB.
MonadBFT is a two-phase Byzantine-fault-tolerant algorithm based on HotStuff, optimized for partially synchronous conditions.
Most real-world networks experience variable message delivery times due to network congestion and latency.
MonadBFT enhances scalability and efficiency by reducing the communication rounds for consensus from three to two.
The consensus mechanism involves a leader node proposing blocks and validators reviewing them. If a majority approves (two-thirds), the block is finalized.
If consensus isn’t reached, validators send timeout messages, forming a timeout certificate to avoid system stalls.
This two-phase commit rule ensures rapid block finalization while maintaining network security.
Deferred execution separates transaction execution from consensus. Unlike Ethereum, where nodes execute transactions before consensus, MonadBFT focuses only on transaction order.
Execution occurs independently after consensus, mitigating the risk of malicious nodes.
Agreement on the Merkle root of the state is delayed by D blocks, currently set at 10, allowing nodes to verify execution correctness.
Parallel execution in Monad employs optimistic execution, similar to CPU speculative execution. Transactions are processed before previous transactions are finalized, increasing throughput. Conflicts are resolved by re-executing affected transactions.
This approach adds minimal overhead and benefits from static code analysis to predict dependencies, optimizing initial transaction scheduling.
MonadDB is a custom database enhancing parallel execution. Traditional blockchains face I/O bottlenecks due to synchronous operations.
MonadDB uses asynchronous disk operations, allowing multiple read and write processes simultaneously, thus boosting transaction processing speed.
In conclusion, Monad’s innovative techniques—optimistic execution, deferred execution, and MonadDB—enhance scalability and efficiency.
MonadBFT ensures rapid block finalization and network security.
With its public testnet set for late 2024 and mainnet in early 2025, Monad is poised to be a significant player in scalable blockchain technology.
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At the start of July, Bitcoin‘s hashrate drawdown, which measures changes in the network’s computing power, dropped to levels not seen since the December 2022 bear market, indicating some miners may be capitulating.
In April, Bitcoin underwent its fourth halving at block height 840,000, cutting the block reward in half to 3.125 BTC.
This reduction in rewards, along with transaction fees accounting for less than 10% of revenues, has squeezed miners’ earnings.
Additionally, Bitcoin’s price recently fell below $60,000 due to selling pressure from German authorities and the Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee repaying creditors in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
The price has since recovered to around $65,000.
Oleksandr Lutskevych, founder and CEO of CEX.IO, noted the cooling of trends like Runes and Ordinals and declining onchain activity.
He suggested this could mean greater centralization of hash power among larger mining operations, potentially leading to network instability during uncertain conditions.
He also mentioned that the decline in unique active addresses might indicate retail participants ceding ground to corporate entities, which are entering the space thanks to the Bitcoin ETFs launched earlier in 2024.
Despite these bearish signals, Marathon Digital Holdings, the world’s largest BTC mining firm, did not sell any Bitcoin in June, keeping its 18,536 coins untouched.
Bitcoin’s hashrate drop, while significant, wasn’t as drastic as during the December 2022 bear market, according to a spokesperson from ViaBTC.
The network’s hashrate has remained around 600 exahashes per second (EH/s), far above the 250 EH/s seen previously, indicating a notable improvement over time.
Brian Rudick, senior strategist at GSR, said the drop in hashrate resulted from reduced mining profitability post-halving, with hash price at an all-time low.
He added that public miners, who generally have lower costs, continued to hold onto their BTC despite the declining profitability, unlike less efficient non-public miners.
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Experts dismissed fears of a “miner death spiral,” where declining rewards and high energy costs cause network collapse.
Lutskevych emphasized that Bitcoin’s built-in difficulty adjustment mechanism helps stabilize the network by lowering difficulty as hashrate drops, making mining more attractive.
ViaBTC added that this mechanism could lead to a dynamic balance, attracting new miners and increasing hashrate.
Concerns about miner centralization were highlighted, with the appetites of dominant players potentially causing short-term fluctuations.
However, miners can manage liquidity needs without selling their BTC, using services like crypto-backed loans.
Historically, Bitcoin’s price and hashrate have been correlated. Lutskevych noted a slight lag between the two, but recent price drops have not been as severe as past events.
Rudick added that Bitcoin’s price leads its hashrate, so he doesn’t foresee the hashrate drop affecting the cryptocurrency’s price or security, as the network remains robust with sufficient hashrate.
Despite potential turmoil in the mining industry, Bitcoin’s security is assured. Controlling the network’s hashrate for a 51% attack would be prohibitively expensive.
Solutions to Bitcoin’s long-term security budget, such as increasing block space demand via layer 2s, are being considered.
While the hashrate drop is notable, it may signal a market bottom, supported by metrics indicating low selling pressure from exchanges and miners.
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Bitcoin bulls defended the $66,000 mark on July 23 as U.S. spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) impressed analysts.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed Bitcoin’s price rebounding after an initial dip with the Wall Street open.
The launch of spot Ether ETFs surprised market participants with over $100 million in volume within 15 minutes, driving ETH/USD up 2.3% and reversing an earlier decline.
“Spot ETF launch so far seeing the expected – take profit selling in both perps & spot.
Move retraced & OI still elevated,” popular trader Skew wrote on X, highlighting increased open interest in ETH derivatives around the launch.
Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of MNTrading, noted the strong performance: “The ETH ETF has insane numbers. First 15 minutes already 50% of Bitcoin’s first day in terms of volume: $112 million.”
He predicted, “The Ethereum ETF launch is heavily undervalued and I expect it to trade towards an ATH in the coming 1–2 months.”
Another trader, Daan Crypto Trades, called the initial flows “decent” and predicted increased market volatility.
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As Cointelegraph reported, the period leading up to the ETF release saw relatively flat ETH price action, unlike the significant movements seen with Bitcoin before its ETF trading debut in January.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin retraced its own initial drop, climbing back to $67,000. Monitoring resource CoinGlass revealed new buyer liquidity at $65,750, with increased sell-side pressure above.
Traders remained optimistic about future gains. “5 monthly candles to turn the previous cycle highs into support,” trader Jelle wrote in his BTC price analysis. “Strong foundations being built, for the next bear market lows. The best is yet to come.”
Trading firm QCP Capital noted a cautious market stance in its latest Telegram bulletin, observing that crypto markets were in a wait-and-see mode post-ETF launch.
“The market’s reaction to the ETH Spot ETF launch has been muted, with investors waiting to see if it follows the ‘buy the hype, sell the news’ pattern,” it stated.
“QCP also warned of potential short-term downside, citing factors like creditor payouts from defunct exchange Mt. Gox and geopolitical uncertainties.
“With the ETH Spot ETF potentially not impacting prices on the outset, coupled with potential selling pressure from the US Government and Mt Gox, prices may remain subdued until momentum builds up leading to the elections,” it concluded.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced a new cryptographic protocol called Circle STARKs, promising to enhance blockchain security and efficiency.
In his latest post, Buterin explains that this technological leap utilizes smaller fields like Mersenne31 to significantly improve proving speed without compromising security measures.
“The most important trend in STARK protocol design over the last two years has been the switch to working over small fields,” Buterin notes.
Traditional Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge (STARKs) operate over 256-bit fields, which, while secure, are often inefficient.
Circle STARKs, however, leverage smaller fields, resulting in reduced computational costs and faster proving speeds.
This improvement allows for impressive gains, such as verifying 620,000 Poseidon2 hashes per second on an M3 laptop.
Buterin highlights that previous STARK implementations made smaller fields “naturally compatible with verifying elliptic curve-based signatures” but “led to inefficiency” due to the large numbers involved.
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Traditional small fields have limited possible values, making them susceptible to brute-force attacks.
Circle STARKs counteract this vulnerability by performing multiple random checks and using extension fields, which expand the set of values attackers need to guess.
This creates a computationally prohibitive barrier for attackers, maintaining the protocol’s integrity.
“With STARKs over smaller fields, we have a problem: there are only about two billion possible values of x to choose from, and so an attacker wanting to make a fake proof need only try two billion times—a lot of work, but quite doable for a determined attacker!” Buterin states.
A crucial aspect of Circle STARKs is the Fast Reed-Solomon Interactive Oracle Proofs of Proximity (FRI), which prove that a function is a polynomial of a certain degree.
Introducing Circle FRI, an approach that maintains the integrity of the cryptographic process, Circle STARKs ensure that non-polynomial inputs fail the proof.
By utilizing small fields and this new mathematical structure, Circle STARKs offer more flexibility and versatility for efficient computational performance.
This innovative protocol marks a significant step forward in the evolution of blockchain technology, combining enhanced security measures with increased efficiency.
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SingularityNET, an artificial intelligence platform developer, announced a $53 million investment in a modular supercomputer aimed at decentralized artificial general intelligence (AGI).
According to the July 23 announcement, the initial phase of this investment will allocate $26.5 million to the supercomputer.
This will incorporate modular data center solutions from Ecoblox, graphics processing units (GPUs) and processors from Nvidia, AMD, and Tenstorrent, along with AI servers from Asus and Gigabyte.
A modular supercomputer features a flexible and scalable architecture that allows for easy expansion and upgrading by adding or replacing modules.
Developers can increase the system’s power without replacing the entire setup. SingularityNET claims this will be the world’s first supercomputer dedicated to decentralized AGI and artificial superintelligence research.
The supercomputer will enhance the training of deep neural networks (DNNs), large language models (LLMs) — including multimodal variations — and hybrid neural-symbolic computing architectures like OpenCog Hyperon.
Recent hardware acquisitions by SingularityNET include a modular data center with Nvidia L40S GPUs, AMD Instinct and Genoa processors, Tenstorrent Wormhole server racks, and servers featuring H200 GPUs and Nvidia GB200 systems.
“The dramatic progress the AI field has seen recently is the result of convergence of multiple aspects, including sophisticated learning algorithms and cognitive architectures, and massive amounts of data, processing infrastructure and energy,” said SingularityNET CEO Ben Goertzel.
The new infrastructure will enable significant advancements in AGI, promoting continuous learning and self-improvement in high-load scenarios.
These scenarios involve large-scale knowledge distillation, pattern matching, and multi-step machine reasoning.
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SingularityNET’s investment occurs amidst a global surge in AI development.
On July 22, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) allocated 100 million Singapore dollars ($74.36 million) to develop quantum computing and AI solutions for its finance sector.
In March, Fetch.ai, co-founder of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance alongside SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol, announced a $100 million investment in its Fetch Compute infrastructure program.
This program will deploy Nvidia H200, H100, and A100 GPUs to create a more powerful platform for developers.
The increasing demand for high-performance hardware has fueled growth in the tech sector.
On July 20, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company became the first Asian firm to surpass a trillion-dollar market capitalization, driven by demand from tech giants such as Apple, AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.
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As spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) prepare for their debut, asset manager Bitwise has committed to donating 10% of its profits to Ethereum developers.
On July 22, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the final S-1 statements necessary for spot Ether ETFs to launch on major stock exchanges, including Nasdaq, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
As it launches its ETF on the NYSE, Bitwise announced that 10% of all profits from the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) would be donated to two Ethereum-focused organizations.
According to Bitwise, the proceeds will benefit Protocol Guild, which supports over 170 core contributors to Ethereum layer-1 protocol research and development.
Additionally, part of the proceeds will go to the PBS Foundation, a nonprofit that funds open-source Ethereum block relays and provides grants to support Ethereum decentralization.
Hong Kim, Bitwise’s chief technology officer, highlighted the importance of the Ethereum community:
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“Every investor in ETHW wants Ethereum to continue to advance, and this donation program contributes to that goal.”
To ensure transparency, Bitwise has also promised to publish the wallet addresses of all its ETHW holdings.
This will enable investors to verify the fund’s holdings and flows directly on the blockchain.
Bitwise made a similar commitment for its spot Bitcoin ETFs.
In January, the company pledged to donate 10% of its profits from the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) to the open-source development of Bitcoin.
In addition to Bitwise, VanEck also committed to donating 5% of its spot Bitcoin ETF profits to Bitcoin core developers in January, along with a $10,000 donation to Bitcoin developers.
Crypto analytics firm Kaiko has suggested that the price of ETH could be influenced by the inflows from the newly launched ETFs.
Kaiko’s head of indexes, Will Cai, stated that while a full demand picture may not be clear for several months, the price of ETH might be sensitive to inflow numbers in the initial days.
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