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Top Stories This Week
Ethereumâs Shapella hard fork executed on mainnet
The Ethereum blockchainâs mainnet, also referred to as the Beacon Chain, implemented the Shapella hard fork on April 12. The upgrade made fund withdrawals possible for those who have staked the networkâs Ether (ETH) asset. Within the first hour of the hard fork, a total of 12,859 Ether were unlocked in 4,333 withdrawals, according to Ethereum block explorer beaconchai.in. Nearly a day after the upgrade, ETH surpassed the $2,000 price point.
FTX has recovered $7.3B in assets, will consider rebooting exchange
A comeback for FTX is on the table, according to the legal team of the bankrupted crypto exchange. In an April 12 hearing, FTXâs lawyers said the company had already recovered about $7.3 billion in liquid assets and was considering restarting its crypto exchange operations in the second quarter of 2024, suggesting a reboot as early as April. After the news broke, FTX token (FTT) surged over 112%. Meanwhile in Europe, a Swiss court approved the sale of the firmâs European operations.
OpenAI finds fresh support from Japan amid global country-wide bans
Japan is interested in potentially using technology from artificial intelligence (AI) outfit OpenAI â the creator of chatbot ChatGPT â depending on the resolution of issues relating to cybersecurity and privacy. The interest was expressed by Japanâs chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno. Sam Altman, OpenAIâs CEO, aims to work with Japan to build technology for the country. OpenAI has faced opposition from multiple countries, however. The artificial intelligence race has also accelerated this week with Amazon, Alibaba and Twitter working on their own AI initiatives.
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Mastercard launches NFT-gated musician accelerator program
Mastercard is one of several traditional finance companies that have ventured into the Web3 arena in recent years. Most recently, on April 12, the company announced its new artist accelerator program with a Web3 twist: The program is NFT-gated and, therefore, only accessible to holders of its Mastercard Music Pass NFT. The NFT is limited-edition and free until the end of the month for both musicians and fans, while the program was created in partnership with Polygon.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $30,439, Ether (ETH) at $2,105 and XRP at $0.52. The total market cap is at $1.28 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Injective (INJ) at 54.92%, WOO Network (WOO) at 46.91% and Arbitrum (ARB) at 42.04%. Â
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Enjin Coin (ENJ) at -6.49%, Basic Attention Token (BAT) at -2.89% and BitTorrent New (BTT) at -1.19%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraphâs market analysis.
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From Director of the United States Mint to the Very First Bitcoin IRA Customer
Most Memorable Quotations
âIf we want a strong U.S. dollar globally, a U.S. dollar stablecoin is a way to see that happen.â
Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation
âBitcoin is a gambling token, and it doesnât have any intrinsic value.â
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
âThere is a very natural tendency to borrow traditional financial industry regulations to apply to crypto. Crypto is different from banks and traditional financial industries.â
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance
â[NFT warranties] will provide a sense of security and trust, which will encourage more non-native crypto users to join the Web3 space with minimal risk.â
George Basiladze, CEO of Wert
âThe road of innovation and technological change has never been smooth sailing.â
Paul Chan, financial secretary of Hong Kong
âThere is no difference in privacy or surveillance whether you are using your Visa card or a CBDC.â
Aaron Klein, former chief economist of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee
Prediction of the WeekÂ
Bitcoin price spikes above $31K as Ethereum gains spark âaltseasonâ calls
Bitcoin enjoyed some positive action this week, poking through the $31,000 price level, according to Cointelegraphâs BTC price index. MichaĂ«l van de Poppe, CEO and founder of trading firm Eight, pointed to a few price points of potential interest.
âBitcoin looks strong, but will have some shallow corrections in an upward trend,â he noted via an April 14 tweet. âIâve marked $31.7-32K as important resistance point.â
âHowever, $25K was the level everyone wanted to buy. This will probably shift to $28.5K, and then nobody buys. Iâd prefer to focus on $29.7K,â van de Poppe added.
The Ethereum blockchainâs native asset, ETH, also enjoyed some positive price action during the week. Excitement at the potential prospect of some form of altseason was expressed in the crypto community this week.
FUD of the WeekÂ
Hacker mints 1 quadrillion yUSDT after exploiting old Yearn.finance contract
A hacker exploited an old contract from Yearn Finance, creating a massive amount of the stablecoin yUSDT tokens, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield. The hacker swapped the yUSDT to other stablecoins, allowing them to take hold of $11.6 million worth of stablecoins. At least 1,000 Ether ($2 million) has been transferred to the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.
Crypto exchange Bitrue suffers $23M hack due to hot wallet exploit
US court issues summons to Tronâs Justin Sun, threatens default judgment if no response
A United States court has issued a summons to Tron founder Justin Sunâs Singapore address in connection to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil case. In March, the SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Sun, the Tron Foundation, the BitTorrent Foundation and Rainberry over the âorchestration of the unregistered offer and sale, manipulative trading, and unlawful toutingâ of Tron TRX as a crypto asset security. Sun will face âjudgment by defaultâ if he does not get in touch with SEC attorney Adam Gottlieb within a certain time window.
Best Cointelegraph Features
ZK-rollups are âthe endgameâ for scaling blockchains: Polygon Miden founder
He got his start in ZK-rollups after Vitalik Buterin saw his work on Eth Research â now heâs heading up Polygonâs game-changing ZK project Miden.
Why join a blockchain gaming guild? Fun, profit and create better games
You can help create better blockchain games by joining a gaming guild⊠and have some fun, too.
Pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton â10x more into BTC, 4x more into ETHâ: Hall of Flame
Former aspiring rapper and pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton predicts XRP will top its all-time high if Ripple wins the SEC lawsuit.
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