The Crypto market has been the hive of activity this September month. With significant upgrades and announcements, many exciting things are happening these days. We fear you might miss out on essential updates. Hence, we brought our sixth edition of the top 10 latest crypto news and updates to keep you posted.
So, let's kick in!
Ethereum Merge is Finally Here
The most anticipated event of the Ethereum Merge finally happened on 15th September 2022, at 06:42:42 UTC, to fully transfer it to the proof of stake consensus mechanism. This upgrade has enabled the Ethereum network to become 99.95% more energy efficient and scalable. The price of ETH saw a slight increase after the Merge, but the hike was not as expected due to the negative sentiments clouding the market for months. The increasing inflation rates and possible upcoming regulations on crypto have neuralized the Merge excitement among investors. However, according to many experts, the positive price effects of this upgrade will be seen in the long term. After the Merge upgrade, Ethereum will bring more updates named "Surge," "Verge," "Purge", and "Splurge" in the upcoming years to reach the final destination in its roadmap.
Colorado starts accepting Tax in Crypto.
The adoption of crypto is rising fastly, despite its slow pace. The famous American state of Colorado started accepting cryptocurrency in tax payments. The state department has already added the crypto payment option to its official revenue website. As per reports, it will manage the crypto payment through the Paypal Cryptocurrency Hub. This step by Colorado is a significant milestone for digital assets towards its mainstream financial adoption.
Saylor shops for more Bitcoins
One of the most popular Bitcoin whales, Michael Saylor, announced through his Twitter account that his company Microstrategy has recently made a big bitcoin purchase. It bought 301 BTC for around $6 million at an average price of $19,851/BTC, which brought the total count of Microstrategy-owned Bitcoin to 1,30,000 BTC. Now, Microstrategy owns 0.62% of BTC out of the total BTC that can exist. Despite the older BTC investments being underwater, this new purchase by the software firm gave a good zest to other bitcoin enthusiasts and retail investors.
Red Notice was issued against Do Kwon.
Problems are nowhere near the end for Terra co-founder Do Kwon after the Terra crash took place. The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) issued a Red Notice against Do Kwon to find and detain him. According to Korean authorities, Kwon and his close friends are hiding from them by going to different countries. Do Kwon keeps tweeting despite knowing that crime investing officers are hands down behind him. His arrest would be able to reveal answers to some unanswered questions associated with the Terra LUNA crash.
NFT experience launch by Starbucks
The iconic coffee chain brand Starbucks announced to offer its US members the facility to earn and buy collectable digital stamps in the form of NFTs. The unique digital arts will take the users to various new experiences in a virtual world. The NFT rewards will range from virtual recipe classes to exclusive event invites to Costa Rica Starbucks Reserve Roasteries and farms. A part of the selling amount obtained from these limited edition digital art will go for donation to the creator's cause. Starbucks will use Polygon, a proof of stake blockchain, to mint the NFTs and connect its customers to Web3 space.
The Norwegian Central Bank uses Ethereum to build its CBDC.
It seems like an excellent year for crypto adoption because recently, the IMF reported that almost 97 countries or over half of global central banks, are either exploring or developing CBDC. Norway has also jumped onto the CBDC bandwagon by publicly releasing the open source code for its CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) on Sandbox. It also confirmed that Ethereum technology would form the base for its prototype infrastructure. According to its official announcements, the Ethereum cryptocurrency system will provide a "core infrastructure" for issuing and distributing the country's Digital money.
Market Dips after FED hikes interest rates.
Negative market sentiments are ruling the crypto market this year. A recent proof of this argument was when BTC price cryptocurrencies fell after FED announced to hike interest rates by 75 basis points to combat the record-breaking inflation. As an immediate effect of this news, the price of Bitcoin fell below $19000 and later rebounded a bit after the volatility settled down. Though long-term investors are still committing to crypto, short-term investors undergo such sell-offs very often amid the financial uncertainty at the global level.
Ripple's rumored win made its price surge.
As many of you might already know, SEC filed a case against Ripple labs in 2020 for illegally selling unregistered securities. Their long-running battle may soon end as per some latest rumors because both parties filed motions for summary judgment to dismiss the case before trial.
This news led to the revival of interest in XRP among Ripple investors, causing a sharp surge of 44% in its price in only seven days. This significant price hike occurring despite the market slump is a piece of great news for XRP investors because the price may rise further with the final court judgment expected in December.
Crypto Market Maker Wintermute hacked.
This year, Hacks and attacks have become the new normal in the crypto space. Adding to it is Wintermute, a Cryptocurrency market maker based in the UK that became the latest victim of a Defi hack that cost it $160 million. According to a theory, over 70 different tokens got transferred to the hacker including $61,350,986 in USDC, $13,030,061 in wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and $29,461,533 in USDT. The hackers targeted the DeFi operations of Wintermute to execute the hack. According to various field experts, they may have utilized the bug from the smart contract of Wintermute to affect its online crypto wallet.
Cardano Vasil Hard fork successfully executed.
Right a week after the successful launch of Ethereum's upgrade, Cardano's Vasil upgrade arrived. The upgrade began on 22nd September 2022 with the deployment of new Vasil features to the Cardano chain. It will end with upgrading Cardano's coding language, Plutus, on 27th September 2022. This whole update will bring significant performance and capability enhancements to the Cardano blockchain. Some of them are block transmission without full validation, faster block creation, increased efficiency for Decentralized applications, and their deployment at a lower cost. Till now, no significant positive impact on the price of Cardano's native token, ADA, has been recorded.
It was the last crypto update of our sixth version of the top 10 latest crypto updates. We will come back with more updates soon.
Till then, keep investing!
