Ethereum’s Merge is Complete; U.S. Treasury Blacklists Bitcoin Addresses
Daily Market Wrap
Crypto market cap: 995 Billion, down 0.25%
BTC price stands at USD 20,319, down 0.14%
ETH price stands at USD 1,644, down 1.96%
Top gainer: Celsius (CEL), up 98.31%
Top loser: TerraClassicUSD (USTC), down 12.08%
News of the Day
Treasury Blacklists Bitcoin Addresses Linked to Iranian Ransomware Group
Why it matters:
The Treasury announced sanctions against two entities and 10 individuals for alleged association with coordinated ransomware attacks, targeting United States-based companies since 2020
Suspects are reportedly tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and targets included a children’s hospital, city in New Jersey and a electric utility company
As the attackers and their business entities are on the OFAC sanctions list, American citizens and companies are prohibited from interacting with them and their Bitcoin wallet addresses
Crypto Daily Spotlight
Historic day for crypto as Ethereum Merge to proof-of-stake occurs
Brief introduction: Ethereum is a smart-contract enabled Layer 1 blockchain. Its execution layer, previously known as ETH 1.0, uses Proof-of-Work (PoW) to validate transactions, which contributes to its scalability issues. Recently, the Merge has been completed and has transitioned Ethereum to its next phase (formerly known as Ethereum 2.0) as the network’s entire blockchain moves to a new system called proof-of-Stake (PoS), which proponents say will make it more efficient, sustainable and scalable.
Why it matters:
The Merge is complete, thus Ethereum will now operate on a Proof-of-Stake consensus which makes the network 99.95% more efficient and will allow for future scaling solutions
According to the Ethereum roadmap, the final stages: “Surge” – to increase scalability of rollups through sharding; “Verge” – to achieve statelessness through Verkle trees, “Purge” – to eliminate historical data; and “Splurge” – to involve small miscellaneous upgrades will be up next
Ethereum’s monetary policy have change, making its tokenomics deflationary
Daily Sector Tracker
Daily News Roundup
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Celsius Bankruptcy Judge Gives the Nod for Independent Examiner Probe https://bit.ly/3QGrYOx
All The ETH On Aave Has Been Borrowed Ahead Of The Merge https://bit.ly/3eOZULK
Trudeau Pooh-poohs Rival’s Crypto Enthusiasm https://bit.ly/3eSxwsc
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