There's a lot that has happened in the crypto market in the past week, both in terms of technical development and general events. Here's the a roundup of all the crazy stories that have been shaping the market.
1. Tesla Suspends Bitcoin Payments for its Products, Community Fights Back Against Elon
Arguably the biggest news of the week, and which partially contributed to the market’s correction, is Tesla’s decision to suspend Bitcoin payments for its product. The announcement immediately affected Bitcoin’s price and some cryptocommunity members went on to accuse Musk of market manipulation.
At the same time, Musk also spoke of how Dogecoin’s network could be improved, and also stating that it could beat Bitcoin ‘hands down’. His lack of understanding of crypto networks became a target for the community’s ire. In response to this, Musk hinted that Tesla may sell more of its Bitcoin holdings.
2. Galaxy Digital Says Gold and Banking Use 2x as Much Energy as Bitcoin
Following that bombshell news from Tesla, Galaxy Digital released a report that studied the energy consumption of Bitcoin, as well as the consumption of the gold and banking industries. The results are interesting to say the least, with both industries consuming much more electricity than Bitcoin.
According to Galaxy Digital estimates, both gold and banking consume more than twice as much energy as Bitcoin -- even with only rough estimates. Furthermore, the analysts praised Bitcoin for its potential to bring value to the energy sector as well as for its transparency. The authors of the report noted how Bitcoin’s transparency made it easy to gauge energy consumption and that the energy consumption argument is not unusually applied to traditional financial industries.
3. Meme Tokens DOGE and SHIB Still Riding High
In further proof that meme tokens are here to stay, both Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) are both going against the market momentum and posting some gains. Being so community driven, these meme coins typically go against other assets in the market, but even so they are unusually resilient.
They are not performing as well as before (Dogecoin has posted a loss of 5% in the past 24 hours), but trading metrics for these joke coins show that they are as popular as ever. SHIB in particular is getting traction after its founders donated trillions of the token to Vitalik Buterin.
4. Vitalik Burns 90% of His SHIB Tokens, Will Donate Rest to Charity
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin burned 90% of the 505 trillion Shiba Inu tokens he was gifted earlier this month. The total amount equates to a staggering $6.7 billion. Just a few days prior, Buterin made the news for donating over $1 billion in SHIB tokens to Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal’s Covid Relief Fund for India.
Buterin said that he did not want to have money or control over an asset, and asked the cryptocommunity to not make such donations to his address. The remaining 10% of his SHIB tokens will be donated to charity. He also made a statement praising “dog token communities”, saying that it was heartening to see them donate to charity instead of only eyeing profits.
5. Polkadot’s Kusama Network Ready to Host Parachains
Gavin Wood, founder of Parity Technologies, announced in a blog post that the Polkadot project had entered its final phase of launch. This phase grants the Kusama Network the ability to host parachains. An external audit is currently underway, as well as some initial steps for a fully operational status.
The governance community has approved the launch of a Shell parachain, which serves no purpose other than being able to be upgraded. This parachain is now in the process of being upgraded to a Statemine chain by the governance community, which will let assets be hosted. Lastly, the network host auctions to complete the full testing experience.
6. Fox is Launching an NFT Company
Media and entertainment company Fox has announced that it is launching an NFT company called Blockchain Creative Labs alongside an animated series called Krapopolis. Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon is behind the series, which is described as being about “a flawed family of humans, gods and monsters that tries to run one of the world's first cities without killing each other.”
Krapopolis will get a marketplace with characters, background art and GIFs as NFTs for fans. No details have been provided about the technical aspects of the NFT platform, but officials did state that the NFT business would be used to help advertisers and brands connect with fans and users.
