Bitcoin gains over Chinese New Year, Solana’s network was down for hours and crypto miners have found a new hub in an unexpected location. These stories and more, this week in crypto.
Chinese New Year Propels Bitcoin
Fueled by Chinese New Year momentum, Bitcoin gained 10% over the week upholding a historical trend. Over the past 9 years, Bitcoin’s price has surged by an average of 11%, from 3 days before to 10 days after the start of the Chinese new year. The price bump helped BTC break through resistance levels which had held since spot Bitcoin ETFs were introduced in the US a month ago.
Solana Suffers Severe Outage
Solana’s price rebounded from a 4% dip once the network came back online after a 5-hour outage on Tuesday. Similar problems plagued the network in early 2023, but before Tuesday’s outage, the blockchain had been running without interruptions for nearly a year. The Solana Foundation has not yet released a formal statement about the cause of the outage.
Monero Delisted from Binance
Monero has hit multi-month lows after Binance announced that it would be delisting the privacy-focused altcoin, effective February 20th. Monero isn’t the only digital asset that Binance has chosen to delist, as other delisted tokens will include Aragon, Multichain, and Vai. All of their trading pairs will be eliminated, trade orders will be automatically removed, and withdrawals for these tokens will not be supported after May 20th.
Bitcoin ETF Funds Surpassed MicroStrategy
The recently launched US spot bitcoin ETFs added another 5,000 BTC worth $1 Billion to their holdings, resulting in their total stack now surpassing MicroStrategy’s 190,000 Bitcoins.The new funds have been on the market for less than one month, during which they have swiftly attracted billions in investments.
Robinhood Connects with MetaMask
Digital wallet creator, ConsenSys has integrated Robinhood Connect with MetaMask, enhancing access to cryptocurrencies for users of the popular trading platform. The integration enables MetaMask users to load their wallets directly with crypto using the Robinhood platform, and seamlessly make in-app purchases using Robinhood’s order engine, automatically linking transactions to their digital wallets.
Alleged Bitcoin Inventor Denies Allegations
In a London court, Australian computer scientist Craig Wright denied that he forged documents in order to support his claim. Wright claims that he is the author of the 2008 Bitcoin white paper as Satoshi Nakamoto, and is facing legal opposition from the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, which hopes to prevent Wright from suing Bitcoin developers and to safeguard the open-source nature of the protocol.
Canadian Court Upholds Crypto Mining Ban
The British Columbia Supreme Court has upheld the provincial government’s moratorium on new crypto-mining operations accessing the power grid. Implemented in December 2022, the pause aims to assess the industry’s impact on the province’s economic and environmental objectives. Conifex Timber, a forestry company expanding into crypto mining, filed to challenge the moratorium in hopes of building a new mining facility in the province, which the court eventually denied.
Chinese Miners’ New Bitcoin Hub
Chinese Bitcoin miners have found a new crypto hub in Ethiopia due to affordable electricity and friendly relations with China. Despite the country’s ban on crypto trading, Ethiopia permitted crypto mining in 2022. Recently, Bitcoin mining farms have emerged near electricity substations linked to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that was constructed with the involvement of Chinese companies.
That’s what’s happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
