Bitcoin crashed to almost $25,000
In recent days, the Bitcoin exchange rate has momentarily fallen below the $25,000 mark. This came as a surprise to many, given that the value of bitcoin (BTC) has declined by approximately 9%. Such a fall interrupted the relative calm that had prevailed for most of August. One of the key factors that triggered the decline is the increase in global interest rates. It is worth noting that the cost of 30-year US Treasury bonds reached 4.42% - the highest since 2011. In the face of such economic fluctuations, not only digital currencies, but also other high-risk financial instruments have felt pressure.
SpaceX sold BTC for $373 million
Elon Musk confirmed in 2021 that SpaceX has foreign exchange reserves in bitcoin, following a filing with the SEC where Tesla expressed its intention to invest $1.5 billion in the digital currency. An article in The Wall Street Journal on August 17, analyzing the company's financials, indicated that SpaceX sold its bitcoins acquired in 2021-2022 in the amount of about $373 million.
Justin Sun Claims He Holds Over 100,000 BTC
The creator of the TRON (TRX) blockchain, Justin Sun, has declared his strong faith in Bitcoin, owning over 100,000 BTC. The Tron CEO emphasized that he has invested in various altcoins, including BTC and ETH. As a strong supporter of digital currency, Sun is positive about its economic prospects, believing that cryptocurrencies like BTC set the vector for the future of finance. In one of his interviews, the Tron executive opined that the value of BTC could exceed $100,000 by 2025, adding that other digital currencies would move in a similar direction.
Court rejects petition to lift Tornado Cash sanctions
The federal court did not accept the lawsuit of a group of investors who were supported by the Coinbase exchange regarding the issue of introducing restrictive measures against the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency platform. This information was shared by the lawyer of the service, Paul Grewal. Representatives of the lawsuit argued that the US Department of the Treasury acted beyond its powers, as it failed to clearly define in what context open source smart contracts can be considered "property" subject to restrictive measures.
Thus, no person, whether creators, coders or holders of TORN tokens, actually owns these smart contracts. However, the court concluded that the organization that controls the Tornado Cash mixer can be recognized as a legal entity, and its structure resembles that of a joint-stock company. In addition, such an organization "benefits" from the operation of smart contracts, which makes it responsible. Paul Grewal, commenting on the court decision, said that Coinbase is not going to back down and is preparing for the appeal process.
Satoshi Nakamoto registered Bitcoin.org domain 15 years ago
On October 31, 2008, a white paper of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency appeared on the network, authored by the unknown Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of the world's first digital currency. This moment, as well as January 3, 2009, when the first block was generated, are milestones in the development of Bitcoin.
The announcement of the birth of an innovative monetary system, where all transactions are carried out directly between the parties without the intervention of intermediaries, was distributed via e-mail distribution on the portal metzdowd.com. The message from Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity is still shrouded in mystery, contained a link to a document called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Even before that, on August 15, 2008, the domain Bitcoin.org was registered on anonymousspeech.com, which later became the place of publication of the described document. Subsequently, Satoshi Nakamoto claimed in his letters that he purchased this domain, although he did not disclose the details of this transaction.
Shiba Inu launched its own L2 blockchain
Shiba Inu has launched the Shibarium mainnet, a layer 2 empowerment solution for Ethereum. This milestone was reached after a long testing period with active participation from many users, resulting in over 21 million wallets.
At the heart of Shibarium is a consensus mechanism known as Proof of Participation (PoP). Validators are selected according to their holdings in cryptocurrency, which significantly reduces the need for resource-intensive proof-of-work techniques. This L2 blockchain is designed to be tightly integrated with the original Ethereum blockchain, providing a more efficient and cost-effective transaction solution. However, after the official launch, the network immediately broke down, as a result of which $2.6 million was temporarily blocked.
Hacker lost $53 million due to liquidation
After the incident with the theft of funds from the BSC Token Hub bridge, the attacker ran into problems on the Venus Protocol platform. Three of his positions were liquidated as BNB fell to less than $220. Because of this, the hacker’s losses reached 5.64 million vBNB, which is close to $53.2 million. The funds were transferred to this wallet after the events of October 2022, when assets totaling about $544 million were stolen. The hacker managed to withdraw only $100 million from this amount.
