The first Bitcoin transaction is 15 years old
Exactly 15 years ago, on January 12, 2009, one of the key events in the history of Bitcoin took place. Then Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to cryptographer Hal Finney, ushering in the era of cryptocurrency exchange. Satoshi's main motivation was the need to reform the global financial system, inspired by the 2008 financial crisis. He introduced the world to the idea of a decentralized digital currency that allowed people to exchange securely without intermediaries.
Only a week after the creation of the first genesis block on January 3, 2009, Nakamoto announced the launch of the first software version of BTC. This version has become available for download and use by everyone. Hal Finney, a crypto activist with experience since the early 90s, also received notice of the blockchain launch. He welcomed the move and was the second person, after Satoshi, to launch the BTC software. American programmer Finney earned the title of the first recipient of a transaction in the network of the first cryptocurrency, the very next day, January 12.
Buterin proposed increasing the Ethereum gas limit
In an AMA session on Reddit, Vitalik Buterin proposed increasing the gas limit on the Ethereum network to 40 million (+33%) to increase throughput. This change will not require a hard fork, but simply an adjustment of node configurations by validators. Gnosis's Köppelmann stressed that increasing the limit could increase costs for validators, but expressed support. Buterin will also consider removing the 32 ETH limit for validators (EIP-7251), subject to guarantees of validator integrity.
The rate of popular cryptocurrencies has decreased
BTC has been quite volatile this week, starting at $48,400 but unfortunately ending the week falling below $42,000. At the time of writing, the price of the first cryptocurrency is $42,600. It is interesting to note that other digital assets of the top 10 by capitalization also experienced similar fluctuations. In the last 24 hours, Avalanche is down 7.1% and Solana is down 5.8%. Market capitalization dropped to $1.77 trillion.
Meme token SAMO increased by 54%
Quotes of the meme coin Samoyedcoin (SAMO) on Solana increased by 54% per day, from $0.011 to $0.017, adding $25 million to the capitalization, according to CoinGecko. SAMO's price at the time of writing is $0.015. The growth is associated with an airdrop for owners of the Saga Web3 smartphone, which began on January 9, 2024. Saga users can get 1250 SAMO (~$20). The meme token team presented the Saga Tools tool for organizing airdrops on Solana. This is reminiscent of the Bonk (BONK) token that caused the Saga shortage, where users received around $900 in meme cryptocurrency for a $599 device and speculators sold them for $5,000.
Resumption of the Ripple case
On January 11 of this year, lawyers from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a motion demanding that Ripple provide financial statements for the period from 2022 to 2023, as well as understand the "post-complaint contracts governing institutional sales." Ripple, in turn, requested additional time - until January 19 - to respond to this petition from the regulator.
The story began in December 2020, when the SEC filed a lawsuit against the Californian company. The lawsuit said Ripple sold approximately $1.39 billion worth of unregistered securities in the form of XRP over seven years. However, on June 13, 2023, the company achieved a partial victory in this case. In October of the same year, the SEC withdrew its lawsuit against Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse for violating securities laws.
X account hacks
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) account on Platform X was compromised, and attackers used it to post a fake message about the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs. The now-deleted tweet, pretending to be official, claimed that the regulator had allowed the listing of products on all registered national securities exchanges. The message allegedly included a quote from SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating the hacking of an account on the social network X together with the FBI.
Recently, attackers also attacked the accounts of cryptocurrency market data aggregator CoinGecko on Platform X. Hackers posted information on the hacked pages about the upcoming distribution of 125,000 GCKO tokens. According to them, CoinGecko was going to use this coin to pay for APIs at many large Web3 infrastructure providers, such as Ankr. A few hours later, CoinGecko reported that they were able to regain control of their accounts.
Elon Musk proposed using Bitcoin on Mars
Elon Musk, a great entrepreneur and billionaire, has brought a unique proposal to the conversation about the future of Mars colonization. As part of a conference dedicated to the approval of ARK Invest's spot Bitcoin ETF, he expressed the idea of using cryptocurrencies, including BTC, as a currency on Mars.
When asked what tools would be used on Mars, Musk initially expressed some doubts about the ability of the first cryptocurrency to cope with such a task. He pointed to the significant time required to confirm transactions as one potential limiting factor.
However, after discussions and reflection, the billionaire came to the conclusion that this was quite feasible. He emphasized that there may be an option to use BTC on Mars to some extent. However, he also noted that implementing this idea on a large scale on Mars could be challenging due to the vast distances and communication delays. Mars is located at a distance of about 20 light minutes from the Sun, which makes localization and use of such tools a very challenging process.
