Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 7.33%, total size of Ethereum ETF $5.7 billion

Golden Weekly is a weekly blockchain industry summary column launched by Golden Finance. The content covers key news of the week, market and contract data, mining information, project trends, technology progress and other industry trends. This article is a project weekly, giving you an overview of the progress of mainstream projects and star projects this week.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin mining difficulty has been increased by 7.33% to 75.5 T at block height 828,576 >

According to BTC.com data, Bitcoin mining difficulty ushered in a mining difficulty adjustment at block height 828,576 (2024-02-02 23:42:06), and the mining difficulty increased by 7.33 % to 75.5 T, continuing to hit a record high. The current average computing power of the entire network is 550.07 EH/s. In addition, this 7.33% mining difficulty increase also hit the highest record since March 2023.

Valkyrie’s BTC will be hosted by BitGo and Coinbase, becoming the first spot Bitcoin ETF to achieve diversified custody

A public document shows that Valkyrie BitGo has been appointed as the custodian of its spot Bitcoin ETF, and Coinbase Trust Company will continue to serve as custodian. Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said: “Valkyrie becomes the first spot Bitcoin ETF to diversify token custody, and its BTC will now be held by BitGo and Coinbase.”

Germany’s DZ Bank hopes to launch a pilot phase of Bitcoin retail transactions this year

Germany’s DZ Bank hopes to launch a pilot phase of Bitcoin retail transactions this year. Souad Benkredda, who is responsible for capital market operations on the DZ Bank board of directors, said that this year DZ Bank will conduct a pilot phase of cryptocurrency retail transactions with the first batch of partner banks, which means that major banks will test Bitcoin transactions with customers.

British law enforcement agencies have seized $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin suspected of money laundering

British law enforcement agencies have seized $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin after a former Restaurant employee Jian Wen tried to use the Bitcoin to buy a mansion worth about $30 million in London. The purchase was unsuccessful because he could not explain the source of the crypto asset. It is reported that Jian Wen became a British citizen in 2018 and was allegedly recruited to assist Zhimin Qian in money laundering. He was accused of converting Bitcoin into cash, luxury goods and real estate on behalf of Zhimin Qian.

Google updates its advertising policy to allow advertising of Bitcoin and crypto trust products

Google updates its policy to allow advertising of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trust products , it is reported that advertisements for spot Bitcoin ETFs such as BlackRock, VanEck, and Franklin Templeton have appeared on the Google search page.

Ethereum

The total assets of global Ethereum ETFs are US$5.7 billion, 81% of which are European products

CoinGecko released a report stating that there are currently 27 active Ethereum ETFs in the world, with a total asset size of US$5.7 billion, with Europe leading the way, accounting for 81% of the market share. Their total assets are still smaller than those of Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which has total assets of $6.76 billion. The assets of the top 10 largest Ethereum ETFs are as high as US$5.49 billion, accounting for 96.4% of total assets. The top two are XBT Ethereum Tracker One (COINETH) and XBT Ethereum Tracker Euro (COINETHE), with asset sizes of US$3.34 billion and US$510.93 million respectively. COINETH and COINETHE are both Ethereum futures ETFs traded in Europe.

Hong Kong financial company VSFG plans to apply for a spot Ethereum ETF in the second quarter

Hong Kong financial company VSFG said that if it successfully launches spot Bitcoin in the first quarter ETF, which plans to submit a spot Ethereum ETF application in Hong Kong in the second quarter.

NFT sales on the Ethereum chain exceeded US$350 million in January, down 2% from December

The latest data from Cryptoslam shows that in January Ethereum On-chain NFT sales hit approximately US$356 million, a decrease of approximately US$7 million, or approximately 2%, from December. In addition, the number of NFT transactions on the Ethereum chain reached 929,000 in January.

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade has been launched on the Sepolia test network

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade has been launched on the Sepolia test network. Sepolia is a three-dimensional platform running through Dencun simulation. The second of the testnets. Dencun went live on the Goerli testnet earlier this month, but was initially unable to be finalized. On February 7, Dencun will go live on its final Ethereum testnet, Holesky. Afterwards, the developer will sign the date Dencun is activated on the main blockchain. The testnet replicates the main blockchain and allows developers to make any changes to the protocol or its decentralized applications in a low-risk environment.

Standard Chartered Bank: SEC may approve spot Ethereum ETF on May 23, with a potential target price of ETH of US$4,000

Standard Chartered Bank expects that the SEC will Spot Ethereum ETF approved on May 23. Geoffrey Kendrick, head of foreign exchange at Standard Chartered Bank, said: “We expect pending applications to be approved on May 23, which is the final deadline for the first batch of ETFs under consideration and equivalent to January 10 for spot Bitcoin ETFs.” The bank also predicted that if ETH mimics BTC’s pre-approval performance, it could potentially target $4,000.

Other projects

dYdX Chain adds liquidity staking support through the latest upgrade

The Cosmos-based dYdX Chain is upgraded to v3 today. Version 0, this upgrade introduces inter-chain accounts, supports the liquidity staking protocol to join dYdX Chain, and performs liquidity staking on the network. It is reported that this move allows users to continue to stake and secure dYdX Chain, while converting staked DYDX into liquid assets that can be traded or used in DeFi applications. In addition, Cosmos ecological protocol Stride plans to open liquidity staking for dYdX today, and two other liquidity staking providers, Persistence and Quicksilver, also plan to provide this service in the near future.

Vitalik: Using blockchain and encryption technology to create a "single case" APP is the most challenging

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin released The latest blog "Prospects and Challenges of Encryption + Artificial Intelligence Applications". There are many ways to classify artificial intelligence, and Vitalik classifies them as follows: -Artificial intelligence as a game participant [highest feasibility]: Artificial intelligence participating in the mechanism, the ultimate source of its incentive mechanism is a protocol with human input. -AI as a gaming interface [high potential, but risky]: AI helps users understand the crypto world around them and ensure that their actions (i.e. signed messages and transactions) are consistent with their intentions and cannot be tricked or scammed . -Artificial Intelligence as the Rules of the Game [Caution]: Blockchain, DAO and similar mechanisms directly invoke artificial intelligence. For example, "artificial intelligence judge". -AI as a Game Goal [Longer term, but intriguing]: Blockchains, DAOs, and similar mechanisms are designed with the goal of building and maintaining an AI that can be used for other purposes, leveraging cryptographic bits to better incentivize training or preventing AI Private data is leaked or misused. The most challenging applications are those that try to use blockchain and cryptography to create a "singleton": a decentralized, trusted artificial intelligence that certain applications will rely on to achieve certain purposes. These applications hold great promise in terms of functionality and improving the security of AI, avoiding the centralization risks associated with mainstream approaches to the problem. However, there are many ways that the underlying assumptions can fail; therefore, it is worth exercising caution, especially when deploying these applications in high-value and high-risk environments.

Arkham integrates Linea and launches MetaMask Snap

Arkham announced that it is working with Consensys to support its Scale program to integrate Linea into the Arkham platform and through MetaMask Snap adds tags to MetaMask. By adding support for Linea, Arkham will provide more than $173 million in total value locked (TVL) data and more than 2.6 million unique addresses on the chain. In addition, Arkham will launch MetaMask Snap, allowing users to view Arkham entity tags directly in MetaMask. .

The Aave community initiated a proposal to add PAXG collateral and borrowing support

According to the governance forum, the Aave community initiated a proposal to add PAX Gold (PAXG) collateral and Borrowing-supported proposals. PAX Gold is tokenized gold, and each PAXG token is backed by gold.

LayerZero V2 version has been launched

Cross-chain interoperability protocol LayerZero announced that V2 has been launched. New features include: universal messaging, modular security, Permissionless execution, unified semantics, V1 compatibility.