Golden Weekly is a weekly blockchain industry summary column launched by Golden Finance, covering the week's key news, market and contract data, mining information, project dynamics, technological progress and other industry dynamics. This article is Project Weekly, which takes you to a glance at the progress of mainstream projects and star projects this week.
Bitcoin
Hong Kong is ready to approve Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs as early as next Monday
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, Hong Kong may approve ETFs to directly invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum, two major cryptocurrencies, as early as Monday.
The international subsidiary of China's asset management company Harvest Fund Management Co., Ltd. and the partnership between Bosera Asset Management (International) Co., Ltd. and HashKey Capital are expected to obtain approval for these two spot crypto ETFs.
Earlier on April 10, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission will announce the list of Bitcoin spot ETFs on April 15, and it will be listed as early as the end of April.
Binance CEO: Binance is adjusting the series of related products in the inscription market to prepare for the Bitcoin halving
Binance CEO Richard Teng wrote in the Binance blog that the Bitcoin halving is coming, and Binance will prepare for the Bitcoin halving through a series of related products and adapt its product suite to the development of Bitcoin. Overall, the Binance Inscription Market simplifies the trading, minting and management of inscription assets directly in the Binance application. The main features of the market include support for more than 60,000 BRC-20 tokens and one-click transfers between exchanges and Web3 wallets.
Benchmark index provider CF Benchmarks launches Bitcoin Volatility Index
Cryptocurrency benchmark index provider CF Benchmarks launched the Bitcoin Volatility Index to help track and trade 30-day Bitcoin price fluctuations. The product consists of the CF Bitcoin Volatility Real-time Index (BVX) and the CF Bitcoin Volatility Index Settlement Rate (BVXS).
US Senator: Bitcoin is a reliable choice for protecting consumer rights
US Senator Marsha Blackburn said at the Bitcoin Policy Summit on Tuesday that there are many things that attract me to Bitcoin. Bitcoin allows individuals to enjoy freedom and privacy. In addition, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, without government intervention, is also important to people. The senator pointed out that she has "been committed to consumer rights and consumer protection issues for many years" and emphasized that Bitcoin "is a very good and reliable choice". As we move forward, people will learn more about Bitcoin and become more accustomed to using Bitcoin. There will be more transactions in daily life that accept Bitcoin as a payment method.
Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 3.92% to 86.39 T, a record high
BTC.com data shows that the difficulty of Bitcoin mining has ushered in a mining difficulty adjustment at block height 838,656 (today 05:17:33), and the mining difficulty has increased by 3.92% to 86.39 T, a record high. The current average computing power of the entire network is 629.72 EH/s.
CryptoQuant: Bitcoin halving effect may not be as expected, increased demand from BTC investors is a key driver of BTC prices
Crypto analysis company CryptoQuant released a research report, pointing out that the supply shock of Bitcoin halving may not have as big an impact on Bitcoin prices as expected. According to CryptoQuant, it is not so much the impact of halving as the increased demand from investors holding a large amount of Bitcoin that is the "key driver" of Bitcoin prices.
Although Bitcoin halving usually reduces supply, thereby pushing up prices, CryptoQuant pointed out that there were several times between 2021 and 2023 when demand from long-term holders exceeded supply during the same period.
The current supply-demand gap is larger than ever before, indicating that even with halving, the impact on Bitcoin prices may not be as significant as in the past.
In addition, the total issuance of Bitcoin has fallen to only 4% of the total supply, far lower than the proportion before the previous halving. Bitcoin open interest (OI) is as high as $783.6 billion, only 11 days away from halving. RektCapital pointed out that even if Bitcoin prices fall before halving, they may rebound quickly.
Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin: ZK-SNARKs and other technologies are inefficient, and Ethereum aims to achieve real-time proof
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech entitled "Reaching the Limits of Protocol Design" at the 2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. Vitalik Buterin said that ZK-SNARKs, MPC, FHE and other technologies have efficiency and security issues. The Ethereum Slot block time is 12 seconds, the ordinary block verification time is about 400 milliseconds, and the ZK-SNARK proof time is about 20 minutes. Ethereum's goal is to achieve real-time proof.
For the current inefficiency problem, Vitalik said the solution is "Parallelization + aggregation trees", using SNARK algos and hashing to improve efficiency, and using ASIC for ZK hardware acceleration.
Ethereum's number of new addresses in March hit a new high since November 2021
The Block data shows that Ethereum's active supply (that is, the supply transferred from one wallet to another in a specific period of time) is currently at an all-time low in a year or more. The active supply of ether in 30 days and 90 days is also close to its historical low, down more than half from the highest point. While long-term users of Ethereum appear to be showing low activity, enthusiasm around Base has reached record levels, and new users appear to be pouring into the Ethereum ecosystem. Last month, Ethereum added 3.66 million addresses, the highest level since the FTX crash in November 2021.
Report: Ethereum and Polygon attracted the most new users in the first quarter of this year
Flipside's latest report shows that Ethereum and its layer 2 expansion solution Polygon attracted the most new users so far in the first quarter of 2024, and also the most cumulative new users observed in the EVM chain this year. As of March 27, Polygon had 12.3 million new users and Ethereum had 13.4 million new users, accounting for about 70% of all observed new on-chain users this year.
VanEck CEO: SEC is likely to reject Ethereum ETF application
Investors have been watching the SEC and whether the regulator will approve an Ethereum ETF by the end of May. VanEck CEO Jan van Eck said he believes the SEC is likely to reject the company's Ethereum ETF application. Previously, the U.S. SEC postponed the original deadline for making a decision on the Ethereum ETF application in March.
Jan Van Eck said: "We are also the first company in the United States to apply for an Ethereum ETF. We and Ark Invest CEO Cathy Wood may be the first to apply in May and may be rejected."
Report: Ethereum L2 scalability has increased by more than 11 times since Dencun upgrade
According to a report from Brazil's Inter, the "blobs" introduced in Ethereum's recent Dencun upgrade have enabled the layer 2 (L2) blockchain to increase network scalability by more than 11 times. Blobs are spaces within Ethereum blocks dedicated to receiving data from L2 chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base.
Other Projects
NEAR to Hire AI Engineers as Part of Roadmap
NEAR will hire artificial intelligence (AI) engineers as part of its AI roadmap, and NEAR will begin its AI program in the next 3-6 months. The company introduced that NEAR will use near ai to present AI information and will make an external announcement in May.
Circle Launches USDC Smart Contract for BlackRock BUIDL Fund Investor Transfers
Circle, a global digital fintech company and issuer of USDC, announced the launch of a new smart contract feature that will allow holders of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) to transfer their shares to Circle in exchange for USDC.
The smart contract provides BUIDL investors with a near-instant, 24x7 hour BUIDL exit, bringing the core advantages of speed, transparency, and efficiency of tokenized assets.
Hashkey Group to launch Ethereum L2 network HashKey Chain
Digital asset financial services group Hashkey Group announced that it will launch Ethereum Layer2 network HashKey Chain. HashKey Chain uses ZK-proof zero-knowledge proof technology to provide users with low-cost, efficient and developer-friendly on-chain solutions, and will incentivize ecosystem contributors through HSK.
aelf will deploy $50 million ecological fund to support AI transformation plan
Layer1 blockchain aelf announced that it will integrate AI into its blockchain, aiming to accelerate the integration of AI and blockchain. aelf Ventures, the investment arm of aelf, will strategically deploy its $50 million ecosystem fund to invest in artificial intelligence initiatives seeking blockchain support.
EigenLayer and EigenDA are online on the Ethereum mainnet
The liquidity re-pledge protocol EigenLayer announced that it has officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet. The launch is also accompanied by the data availability (DA) service EigenDA launched by the EigenLayer team.
EigenDA is an active verification service (AVS) designed to help other blockchain protocols store transaction data and other information. The initial release of EigenLayer will have limited functionality, and Eigen Labs CEO Sreeram Kannan called the protocol's first release a "beta" in an interview last week.
Notably, AVSs outside of Eigen Labs' EigenDA will be able to "register" with the protocol, but they are not yet fully deployed. In addition, EigenLayer mentioned in its X account:
This mainnet launch does not include: (1) in-protocol payments from AVSs to operators; (2) slashing.
"Slashing" refers to the method EigenLayer will use to ensure that AVS operators are honest: the protocol will rely on a proof-of-stake system similar to Ethereum, in which validators face the risk of having their stake revoked if they act maliciously. This feature will be launched later this year.
Xu Lin
Huang Bo
JinseFinance
Bernice
Alex
Cointelegraph