Buterin’s Ethereum proposal

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Unhashed by AMBCrypto
December 28, 2023

 

Reading time: 7 minutes

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Bitcoin mining difficulty reaches all-time high amid surge in network activity

Key points

  • On 17 December, miners' revenue saw a sharp rise, surpassing $64,000 and reaching the highest point of the year

  • This was thanks to the consistently high transaction volume on the network, which was around $27 billion at the time of writing

News - Over the past month, Bitcoin has seen a surge in network activity, resulting in adjustments to the mining difficulty.

A breakdown of the network's mining difficulty in '23 - In 2023, the Bitcoin network experienced 27 difficulty adjustments, with twenty increases and seven decreases. The most noteworthy increase occurred on 15 January, marking a significant rise of 10.26%.

At the time of writing, the network difficulty stood at approximately 72 trillion, marking the highest point for the year. To put this in perspective, at the beginning of 2023, the difficulty level was around 34 trillion, which indicates a significant increase of nearly 38 trillion over the past few months.

How did this impact miners? Contrary to expectations, miners experienced a noteworthy revenue increase despite the rise in mining difficulty. This uptick in revenue was fueled by the substantial volume of transactions on the network, surpassing $40 billion in December.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposes making the PoS ‘lighter and simpler’

Key points

  • Buterin recommended three strategies: relying entirely on decentralized staking pools, a two-tiered system with heavy and light staking, and rotating participation with accountable committees

  • The proposed solutions seek to lower the digital signature load to a manageable level, making protocol and infrastructure development much easier

News - On December 28, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin put forth a proposal to lighten the load on the Ethereum blockchain and simplify its proof-of-stake consensus. 

For context - To achieve decentralization and allow regular people to participate in staking, Ethereum currently accommodates approximately 895,000 validators. However, sustaining this large number poses significant technical challenges, as the network must handle a considerable load, processing approximately 28,000 signatures per slot.

Handling this load involves making sacrifices, including compromising quantum resistance, dealing with complex forking, and scaling signatures through zero-knowledge proofs (SNARKs). Even so,  the 32 ETH requirement for validator participation remains a barrier for many, limiting the goal of broad inclusion.

So what's the solution? Buterin proposed reducing signatures per slot from 28,000 to 8,192 rather than accommodating a growing number of signatures per slot. This would bring technical simplification and boost quantum resistance while still maintaining the total slashable ETH high at around 1-2 million ETH, which is required to ensure positive validator behavior.

Avalanche network achieves historic highs with rise in validators, active users

Key points

  • Despite fluctuations, AVAX has consistently held its ground within the $40 price range this month

  • At the time of writing, the network had approximately 1,704 validators and around 144,000 Active Addresses, showing a slight decrease from the month's peak

News -  The Avalanche network, recently attained remarkable milestones with record-breaking numbers in monthly active users and validators.

Let's get down to the numbers - In a 26 December post, the network reported that the validator count had surged to 1,708, representing the highest tally ever documented on the platform.

The post also highlighted that in December, monthly active users reached 1.3 million — the highest figure in its history. Interestingly, the network also experienced its highest number of Daily Active Addresses in nearly six months, with the count reaching close to 250,000 on 20 December. 

How did this affect AVAX's price? As per AMBCrypto's analysis, the surge in validators and monthly active users resulted in a favorable trend for AVAX. The value of AVAX was seen to have more than doubled from 1 December to press time. At the time of writing, the crypto was trading at around $42, with a slight decline of over 4%.

South Korea mandates government officials to publicly disclose crypto holdings

Key points

  • In November, the Democratic Party of Korea, with 167 out of 300 seats in the National Assembly, mandated its potential candidates to publicly reveal their digital asset holdings on their party profiles

  • From June 2024, five major South Korean crypto exchanges – Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, will introduce streamlined "information provision systems" for registering information related to crypto holdings

News - Starting in 2024, around 6,000 South Korean officials will be mandated to publicly disclose their cryptocurrency holdings. On 27 December, the Ministry of Personnel Management announced that this data will be integrated into the Public Official Ethics System. 

What this means for the wider public - Earlier, certain Korean civil servants revealed their cryptocurrency holdings in the government's official gazette or on ministry and parliamentary websites. However, with this rule change, Korean citizens will have access to declarations from at least 5,800 officials in 2024.

Why were disclosures mandated in the first place? In May 2023, Democratic Party member Kim Nam-kuk faced criticism for owning over $4.5 million worth of Wemix (WEMIX) tokens from South Korean blockchain game developer Wemade. This raised concerns about conflicts of interest, insider information, and potential money laundering. 

In response, the South Korean National Assembly unanimously amended the National Assembly Act and the Public Service Ethics Act, making it mandatory for civil servants to disclose their crypto assets.

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Did you know?

  • On May 22, 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz made the first real-world transaction using Bitcoin. He paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas. Today, that amount of Bitcoin would be worth millions of dollars.

  • Gender-related stats show that 79% of crypto owners are male. This means that only 21% of people owning or trading cryptocurrencies worldwide are women.

  • The total global cryptocurrency market cap is around $1.7 Trillion. To put this into context, only 12 countries in the world have a GDP that is more than 1.7 trillion dollars as per the International Monetary Fund (IMF) data.

Top 3 coins of the day

Optimism (OP)

  • Optimism's Total Value Locked (TVL) rose during the last quarter of 2023, influenced by the general growth in the DeFi sector.

  • Over the last 30 days, Optimism has had 15/30 (50%) green days and 24.41% price volatility.

What you should know - For the last 7 days, OP has been in a good upward trend, thus increasing by 58.9%. The coin reached its ATH of $4.13 on 27 December. At the time of writing, it stood at $3.77, reflecting a 0.4% increase. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) seen above the 70 level, indicated that OP is massively overbought, and a correction could follow in the aftermath of buyer exhaustion.

Arbitrum (ARB)

  • Over 1.2 million Inscriptions were created on Arbitrum on 18 December.

  • Due to increased user activity throughout December, Arbitrum reached its highest monthly network fees and revenue in a year.

What you should know - After displaying significant price volatility and trading between $0.904 and $1.0380 for over a week, the ARB price has regained momentum and successfully broke out of its key resistance level of $1.4594. At press time, ARB was trading at $1.54 with a 11.9% hike over the past 24 hours, displaying a strong bullish sentiment in the crypto industry. The CMF recorded a positive reading, one also showing a buyer's bias in the market.

Bitcoin SV (BSV)

  • The current excitement surrounding BSV can be traced back to heightened trading activity in South Korea, predominantly through the Upbit exchange.

  • This breakthrough comes after a 20-month consolidation period, suggesting a potential for sustained growth.

What you should know - After trading sideways in a closed range for over two weeks, the BSV token recently regained momentum and jumped over 80% in the last 7 days, indicating a strong bullish sentiment. At the time of writing, the coin was trading at $94.16, up by almost 48% in the last 24 hours. The MACD displayed a constant flatline for a brief period, after which the histogram recently witnessed a strong uptrend. Maintaining the price at this level will set the stage for BSV to attempt to test its upper resistance level of $95 in the coming time.

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