Top Stories This Week Memecoin hype drives Bitcoin transaction fees to multi-year highs The ongoing trading frenzy of memecoins l
Top Stories This Week
Memecoin hype drives Bitcoin transaction fees to multi-year highs
The ongoing trading frenzy of memecoins like Pepe has triggered an unwanted consequence for Bitcoin (BTC) — raising its transaction costs to their highest point in two years. On May 3, the total amount of fees paid on the Bitcoin blockchain reached $3.5 million, jumping about 400% from late April. Bitcoin’s BRC-20 token standard has become the latest trend in the crypto ecosystem amid the rise of memecoins. A total of 8,500 different tokens have been minted using the BRC-20 standard. Gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain have also recently been skyrocketing to new multi-month highs.
Bitcoin miners earned $50B from BTC block rewards, fees since 2010
Amid an ongoing debate over miner costs and susceptibility to Bitcoin price dips, new figures suggest that miners are firmly in the black in the long term. Calculations from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode suggest that since 2010, fees and block reward subsidies have netted miners billions. Miners’ total all-time income is almost 40% higher than their estimated costs, coming in at $50.2 billion versus $36.6 billion, respectively.
‘Godfather of AI’ resigns from Google, warns of the dangers of AI
Artificial intelligence pioneer and former Google employee Dr. Geoffrey Hinton shared his concerns about the technology that he helped develop over the past several years. According to the neural networks expert, AI could pose a threat to humanity in the future as it learns unexpected behaviors from the massive amounts of data it analyzes. He is also concerned at the continuing AI arms race to develop lethal autonomous weapons systems, as well as an increased number of fake photos, videos and text flooding the internet.
Balaji pays out his crazy $1M Bitcoin bet, 97% under price target
A wild Bitcoin price wager between former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan and pseudonymous Twitter user James Medlock has been settled 45 days ahead of time for $1.5 million. Medlock offered to bet anyone $1 million that the United States would not experience hyperinflation on March 17. The ex-Coinbase executive accepted the bet, predicting the U.S. dollar would deflate due to inflation and, as a result, BTC would reach $1 million within 90 days. In the deal, Medlock netted $500,000, while another $1 million went to two organizations.
Microsoft axes Bing wait list, giving users free access to GPT-4
Microsoft recently announced a number of new AI-powered features for its Bing chatbot and Edge web browser, including full access to the GPT-4 model — the same underlying engine that powers the ChatGPT Plus subscription service. The new features won’t require any purchases or subscriptions, though users will need a free Microsoft account to take advantage of the Bing chatbot’s full suite of functions. By contrast, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus service costs $20 per month for access to the same GPT-4 model.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $29,618, Ether (ETH) at $1,991 and XRP at $0.46. The total market cap is at $1.22 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Pepe (PEPE) at 961.32%, FLOKI (FLOKI) at 35.36% and Rocket Pool (RPL) at 10.15%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Sui (SUI) at -70.87%, Immutable (IMX) at -10.68% and Cronos (CRO) at -10.06%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
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Most Memorable Quotations
“Even in the U.S. where that [CDBC] was for quite some time a topic of not great interest, now there is engagement, and for the right reason. The future has arrived.”
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund
“I spent my own money to send a provably costly signal that there’s something wrong with the economy, and that it’s not going to be a ‘soft landing’ like Powell promises — but something much worse.”
Balaji Srinivasan, former chief technology officer at Coinbase
“There’s going to be very few people over the next 10 years that don’t have some involvement in this [crypto] sector.”
Lisa Cameron, member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
“It’s this uncertainty that permeates everything. You just don’t know what’s coming next or where it’s going to come from or why or how in the U.S.”
Oliver Linch,…
cointelegraph.com