Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, ado
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Crypto industry fires back after EU vote to block ‘unhosted’ wallets
The cryptocurrency industry has fired back at the European Parliament, the legislative arm of the European Union, voting in favor of stringent crypto regulations relating to ”unhosted” private wallets.
The guidelines would require crypto service providers to verify the identity of every individual using an unhosted wallet that interacts with them, while any transaction greater than 1,000 euros would need to be reported to authorities.
“Imagine if the EU required your bank to report you to the authorities every time you paid your rent merely because the transaction was over 1,000 euros,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on Twitter. “Or if you sent money to your cousin to help with groceries, the EU required your bank to collect and verify private information about your cousin before allowing you to send the funds.”
Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge hacked for over $600M
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge was the victim of a hefty hack worth around $612 million earlier this week, with 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USD Coin being stolen from the platform.
Ronin developers stated that the attacker used hacked private keys to forge fake withdrawals, draining the funds from the Ronin Bridge in just two transactions.
In a statement on Wednesday, the developers stated that they were “working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers and our investors to make sure that all funds are recovered or reimbursed. All of the AXS, RON and SLP [tokens] on Ronin are safe right now.”
Terra smash-buys $139M Bitcoin, wallet reaches 31,000 BTC
As part of the Bitcoin buying spree led by Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, the Terra wallet belonging to Luna Foundation Guard approached $1.5 billion in BTC following another huge $139 million purchase this week.
Terra has been snapping up BTC aggressively since late January to build reserves to back its TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin, with Kwon also outlining earlier this month that Terra plans to accumulate a whopping $10 billion worth of BTC.
Terraform Labs is on track to overtake Tesla as the second-largest holder of Bitcoin soon, with MicroStrategy also in its sights, according to data from Bitcoin Treasuries.
OpenSea set to integrate Solana in April, further expanding the NFT ecosystem
Top NFT marketplace OpenSea announced a long-awaited integration with the Solana blockchain on Wednesday. The expanded support, expected to go live in April, adds to OpenSea’s existing support of Ethereum, layer-2 Polygon and Klaytn.
It appears the move has been well received, with OpenSea’s 16-second teaser video on Twitter pulling 615,500 views, 8,964 retweets and 21,700 likes within 18 hours of posting.
Alluding to the vast number of tweets and media publications commenting on the potential for a Solana launch, OpenSea cheerfully referred to the announcement as the “best-kept secret in Web3.”
MetaMask rolls out Apple Pay integration and other iOS updates
ConsenSys-owned MetaMask revealed important updates for iPhone and Apple Pay users on Tuesday that enable them to purchase cryptocurrency directly through the app via debit or credit cards, removing the hassle of sending Ether from an outside source to add funds.
Notably, the move is said to lower gas fees, and MetaMask is utilizing two payment gateways, Wyre and Transak, to support debit card and credit card purchases. Users are now able to deposit a maximum of $400 daily into their wallets via the new service.
“We wanted to expand the way in which users can convert crypto within the app itself and not have to leave it,” James Beck, director of communications and content at ConsenSys, told Cointelegraph.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $45,119, Ether (ETH) at $3,275 and XRP at $0.81 The total market cap is at $2.07 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are STEPN (GMT) at 325.60%, Zilliqa (ZIL) at 303.89% and SKALE Network (SKL) at 82.33% The top three altcoin losers of the week are Axie Infinity (AXS) at -13.23%, Zcash (ZEC) at -8.16% and Helium (HNT) at -7.54%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“I’m sort of betting that the long-term scenario of Bitcoin going up and the reserves being strong enough to withstand UST demand drops is the more likely scenario.”
Do Kwon, founder and CEO of Terraform Labs
“New York can issue $2 billion of debt and buy $2 billion worth of Bitcoin — the Bitcoin is yielding 50% or more, the debt costs…
cointelegraph.com