Hal Finney was one of the greatest visionaries of cryptocurrencies. This and more news in this handy daily summary so that you are always informed with the most recent events that occur within the crypto world.
Hal Finney Talking About ZK at Crypto '98
📍During a conference held in 1998, American developer Hal Finney, pioneer in the use of Bitcoin, was talking about zero-knowledge proofs. The event where Hal Finney is shown discussing ZK was the Crypto '98 conference, which took place in the state of California, as reported by the Trust Machines platform via X (formerly Twitter).
The platform shared a video of Finney’s participation in this conference, explaining zero-knowledge proofs through the work titled “A Zero-Knowledge Proof of Possession of a Pre-Image of SHA-1 Hash.”
The amazing thing about all this is that 25 years after Finney’s presentation, the crypto community is actively discussing zero-knowledge (ZK) technology within the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Institutions own around 10% of Bitcoin's market cap
📍According to VanEck, public and private companies hold around $50.000 billion worth of Bitcoin. This figure represents about 10% of Bitcoin's current market cap, which is over $525.900 billion at the time of writing.
VanEck highlighted that this is an impressive figure that shows the interest and growth of institutional adoption of Bitcoin. The global investment firm also highlighted that this figure could change dramatically if the launch of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund or ETF on the spot market is approved.
As Bitcoin has become more mainstream, interest in cryptocurrencies among public and private companies, organizations, fund and hedge managers, and countries has increased.
Cryptocurrencies lead foreign assets in South Korea
📍More than 6.800 entities have filed cryptocurrencies in South Korea this year, the National Tax Service said. The cryptocurrency assets of individuals and entities who filed asset declarations this year in South Korea amount to 317.200 billion Korean won, or about $236 million.
According to data reported by South Korea's National Tax Service, 1.432 individuals and legal entities and 5.419 organizations reported cryptocurrency holdings in their financial statements.
The data also showed that the number of individuals and entities holding cryptocurrencies in foreign accounts is higher than those holding shares, with 2.952 and 1.590, respectively.
Tether clarifies $1.000 billion USDT issuance
📍Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino clarified that the company has not actually minted $1.000 billion worth of the stablecoin. Cryptocurrency transaction tracking platform Whale Alert reported that Tether Limited, the company that issues the USDT stablecoin, had minted 1.000 billion new USDT units, equivalent to $1.000 billion.
However, Ardoino said the platform's publication to clarify that it is not actually newly minted money.
According to Ardoino, the 1.000 billion USDT units are part of “a cleared but unissued transaction,” meaning that the new USDT is not available on the market and will be used as the company’s inventory, to more quickly respond to future requests for USDT to facilitate on-chain swaps. The latter are part of the mechanism Tether uses to make it easier for users to use its stablecoins on any of the blockchains that support USDT.
In a document published in 2019, Tether explained that when cross-chain USDT exchange requests exceed the availability of USDT in its treasury wallets, it is necessary to “mint USDT and transfer these tokens to the destination blockchain.” Thus, the recent USDT referred to by Whale Alert and Ardoino function as a “stock” for Tether, in order to process these types of requests more quickly and efficiently.
Concerns over the growing number of validators on Ethereum
📍The number of Ethereum validators is growing exponentially and the network may be affected. Currently, there are about 795.200 node validators on Ethereum. By November, this number may reach 1 million, and by mid-2024, 2 million.
According to a recent report published by Christine Kim, VP of Research at Galaxy Research, the number of active validators on the network “is approaching an unsustainable number,” introducing new risks to the network’s stability.
First, the report notes that a large number of validators can create strain on peer-to-peer messaging and cause serious network errors, due to high computational load and bandwidth requirements. Second, it notes that a large number of active validators on Ethereum can also create technical debt, making it difficult to perform certain operations.
To address these potential risks, Ethereum developers are working on several solutions focused on mitigating the growth of the validator pool in the long term, he highlighted the report, so that the stability and security of the network is maintained and guaranteed.
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