Senators Portman and Warner amended their proposed anti-innovation amendment to exclude cryptocurrency validators as the Senate plans to vote on the original infrastructure bill on Tuesday. These and more news in this practical daily summary so that you are always informed with the most recent events that occur within the crypto world.
Cryptocurrencies and altcoins
📍Ethereum outperforms Bitcoin in mining performance and earnings. According to data The Block, in the last 3 months the miners of Ethereum (ETH) generated more profits than the miners participating in the network Bitcoin (BTC)By the end of July, Ethereum miners earned over $1.070 billion in commission fees and network rewards, while Bitcoin miners' earnings were just $927 million.
More than 80% of Ethereum miners' income came from commission fees, while the remainder came from validating blocks on the network. Bitcoin, on the other hand, was the opposite; the majority of miners' income came from block mining and only 3% from transaction commission fees.
NFT and DeFi Markets
📍EtherRocks, a new NFT project that is attracting big Ethereum whales. According to the project's Twitter account, EtherRocks digital rocks are being offered for sale for up to 50 ethers, equivalent to around $150.000. One of these digital rocks, with no other purpose than trading and speculation, even reached a valuation of $1,5 million last weekend.
The EtherRocks website notes that only 100 unique digital rocks exist within the project, so its value is based on originality and scarcity.
Development and Technology
📍Goldman Sachs-backed USDC issuing company Circle makes official its plans to become a national digital currency bank. Company co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, reported that Circle intends to become a national digital asset bank in the United States, operating under the supervision and complying with the established risk management requirements of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve, the Department of the Treasury, the OCC and the FDIC.
According to Allaire, full-reserve banking, based on digital assets, can lead to a more efficient, secure and resilient financial system.
Cybersecurity
📍Popsicle Finance, a market-making DeFi protocol, has been hacked for $25 million. Cybersecurity researcher and Ethereum developer Mudit Gupta said on his Twitter account that the DeFi protocol was exploited by a simple bug, which cost him a fortune. In total, the losses caused by the hacker on Popsicle Finance are estimated to be approximately $25 million.
Gupta noted that the protocol has several vulnerabilities in its code, including the one the hacker used to steal deposited funds. The earnings and rewards distributor on Popsicle Finance does not update when the user transfers their rewards to a different address, which allowed the exploit, Gupta said in his Twitter thread.
Rules and Regulations
📍Senators Portman-Warner's proposed amendment to the US Infrastructure Bill takes a new twist to exclude cryptocurrency validators. At the last minute, the senators modified their proposed amendment to exclude “all” consensus protocols present in the cryptocurrency industry from the scope of the law. However, the reality is that the senators only excluded participants in the proof-of-stake protocol (PoS) along with the proof of work protocol (PoW) which they already mentioned in their proposal. Apparently, the modification seeks to exclude cryptocurrency validators from the definition of “broker” in the infrastructure law; therefore, if approved, miners and validators would not be subject to the tax declaration required by law before the Internal Revenue Service in the United States.
It should be noted that the amendment proposals by Senators Portman-Warner and Wyden-Lummis have not been approved to date and the Senate plans a new meeting this Tuesday to vote on the original bill. In addition, CoinCenter CEO Jerry Brito noted on his Twitter account that the Senate is now picking two winners: miners and validators, and sentencing the rest of the consensus protocols.
Several crypto industry experts have expressed their displeasure with the anti-innovation proposal by Senators Portman and Warner, who appear to have very little knowledge of how this growing industry actually works.
📍Jack Dorsey proposes simplifying the definition of corridors in the infrastructure law and focusing it on “where digital assets are exchanged for fiat currency.” As explained by the CEO of Twitter and Square, he reminded the US senators that the implications of the infrastructure bill that the Senate is proposing on the crypto industry would encourage investors and participants in the crypto industry to leave the country, undermining innovation and technological development in the United States.
To prevent crypto from being squeezed out, Dorsey proposes that senators focus on the infrastructure bill imposing reporting and tax obligations only on cryptocurrency service companies that interact and provide services to customers, such as exchanges and crypto exchange platforms.
Continue reading: A look at the United States' plans for cryptocurrencies with its infrastructure bill
