The Crypto Roundup: 10 June 2024

Latest price and news from the crypto space

Latest price from our hand picked list of digital assets

The cost of transacting on the Bitcoin network has fallen sharply last week, as bitcoin-related activity has started to slow down following the cryptocurrency’s price surge past the 10,000 mark in late July.

Global cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly seen their web traffic rise significantly in July, as the prices of most top cryptoassets went up after BTC entered five-figure territory.

The Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority (FMA) has reportedly rejected an application for Union Bank to bring on Binance’s founder and chief executive officer as a “major shareholder.”

Sponsored: Crypto.com Exchange is listing PAXG on The Syndicate, where all Crypto.com Coin (CRO) stakers will be able to participate in a discounted sale event for 500,000 USD worth of PAXG at 50% off. The event commenced on Tuesday, 11 August 6:00am UTC on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Plummet as Network Congestion Eases
Global Crypto Exchange Saw Web Traffic Surge 13% in July
Liechtenstein’s Markets Watchdog Halts Deal Between Union Bank and Binance’s CEO
Sponsored: Crypto.com Exchange is listing PAXG at 50% OFF

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,769.02 (-1.84%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $4.18 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $391.91 (-1.07%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $1.71 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,553.85 (-0.69%).

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Plummet as Network Congestion Eases

The average transaction fee on the Bitcoin network fell 58% from the two-month high of $6.47 it saw last week. It now costs around $2.72, on average, to move bitcoin across the network. The number of unconfirmed transaction on the blockchain hit a 2.5-month high of 56,648 in late July, with a total mempool of 53.5 MB waiting to be processed.

The mempool has dropped to less than 10 MB and less than 4,000 MB. On the Bitcoin blockchain one block is mined every 10 minutes on average, and each block contains little over 1 MB of data in it. When there’s a dramatic rise in activity, the network gets congested, leading to longer waiting times and higher fees as users compete to include their transactions in the next block.

The recent rise in activity appears to be related to BTC’s price surge above $10,000. The number of pending transactions in the 16 days to July 28 surged by over 1,900%, and during that period the mean fee volume increase by more than 650%.

Similarly, the number of unconfirmed transactions jumped to a 28-month high of 267,068 in mid-May, after the price of the flagship cryptocurrency hit five-figure territory after recovering form the crypto Black Thursday, which saw BTC drop below $$,000 amid an equity market crash.

Global Crypto Exchange Saw Web Traffic Surge 13% in July

Global cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly seen their web traffic rise significantly in July, as the prices of most top cryptoassets went up after BTC entered five-figure territory.

Data from crypto analytics firm ICO Analytics found that global crypto exchanges saw their traffic go up 13%, on average, last month. The firm’s head of content, Illia Kmez, reportedly told Cointelegraph centralized crypto trading platforms added 26% in web traffic since December 2020.

ICO Analytics analyzed web traffic to around 100 cryptocurrency exchanges, and while the average traffic increase was 13%, some trading platforms like KuCoin and YoBit aw their traffic grow by 60%. Some popular crypto trading platforms, including BitMEX and OKEx, saw their traffic drop last month.

The firm also found that decentralized finance protocols have seen their web traffic grow significantly, with Uniswap being the largest one with over 1.4 million visits in July.

Liechtenstein’s Markets Watchdog Halts Deal Between Union Bank and Binance’s CEO

The Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority (FMA) has reportedly rejected an application for Union Bank to bring on Binance’s founder and chief executive officer as a “major shareholder.”

An investment from the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, would reportedly save Union Bank from closure after recent financial and legal troubles, including an ongoing corruption case. The bank planned to relaunch as a crypto banking platform, but is now in the process of liquidating.

The deal, according to Swiss media, was complicated as Zhao wanted to conduct the transaction using cryptocurrencies via an entity called the CL1 Foundation.

Binance had previously denied media reports claiming it was looking to acquire Union Bank, claiming they were “inaccurate.”

Nearly 50% of DAI Is Locked on Compound

Compound, a decentralized finance lending and borrowing protocol on the Ethereum network with nearly $900 million worth of cryptocurrencies locked on it, now has close to half of the supply of the DAI stablecoin in it as well.

DAI is a stablecoin that relies on over-collateralization with non-USD cryptoassets to maintain its peg. There are over $420 million worth of DAI in circulation, $202 million of which are locked on Compound.

Illiquidity has placed strain’s on DAI’s peg for a while now, and it can have damaging effects on the DeFi ecosystem and MakerDAO itself. Users, for example, may be unable to source tokens to keep their vaults adequately collateralized amid violent price movements.

The above animation tracks the total value, in USD, of the different assets supplied and held by its corresponding smart contracts, between June and August 2020. While various cryptoassets can be supplied to earn interest on Compound, most people choose stablecoins because they do not suffer from the price fluctuations other cryptos do.

USDC, a stablecoin issued by Coinbase and Circle’s joint venture CENTRE, with a total supply of $1.14 billion, only has $109 million locked on Compound. Its supply is controlled by a centralized financial institution, which is proving beneficial for the stablecoin, as DAI’s lack of liquidity is seeing some projects move to USDC.

Crypto.com Exchange is listing PAXG at 50% OFF

Crypto.com Exchange is listing PAXG on The Syndicate, where all Crypto.com Coin (CRO) stakers will be able to participate in a discounted sale event for 500,000 USD worth of PAXG at 50% off. The event commenced on Tuesday, 11 August 6:00am UTC on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Allocation:

Each participant’s maximum amount of CRO that can be applied towards the listing event will depend on the amount of CRO Staked on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Subscription:

Participants will be able to subscribe for PAXG by contributing an amount of CRO tokens not exceeding their respective maximum allocation
Staked CRO tokens may not be used to subscribe for PAXG in the listing event
Crypto.com Exchange users will need to trade at least $5,000 USD worth of volume in the past 30 days on the Crypto.com Exchange in order to be eligible to subscribe*

Event Timeline:

11 Aug 6:00am UTC: Sales Begins (PAXG/CRO subscription price fixed)
12 Aug 6:00am UTC: Sales Ends
13 Aug 6:00am UTC: Acceptance Period Begins (unused CRO will be refunded immediately if you reject the allocation)
14 Aug 6:00am UTC: Acceptance Period Ends (CRO refunds will be distributed for forfeited participants)

* The past 30-day trading volume is calculated every day at 00:00:00 UTC. If your trading volume does not meet the requirement at the event start time, you can still continue to trade throughout the day. The trading volume will calculate again the next day, and if you meet the volume requirement you can still subscribe before the event ends at 12 Aug 2020 06:00:00 UTC.