Bitcoin miners are now holding more bitcoins than at any other point in the last two years, as the flagship cryptocurrency continues to trade above $11,000.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit to seize funds from 280 accounts across various cryptocurrency networks, tied to alleged North Korean hackers.

Coinbase and Circle, two members of the Centre Consortium, have announced an upgrade to the popular USDC stablecoin, called “USDC 2.0” that aims to tackle the high gas fees users have been having to payto move funds on the Ethereum network amid the decentralized finance trend.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Bitcoin Miners’ Holdings hit Two-Year High Near 2 million BTC
• U.S. DOJ Files Lawsuit to Seize Crypto Tied to North Korean Exchange Hacks
• Coinbase, Circle Announce ‘USDC 2.0’ to Tackle High Gas Fees

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,386.49 (0.02%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $3.95 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $387.18 (0.90%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $1.96 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,347.08 (0.54%).

Bitcoin Miners’ Holdings hit Two-Year High Near 2 million BTC

Bitcoin miners are now holding more bitcoins than at any other point in the last two years, as the flagship cryptocurrency continues to trade above $11,000.

According to wallet addresses tracked by Glassnode, miners are holding over 1.82 million BTC, signalling bullishness about future gains. Data also shows that the percentage of all bitcoins that have been inactive for at least one year has been growing after reaching four-year highs in June.

Another potential reason miners’ holdings are going up is the rotation in hardware as miners orders, receive and deploy new machines in their operations. This process, according to the vice president of strategy at data center and mining infrastructure company GRIID, Harry Sudock, takes around six months and means fewer coins have to be sold to cover operational expenses.

CoinDesk reports that at least two publicly traded bitcoin miners, Riot Blockchain and Marathon Patent Group, are in the process of receiving and deploying new hardware as they scale up their operations.

A third motive for miners accumulating more BTC are mining pools accumulating uncharacteristically large amounts of bitcoin. Lubian.com, a little-known pool that was largely inactive until March 2020 has holdings on par with F2Pool, a pool founded in May 2013. Lubian reportedly has over 9,373 BTC in its wallets.

U.S. DOJ Files Lawsuit to Seize Crypto Tied to North Korean Exchange Hacks

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit to seize funds from 280 accounts across various cryptocurrency networks, tied to alleged North Korean hackers.

According to court document, the government’s investigation into these started in 2018 and centered on a string of attacks against South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges. The documents also allude to the U.S.-based firm Algo Capital, mentioning a “U.S.-based company focused on the Algorand blockchain.” Algo Capital is an investment firm that lost $1.9 million to the hackers.

The stolen funds were reportedly laundered through various unnamed cryptocurrency exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) traders based in China. Acting Attorney General Brian Rabbitt said in a statement:

“Today’s action publicly exposes the ongoing connections between North Korea’s cyber-hacking program and a Chinese cryptocurrency money laundering network.”

The documents break down each of the thefts, following the flow of the money as it moved from the victims to laundering points. The DOJ also alluded to the existence of a “Cryptocurrency Strike Force,” which Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin credited with playing a key role in the investigations.

The lawsuit comes shortly after the Department of Homeland Security issued a notice about the actions of a North Korea-tied hacking group known as the BeagleBoyz. The group was blamed for attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Coinbase, Circle Announce ‘USDC 2.0’ to Tackle High Gas Fees

Coinbase and Circle, two members of the Centre Consortium, have announced an upgrade to the popular USDC stablecoin, called “USDC 2.0” that aims to tackle the high gas fees users have been having to pay to move funds on the Ethereum network amid the decentralized finance trend.

According to the announcement, USDC 2.0 will allow developers to delegate high gas fees to other wallets, or take fees in USDC instead. The move is meant to remove unnecessary complexity from using the stablecoin, as users needed ETH in their wallets to move USDC in order to pay for gas fees.

“This complexity presents a barrier to mainstream adoption and broad usage of digital dollar stablecoins for internet payments.”

To address this complexity, USDC 2.0 introduces “gasless sends,” allowing developers to delegate the payment of the gas fees to another address. Exchanges could, for example, pay for fees on behalf of their users, or allow a third-party service to take care of them.

USDC 2.0 also includes a number of security improvements, including  a new set of on-chain multiple-signature contracts with new consensus mechanisms. The upgrade is entirely backward compatible.

USDC Is Serving as a Major Onramp for DeFi Users

We can see that USDC has most of its activity happening on decentralized exchanges and applications, instead of centralized exchanges. Its appeal in DeFi is especially clear when looking at its on-chain activity on August 14th. This is the day Curve Finance announced the launch of its governance token, CRV, which coincides with a spike in users sending their USDC to DEXes and Curve specifically. 

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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