Bitcoin transaction fees have plunged following the frenzy of its halving event, with medium-priority transaction fees dropping to around $8.48 from a peak of over $146 immediately after the halving.

A group of FTX investors and customers has reached a settlement with the collapsed exchange’s co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The agreement, if approved by a court, would shield Bankman-Fried from further civil lawsuits in exchange for his cooperation in pursuing other defendants.

Cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments has unveiled new details on its upcoming Bitcoin Mini Trust, which is set to trade under the ticker "BTC" on the NYSE Arca exchange, and boast a fee rate of just 0.15%.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Bitcoin Transaction Fees Plunge After Halving Frenzy
• FTX Investors Settle with Bankman-Fried, Turning Focus to Promoters
• Grayscale Unveils Details of Low-Fee Bitcoin Mini Trust
• Historical Patterns Indicate Potential for Extended Market Cycle

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Plunge After Halving Frenzy

Bitcoin transaction fees have plunged following the frenzy of its halving event, with medium-priority transaction fees dropping to around $8.48 from a peak of over $146 immediately after the halving.

Data from Mempool.space, a blockchain analytics platform, shows that the cost of high-priority transactions is currently around $9.32, down from $170. The halving event cuts the coinbase rewards miners receive per block found in half, and occurs every four years.

The hashprice index, a metric devised by Luxor to gauge a miner’s expected earnings from a given amount of hashrate, has decreased from $182.98 per hash/day to $81, a level below where it stood ahead of the halving.

The event raised concerns over a drop in miner revenues, but the launch of Casey Rodarmor’s Runes protocol, designed to create fungible tokens on Bitcoin, was seen as a potential countermeasure as it led to an increase in on-chain activity.

However, floor prices for the runestone non-fungible token (NFT) collection have plummeted by nearly 50% in the past 24 hours, according to leading NFT marketplace Magic Eden. Meanwhile, other types of digital collectibles built on Bitcoin, such as Bitcoin Pullets and NodeMonkes, have seen price increases.

While these alternative collections also generate transaction fees, they may not provide the same level of revenue boost that many anticipated from Runes. The long-term impact of the halving and the evolving landscape of Bitcoin-based digital assets remains to be seen.

FTX Investors Settle with Bankman-Fried, Turning Focus to Promoters

A group of FTX investors and customers has reached a settlement with the collapsed exchange’s co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The agreement, if approved by a court, would shield Bankman-Fried from further civil lawsuits in exchange for his cooperation in pursuing other defendants.

The move comes just weeks after Bankman-Fried received a 25-year prison sentence for his criminal conviction on fraud charges. The proposed settlement, filed in Miami federal court, would see plaintiffs in the litigation resolve all claims against him now and in the future.

Other former FTX executives, including Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison, and Nishad Singh, who testified against Bankman-Fried during his trial, were also sued by investors and decided to settle. These individuals have already begun providing information to bolster the plaintiffs' case.

The focus now shifts to the public figures who promoted FTX to investors, with the lawsuit accusing celebrities like Tom Brady and Shaquille O'Neal, as well as model Gisele Bündchen, of promoting unregistered securities and essentially luring investors into a fraudulent scheme.

Bankman-Fried, in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped against him, has agreed to assist the plaintiffs' attorneys in building their case against these celebrity endorsers by providing non privileged documents detailing his assets, including his investment in AI startup Anthropic, an affidavit certifying his negative net worth, and relevant information about venture capital firms that invested in FTX.

The plaintiffs' lawyers, in their court filing seeking approval for the settlement, acknowledged the uncertain outcome of pursuing Bankman-Fried further but stressed his "valuable" role in strengthening their case against the remaining defendants.

Grayscale Unveils Details of Low-Fee Bitcoin Mini Trust

Cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments has unveiled new details on its upcoming Bitcoin Mini Trust, which is set to trade under the ticker "BTC" on the NYSE Arca exchange, and boast a fee rate of just 0.15%.

First announced in March, the Bitcoin Mini Trust serves as a spinoff vehicle for Grayscale and allows the company to allocate a portion of Bitcoin holdings from its flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to a new, lower-fee fund without triggering a taxable event for existing GBTC shareholders.

These shareholders will automatically receive shares in the Mini Trust on a yet-to-be-determined record date. Grayscale's pro forma financials indicate a planned initial distribution of 63,620 Bitcoin to the Mini Trust, representing roughly 10% of the Bitcoin held by GBTC at the beginning of the year, which translates to a value near $4 billion at current market prices.

The Mini Trust's 0.15% fee is poised to be the lowest outright fee in the industry, narrowly undercutting Franklin Templeton's EZBC ETF, although fee waivers and other benefits in some competing products can complicate a direct fee comparison. Notably, GBTC currently charges a 1.5% fee, the highest among spot Bitcoin ETFs.

According to Grayscale’s latest financial filings, both trusts will operate independently and incur no shared exposure.

Historical Patterns Indicate Potential for Extended Market Cycle

Analysis of historical price cycles following Bitcoin halving events shows potential for a lengthened bull market in the 2024/2025 period. This arises from a recurring pattern: cycles appear to be extending as the block issuance rate halves and mining difficulty increases.

For example, the cycle length grew from 1,319 days in 2012 to 1,402 days in 2016, and further to 1,440 days in the 2020 cycle.

Additionally, the time from halving to price peak also seems to be lengthening as in 2012 it took 366 days to reach the cycle’s peak, whereas in 2016 and 2020, this timeframe expanded to 526 and 548 days, respectively.

Dig deeper via CCData’s latest blog post Bitcoin Halvent Event: A Cyclical Catalyst.

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