After the Dogecoin blockchain was able to issue NFT and other tokens, the daily transaction volume increased more than 20 times

The daily number of transactions in the Dogecoin network grew to an all-time high. This happened after the appearance of a new token standard DRC-20. This standard allows NFT and other tokens to be issued in the blockchain of the leading meme cryptocurrency.

On May 16, according to the BitInfoCharts platform, the number of transactions in the Dogecoin blockchain exceeded 719,000. This is not only the highest number for the DOGE coin network. But also for the first time exceeds the maximum values for the Bitcoin network, where a similar standard BRC-20 was recently launched.

The BRC-20 and DRC-20 protocols were modeled after the ERC-20 for Ethereum. These are protocols that allow other tokens to be created “on top of” the blockchain in a single network-compatible way. Prior to this generalized standard, a separate blockchain had to be created for each token. ERC-20 is the most widely used standard today for creating new tokens.

On May 9, the DRC-20 standard was launched on the Dogecoin network. And it allows the creation of a token tied to each indivisible DOGE unit. And which is called Elon ( in honor of the most famous fan of the meme cryptocurrency, Elon Musk). There are 100 million Elons in one Dogecoin coin. Also these tokens can be issued in the form of NFT or other cryptocurrency.

Similar to tokens in the Bitcoin network called Ordinals, this standard has already been nicknamed Doginals.

Compared to the daily average of 20,000-30,000, the daily volume of transactions in the Dogecoin network has increased more than 20 times since May 9. This increased activity could lead to network congestion. Which is not designed for a large number of transactions, and to increase transaction fees.

Our experts note that the BRC-20 standard in the Bitcoin network became effective in March. And on May 8, fees reached two-year highs due to the excitement with the issue of memcoins on the blockchain of the first cryptocurrency. The popularity of their issuance was boosted by a surge in the price of meme tokens like PEPE and LADYS.

Our experts tell us what we need to know about Bitcoin halving. As well as when to expect it, and what impact it may have on crypto market

The fourth Bitcoin halving is about a year away. This event occurs every four years and historically serves as a bullish catalyst for Bitcoin’s price rise and popularity.

Halving is a planned reduction in the number of newly issued BTCs. Which are created and distributed to miners who perform transaction verification and validation on the network. This is embedded in Bitcoin’s software code to ensure that the total number of coins in the network never exceeds 21 million units.

Halving first took place in November 2012, when the reward per block was reduced from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. The second reduction occurred in July 2016, when the reward dropped from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC. The third and final halving occurred in May 2020, when the reward dropped from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC.

The next Bitcoin halving is expected in April 2024. The reward per block will be reduced to 3.125 BTC, reducing Bitcoin’s annual inflation rate from 1.7% to 0.8%. The final halving will occur in 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be mined. And the total supply of coins will reach 21 million.

Bitcoin’s monetary policy is unique compared to most other crypto-assets, which tend to have inflation. Dogecoin (DOGE) has 2-3% inflation. And Solana (SOL) has long-term inflation of 1.5%. Ethereum has had a negative inflation rate since the blockchain switched to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm. As the volume of transaction fees burned on the network exceeded the volume of newly issued ETH coins. Halving occurs not only in Bitcoin, but also in other Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin (LTC) or Zcash (ZEC).

Profits of miners

Now the main part of the miners’ profits comes from the distribution of rewards for a found block of bitcoin (newly mined bitcoin). And at which 6.25 BTC is paid out to miners about every 10 minutes. The annual issuance of new Bitcoins creates about $9.8 billion, creating additional selling pressure. Which the market is forced to absorb every year.

Despite the fact that the number of new Bitcoins mined per block is halved. The cumulative income of miners after each halving increased. This is due to the rise in the price of BTC. But when the number of new Bitcoins mined in each block approaches zero.Then miners will no longer be able to rely on rising prices to cover costs.

In addition to newly issued Bitcoins, miners also receive income in the form of transaction fees. It can be assumed that the commissions for this should increase. At the same time compensating miners for the decreasing income from the issuance of new Bitcoins. Right now transaction fees are only 2.6% of miners’ income as a percentage of the total reward per block found.

This year has seen an upward trend in transaction fees. This is largely due to the emergence and popularization of so-called ordinals or BRC20-tokens. These are analogous to NFT in the Bitcoin blockchain, which require space in a block. New experiments with second-tier technologies such as the Lightning payment network or the Stacks smart contract platform. So too could further increase the strain on the blockchain.

If transaction fees don’t rise appreciably. Or miners fail to find alternative sources of income. Then Bitcoin’s long-term viability could be in question. And subsequent halving will put additional pressure on miners.

How Halving will affect the price

If you estimate the price dynamics in three Bitcoin halving cycles over a two-year period. And beginning one year before each halving and ending one year after it, one can get an idea of Bitcoin’s price trajectory as the fourth halving approaches. Over such a two-year period in 2012, Bitcoin gained about 30,000%. And in 2016, 786%, and in 2020, 712%. If Bitcoin performs as well as in the last two periods, its price could reach the $220,000 mark in 2025.

However, past performance is no guarantee of future results. And there are many other factors influencing Bitcoin’s price. Moreover, as Bitcoin develops and becomes more widespread over time, its price may become less volatile and more stable.

Another expectation of halving is less pressure on the price due to sales, especially from miners. Miners are the most predictable sellers of Bitcoin. That’s because they need to cover the cost of maintaining operations by converting new Bitcoins into fiat money. With each halving, the structural pressure to sell decreases. And assuming demand stays the same or goes up, the resulting price should also go up.

Because of the small amount of liquidity of the asset on exchanges. It may be difficult for large holders of LADYS token to realize these profits. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Amount of unrealized profit of the top 10 holders of the cryptocurrency Milady Meme Coin (LADYS) exceeded $20.4 million, according to the analytical service Lookonchain. These addresses hold 180 trillion LADYS tokens. Which is 20.3% of the issued coins.

The LADYS token was launched on the Ethereum network in early May. And it also supports the Arbitrum network standard (ARB). On the evening of May 10, Elon Musk posted a meme on Twitter with an image of NFT from the Milady Maker collection. After that, the LADYS token rate went up 119 times. Or almost 12,000% – from $0.0000001444 to $0.000000172234.

Coin is trading both on decentralized platforms, as well as on major DEX exchanges. LADYS has already been listed by Huobi, Gate.io, Bybit, Bidget and MEXC. According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of the asset as of May 16 is $88 million. And the daily trading volume is $89.5 million.

At the same time, Lookonchain analysts noticed suspicious transactions with the cryptocurrency LADYS. And as they then stated, related to DWF Labs. After this information emerged, developer Milady added the three largest token holders to its blacklist. They contain 109 trillion LADYS (about $15 million) and it is now impossible to withdraw funds from these addresses.

Other large holders of the coin may also find it difficult to realize profits. According to him, the liquidity of the asset is about $3 million, distributed on the Uniswap v2 and v3 platforms. If token owners want to sell the cryptocurrency. Then they should either consider the possibility of huge slippage, or close their positions gradually.

Bloomberg reports on growing faith in Bitcoin among investors who fear a U.S. default

Investors would prefer Bitcoin to the dollar as a means of saving capital in the event of a U.S. government debt default. This is evidenced by the results of a survey Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse. Which was conducted May 8-12 with 637 respondents. 7.8% of professional and 11.3% of retail investors will choose the first cryptocurrency as a protective asset. And while the U.S. dollar will be relied on by 7.8% and 10.2% of investors from the two groups, respectively.

At the top of the list of defensive assets is gold. Despite the fact that the price of the precious metal is currently near its historical maximum ($2,000 per ounce). And it was chosen by about half of surveyed investors from both categories. On the other hand, the report notes the current shortage of alternative assets to gold for hedging.

The second most popular asset to buy in case of default were U.S. Treasury securities. Journalists see a certain irony in this, because it is these debt securities that will probably default. But even pessimistic analysts think. That holders of treasuries will be paid, albeit late, as the article says, which explains the choice of this asset. It will be bought in case of default by 14-15% of respondents.

In third place is Bitcoin, followed by the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. At the same time, more than 55% of respondents said that a default or even its approach would have a strong negative impact on the dollar as the global world currency. Also, our experts note that another 13.6% of respondents said that significant damage to the U.S. national currency has already been done and it can only increase further.

A blockchain analyst warned about a fake page of the HitBTC platform, on which scammers use phishing links to empty users’ cryptocurrency wallets

Hackers stole more than $15 million in various cryptocurrencies through a fake website. Which mimics the HitBTC cryptocurrency exchange page. This was reported by a blockchain security analyst at SlowMist. According to the company, scammers are stealing various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. They do this through a fake website that looks similar to the original exchange portal.

Analyst identified and published four cryptocurrency addresses of the attackers. He also explained that he discovered three ways in which hackers gain access to users’ wallets on this site.

The fake page may prompt users to verify the wallet’s connection. After a user clicks the Confirm button, hackers gain access to USDT tokens.

The second option was to go to the page for depositing funds, which is identical to the real page on the exchange. But in the field for the deposit address entered data hackers. In this case, they rely on the fact that the information in the standard fields will not be double-checked by the account owner.

In the third case, the scammers take advantage of the fact that the sidebar to sign the transaction on the site pops up automatically. And with the data already completely filled in, which are also usually not double-checked. When the user clicks on the transaction confirmation button, the hackers gain access to the assets.

Our experts point out that in February of this year, hackers spoofed the website of a major cryptocurrency conference. Where they offered users to connect MetaMask wallets and make a transaction that debited funds. To promote their site, the scammers even paid for advertising on Google. And rose to second place in search for a while.

Startup Worldcoin is creating an iris-based user identification system to access coins. According to the developers, it will allow to distinguish a person from a bot

Sam Altman, the head of artificial intelligence chatbot company OpenAI, is in talks with investors to raise about $100 million for the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin. It was reported by The Financial Times, citing its sources. The developers plan to launch the project within the next few weeks.

Worldcoin was founded by Altman and Alex Blania in 2019. It plans to use eye-scanning technology to identify users.

The developers of Worldcoin say it will solve two problems that have arisen with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The system will distinguish between humans and bots. And it would also provide a form of universal basic income that could compensate for the job losses caused by the widespread adoption of AI.

The technology scans the iris and from this creates a digital World ID for the user. Which he will be able to use in a wide range of everyday applications without revealing his identity, the company claims. Worldcoin also claims that it will not store iris scans. And it eliminates the risks of losing sensitive data.

The creators of the project promise that once a user creates an ID. He will then be able to get Worldcoin tokens for free. The project, launched in beta, is preparing to roll out the blockchain. And start conducting transactions within the next six weeks.

The group of investors from whom Altman expects to raise $100 million includes both old and new entrants, the publication’s sources said, without naming specific companies. The company’s previous investors include Khosla Ventures and crypto fund Andreessen Horowitz. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Internet entrepreneur Reed Hoffman have also previously funded the project.

In February, the media reported that Altman was in talks to raise $120 million with a project valuation of $3 billion. In both cases, Worldcoin declined to comment on fundraising reports.

Our experts note that despite the general decline in investment in the cryptocurrency industry, AI-related projects are attracting widespread attention from investors. In late March, crypto project Fetch.ai raised $40 million to develop artificial intelligence (AI) from investment firm DWF Labs.

Elon Musk will take over as CTO, focusing among other things on the integration of payments into this social network

Elon Musk will leave the post of CEO of Twitter. He announced this in his account on the social network. He has been Twitter’s CEO since the social network’s $44 billion acquisition in 2022.

Musk uses Twitter’s polling interface to get followers’ opinions on the social network’s various policies. Late last year, he launched a poll about whether he should resign as head of the service. By a relatively small margin, most of the votes were positive. Musk joked that he would leave when he “found some crazy person” to replace him. And then he himself will move to the development team.

That “madman” eventually became Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising at NBCUniversal, which owns a network of TV channels and several movie studios. Musk specified that she would start working “in about half a month.” He himself will take over as chairman and CTO of Twitter.

Integration of cryptocurrencies into Twitter social network interface, opinions of Crypto-Upvotes experts

Judging by the history of Musk’s statements, he really does not give up hope of integrating cryptocurrencies into the interface of the social network Twitter. If we take into account his previous global goals to develop a “super-application” X (similar to China’s WeChat). Then it is possible to assume the creation of some ecosystem with internal support of cryptocurrencies. And of which Twitter would be a part, our expert thinks.

But if we consider Twitter separately, at the initial stage Musk could introduce a function of sending money through personal messages. And paying for subscriptions to paid content or Twitter Blue status for cryptocurrency. Any kind of coin could be suitable for these purposes. And so Bitcoin and Dogecoin (DOGE) could potentially benefit from such integration.
Introduction of a payment function in Twitter is one of Musk’s key objectives, according to our experts.
In their opinion, it will turn the social network into a more predictable and stable source of income. It will also add features which are absent in other social networks. And by doing so, it will attract new users and make the social network a more profitable asset in Musk’s portfolio.

Technically, the integration of cryptopayments into Twitter could be done in partnership with a third-party cryptocurrency company. For example, Coinbase, which already has a developed infrastructure – wallets, exchange, business solutions and payment gateways.

Or another option – Musk will buy a payment gateway operator. In any case, the main task is not just to introduce cryptocurrencies. But to allow those who don’t have them to conveniently buy cryptocurrencies and just as conveniently spend them within the social network.

Despite Musk’s plans, the likelihood of introducing cryptocurrencies is still in question. Because of the “witch hunt” by the U.S. regulators, which has already provoked many large cryptocurrency companies to leave for other jurisdictions. Perhaps one of the tasks of the new CEO will be to find a way to find legal loopholes for the safe introduction of cryptocurrencies into Twitter, but this is just our guess.

Influence on cryptocurrency prices

As the head of Twitter, Musk organically joined the cryptocurrency community. Which settled on the platform at the stage of crypto-business birth. Musk participates in Twitter Spaces broadcasts with opinion leaders from the cryptosphere and comments on high-profile news in his personal account.

It’s not uncommon for Musk’s tweets to cause significant spikes in the price of crypto-assets. Which he mentions to them directly or indirectly. The most popular of these is Dogecoin (DOGE). In his May 2021 tweet, Musk said he was working with the developers of Dogecoin to make the system more efficient. This immediately led to a 22% increase in the Dogecoin exchange rate.

In December of that year, DOGE jumped 33%. When Musk announced that electric car maker Tesla would begin accepting the coin as payment for goods at its online store. Typically, such price spikes are fleeting as traders and automated bots start buying up tokens. Which were mentioned by Musk within seconds of his comments on Twitter. And to quickly sell them at a profit afterwards.

Musk gained a reputation as an influencer in the cryptocurrency community long before he bought Twitter. The change of position, will not have a negative impact on this reputation according to our experts. Rather, we can expect a positive impact, as the position of CTO is “more in line with Musk’s role as an eccentric innovator.

Our experts told us how PEPE new token appeared on major cryptocurrency exchanges in three weeks of existence. And resulted in the appearance of dozens of analogs, and who made money from it

In early April, the @pepecoineth account appeared on Twitter. And the only entry in which was an image of the famous meme with Pepe the frog wearing a red cap with the inscription “Make Memecoins Great Again”. So say this is a similar slogan to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential slogan.

Two weeks later, the cryptocurrency token PEPE was launched, taking its name from a popular meme. Anonymous developers issued 420.69 trillion coins. And token trading was launched on the decentralized exchange Uniswap.

The discussion of PEPE was picked up by Influencers on Twitter and in the thematic channels of the messengers Telegram and Discord. And just one day after its debut, its price rose by more than 900%. In less than three weeks, the market capitalization of this memcoin exceeded $1.6 billion. At the time of our publication, the token is among the top three memcoins, second only to Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

High demand for meme coins

This rise in Pepe quickly led to the emergence of dozens of new memcoins. And those of them that turned out to be rumored also skyrocketed in price by tens or even hundreds of percent. Many of these tokens lack liquidity. This means that traders have limited ability to buy and sell them close to the market rate. Because of this, tokens are susceptible to sharp price fluctuations. And any of the relatively large buy orders pushes their prices higher and vice versa. Professional traders take advantage of this, whose bots can track such bids to their completion. And put their own ahead of the other players.

The PEPE token was initially traded only on decentralized crypto exchanges. And the increase in trading volume on which leads to an increase in the number of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. During the hype surrounding PEPE and other meme tokens, activity on Uniswap and peers grew to the 2021 mark. When Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole reached historic price highs. This, in turn, led to an increased load on the network. And as a consequence, Ethereum’s commissions increased dramatically. Now buying memcoins on DEX or any other direct interaction with the network can cost up to $50 in ETH cryptocurrency.

High commissions, as well as technical peculiarities of decentralized exchanges, partly deterred the influx of ordinary retail traders. But realizing the scale of the excitement, traditional crypto-exchanges began to announce PEPE listings. Among them are OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Poloniex, Bitget and others. BitMEX was the first exchange to launch trading in perpetual PEPE futures with up to 50x leverage.

PEPE listing on Binance

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, held back for a while. But at the beginning of May, its head Changpeng Zhao told during a question-and-answer session with subscribers. That even though he doesn’t understand memcoins himself. And has never traded them, if there is a demand, his platform always goes towards users. It became clear in the cryptocurrency community that listing PEPE on Binance is a matter of time. And the exchange did add the token a few days later.

According to CoinMarketCap, PEPE trading volumes from May 9 to 10 exceeded $420 million, despite the token’s price drop. The service’s statistics also show that trading volumes quickly moved from Uniswap to Binance. More than $160 million worth of PEPE trades were made on Binance in a day, compared to $55 million on Uniswap. The accessible interface and much lower fixed commissions obviously played a role in this. According to DEXTools analytics service the number of unique PEPE token holders exceeded 100 thousand on May 10.

Not just a meme

In 2005, illustrator Matt Furey released a webcomic called Boy’s Club. And it featured a frog named Pepe. The character appeared frequently in Furey’s work. And then migrated to the Internet and spawned thousands of memes. Fury himself, answering his subscribers’ questions, said he knew nothing about this token. And ironically called himself a “Dogecoin maximalist.

Dogecoin, created in late 2013 by developers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer, was the first memcoin to hit the market. According to them, they created the coin as a joke. And its name was a reference to the popular meme “doge” with a shiba-inu dog named Kabosu. Unlike Bitcoin’s payment function or Ethereum’s decentralized application ecosystem. Then Dogecoin originally had no purpose other than to irony the nascent crypto market of the time.

That hasn’t stopped the coin from skyrocketing in popularity, helped heavily by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. According to CoinMarketCap, Dogecoin has a market capitalization of more than $10 billion. After the rapid growth of DOGE in 2021, a flood of memcoins flooded the market. Including Shiba Inu, another dog-inspired meme token and one of the top 20 largest crypto assets.

The activity and excitement around PEPE is partly reminiscent of the recent rise of BONK. It is another memcoin with a siba-inu as a symbol, launched earlier this year on the Solana blockchain. During the New Year holidays, the token soared in price in a similar way. And provoked a surge of abnormal activity on decentralized exchanges. And it was added to the listing of major trading floors, including Bybit and Huobi. After the January highs, the price of BONK never returned to its peak values. And gradually declined despite the overall growth of the market.

Dog memes are no longer popular ?

“The dogs have had their day,” the developers of PEPE wrote, “it’s time for Pepe to take over”. The creators of the token run it socially anonymously. And the coin’s website lacks any contact information. The first press release mentioning PEPE was published April 19 on behalf of David Costla. Another press release about the creation of another memcoin, DanGPT, the “daring twin of ChatGPT,” is signed by the same name. The developers have ignored attempts by journalists to contact them through any available channels.

Our experts point out that when Elon Musk posted a meme on Twitter with an image of NFT from the Milady collection. That the rate of Milady Meme Coin (LADYS) token, created the day before, increased almost 120 times. The capitalization of the coin reached $136 million in less than a day. Blockchain transaction researchers noticed that the owners of some Ethereum wallets, which earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the growth of the PEPE rate. And they were also buying up LADYS in advance of the new token’s price jump.

So we can safely say no matter what meme the crypto project is dedicated to. If there is hype around it, it will grow in price, but it won’t last long. Be careful investing money in such coins can lead to significant financial losses.

The issuer of the second most capitalized stablecoin USDC refused U.S. Treasury securities maturing after May 31

Circle has refused to back its reserves with U.S. Treasury securities maturing after May 31 because of concerns. Also Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told Politico that the government could default on its debt. Stablecoin issuer USD Coin (USDC) has adjusted its provisioning in favor of short-term Treasury securities.

According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. authorities may run out of cash to make payments by June 1. Because the national debt limit of $31.4 trillion is already exceeded. If the issue with the limit of the national debt will not be solved. Then the U.S. could face a debt default.

“We don’t want to bear the investment risk that could materialize if the U.S. government suddenly can’t pay its debts,” Allaire said.

Circle’s USDC is the second-largest Stablecoin by market capitalization. There are about 30.1 billion tokens in circulation. Data from the Circle Reserve Fund, which is managed by BlackRock,. And they show that the company does not hold U.S. government debt securities maturing later than May 31.

Our experts note that the issuer of the largest USDT stablecoin by capitalization, Tether, has invested most of its reserves in U.S. government debt securities. About 85% of all its reserves are held as liquid assets. And money in bank accounts, cash equivalents and other short-term instruments, among which U.S. Treasury bills occupy 76.5%.

Marathon Digital and Zero Two plan to launch two cryptocurrency mining platforms in Abu Dhabi this year at a total cost of $406 million

One of the largest U.S. miners, Marathon Digital, and developer Zero Two announced the creation of bitcoin mining platforms in Abu Dhabi (UAE). According to a press release, the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) joint venture will begin building two mining centers under equipment with a total capacity of 250 MW.

Also Marathon Digital is one of the largest U.S. public companies. Which is engaged in cryptocurrency mining. It has tens of thousands of mining devices in Texas, North Dakota. And other states.  according to BitcoinTreasuries, the company ranks second behind Microstrategy in terms of Bitcoin ownership. It owns 12,200 BTC ($335.5 million).

Also Abu Dhabi-based Zero Two develops Web3 infrastructure solutions and digital assets in the emirate.

The site for 200 MW of mining equipment will be located in the “eco-city” Masdar. Another 50 MW platform will be built in the port area of Mina Zayed. Electricity will be supplied to the complex from the general power grid of Abu Dhabi.

Marathon’s share in ADGM will be 20%, Zero Two’s share – 80%. Capital investment by the companies in proportion to their shares will be about $406 million. The digital assets extracted will also be distributed according to each company’s shares twice a month.

The companies have developed a special immersion solution for ASIC-mainer cooling (liquid cooling) to operate the equipment in the desert climate. And they implemented new software for performance optimization. The new solutions were successfully tested during the pilot project.

It is expected that the mining centers will be launched by the end of 2023, their total hashing speed. Also according to the companies’ calculations, will reach 7 EH/s. Our experts note that according to BTC.com, the total global Bitcoin network hash rate as of May 10 is about 337 EH/s.