Satoshi Nakamoto mined a Bitcoin genesis block on January 3, 2009

Bitcoin turned 14 years old. January 3, 2009 can be considered the real birthday of Bitcoin. That’s when the genesis block was mined with the date and a short excerpt from The Times article: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”.

On October 31, 2008, the creator of Bitcoin, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, published a white paper. Titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. However, the BTC network did not actually work until three months later, when Satoshi mined the first block.

The genesis block was mined on a small server in Helsinki. The reward for mining it was 50 BTC. The first transaction on the BTC network took place a few days later. On January 12, 2009, 10 BTC from Satoshi Nakamoto were sent to developer Hal Finney in Block 170.

Nine months later, on October 5, Bitcoin appeared on the New Liberty Standart exchange. Our experts note that for $ 1 you could buy 1,309 BTC (now their price is $21 million).

On February 9, 2011, BTC for the first time equaled in value to the U.S. dollar. And on April 16 of the same year a major publication – Time magazine published an article about Bitcoin, for the first time about the new asset. The currency reached a total capitalization of $10 million.

Since then, Bitcoin has experienced several ups and downs. It reached its peak in November 2021, rising to $69,000. In 2022, global economic problems and several major bankruptcies in the industry led to a significant decline in cryptocurrency rates and a prolonged crypto winter.

The asset currently has a market capitalization of $322 billion and a daily trading volume of $13 billion. Bitcoin’s stake in a crypto market is 38.2%.

In January 2023, there will be several big events at once. Which may affect both the value of individual cryptocurrency and crypto market as a whole. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

COTI (COTI) – launch of DJED stablecoin

At the Cardano Cryptocurrency Summit in late November, COTI CEO Shahaf Bar-Geffen announced the launch of an algorithmic stablecoin, DJED. According to its developers’ plan, the stablecoin will go live in January after a thorough audit and will be linked to the U.S. dollar. DJED will be backed by Cardano’s base coin (ADA). And use the SHEN coin as a backup.

The DJED algorithm is based on a collateral ratio in the 400%-800% range for DJED and SHEN. This is necessary to ensure a sufficient number of ADAs in a pool. Agreements have already been signed with 40 partners and decentralized exchanges for fast and proper implementation. These projects will offer increased rewards to those who provide liquidity with DJED.

The developers also announced Djed Pay. It’s a payment app and crypto-gateway that allows merchants. As well as e-commerce platforms and non-profit organizations to accept DJED as payment.

Flux (FLUX) – FluxOS V3.30.0 release

Flux project developers announced that FluxOS V3.30.0 update will take place on January 2 on unit number 1288000. All owners of node validators need to update their software by January 3. The update will fix synchronization issues. As well as reconfigured prices for decentralized applications. And changes have been made to prepare for a future update.

Flux Network is a former ZelCash project that was launched in 2018 and rebranded in March 2021. The main goal of the project is to create a decentralized Internet. To achieve this goal, the Flux project aims to achieve the maximum distributed network.

The blockchain can be supported by anyone: either by running a validator node (node) or by running mining on a video card. Rewards are divided equally between nodes and miners. FluxOS is an operating system that allows the deployment of decentralized applications (dApps). ZelCore is a multicurrency cryptocurrency wallet supporting over 450 coins and 50,000 tokens.

Cryptocurrency Klaytn (KLAY) — hardfork Kore

On January 10, after finding block number 111,736,800, the update for the Baobab network will go into effect. And an update for the Cypress network is planned for March 2023. All of these updates are part of the larger Klaytn v1.10.0 release. After the update, the block bounty structure will change. As well as there will be new features for API interface, gas cost for some functions will change. More details about the update can be found on the project website.

Klaytn blockchain is a development of Korean Internet giant Kakao. The main network was launched in 2019. The project is aimed at corporate businesses that plan to launch their applications in the field of meta or GameFi. And it provides users with convenient access to blockchain. This cryptocurrency project with corporations such as Samsung, LG Electronics, and Union Bank.

Polkadot (DOT) – Hackathon

On January 25th another online hackathon by the Polkadot project will start. This time the event will be held in Europe. The previous ones were held in the Pacific and North American regions. Participants are invited to present their project in one of five categories. These are: Interface and Experience, Smart Contracts, Web 3.0 and Development, DeFi, NFT. In each of the categories, the prize money is $35,000. Then each finalist team will be paid $3k for their flight to Paris.

In addition to the main prize fund, Moonbeam, Zeitgeist and ICE will also be offering prizes. On March 22 the dotSocial event will be held in Paris. There, finalists will be able to present and talk about their projects on the main stage of the event. You can register and find out more information on the website of a hackathon.

The government-supported platform will conduct secondary trade in NFT and digital asset copyrights. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

China will launch its first regulated NFT trading platform on January 1, 2023. This was reported by Sina News. ” China Digital Asset Trading Platform ” will be a secondary marketplace for NFT. It is jointly created by state-owned China Technology Exchange and Art Exhibitions China. And a private company, Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd.

The new trading platform will focus on a national strategy to digitize culture. It will use blockchain and NFTs as the basis for technical support for the innovative development of the cultural industry and the preservation of cultural heritage.

NFT in China are called digital collectibles. In addition to these, the platform will also trade copyrights related to digital assets. Specific types of items that will be featured on the platform have not yet been determined.

Our experts note that according to Chinese laws, NFT cannot be purchased for cryptocurrency. At the end of September 2021, the People’s Bank of China banned cryptocurrency transactions. The use of digital assets for payments equates to illegal financial activity. NFTs are sold in China on closed regulated platforms.

Investments giants and other big brands are registering names in digital assets and metaverse. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Fidelity Investments and HSBC Bank have filed U.S. trademark applications related to NFT and cryptocurrencies. This was announced by licensed trademark lawyer Michael Kondoudis.

Fidelity Investments, an American financial company founded in 1946. It has $9.6 trillion under management, serving more than 40 million investors. According to Condudis, the company has filed trademark applications related to NFT and NFT marketplaces. As well as cryptocurrency trading as well as metaverse and virtual real estate investment services.

The lawyer also said that the UK’s largest bank, HSBC, has applied for trademarks for its name in the field of NFT. As well as cryptocurrency exchanges and transactions, and digital asset transactions on credit cards.

Earlier in December, Mercedes Benz also filed trademark applications related to digital assets. And Las Vegas-based gaming and hospitality company Boyd Gaming as well as popular toy brand Hello Kitty.

Our experts note that in the first 11 months of 2022 in the U.S. have already been registered 5.3 thousand trademarks associated with metaverse and virtual assets for them. And a year earlier there were 1.9 thousand. 4.9 thousand cryptocurrency and digital asset services trademarks were registered until December this year, while there were only 3.5 thousand registrations for the whole of 2021.

Christie’s sold only 87 NFT in 2022 for a total of $5.9 million. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

NFT sales at Christie’s are down 96% this year. The auction house sold more than 100 NFTs worth more than $150 million in 2021 and only 87 items worth $5.9 million in 2022.

In 2021, the most expensive lots of Christie’s were the works of American artist Michael Winkelman, known under the nickname Beeple. NFT-painting “Every Day: the first 5 thousand days” was sold in March for $ 69.4 million. And an animated 3d-image of an astronaut called HUMAN ONE left the auction in October of the same year for $ 28.8 million.

The NFT sculpture by Turkish-born media artist and filmmaker Refik Anadol was the most expensive lot of 2022. Living Architecture: Casa Batlló, which sold in May for $1.38 million.

Despite the decline in digital art sales. Christie’s continued to be active in web3 and NFT in 2022. The company created a venture capital fund, which on July 18 made its first investment in the startup LayerZero. This campaign specializes in blockchain interoperability.

Our experts also note that in September Christie’s launched its own NFT trading platform called Christie’s 3.0. The platform is based on the Ethereum network. Also now all payments are accepted in cryptocurrency and they include post-sale transactions (payment of commission and taxes).

The Guardian named former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Telsa owner Elon Musk as some of this year’s most failing tech CEOs

Founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried and the largest shareholder of Tesla, Elon Musk, became one of the baddest executives of technology companies this year. According to UK edition of The Guardian. In addition to them, the list of the worst tech company bosses also included the head of Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg, and the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

The Guardian notes that the last few decades have been quite successful for America’s top tech executives. But in 2022 the situation worsened. Social networking company Zuckerberg and Amazon Bezos laid off thousands of employees. And Elon Musk showed a truly impressive level of incompetence at Twitter . And Bankman-Fried became notorious for the catastrophic collapse of his exchange.

Zuckerberg’s stock plummeted $230 billion in one day in February of this year. Which was a national record. Nine months later, he told employees that he misjudged the situation and fired 11,000 people.

Jeff Bezos spent this year laying off thousands of people at Amazon. And was busy promoting his “favorite project,” the Alexa voice assistant. Bezos’ employees recently said Alexa was a “colossal failure.” And that project is now experiencing significant difficulties.

Elon Musk made the list of worst executives after his actions as Twitter’s CEO. Dismissals, imposing and reversing rules, blocking and unblocking. All of these have ruined his reputation as a competent manager. According to journalists, from the outside his actions look like a disaster, but Musk “shows every sign that he is enjoying himself.”

The list also includes former Twitter executive Parag Agarwal. And Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the instant blood test device company Theranos. Earlier this year she was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Our experts note that the last and one of the worst (on a par with Holmes) executives the publication calls Sam Bankman-Friede. And it is not surprising because just a few months ago his cryptocurrency exchange FTX was one of the largest in the industry, but it collapsed.

Elon Musk manipulates cryptocurrency market with his followers they buy after his every hint.

In recent years, it may have become customary for crypto market participants that Dogecoin’s price reacts to publications and comments by Elon Musk. In addition, he became the owner of the social network Twitter at the end of October. The head of Tesla and SpaceX has openly talked about his love for ‘this meme cryptocurrency and repeatedly hinted at its integration into the Twitter interface.

As the head of Twitter, Elon Musk naturally partially 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 own account. When Elon Musk accepted DOGE Community Influencer’s offer under the nickname @dogeofficialceo to join the broadcast with his followers on December 16, the cryptocurrency meme rate jumped 5%.

Not everyone is happy with the billionaire’s policies as the new owner of Twitter. When, by Musk’s decision, moderators of the social network blocked the account. Which tracked his private jet’s flights. In response, Ethereum ecosystem founder Vitalik Buterin openly called it a manifestation of selective censorship. Which “puts Twitter on the road to authoritarianism.”

Musk uses the Twitter polling interface to get followers’ opinions on various social networking policies. Starting with a vote on the need to restore former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account. Elon Musk got as far as a poll on whether he should stay in charge of the service. By a relatively slim margin, most of the votes were positive. Musk joked that he would leave when he “found some crazy person” to replace him, and that he would then move to the development team. When the vote ended not in Musk’s favor, the price of Dogecoin plummeted more than 10%.

Manipulation of price Dogecoin

Dogecoin holders may remember May 2021, when the price of DOGE hit an all-time high of $0.73 when Elon Musk mentioned cryptocurrency. Which he did during an interview on Saturday Night Live. By June 2022, as the crypto market faced the consequences of the Terra ecosystem collapse, DOGE was trading 90% below its ATH.

The announcement of any initiative by Elon Musk on Twitter, in one way or another, related to payments. Leads to the fact that Dogecoin begins to actively buy up on exchanges, thereby inflating the rate of this coin. In the comments to Musk’s tweets, there are periodic discussions about how this or that algorithmic trading software. It can track its publications and automatically places buy orders on cryptocurrency exchanges at any mention of DOGE.

By and large, DOGE is a speculative asset. The real popularity of the coin is due to Elon Musk. For this reason, criticism of DOGE from the head of Twitter is able to create significant pressure on the price by sellers. The integration of Dogecoin into Twitter or another Musk project. On the contrary, is capable of significantly inflating the price of the cryptocurrency.

In any case, if Elon Musk does leave his position as Twitter’s head, it will definitely push the price of Dogecoin down. The token rate has already tripled on expectations, and now they are rapidly collapsing. The market reaction will be subdued if Musk leaves office but stays with the company. That would give investors renewed hope for the addition of the coin to the social network.

Twitter Business

On Dec. 22, Twitter added a feature to track cryptocurrency and stock prices in search results using the TradingView infrastructure of the trading platform. Elon Musk openly praised the team’s work and added that this is one of many product improvements that will be added to Twitter Business.

Rumors about the integration of cryptocurrencies into the Twitter interface have been around for quite some time. In June, some of Ilon Musk’s correspondence leaked online. And in the published messages he says that he plans to build a full-fledged financial system in Twitter. In the presentation of the new functionality of the service published on November 27, Musk intentionally concealed the content of the “Payments” slide.

The publication led to an 8% growth of Dogecoin. However, Elon Musk’s favorite coin is not the only candidate for integration into the social network. Crypto speculators are monitoring any Twitter-related news and looking for crypto-assets. Which could also potentially participate in “financial” integrations of the service.

Not accidental leaks of confidential information for manipulation

Shortly before the presentation was published, some of the source code of Twitter’s app for iOS was leaked. Researchers found elements of Signal messenger encryption in that code. About which Musk has repeatedly advised his followers as an alternative to iMessage or WhatsApp. After news of the details of the leak, the price of Signal’s integrated cryptocurrency MobileCoin (MOB) soared by 300%.

It is also known that Binance invested $500 million in the purchase of Twitter by Musk. And its head Changpeng Zhao said that he was always ready to help integrate into the social network technologies segment of Web 3.0. Following Musk’s deal, Binance launched the Binance Bluebird Index, which included the exchange’s native token BNB, Dogecoin and Musk Network (MASK). A cryptocurrency with a relatively low market capitalization raised the hype. And created a wave about its likely integration into the social network. It also led to an almost 400% rise in its price.

The theory about the integration of the MASK token into Twitter was complemented by the fact that the project’s protocol is used to work with social networks. However, on December 21 the developers of Mask Network announced the purchase of Pawoo.net, the second most popular project on the Mastodon platform. The latter is positioning itself as an open-source competitor to Twitter. As of December 18, Twitter banned links to Mastodon and several other social networks. MASK reacted to the news of Pawoo’s purchase with a barely noticeable increase, incomparable to the price hikes during speculation about Twitter’s integration.

In any case, Musk’s attempts to popularize cryptocurrencies have a positive effect on their acceptance in society. Until new laws are passed, Musk will continue to take advantage of his opportunities and will drive up or down the price of cryptocurrencies.

Twitter users can enter an asset’s ticker in search bar. And then get data on its current exchange rate and a chart of price movements

Social network Twitter has integrated cryptocurrency and stock prices into search results using a plugin from charting platform TradingView. The new feature was announced on the site’s official account TwitterBusiness.

This new feature allows users to enter cryptocurrency or exchange tickers into the search bar (with a $ sign in front of the characters). This helps generate the current value of assets in US dollars and a chart of price movements. But our experts also noticed that this result also contains a link to Robinhood trading app.

The added feature was also noted by the head of the social network, Elon Musk. He praised the work of the team and added that this is one of many product improvements that will be added to the “financial” Twitter.

At the end of November, Elon Musk had already announced his intention to make changes to this platform. He confirmed plans to integrate cryptopayments into the social network. Also Elon Musk previously talked about possibility to make payment for subscription to premium service Twitter Blue available in Dogecoin.

Additionally, in the next few weeks we will improve user interface. As well as adding new characters. Our experts believe the transformation of Twitter has just started.

Visa is using a proposal from Ethereum developers. It will allow automatic pre-scheduled payments from non-custodial crypto wallets

Visa has developed a blockchain-based autopay solution. A document published by this company details a new concept based on Account Abstraction (AA) technology from Ethereum developers. It will allow the implementation of automatic pre-planned payments using smart contracts in non-custodial users’ wallets.

Account Abstraction technology was proposed back in 2016. Since the core Ethereum network does not yet support AA. Therefore, VISA implemented its solution in StarkNet, a second-tier blockchain built on top of Ethereum blockchain. The account model in StarkNet just uses AA technology.

Whereas normal accounts check if a transaction is correctly signed for a specific address. With StarkNet, they simply verify that the transaction is coming from a given address. In addition, the introduction of Visa’s concept into this blockchain has not only enabled the deployment of a new auto-payment feature. But also increased transaction throughput.

Visa notes that it sees autopay as a key functionality that the existing blockchain infrastructure lacks. And it invites interested companies working in this area to work together on projects in the field of programmable payments.

Our experts note that payment companies from traditional financial industry this year began to actively develop projects related to blockchain and cryptocurrency. Also at the end of September, SWIFT and Chainlink oracle network announced joint work on a blockchain project. This project will allow traditional financial companies to conduct transactions on a platform that supports almost all blockchains.

Crypto-Upvotes experts told about the threat of massive asset outflow from the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its opaque financial statements.

Binance is trying to reassure investors of its financial strength after the collapse of rival exchange FTX. The effects are still being felt in crypto markets. Billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency were withdrawn from the exchange in a matter of days.

Outflows from Binance could range from $6 billion to $8 billion, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Tron.
At the same time, analyst firm Nansen reported that users of the trading floor withdrew $3.6 billion in Ethereum. And ERC-20 standard tokens in seven days, while $2 billion was withdrawn in just one day.

After the collapse of FTX and subsequent series of bankruptcies of leading crypto players, major crypto exchanges are trying to convince their customers. That they have enough assets in their wallets and user funds are safe and remain available for withdrawal. Earlier this month, accounting firm Mazars produced “proof of reserves” reports for Binance and other exchanges, including Crypto.com and KuCoin.

At the end of an already difficult week for Binance. Mazars said the firm had suspended activities related to audits of companies in the cryptocurrency industry. This is due to concerns about how such reports are perceived by the public. According to Financial Times sources, media hype was one of the factors that influenced the decision of Mazars.

Published reports on crypto exchanges’ reserves are severely limited in data compared to the results of traditional corporate account auditing procedures. Mazars uses what are known as “consistent procedures” to report on reserve validation. But it does not use asset analysis in the usual sense. No assurances or conclusions are given on the figures in the report in this kind of verification.

Reasons for auditing companies to refuse to work with cryptocurrency exchanges

Mazars’ decision to stop working with Binance. And also for others exchanges was not prompted by specific financial problems at any of the exchanges. The firm’s work was severely limited, and the auditors did not delve too deeply into examining the financial situation of the cryptocurrency platforms.

From a risk perspective, what’s happening with Binance could cause secondary problems. A significant outflow of capital from any business can create local liquidity problems. Even if an exchange is able to cover 100% of deposits, it does not mean that it has sufficient funds or liquid investments.

“The ironic thing about what is happening is that the main trigger in a series of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency market was the rumors that the head of Binance. Also spread in the public space and his verbal manipulation. And now the main problem for his exchange is the emergence of the same type of rumors around Binance.” – said our expert.

“Black Box” new name for Binance

December 19, Reuters released a story that calls Binance a “black box,” referring to the corporate documents and declarations of the exchange, copies of which journalists were able to access. Among the claims against Binance are the concealment of financial data and the share of its native token (BNB) in the balance sheet. The article also mentions security risks in margin trading. And another portion of doubts about the real volume of user funds reserves.

It has become customary for Binance and its head Changpeng Zhao to publicly refute loud statements by journalists as in official publications of this exchange. And in personal social networks in front of millions of followers. Zhao has repeatedly assured that the Mazars report is “further confirmation” that the exchange’s assets equal or exceed its liabilities to customers.

In the case of Binance, we can talk about an excellent marketing strategy. Which provided a stable inflow of new clients for several years ahead. Therefore, potential liquidity problems may be smoothed out or may not even have started.

Assets on wallets with public addresses of Binance amount to more than $60 billion. This information can be checked through any blockchain browser or on special pages of services that track reserves of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the company does not disclose information about its liabilities. This makes it difficult to determine its actual financial position.

How stable is crypto exchange Binance?

If the outflow of client funds continues, Binance may have a serious need to plug the holes and credit. And who will give it after the collapse of FTX? That’s the biggest question.

If Binance collapses, it will postpone the recovery of the crypto market for many years. And any positive developments in the next two years could lose any positive impact on the Bitcoin exchange rate.

Theoretically, if we consider the collapse of Binance in FTX scenario. It would cause infrastructural problems for the entire cryptocurrency market. On the one hand, the market would survive and exist regardless of the ability of specific projects to sustain their work. On the other hand, the “huge in its scale project decline” associates the crypto market with Binance.

However, in reality, such an apocalyptic scenario has a rather small chance of realization, our expert believes. Therefore, one should not seriously talk about an urgent withdrawal of funds from Binance.

Rather, the more people do not give in to the trend of cryptocurrency withdrawal, the higher will be the safety of each of participants. For each individual isolated investor, it is more profitable to withdraw money outside of exchange. But at the same time, if the majority will continue to keep cryptocurrency inside the project, it will keep Binance stable and will be beneficial to all, says our expert.