This new product from the MicroBT WhatsMiner line of machines can deliver hashing speeds of up to 320 TH/s. At the same time, it outperforms similar devices from competitor Bitmain
Chinese mining equipment manufacturer MicroBT unveiled three new mining devices at the Bitcoin2023 conference in Miami. And one of which was the most powerful one currently available on the market.
WhatsMiner M53S ++, has a computing power of up to 320 TH/s with an efficiency of 22 J/TH. This device is more powerful, but more power-consuming. Compared to competitor Bitmain’s counterpart, the Antminer S19 XP Hydro, which produces speeds up to 257 TH/s and has an efficiency of 20.8 J/TH. MicroBT founder and CEO Zuoxing Yan said this.
Our experts point out that the efficiency of WhatsMiner equipment is measured in joules per terahesh (J/TH) – the amount of energy expended to generate one terahesh of hashrate. If the efficiency of the WhatsMiner M53S++ is about 22 J/TH. That means that this device uses about 22 J of energy to generate one hashrate terrahesh.
It takes 7,040 J to generate 320 terrahes per second. In an hour, 25.34 million J 1 kWh = 3.6 million J 25.34 million / 3.6 million = 7.038 So the device will consume about 7 kW per hour
The other two models presented were the M50S ++, air-cooled and with a computing power of 150 TH/s, and the M56S ++. And also with immersion cooling, this unit can deliver 230 TH/s. The efficiency of both machines is 22 J/TH.
MicroBT believes that the energy crisis and global warming will lead to the modernization of power supplies for mining. And they call “green energy” the best solution. In this regard, MicroBT is working to make WhatsMiner devices better suited to the use of solar energy. That is, from an energy source that corresponds to the decentralization of the Bitcoin network.
Worldcoin has not yet been launched, but scammers have already figured out how to cheat the identification system
The Worldcoin token was supposed to launch within the next few weeks. But fraudsters have already figured out how to cheat the system, The Block reports. The project from ChatGPT creator Sam Altman is being forced to change security measures.
According to the developers’ plans, the Worldcoin token will be issued to users. Who have been identified by iris scanning. The technology scans the eye and creates a digital World ID for the user based on that. Which can be used “in a wide range of everyday applications without revealing identity,” the company said. More than 1.7 million people have already signed up for the project.
On May 18, the Chinese publication BlockBeats, reported that the residents of China, where people can not register. to get Worldcoin tokens, buy iris scans made in Cambodia and Africa for as little as $30. A Worldcoin spokesman acknowledged the incidents. But stressed that the problem was limited to “a few hundred cases.”
“Through continuous threat monitoring and awareness, the Worldcoin team uncovered suspicious activity where people were encouraged to create a World ID, which was then sent to a third party,” they said.
Worldcoin has taken a number of steps to try to address the problem. And including “adjusting the initial in-person registration process” and implementing dynamic and static QR codes.
The illegal sale of IDs will also be able to prevent them from being returned to the user via a repeat eye scan, the developers believe. However, earlier Worldcoin claimed. About not storing iris scans to exclude the risks of losing confidential data.
The company admitted that despite all these precautions. They don’t fully protect the system from fraudsters’ attempts to circumvent the “one person, one proof” principle.
Our experts note that solving these problems will require innovative ideas in the development of mechanisms and attribution of social relationships.
Our experts tell us how BRC-20 tokens emerged on top of Bitcoin. And why trading in new memcoins led to a record increase in commissions
A new kind of token has appeared in the Bitcoin blockchain, around which there has been a serious speculative frenzy. Most of these tokens are so-called memcoins. Which are named after famous memes and carry no utility or functionality. In spite of this, they have cumulatively risen by tens of thousands of percent in a few weeks. And provoked a record increase in commissions for transfers within the BTC network.
A new mania around memcoins began with the PEPE coin. Anonymous developers launched it in April, and speculators inflated its capitalization to a billion dollars in just three weeks of its existence.
The interest in memcoins created in the Bitcoin blockchain comes from more familiar token-creating networks such as Ethereum or Solana. The excitement swelled to the point that the volume of trading in Bitcoin Frogs collection tokens (the equivalent of Bitcoin token format NFTs) from May 17 to 18 exceeded that of the NFT market’s main “blue chip” – the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection.
New BRC-20 standard
Tokens of the standard named BRC-20 (similar to ERC-20 in Ethereum). They are digital assets that can be created and transferred on the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinals protocol. This standard allows data to be written into satoshi and turned into tokens.
The Ordinals protocol has enabled the growth of memcoins placed on the Bitcoin blockchain. But they have no utility whatsoever. Instead, traders are buying them solely for speculative purposes. Tens of thousands of BRC-20 tokens have been issued since the protocol went live in March. And their combined market capitalization has exceeded $1 billion. The ORDI memcoin, which refers to the name of the Ordinal protocol. But probably not related to its developers, is the largest at the time of publication with a capitalization of about $300 million.
Amid high demand, cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced the launch of its own marketplace for trading BRC-20 tokens. And Binance previously announced plans to add support for them on its NFT platform.
The entire current capitalization of new tokens in the Bitcoin network is essentially taken up by memcoins alone. And the Ordinals protocol itself has severely limited functionality compared to Ethereum’s ERC-20 capabilities.
But BRC-20 could be a long-shot story. If the teams that focus on building infrastructure solutions on Bitcoin (wallets, bridges, credit protocols, etc.) now have money flowing in from major venture capital funds. Also, don’t forget that it adds to the attractiveness of Bitcoin itself, says our expert.
High commissions in BTC network
High commissions
The result of the growing demand for memcoins was a surge in Bitcoin transaction fees. And a queue of unconfirmed transactions formed. Transactions related to BRC-20 filled the network. And led to a high load on it, causing the commissions paid to miners to reach the highest level since April 2021. Since the beginning of May, the average fees have risen about 1,500%, to $31 per simple coin transfer.
When Bitcoin’s transaction blocks are full, the transactions with the highest fees are confirmed first. The pending transactions are in a so-called mempool, waiting for confirmation. If under an adequate load on the network, transfers are confirmed in no more than 10 minutes on average. In this abnormal scenario it is possible to wait up to several hours for transfer confirmation. If not to send it with overestimated commission.
Bitcoin’s pool of unconfirmed transactions has skyrocketed from about 10,000 transactions to more than 350,000 transactions. And that triggered an increase in fees globally. But it turned out to be a lucky scenario for miners, whose income increased visibly.
In total, there were more than 4 million BRC-20 transactions in May. And that represents 60% of all Bitcoin transactions. For the first time in many years, a block of BTC transactions exceeded the fixed fee of the miner (6.25 BTC) who mined that block. This was due to the high demand for space in the blockchain, which was triggered by transactions involving the transfer or issuance of BRC-20 tokens.
Such a situation is abnormal according to our experts. Some Bitcoin developers have expressed dissatisfaction with high commissions. And declared about the fight against such tokens. Miners, on the contrary, benefit from the development of this standard. Which brings them more income from commissions. But on the other hand, blockchain congestion will reduce the popularity of Bitcoin. We need to look for a solution that will satisfy investors and miners, says our expert.
Effects and solutions to problems with high commissions
BRC-20 tokens reflect the process of possible future experimentation in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Even if memcoins end up being a passing fad of the cryptocurrency community. They are already having a tangible effect. It may turn out that memcoins will spur developers to further experiment at the base level of Bitcoin. And that will lead to new scenarios for its use. And new sources of demand for space within transaction blocks. This, in turn, could lead to more sustainable commission growth.
The commission market is critical to the existence and security of the Bitcoin network. Because in the future they will have to compensate miners for the diminishing reward per block during subsequent halving cycles.
Rising transaction fees could also force leading cryptoservices to use “second-tier” technology to cut costs. When a sharp rise in fees forced the Binance exchange to temporarily suspend Bitcoin withdrawals. And its head Changpeng Zhao wrote on social media that he was considering adding Lightning Network support to the exchange. This is a fairly well-known, but not yet widespread second-tier payment protocol. Which is built on top of Bitcoin and designed for much faster and cheaper transfers.
Estimates of the implications of the popularity of BRC-20 tokens vary depending on who is making them. Miners, for example, are happy, of course, as their profitability has increased because of the load on the network. But ordinary users are definitely not used to paying a commission and still getting in a huge queue. That is why major market players are thinking about integrating Lighting Network, but it also takes time.
BRC-20 standard cannot compete with ERC-20
Importantly, BRC-20 tokens prevent Bitcoin from competing with Ethereum as a platform for smart contracts, especially at the basic level. A dynamic ecosystem of decentralized applications is deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. This includes credit protocols, NFT, games, social networks and other Web3 applications. Developers can create them using the Solidity programming language. Which allows a wide range of functions and program logic to be implemented. Bitcoin’s base code doesn’t come close to having those capabilities.
Some traders have managed to make high profits by trading memcoins. However, average market participants should be cautious. Historically, memcoins exhibit high volatility and low liquidity. And their prices often only show a decline after a collapse from their peak values during hype.
Perhaps in the future Bitcoin blockchain infrastructure projects will open up investment opportunities. But high fees will certainly remain a stumbling block, especially when the crypto market is bullish.
Ledger, a company that makes hardware cryptocurrencies, said it had always been able to install firmware on the devices that would allow customer passwords to be extracted. This message was later removed
Protecting its new product, hardware cryptocurrency wallet maker Ledger caused a scandal in the cryptocurrency community. With its statement that it has technically always been able to get users’ keys giving access to their crypto-assets.
“Don’t worry about us holding a gun to your head the whole time. And see? It’s not like you’re dead, so there’s no problem with us continuing to hold a gun to your head,” Ledger commented on Ledger’s social media statements.
The company soon deleted its message. But it had already made its way around the web. Ledger later wrote that her words were misunderstood. And there are layers of protection and control in the firmware of its devices to ensure that no hacker (even internal) can introduce malicious firmware.
In response to this, one user noted that when he bought a Ledger device, he was not buying “layers of control”. He was simply buying a cold wallet in which the seed phrase could not leave under any circumstances. Never before has a real-time company ruined its reputation like this, another commenter stated.
Protection from critics
Ledger tried to protect its new lost key recovery tool Ledger Recovery, announced on May 16, from criticism from the cryptocurrency community with its firmware statements. The tool allows you to create a backup copy of a seed phrase. And that will help restore access to the Nano X cryptocurrency wallet in the event that a secret phrase is lost.
The new service breaks the seed phrase into three fragments. Which in encrypted form store three different sides. As Wired reported in February. Those firms would be crypto company Coincover, Ledger itself. And backup service provider EscrowTech.
If a key is lost, the owner of the wallet will have access to its backup by authenticating themselves. The Ledger Recover service will be paid for and voluntary.
The Ledger tool has been very badly received by the cryptocurrency community. The main complaint of users is that the company positioned its cold wallet as a way to autonomously store cryptocurrencies. That is, access keys could only reside on it and not be allowed to leave it.
By adding the ability to upload keys, albeit in encrypted form, Ledger set a precedent. Which completely contradicts its initial claims. According to critics, the new tool reduces the security of the device, making it vulnerable to scammers.
“This is a terrible idea, do not enable this feature,” wrote Polygon Labs Director of Information Security Mudit Gupta.
Also Ledger says this backup option will be popular. That’s because the possibility that assets could become inaccessible simply because a key is lost is a deterrent to investing in cryptocurrencies.
“That’s what future customers want. It’s a way for the next hundreds of millions of people to really move to cryptocurrencies,” Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier was quoted by CoinDesk.
Our experts point out that at the end of March it became known that Ledger attracted funding of up to $100 million. Gauthier said that the company will use the funds received to develop its business, expand its network of distributors. As well as increasing production and improving products.
Regulation of both ordinary financial services of trading and investing in cryptocurrencies will create a false sense of security among depositors, officials say
The U.K. House of Commons Treasury Committee argues that investing in “unsecured” cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum should be equated with gambling. Regulating the industry without such an approach could create an illusion of safety for investors in crypto-assets. That’s according to a committee report released May 17.
The House of Commons Treasury Committee is charged with examining Treasury spending, administration and policy. With all of its agencies and related bodies, including the Internal Revenue Service, Customs, the Bank of England.And the Financial Conduct Authority, the Royal Mint, and other government agencies. And the Financial Conduct Authority, the Royal Mint, and other government agencies.
Late last October, members of the U.K.’s lower house of parliament voted to recognize cryptocurrencies as regulated financial instruments. In their opinion, cryptocurrencies should be considered another type of financial assets, rather than a separate category.
The committee criticized this position in its report, saying that the government should take a different approach to regulating cryptocurrencies. To better protect consumers from losses due to the increased volatility of “unsecured assets,” such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Characteristics of cryptocurrency are more reminiscent of gambling than financial services.
Which is also supported by data on their consumer behavior, the report’s authors say. They argue that regulating trading and investing in crypto-assets as regular financial services would lead depositors to believe that the investments are safe, when in fact they are not.
In addition, the committee recommends that the government take a balanced approach to investing in cryptotechnology. And avoid spending public funds to support cryptocurrencies without a clear and profitable application scenario. It is not the government’s job to promote specific innovations for their own sake, the report warns.
Our experts point out that last year, the kingdom’s government set itself the goal of increasing London’s global competitiveness in the financial sector. And that includes the cryptocurrency industry. The U.K. is in the process of developing regulations for crypto-assets. According to the Ministry of Finance, they are aimed at realizing the government’s “ambitions. Which intends to make the country a leader in the cryptocurrency industry.
Tether announced a change in investment strategy and the decision to increase the share of the first cryptocurrency in providing reserves
Tether has decided to regularly buy millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins. The company announced that it would spend up to 15% of its realized operating income on buying Bitcoins. The company may have already spent $222 million to buy its first cryptocurrency. This was calculated by CNBC, based on Tether’s first-quarter statements.
The issuer of Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by capitalization, announced a new investment strategy. Starting in May 2023, the company will begin regularly allocating a portion of its net realized operating income to buying Bitcoins.
According to Tether’s first-quarter report, Tether had about $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in its reserves at the end of March. And that was about 2% of their total holdings. About 85% of the collateral was held in cash and cash equivalents. And it was also placed in short-term deposits – mostly in U.S. Treasury bills.
Although many institutional investors deposit their Bitcoins with third parties. Then Tether takes a “not your keys, not your Bitcoin” stance. And it keeps the assets on its own, the company said in a press release.
“Bitcoin has consistently proven to be sustainable and has evolved into a long-term savings vehicle with significant growth potential. Its limited supply, decentralized nature and widespread adoption have made Bitcoin the preferred choice among both institutional and retail investors,” said Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino.
Investing in Bitcoin, he said, is one way to boost Tether’s portfolio performance. And the company expects the BTC exchange rate to rise.
Tether will also invest in building infrastructure for Bitcoin mining and exploring other “innovative opportunities in the ever-evolving landscape of digital assets.”
Our experts note that in the fourth quarter of 2022, Tether posted a profit of $700 million. The USDT issuer closed the first quarter of this year with a profit of $1.48 billion. The company noted that this is a “huge success.” And they said they already have an “extremely positive outlook” for the second quarter of this year as well.
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.
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.
