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The price of bitcoin exceeded $40,000, hackers took advantage of the exploit of the Wormhole cross-chain bridge and withdrew more than $319 million, the State Duma announced the minimum amount of taxes for miners in the Russian Federation and other events of the outgoing week.
Bitcoin price rises above $40,000
On Friday, February 4, the quotes of the first cryptocurrency for the first time since mid-January 2022 crossed the $40,000 mark.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading near $41,380.
Hourly BTC/USDT chart on Binance exchange. Data: Trading View.
Fundstrat noted that in the next few months, bitcoin quotes with a “good probability” may reach a local bottom, but investors should proceed with caution.
The flagship pulled the rest of the market along with it. According to CoinGecko, all of the top 10 digital assets by capitalization ended the week in the green.
Data: CoinGecko.
According to the CoinCodex service, the native token of the Telos blockchain network has risen in price the most among digital assets over the week. The price of TLOS increased by 74%.
The Spell Token (SPELL) management token of the Abracadabra landing protocol fell in price more than others. Its price has fallen by 15%.
Data: CoinCodex.
Hackers withdrew more than $319 million from the Wormhole cross-chain bridge pool
On the night of February 3, the Wormhole cross-chain protocol based on Solana was hacked. The attackers took advantage of the exploit and withdrew 120,000 WETH from the project pool (over $319 million at the exchange rate at that time).
The developers reported that they closed the vulnerability and sent “additional ETH” to the pool to provide liquidity support. It was later revealed that the funding was provided by the trading company Jump Trading. In 2021, the latter acquired infrastructure firm Certus One, which is behind the development of the protocol.
In the Russian Federation will prepare scenarios for the development of cryptocurrencies by February 11
Developed by February 11, draft scenarios for the regulation of cryptocurrency markets will include an assessment of their expected consequences. The government is allegedly leaning towards the position of the Ministry of Finance, and not the Bank of Russia.
Rosfinmonitoring expressed its readiness to bring regulation in line with FATF standards, and the head of Sberbank German Gref supported the ban on payments in cryptocurrencies in the country. He added that it is not necessary to ban stablecoins and derivatives for such assets, as well as impose restrictions on the ownership of cryptocurrencies.
According to media reports, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko instructed to include issues related to the legal status of mining in the roadmap for regulating the crypto industry, as well as organize a working group with industry representatives.
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation proposed to equate mining with entrepreneurship. Its head, Sergey Katyrin, is convinced that this will allow exclusion of mining from the “gray zone”, ensure the payment of taxes to the budget and “relieve tensions regarding the illegal use of electricity.”
Katyrin called it expedient to study the experience of countries in which “cryptocurrency is a digital representation of value and is not a means of payment, and the exchange of cryptocurrencies for goods is treated as a barter transaction.”
The State Duma called the minimum amount of taxes for miners
The tax on personal income when miners withdraw cryptocurrencies into the traditional finance system cannot be less than 15%, said Vladimir Gutenev, head of the State Duma Committee on Industry.
At the same time, according to him, the minimum income tax rate for companies or individual entrepreneurs that are engaged in cryptocurrency mining as a type of business should be at least 6%.
What else happened in Russia:
- In 2021, the energy consumption of the population of the Irkutsk region quadrupled due to miners.
- Major bitcoin exchanges have expressed their readiness to open branches in the Russian Federation. Among them are Binance, Huobi and AAX.
- The issuer of Norilsk Nickel tokens, the Russian tokenization platform Atomyze, received the first Russian Central Bank license to issue digital financial assets.
In Belarus, it was proposed to allow funds to purchase digital assets, and in Kazakhstan, the power outage was extended to miners
The Ministry of Finance of Belarus has prepared a number of legislative changes that, in particular, will allow investment funds to invest in digital assets. Professional participants in the securities market will also have the right to become residents of the High Technology Park.
The Kazakh Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) sent a letter to local miners announcing the extension of the electricity supply cut until February 7.
94,643 BTC stolen from Bitfinex set in motion
On February 1, coins stolen in 2016 from the Bitfinex exchange began to move. Analytical services recorded more than 20 transactions for a total of 94,643 BTC. At the current exchange rate, the value of these assets exceeds $3.6 billion.
MicroStrategy bought an additional 660 BTC for $25 million
Business analytics software provider MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 660 BTC, worth about $25 million, for an average purchase price of ~$37,865, CEO Michael Saylor said.
In total, the company holds 125,051 BTC worth ~$4.8 billion at the current rate. The company spent about $3.78 billion on their purchase (the average price is $30,200).
Saylor himself called MicroStrategy shares the best alternative to Bitcoin ETFs, since there are no commissions for the purchase and ownership of securities, and as an operating company, the latter can generate additional earnings per share.
Binance Smart Chain Developers Reveal Network Development Plans for 2022
The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain platform team has named network scalability a priority for 2022. Developers will not only improve the main blockchain, but also expand the ecosystem of cross-chain and multi-chain solutions.
For this, among other things, the introduction of infrastructure levels BSC Application Side Chain (BAS) and BSC Partition Chain (BPC) is envisaged. BAS will allow developers and node operators to run sidechains, and BPC will provide another subspace with a new set of validators, computation engine, and registry.
Silvergate Capital has bought the Diem stablecoin project from Meta
The Diem Association announced the sale of intellectual property and other assets related to the management of Diem’s Meta-backed payment network to Silvergate Capital Corporation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Earlier, the media reported that the parties agreed on an amount of $ 200 million.
Meta released its fourth quarter earnings this week, after which the stock plunged 24%.
Also on ForkLog:
- US Senator Ted Cruz has revealed investments in bitcoin.
- Another solo miner has mined a block of bitcoin.
- Reddit co-founder raises $500 million in two crypto funds.
- Changpeng Zhao warned Binance customers about a massive phishing campaign.
What else to read
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We analyzed the main on-chain indicators and DeFi dynamics in a monthly analytical report.
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In traditional digests, we have collected the main events of the week in the fields of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
We suggest recalling the most significant recent news from the venture investment sector with our Institutional Bulletin.
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