Crypto Scoop: Bitcoin Hits A New Milestone With 1 Million Addresses Holding At Least 1 BTC

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May, 19 2023

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Crypto Scoop

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Price gains, milestones and more in this edition of the crypto scoop.

Bitcoin and Tether attain new milestones as we see crypto growth and initiatives across Africa. In this edition of the crypto scoop, we review the following: 

  • Bitcoin’s 1 million address milestone
  • Ethereum’s beacon chain glitch
  • Tether’s growth and bitcoin initiative
  • Crypto initiatives and growth in Nigeria and Zimbabwe
Bitcoin wallets for beginners

Bitcoin Hits A New Milestone With 1 Million Addresses Holding At Least 1 BTC

This week, bitcoin's price dipped below $27,000 while Ethereum traded at $1,800. However, while Bitcoin might not have breached $30,000, bitcoin celebrated a significant milestone this week. The number of addresses holding at least 1BTC hit an all-time high of above one million. According to Glassnode, on May 13, bitcoin attained this milestone, 15 months after bitcoin hit 800,000 wallets holding at least 1BTC in February 2022. 

In an interview with CNBC, American billionaire and legendary hedge fund manager Paul Tudor III noted that he always keeps a “small” exposure to bitcoin. He explained, “From the beginning, I’ve always said I want to have a small allocation to it because it’s a great tail event. It’s the only thing that humans can’t adjust the supply in. So I’m sticking with it; I’m going to always stick with it. It’s just a small diversification in my portfolio.”

Bitcoin wasn’t the only coin the crypto community celebrated this week. A recent turn in the Ripple XRP case with SEC had Ripple’s price trading in Green. Judge Analisa Torres ruled against the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s attempt to seal certain records of internal documents. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse described the judgement as another win for transparency. Following the news, within 24 hours, Ripple XRP grew by 7%. 

Dogecoin’s daily transactions reached a lifetime high of over 645,000 transactions after DRC-20 tokens were introduced, according to BitInfoCharts. DRC-20 is an addition that allows for introduction of new tokens on the Dogecoin blockchain. 

Ethereum Blockchain Experiences A Glitch Slowing Transactions

On May 11, developers reported that for a little under 30 minutes, the Ethereum blockchain was unable to complete transactions. It lasted for about 25 minutes, and Ethereum contributor terence.eth reported that the problem had been resolved. He wrote: "Mainnet has been finalised, and we are investigating the incident now. More to come!"

Although Ethereum's beacon chain stopped finalising, Ethereum contributor Superphiz asserted that the blockchain is "designed to be resilient" against such problems. Throughout the incident, the chain continued to process transactions partially.

Although the root cause is still unknown, Superphiz speculated that an absence of diverse clients may have contributed to the problem. He noted that if no client had more than a third of the network's dominance, the loss of finality might have been prevented. He continued by saying that the blockchain avoided forking because no client had a supermajority.

Glassnode defines "Finality" as the situation where a supermajority of validators, or two-thirds of the total stake, have attested to the blockchain's final state, ensuring that a block and its processed transactions cannot be modified or eliminated.

Tether‘s Records Growth And Announces Bitcoin Initiative

Tether, the parent company of USDT, is closer than ever to achieving its highest-ever market capitalisation with just $433 million away from its ATH. Tether currently holds a market value of $82.84 billion. In addition, Tether reported a net profit of approximately $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up from $960 million at the end of Q4 2022. 

Tether announced that from May, the company would regularly allocate as much as 15% of its net realised operating profits to investing in Bitcoin. CTO of Tether, Paolo Ardonino, explained, “The decision to invest in Bitcoin, the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency, is underpinned by its strength and potential as an investment asset. Bitcoin has continually proven its resilience and has emerged as a long-term store of value with substantial growth potential.” 

He continued, “Its limited supply, decentralised nature, and widespread adoption have positioned it as a favoured choice among institutional and retail investors alike. Our investment in Bitcoin is not only a way to enhance the performance of our portfolio, but it is also a method of aligning ourselves with a transformative technology that has the potential to reshape the way we conduct business and live our lives.”

Zimbabwe Gold Backed Digital Token Issue Result

Zimbabwe Gold Backed Digital Token Issue Result (Source: Cointelegraph.com)

Nigeria Ranks 5th Among Countries Leading Memecoin Adoption

According to the crypto tracking platform Coingecko, Nigeria ranked fifth in a list of ten countries with the most interest in meme coins accounting for 4.92% of the total interest in meme coins. The second African country was Morocco, which ranked tenth on the list and accounted for 1.2% of the total interest in meme coins.

On May 12, the Zimbabwean central bank revealed that it had received 135 requests for a total of 14.07 billion Zimbabwean dollars to purchase the cryptocurrency backed by gold. According to XE.com, the official exchange rate for the Zimbabwean dollar is 362 ZWD to USD, but on the street, this rate is substantially higher, making the stash nominally worth $38.9 million. The 139.57 kilograms of gold backing the cryptocurrency tokens were first launched in April and were available for purchase from May 8 to May 12.