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Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet goes live, and Solana goes dark temporarily as more countries pursue crypto initiatives.

It’s the start of a new month in the crypto space, and it is abuzz with new exciting initiatives. In this edition of the crypto scoop, we review the following:

Ethereum’s Sepolia Testnet
Solana’s network outage
Nigeria’s CBDC initiative
Australia, France and UAE’s Crypto adoption and regulation
AS Roma Football club’s crypto payment option
Binance’s address of FUD and more.

Ethereum’s Sepolia Testnet Goes Live, and Bitcoin’s Hasharate Soars To Record High

The Sepolia testnet of the Ethereum blockchain has successfully undergone an upgrade that replicates the upcoming Shanghai hard fork anticipated in March. On February 28, the testnet successfully implemented the "Shapella" upgrade, which combines the names of the forthcoming Shanghai and Capella hard forks.

The Shanghai upgrade will allow withdrawals for some $29 billion of staked ether previously locked. Crypto analysts noted that the fear that releasing the locked Ethereum would send the prices tumbling is misplaced.

Co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, explained that he had faced many inconveniences using Ethereum. He explained that the speed and the high transaction fees were pain points Ethereum developers are working to fix.

Earlier this week, the Bitcoin network's processing power reached a record high. According to data from Blockchain.com, between February 20 and February 26, the total hash rate increased by 10% since the beginning of the month, peaking at 320 EH/s.

Solana Receives Backlash From Community Following Network Outage

Following a network upgrade, Solana went offline for nearly 20 hours, which caused a lot of community backlash. Performance issues with the blockchain were fixed after validators restarted the network. The "root cause is still unknown and under active investigation," according to Solana developers.

However, according to Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, the platform intends to enhance network upgrades. Yakovenko stated in a recent blog post that the goal for the core engineers will now be to collaborate with validators to improve the procedure for software release rollouts by enlisting additional external developers and auditors to test and find exploits and continuing to support external core engineers.

Nigeria Announces Plans To Improve Its CBDC

Nigeria is the first African nation to release a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which is the e-naira. However, since its launch over a year ago, adoption of the currency has been on the low.

The Central Bank of Nigeria is allegedly seeking a new technology partner. The new partner is expected to work with the central bank to implement a system that will give it more control over the digital currency. This is expected To encourage more Nigerians to use the e-naira and improve their user experience.

Australia, France and UAE Crypto Initiatives and Regulations

Australia’s central bank expressed intentions to launch a central bank digital currency. The first phase of the release will feature selecting several members of the financial industry to illustrate potential CBDC use cases.

The French National Assembly has voted to enact stricter licencing requirements for new cryptocurrency businesses to harmonise local laws with proposed European Union (EU) standards.

One of the seven Emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ras Al Khaimah, is getting ready to establish a free zone for businesses dealing in digital and virtual assets as the nation's approach to the sector continues to draw in significant crypto players from around the world.

The free zone will be devoted to digital and virtual asset service providers in cutting-edge technologies, including the metaverse, blockchain, utility tokens, virtual asset wallets, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), decentralised applications (DApps), and other Web3-related businesses.

Top Football Club AS Roma Accepts Crypto Payment

The premier football team in Italy, AS Roma, now accepts payments in DigitalBits (XDB). Customers will be able to buy branded AS Roma merchandise using DigitalBits.

In order to promote the use of crypto and Web3, the DigitalBits community has taken a significant step forward, according to Daniele Mensi, Managing Director at the DigitalBits Foundation. It is the ideal next step in this product-focused partnership to offer a user-friendly onboarding experience to the upcoming generation of web3 users as one of the top football clubs in the world with millions of fans worldwide.

Binance Address Allegations On Mismanagement of Customer’s Funds

The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, has refuted a Forbes article titled "Binance's Asset Shuffling Eerily Similar To Maneuvers By FTX," alleging that the company transferred $1.8 billion related to its users' funds.

According to Forbes, Binance moved "quietly" $1.8 billion deposited "as collateral intended to support its customers' stablecoins" between August 17 and early December 2022, leaving many of its users with unbacked funds.

Following this event, three senators from the United States, led by Elizabeth Warren, wrote Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the CEO of Binance and Binance. US CEO Brian Shroder expressed concern over some aspects of Binance's operations and asked the companies for information, including access to their balance sheets.

In response to Forbes' allegations of improper handling of user funds, Binance said there had been no wrongdoing. The company's spokesperson confirmed that the in question transactions were a part of their internal billing procedures and had no bearing on how user assets were collateralised.

Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Binance, responded on Twitter. The CEO called the article "FUD" and responded: “They seem to not understand the basics of how an exchange works. Our users are free to withdraw their assets any time they want.”

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Crypto scoop: Ethereum’s Sepolia Testnet Goes Live