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After posting small gains last weekend, the price growth of crypto market leaders Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) slowed to effectively nothing this week.

Bitcoin remains at the level it was this time last weekend, hovering around $28.820, a decrease of about 5% from its April high of $30,979 set nearly three weeks ago but still about 77% up from the start of January when the price was $16,615.

Ethereum added 4.2% to its value over the seven days and currently changes hands at $1,885, a decline of about 7% from its 2023 high of $2,129 set in mid-April and 66% up from January 1, when the price was $1,197.

TRON experienced the most growth this week and was the only top thirty cryptocurrency to grow by 8% over the week to trade at $0.070261 at the start of the weekend.

All other leading cryptocurrencies remain virtually unmoved over the last seven days.

The markets lack of growth this week is at least partly attributable to the Feds decision to hike interest rates by another 25 basis points to fight inflation, the tenth consecutive hike since March last year.

In macroeconomic terms, interest rate hikes tend to drive investors away from risk-on assets like stocks and crypto as the cost of borrowing rises, making money more expensive and thus discouraging more speculative investments.

On Tuesday the White House released a report reinforcing the idea of a Digital Asset Mining Energy tax (DAME). It would apply to miners of both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, despite their different levels of energy consumption, andbeginning in 2024 assessing a tax thats based on their electricity costs, starting at 10% and increasing each year until it reaches 30%.

The proposal has already received heavy pushback from the crypto industry, especially because it doesnt take into account the energy sources of the mining companies. Critics argue that the U.S. government is making a value judgment on crypto mining as a bad (or consumptive) activity regardless of whether a miner uses renewably-sourced energy or not.

A 2024 Presidential hopeful for the Democrat party, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Tuesday tweeted that he believes there is a top-down war on crypto that had something to do with the recent collapses of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate and Signature.

Barely a month ago, Kennedy posted a long rant on Crypto Twitter railing against the idea of a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency being released by the Federal Reserve. However, Kennedys thread was based on a misreading of an article about The Feds new digital payments system FedNow, which has nothing to do with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Meanwhile, in the red corner, Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantiswho is widely expected to run as a Presidential candidate next yearonce more pushed back against CBDCs at a press conference on Tuesday titled "Government of Laws, Not Woke Politics."

DeSantis aired a package of bills opposing "'Environment, Social, and Governance" or ESG policies. ESG policies evaluate factors beyond fiscal performance in evaluating a company or organization, such as environmental and community impact. One example is the White Houses DAME tax mentioned above.

DeSantis criticized the ESG approach as virtue signaling and tied the concept of a CBDC to ESGs "woke" practices by saying that CBDC advocates "will impose ESG and social credit scores onto that, and that's going to be a huge reduction in freedom for people in this country." His words echoed his earlier remarks that a U.S. CBDC would be Big Brothers Digital Dollar."

Finally, in adoption news, famed auction house Sothebys on Monday launched an on-chain NFT marketplace for secondary NFT sales, enabling collectors to list and make offers on work from artists.

Argentine crypto fans fear they could be witnessing the start of a crypto crackdown, meanwhile. On Friday the countrys central bank banned payment platforms from offering crypto trading services to their customers.

Original post:

This Week in Coins: Bitcoin and Ethereum Stand Still After Fed Rate Hike - Decrypt

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance temporarily paused Bitcoin withdrawals on its platform on Sunday, preventing the largest token by market cap from leaving the leading venue by trading volume.

Binance said its decision was based on congestion issues impacting Bitcoins network, adding that the exchange was currently working on a fix to reopen withdrawals as soon as possible.

During the outage, speculation about the cause was rampant on Crypto Twitter. One large Twitter Spaces conversation ran the gamut from Ordinal-focused technical theories to international political conspiracies.

Binance reported an hour later that Bitcoin withdrawals had resumed.

Bitcoin was slightly in the green as of this writing, up less than 1% to around $29,000, according to CoinGecko. Meanwhile, crypto exchange OKX said Bitcoin deposit and withdrawal services were working fine, despite high transaction costs.

Before theyre added to Bitcoins blockchain, transactions are broadcast to the networks mempool where they wait to be selected by miners and inserted into Bitcoins next block. Currently, a sizable backlog of Bitcoin transactions is driving up transaction fees.

As of Sunday afternoon, the total number of unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions in the network's mempool totaled around 395,000, according tomempool.space. On April 26, that figure was 56,500, according to Blockchain.com.

At the same time, transaction fees on Bitcoin were sky-high. According to data from YCharts, Bitcoin transaction fees reached their highest levels in almost two years on Friday, averaging $9.62 per transaction.

On Saturday, transaction fees averaged around $8.84, suggesting they were trending back down. Still, it represented an over 500% increase compared to six months ago, when Bitcoin transactions averaged around $1.45.

The uptick in congestion and higher transaction fees coincides with a steep rise in the number of inscriptions made through Ordinals, as people use the protocol for minting NFT-like assets on Bitcoin to create and trade fungible, BRC-20 tokens.

Started as an experiment in March by a pseudonymous on-chain data enthusiast named Domo, the market cap of BRC-20 tokenswhich mirror ERC-20 tokenshas ballooned to $446 million, according to brc-20.io.

A week ago, the total number of inscriptions snowballed past 2.5 million. And as of Sunday, the total number of inscriptions cruised past 4.3 million, according to a widely-used Dune dashboard.

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Binance Pauses Bitcoin Withdrawals, Blames Network Congestion - Decrypt

Controversy Rises as Bitcoin Transaction Fees Continue Climb to Historical Highs

A recent phenomenon in the Bitcoin network has raised some concerns among users and observers. Some transactions are embedding images, texts, and other data into Bitcoin's blockchain using a technique called Ordinals Inscription. This process takes advantage of some updates to Bitcoin's code that allow for more flexibility and scalability, such as SegWit and Taproot.

However, not everyone is happy with this trend. Some critics argue that the ordinals protocol is an attack on Bitcoin's fungibility, meaning that each bitcoin should be indistinguishable from another. They claim that by adding arbitrary data to the blockchain, ordinals make some bitcoins more valuable or desirable than others, depending on their content. For example, some ordinals inscriptions contain NFTs or digital art that could have a market value.

Another concern is that ordinals could pose a threat to Bitcoin's mission in El Salvador, where it is legal tender. Some fear that by filling up the blockchain with unnecessary data, ordinals could increase transaction fees and congestion, making Bitcoin less accessible and affordable for ordinary people.

Ordinals are a controversial topic in the Bitcoin community, and there is no clear consensus on whether it is an improvement or an attack. Some see it as a way of expressing creativity and innovation, while others see it as a way of abusing and undermining Bitcoin's core principles.

Read more from the original source:

Controversy Rises as Bitcoin Transaction Fees Continue Climb to Historical Highs - Yahoo Finance

Bitcoin will be on the spotlight once again as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chooses a cryptocurrency conference in Miami as the venue for his first public appearance as a US presidential candidate.

The iconaclastic Democrat has shown support for a sector of the economy that many ecologists and other climate change activists hold responsible for a major portion of the problem.

At the conference, one of the most prominent topics of conversation that attendees are anticipating will be Bitcoin.

Before stepping on the stage at the event dubbed as the biggest Bitcoin event in the world, sceptics had already voiced their concerns regarding the cryptocurrency industrys role in contributing to climate change.

In spite of these concerns, Kennedy has been a vocal proponent of the industry, and his attendance at the event is crucial since it provides him with the opportunity to engage in conversation with a sizeable segment of the voting population.

It was a clever move on Kennedys part to agree to deliver a lecture at the Bitcoin 2023 conference because it gives him the opportunity to hobnob with a substantial segment of his supporters, and perhaps new ones.

And, in spite of the fact that many Democrats may not share his views on cryptocurrencies, he might win over the millions of faithful customers of the electorate.

Brandon Green, chief of staff to conference organizer BTC Media, said:

We asked him to speak after hearing his positive comments toward the bitcoin industry.

It is crucial that Kennedy will be present at the conference together with other political figures such as the Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, and the governor of the Indonesian province of West Java.

Green disclosed that Kennedy will not receive payment for his attendance. In addition, Kennedys publicist, Stefanie Spear, stated that the presidential aspirantwould not accept speaking fees for any events that took place during his candidature for president in 2024.

According to Kennedy, the enterprise surrounding bitcoin is a major innovation engine that has the potential to be utilized in the fight against authoritarian governments.

In addition, he defended Bitcoin on the grounds that it facilitates transactions outside the purview of central authorities. The king of cryptocurrencies, in his words, is a lifesaver for peoples movements around the world.

However, ecologists, who view Bitcoin as a major contributor to the phenomenon of global warming, have taken issue with his perspective. Concerns about the amount of energy used by the cryptocurrency sector have been voiced by a significant number of environmental advocacy groups.

In 2021, the mining of bitcoin alone was responsible for the consumption of more energy than the entirety of Argentina.

Meanwhile,Anthony Scaramucci, a billionaire who is supportive of cryptocurrencies and who served as former President Donald Trumps communications chief for a short period of time, thinks that Kennedys backing of cryptocurrencies may put him closer to the hearts of millions of dedicated users of those cryptocurrencies.

-Featured image from Escape Luxury Hospitality

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World's Biggest Bitcoin Event To Feature US Presidential Candidate As Keynote Speaker - Bitcoinist

Filip Krawanski

Published: 2023-05-07T15:10:08

Updated: 2023-05-07T15:10:17

A flustered user put out a desperate personal plea via Discord to return his $1.5 million in Bitcoin after he sent it to someone with the nickname jaredfromsubway by complete accident.

One holder of Bitcoin made a fatal mistake when transferring funds to another recipient by inputting the wrong address, sending $1.5 million worth of Bitcoin to a wallet of someone going by the pseudonym Jared from Subway.

Upon realizing the mistake the user took to a Discord server, which was not named in the report, and pleaded with Jared to return his cryptocurrency.

Jared from Subway, if you are reading this please help. I sent you by mistake tokens for about $1.5 m. Is there any possibility to get them back? Or my investors would kill me. Please help, Jared! I want to live, wrote the author of the mistake, before providing the details of the transactions.

While the situation went down on an undisclosed Discord server,Twitteruser 0xCuteSocks made it public via their Tweet, breaking the situation down and providing links to the details of the multiple transactions that the user made.

Twitter users in the replies were confused as to how exactly one makes such a fumble with such a high amount of money.

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How do you make multiple accidental transactions to the wrong address? Like you should check after the first one, wrote one user.

Imagine not making a test transaction before sending $1.5mil, wrote another, equally baffled person.

The Discord user camper who made the initial mistake has reportedly gotten through to JaredfromSubway and has had almost all of the money returned to them, with Jared keeping around $50,000 for themselves.

This crypto horror story luckily had a happy ending, but not every story related to stolen crypto ends on such a note. In late March 2023, $8.9 million in crypto were stolen in the Safemoon hack, dragging Jake Paul back into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Read the rest here:

User accidentally sends $1.5 million in Bitcoin to Jared from Subway - Dexerto