A fight for our SOL

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Despite all the hacks and crashes, South Korea has turned away from Crypto. Seoul plans to launch a digital assets market similar to stocks. But for tokens to participate in that market, they’ll have to be registered as electronic securities first. There’s always a catch. 

The Merge-linked euphoria was over for the markets. Bitcoin slipped below $19,000 while Ethereum dropped to $1,530 levels. Nasdaq was marginally up in early trade. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended lower on a volatile session.

SOLs Are The Saviours

The crypto winter is supposed to dip a few more degrees. We’ve said this a few times, but there’s an altcoin that is shaping up to be a long-term winner. Solana. The purchases of the token are high. 

What’s behind Solana’s bull?A bunch of factors. Low network fees, fast transactions, and network efficiency have helped Solana’s rise. With 50,000-65,000 transactions per second, it is the fastest blockchain. 

Experts have pegged Solana at $45 by the end of 2022 from the current $31 levels. They project it may move up to $166 in 2025 and $512 in 2030. These are just projections. Solana is, however, an outlier.

• Protocol updates: Solana has implemented new updates to handle the surge in volumes. This means that more NFT projects can switch from Ethereum to Solana for faster speed.

• Low cost: Average cost per transaction is $0.09 on Ethereum, while it is just $0.0000014.

• Scalable: More than 350 projects are built on Solana. Using Proof of Stake along with Proof of History is meant to make the blockchain foolproof. The Proof of History mechanism validates blocks through timestamps on each transaction. 

Let’s talk risksYes, we mean the network outages. Solana has had plenty of downtimes, seven to be exact. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko called it “the network’s curse”. However, he was quick to point out that the network has never been compromised. 

ICYMI Solana also faced a wallet hack where tokens worth $4.5 million were drained. In response, the blockchain platform blamed a third-party wallet Slope for the exploit. 

But things may calm down soon. Solana will boost the network through a partnership with blockchain infrastructure firm Jump Crypto. Crypto investors have also placed their bets on Solana as an alt to Ethereum. So if Ethereum’s Merge doesn’t bring down transaction fees, Solana could be the real winner. 

Bellatrix Had Hiccups, But It’s Ok

So the first step to the Merge took place on Tuesday. But it wasn’t as smooth as we all hoped. As the day wore on, the missed block rate post-Bellatrix became a talking point.

FYI: A missed block rate is the frequency with which the network fails to verify a block of transactions slated for validation.

So did Bellatrix fail?No. A high missed block rate is concerning, but Ethereum developers had answers. The nodes that did not update their software before Bellatrix likely caused the issue. Now that folks know it is important, devs hope they’re going to update their nodes to be Merge-ready by next week. 

Meanwhile

1. Ethereum Classic (ETC), born out of the DAO attack of 2016, is an unlikely winner in the Merge. Its hashrate reached an all-time high with a current hashrate of 45.98 hash/second as per Messari. 

2. The soon-to-be out-of-business ETH miners are exploring other options. One miner, Hive Blockchain, plans to explore other blockchains to continue mining. Hut 8 Mining will pursue ventures outside of crypto.Share

Crypto Got In The Dough

How much do investors believe in crypto? Enough to put in $14.2 billion in the first half of this year. Across 725 deals. This is despite the Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising inflation, and the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. All this was part of KPMG’s latest report on fintech.

Interesting times

• Crypto was the second largest share of fintech investments in H1 2022, second only after payments.

• Most of the investment in crypto is now from institutional and corporate investors.

• The largest deals in the space came from venture capital raises. The biggest of these was a $1.1 billion raise by Trade Republic, $550 million by Fireblocks, and $500 million by FTX.

• H2 2022 will see investments slow down, but so far the investments this year are higher than all years before 2021.

• Interest in stablecoins and solutions related to compliance and crypto transaction traceability is growing.Share

A Swap Deal? 

Russian national Alexander Vinnik, who is currently in an American prison, has an escape plan. Vinnik, who was extradited to the US for crypto fraud, wants to switch places with any of the imprisoned US nationals in Russia. 

Sorry, what?Vinnik was brought to the US in August. He is accused of money laundering via a defunct crypto exchange called BTC-e. Instead of prison time in the US, Vinnik has sought a swap deal with US citizens jailed in his motherland. 

Jailed US citizens such as basketball player Brittney Griner, teacher Marc Hilliard Fogel, and ex-Marine Paul Whelan could be among the picks. 

FYI BTC-e was linked to the $500 million crypto theft at Mt.Gox in 2014. Vinnik claimed he was just an employee and didn’t run it.   

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Who are we? There is a lot happening in our world. Everything has layers, and each layer has to be carefully peeled so you, the reader, know how the world of money is changing every day. That’s our promise. Help you unpeel the onions, which are the public markets in the US, India, and crypto, so that you know just a little more.