Move ETH, move

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Transit Swap has one generous hacker. Someone exploited a bug on the decentralised exchange on Saturday and stole $23 million. Don’t know what happened next, but the hacker simply decided to give back 70% of the bounty by Sunday. The team’s waiting for the other 30%.

Markets were in the green on Monday. Bitcoin was at a little over $19,000 and Ethereum was trading at around $1,300. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended lower due to weak global market trends and continued foreign fund outflows.

ETH Tries To Move On

Ethereum’s Merge euphoria is finally over. And now Ethereum needs to detach from the bear. The token has slipped below $1,300. But good news isn’t too far away. New entrants have flooded the blockchain.  

Tell me more

The number of new Ethereum addresses reached a one-month high of ~3,000 on Sunday. This means that interest is back and trading activity has picked up pace. German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom will also run an Ethereum validator and support liquid staking. To simplify, this is a service to stake your tokens on your behalf.  

Soft factors

There is buzz on social media too. Over the past month, Ethereum had a 4% rise in social media mentions and ~27% rise in social engagements. Social media activity doesn’t necessarily convert to higher prices, but it builds a positive sentiment. 

Whales have caught on to the frenzy. The top 5,000 whales bought more Ethereum on Sunday as the token price fell. 

T&C

Ethereum fell ~25% since the Merge. Since it’s switched to proof-of-stake, miners are out too. Activity on ETH applications have sunk, so overall volumes on the blockchain fell as well. Ethereum’s Github has also gone quiet because developers are on caution mode. 

Meanwhile…

While we are on Ethereum, the forked ETHW found a spot on Binance. The crypto exchange has launched mining pools for ETHW users at zero fees. Users can now share resources to mine the crypto. 

Helium Takes Another Stab

Helium will ride the 5G wave. It has set up multiple networks where each DAO will operate their own tokens. The Helium token’s the biggest beneficiary of this shift. There has been an 8.4% rise in its price over the past week. 

FYI Helium is a blockchain that powers decentralised wireless networks. The native token HNT powers the network and is given out as reward to whoever shares data via IoT-based devices.

What’s the plan?

Helium has planned several upgrades consecutively. A crypto-powered 5G device will work as an alt wi-fi, for instance. The crypto project will move to Solana to power future transactions. The ultimate goal is to be the 5G leader of the crypto world. 

ICYMI Helium is in the midst of a controversy where family and friends of the founders allegedly got unfair access to HNT tokens.   

Volume Up, Billionaires Down 

Crypto exchanges have something to cheer about. But the big shots in crypto, maybe not so much. Crypto exchange volumes in September grew month-on-month for the first time since May. And we have fewer crypto billionaires as the bear market continues its run. 

Market smiles

September’s exchange trading volume was up 16% month-on-month at $733 billion, according to data from The Block. Things were pretty stagnant since May, when the Terra crash occurred. And wiped off $60 billion from the digital currency market.

Fewer billionaires

The number of crypto billionaires on The Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the US fell from seven in 2021 to four this year. Their combined wealth fell from $55.1 billion to $27.3 billion. FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, Ripple Labs’ Chris Larsen and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong have lower net worth than before. The Winklevoss twins have fallen off the list, as has Coinbase’s Fred Ehrsam. Clearly, nobody has escaped the harsh winter. Not even billionaires. 

A $10 million Gift?

He’s the CEO of your dreams. Not. The stories around bankrupt crypto lender Celsius’ founder Alex Mashinsky just don’t seem to end. This time, it looks like he withdrew $10 million from the lender in May, a month before it halted withdrawals for users, according to The Financial Times.

“It was for taxes”

The $10 million was to “pay state and federal taxes. In the nine months leading up to that withdrawal, he consistently deposited cryptocurrency in amounts that totalled what he withdrew in May,” a spokesperson told the FT. They also said Mashinksy and his family had $44 million worth of crypto assets frozen in the crypto lender even after this withdrawal. 

This looks bad. The lender froze withdrawals on June 12 citing Celsius’ financial stability and the bear market. And then Mashinksy withdrew $10 million. That’s some coin. 

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Who are we? This newsletter’s ambition is to educate (and to entertain). The world of money is changing everyday and we want to help you decode what’s happening in the world of crypto, public markets in the US and India.