Two major miners control more than 50% of BTC computing power, Ethereum transaction fees fell by nearly 94%

Golden Weekly is a weekly blockchain industry summary column launched by Golden Finance, covering the week's key news, market and contract data, mining information, project dynamics, technological progress and other industry dynamics. This article is Project Weekly, taking you to a glance at the progress of mainstream projects and star projects this week.

Bitcoin

AntPool and Foundry USA control more than 50% of Bitcoin computing power

According to analyst Kadan Stadelmann, large miners are posing an increasing threat to Bitcoin. As of May, AntPool and Foundry USA controlled more than 50% of Bitcoin computing power, which may become a threat to Bitcoin in the near future.

CME plans to launch Bitcoin spot trading

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group) plans to launch Bitcoin spot trading. According to three people with direct knowledge of the negotiations, CME has held discussions with traders who want to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on regulated markets. The plan has not yet been finalized, and if implemented, it will mark a further intrusion of major Wall Street institutions into the digital asset industry. CME declined to comment.

Lightning Labs plans to launch stablecoins on the Bitcoin chain

Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark recently announced that the company plans to launch stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain, and its lab has tested transactions using assets created using the Taproot Assets protocol. Stark said that these stablecoins will take advantage of the high efficiency and low transaction costs of the Lightning network to provide users with faster and lower-cost payment solutions.

Kaiko data: Bitcoin miners' income has fallen sharply, and they may sell BTC to maintain operations

The latest data from Kaiko, a crypto research and analysis company, shows that miners are facing huge selling pressure as Bitcoin mining revenue and transaction fees decline. Bitcoin miners' income mainly comes from two aspects: mining rewards and transaction fees. However, affected by the halving of Bitcoin rewards in April (block rewards dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC), miners have to sell Bitcoin to pay costs. Kaiko researchers pointed out in the report that halving events usually prompt miners to sell BTC because the mining process requires a lot of expenditure. In addition, transaction fees, another source of income for miners, are also on a downward trend. Data from the first week of May showed that miners made less profit from transaction fees than from mining. Analysts believe that at a time when market liquidity is declining, miners' Bitcoin selling may have a significant impact on the crypto market. Take Marathon Digital as an example. The company holds $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin, and selling a small portion of it is enough to trigger violent market fluctuations.

Former President of PayPal: Every company in the world will eventually use Bitcoin

David Marcus, former president of PayPal, said that every company in the world will eventually use Bitcoin and settle transactions with the Lightning Network.

Ethereum

Ethereum transaction fees fell nearly 94% in the past 68 days

According to bitinfocharts, transactions on the Ethereum blockchain have become cheaper this week, and the average cost is currently about 0.00065 ETH, or $1.91 per transaction. In addition, the current cost of ETH transfers is between 4 and 7 gwei, or $0.18 to $0.37 per transfer. In the past 68 days since March 5, 2024, Ethereum's network fees have fallen by 93.7%, from $30.33 per transfer to $1.91 per transaction. In addition, the cost of conducting a dex interaction on Ethereum this weekend is estimated to be $4.16 and $7.28, while the cost of conducting an NFT sale may be $7.03 to $12.31. Over the past 50 days, Ethereum has averaged just over 1 million transactions per day.

Swiss Crypto Bank Amina: If Ethereum is listed as a security, many cryptocurrency teams may exit the field

Swiss crypto bank Amina said in its latest Crypto Market Monitor report that listing Ethereum as a security would bring risks to the entire cryptocurrency market. Such a definition could lead to DeFi platforms that allow users to leverage cryptocurrency assets being deemed "unregistered securities brokers." In addition, cryptocurrency exchanges that intend to list ETH will be required to register with the U.S. SEC. In addition, it may also lead many cryptocurrency teams to exit the field. The report also warned that if the SEC continues to declare ETH a security, protocols using PoS consensus may be forced to return to PoW consensus.

Vitalik proposes Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-7706, which aims to add an independent gas type for calldata

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-7706) to add an independent gas type for calldata and integrate the three gas types into a coordinated system. Buterin hopes that this proposal will make the discussion on the concept of "multidimensional gas" more concrete.

Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum network will focus on improving its permissionless and decentralized features in the near and medium term

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published a new article stating that the Ethereum network will focus on improving its permissionless and decentralized features in the near and medium term. Focusing on concepts such as stateless nodes, MEV mitigation and single slot termination, Ethereum has taken a further step in the direction of decentralization. In the future, efforts will need to be made in light client technology and decentralized cross-L2 bridges to ensure that Ethereum L1 becomes a powerful foundation layer for decentralization and security.

Ethereum Foundation related address sends 200 ETH to Kraken

According to PeckShield monitoring, the Ethereum Foundation related address 0x9d2d...43b1 has sent 200 ETH to Kraken.

Other Projects

Israeli Fintech Kima and Mastercard’s FinSec Lab Seek to Develop ‘DeFi Credit Card’

Israeli fintech Kima and Mastercard’s FinSec Innovation Lab have launched a project to develop a use case that connects decentralized finance (DeFi) tools and traditional services such as credit cards and bank accounts, describing it as making the “DeFi credit card” a reality. The Israel Innovation Authority is supporting the project.

Polkadot Launches Asynchronous Support, Enables Parallel Transaction Validation Block Production

The EcosystemPolkadot team said that Polkadot has launched asynchronous support for the first time. This enhancement is expected to significantly improve the scalability, cost, speed and flexibility of the network and accelerate the growth of decentralized applications."Asynchronous backup cuts block times in half (from 12 seconds to 6 seconds), enables parallel transaction validation block production, and increases the throughput of Polkadot’s parachain consensus protocol by 10 times.

Reddit announces reintroduction of rewards system

Reddit announced on Wednesday that it will reintroduce the rewards system after shutting it down last year. The company said that most of the mechanisms related to rewards will remain the same, but there will be some new additions. For example, rewards will have a new design, a new reward button below eligible posts, and a leaderboard showing the highest rewards received by comments or posts. Earlier this month, Reddit mentioned the reintroduction of the rewards program during its first earnings call as a public company. Users who want to reward posts and comments need to buy "gold", which has replaced tokens to a certain extent. On the support page, the company mentioned that on average, rewards cost between 15 and 50 gold coins. The gold package in the Reddit mobile app currently starts at $1.99 for 100 gold coins. Users can buy up to 2,750 gold coins for $49.99. Last October, Reddit shut down its blockchain-based community points program, and Reddit community tokens plummeted across the board.

Lido co-founder and Paradigm are currently funding Symbiotic, a new project in the re-staking track

Informed sources revealed that Lido co-founder and Paradigm are secretly funding a new company Symbiotic, which will compete in the re-staking track. In the internal Symbiotic document obtained by CoinDesk, Symbiotic allows users to use Lido's stETH to re-stake other assets that are not natively compatible with Eigen Layer; Symbiotic was developed by the staking service team formerly known as Stakemind, and several teams working in the emerging re-staking ecosystem said they have been discussing integration with Symbiotic, including AVSs and building liquidity re-staking services on Eigen Layer.

Lens Protocol: Developing the blockchain network Lens Network

Lens Lab, a project led by Stani Kulechov and the team behind Lens Protocol, a Web3 social platform built on Polygon PoS, announced that it is now developing its own blockchain network Lens Network. The new network will be built on Matter Labs’ ZK Stack and powered by zkSync on Ethereum.