Ethereum’s transition journey from PoW to PoS journey could take up to years as it began with the launch of Beacon Chain in December 2020 and has seen several delays on the way.

Ethereum network is nearing the merger phase of its crucial transition from proof-of-work (PoW) mining consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS). Ethereum (ETH) devs offered a perpetual merger date during a conference call on Thursday.

The conference call saw core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko, who runs core protocol meetings, propose September 19 as the tentative target date for the merger. The proposed target date didn’t face any objection from the core developers.

Later, Ethereum developer superphiz.eth tweeted about the roadmap to the merger and also cleared that the proposed target date should be seen as a roadmap rather than a hard deadline.

This merge timeline isn't final, but it's extremely exciting to see it coming together. Please regard this as a planning timeline and look out for official announcements!https://t.co/ttutBceZ21 pic.twitter.com/MY8VFOv0SI

— superphiz.eth (@superphiz) July 14, 2022

Ethereum’s transition journey to PoS-based ETH 2.0 began on December 1, 2020, with the launch of Beacon Chain, initiating Phase 0 of the transition. Phase 1 of the program was scheduled to launch in mid-2021 but got delayed to the first quarter of 2022 owing to unfinished work and complexities involved in the code auditing.

Earlier in June this year, Sepolia testnet Beacon Chain went live, setting the stage for its Merge dress rehearsal to give Ethereum network developers valuable technical insights. The Sepolia was eventually merged with the network on 7th July.

The final trial of the Merge is set to occur on the Goerli network which is scheduled for the second week of August. After its merger, the official Merge slated for the second half of September would become a priority for devs.

Ethereum’s transition to PoS based network is expected to reduce its energy consumption by 99% and the introduction of sharding (expected by the first quarter of 2023) would make the network highly scalable and on par with centralized payment processors.

Related: Vitalik argues that proof-of-stake is a 'solution' to Ethereum’s environmental woes

The PoS vs PoW debate has been a long-running one, where PoS proponents claim it's more environment friendly and equally secure while PoW proponents including the likes of Jack Dorsey have called PoS centralized and less secure.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been aggressively defending PoS lately, while arguing that quite opposite to common belief PoS does not include voting on protocol parameters, just like proof-of-work (PoW) doesn’t. Buterin also explained that nodes reject invalid blocks in both PoS and PoW.

Pro-tip: if there's a long-established tradition of people debating A vs B based on deep arguments touching on math, economics and moral philosophy, and you come along saying "B is dumb because of a one-line technicality involving definitions", you're probably wrong. https://t.co/22N0OaHyz1

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 3, 2022

While Buterin continues to bat for PoS, a recent report from HOPR highlighted some of the key vulnerabilities that could prove critical post Merge.

“We should stress that this isn’t an emergency: It doesn’t affect any funds today. But this WILL be a major problem post Merge and validators are incentivized to disrupt each other to poach a share of millions of $$$ in MEV.”

The report highlighted that validators on the network leak their IP addresses while broadcasting attestations & blocks which are linked to their public key, but these validators are known ahead of time, allowing for highly targeted and selective attacks (DoS or other) against upcoming validators.

The @Teku_ConsenSys audit by @Quantstamp even labels the issue as “Mitigated” which in our eyes is incorrect and makes us double down on our efforts to raise awareness for this privacy and resulting security issue
5/15

— HOPR (@hoprnet) July 12, 2022

The HOPR team noted that an audit report has even labeled the issue as “mitigated,” which is not true because attackers are not limited to (DoS) attacking the Teku node.

Original: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-dev-confirms-perpetual-date-for-pos-merge
By: Prashant Jha
Posted: July 15, 2022, 11:08 am

The U.S. climb the rankings to join Germany at the summit as progressive regulations and institutional adoption drive cryptocurrency use in both countries.

Germany and the United States shared the spoils in the latest quarterly global cryptocurrency rankings released by analytics firm Coincub.

The two countries now share the top rankings, with Germany making space for the rising U.S., having topped the first quarter rankings for 2022. Their dominance is due to progressive regulatory environments and major Bitcoin (BTC) investments by mainstream institutions.

Coincub’s rankings tally up points across nine overall categories, which focus on government, financial services, population, taxation, talent development and industry participants, trading, fraud and environmental potential. The current ranking system introduced new sub-categories like crypto education courses and initial coin offerings to create a more comprehensive gauge.

Germany’s move to allow its savings industry to utilize crypto investments and benefit from a zero-tax policy on capital gains of Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) held for more than a year was a key reason for its rise to the top of the rankings earlier this year.

The U.S. moved up from third to share the top rank, driven by president Joe Biden’s executive order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets in March 2022. The directive aims to guarantee the responsible development of the space, provide consumer protection and financial stability, and combat illicit activity.

Coincub also cited global investment firm Fidelity’s decision to include Bitcoin exposure as part of select American pension funds in April 2022 as a pivotal role in the country's climb up the crypto rankings. Parallels were drawn with a move by Germany’s financial services firm Sparkasse to enable its 50 million users to buy Bitcoin directly from their bank accounts.

Switzerland sits third on the global crypto rankings, driven by the most recent development in the country which saw the canton of Lugano recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. This allowed citizens in the area to make everyday payments using BTC, including taxes and municipal accounts and services.

More than 1000 blockchain and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) call Switzerland home, and the country ranks highly for its number of Bitcoin nodes and ATMs. VASPs have to be licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and abide by anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) policies.

Related: New crypto owners nearly doubled in 3 key regions in 2021: Report

Singapore is ranked fourth after Q2 in 2022, having fallen from its top spot at the end of 2021 due to recent regulatory tightening from the country’s financial regulator and the central bank.

Australia rounds off the top five of Coincub’s crypto rankings, with the firm highlighting a high number of initial coin offerings, exchanges and transaction volumes as well as a number of universities offering blockchain and crypto educational courses.

Coincub’s rankings combine quantitative data including trading or mining volumes with qualitative elements like government legislation and institutional attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Their reports look to provide a consolidated view of a country’s stance by amalgamating qualitative information and quantitative data.

Original: https://cointelegraph.com/news/germany-and-the-us-share-the-top-spot-in-the-global-crypto-rankings-report
By: Gareth Jenkinson
Posted: July 15, 2022, 10:24 am

Bitcoin price recovers 11% from the week's lows as one trader targets $21,700 next.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $21,000 for the first time in several days on July 15 as markets enjoyed what one trader called "summer relief."

Altcoin rebound eyed as BTC price adds 11%

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD grinding higher overnight to just tap the $21,000 mark on Bitstamp on the day.

A noticeable change of tact had set in after initial losses on the back of forty-year highs for the United States' Consumer Price Index (CPI). Versus the July 13 lows, BTC/USD was thus up 11%.

"Summer relief time," Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe summarized.

Popular trader Crypto Tony was also in the mood for modest optimism on short timeframes, eyeing a move to $21,700 for profit-taking.

$BTC / $USD - Update

Stuck hovering around the EQ currently of the range. I am still in my long and looking for a flip so we can push up to my final range target of $21,700

Invalidation point now $19,600 pic.twitter.com/Q8e0oy4UuV

— Crypto Tony (@CryptoTony__) July 15, 2022

"If we get this, then Alts can continue to enjoy a nice pump and relief rally," he added in a further tweet.

Many major altcoins had responded well to the uptick in BTC price action, with Ether (ETH) making a noticeable rebound to cap over 12% daily gains.

Others in the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap also fared well, with only Solana (SOL) nonetheless managing to beat ETH over the past 24 hours.

ETH/USD thus succeeded in avoiding a return below the psychologically significant $1,000 level.

Whales "waiting for moment to wake up"

Meanwhile, on-chain data suggested that the largest Bitcoin hodlers were in no mood to act at current prices.

Related: Bitcoin price spikes to $20K as whale-bought BTC confirms support

In a Twitter thread on July 14, BlockTrends analyst Caue Oliveira highlighted what he described as "hibernation" continuing among whale wallets.

"Whales remain in hibernation, waiting for the right moment to wake up," he observed.

"Institutional movements, or commonly called 'whale activity' can be tracked based on the transaction volume moved over a short period of time, both denominated in BTC and USD."

An accompanying chart showed a distinct lack of large-volume transactions on the network in recent months, with only the Terra LUNA blowout causing a temporary trend break.

"Here we have a clear view of the low institutional activity, almost non-existent after the month of May, which was briefly awakened during the LUNA crash but which returned to hibernation," Oliveira added.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Original: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-whales-still-hibernating-as-btc-price-nears-21k
By: William Suberg
Posted: July 15, 2022, 10:05 am

Original: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/07/15/defi-coins-outperform-bitcoin-ether-as-traders-pare-bets-on-jumbo-fed-rate-hike/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines
By: Omkar Godbole
Posted: July 15, 2022, 10:01 am

Original: https://decrypt.co/105172/ethereum-jumps-merge-event-fast-approaches
By: Sujith Somraaj
Posted: July 15, 2022, 9:42 am

While a classic technical indicator could be hinting at BTC price falling below $13,000 as well.

Bitcoin (BTC) investors in China plan to buy the dip despite an ongoing market correction and a nationwide crypto ban, a new survey shows.

Consensus sees Bitcoin at $10K

A survey of 2,200 people conducted on China-based social media platform Weibo found that 8% of would buy Bitcoin when its price hits $18,000, according to Wu Blockchain. While 26% of the respondents prefer to wait until BTC reaches $15,000.

But a majority anticipated the price to fall even further with 40% saying they would buy BTC at $10,000.

In a survey of more than 2,200 people conducted in Chinese crypto community on Weibo, 8% of the voters believed that Bitcoin and Ethereum could be buy the dip when the price reached $18000/1000; 26% will buy in $15000/800; 40% will buy in $10000/500. pic.twitter.com/L2HsetMSk7

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 14, 2022

Chinese investors more cautious on Bitcoin than U.S.

Interestingly, another survey conducted by Bloomberg MLIV Pulse earlier in July yielded a similar outcome: 60% of the net 950 respondents on Wall Street calling for a $10,000 Bitcoin price.

The two polls show a striking similarity in bearish sentiments of crypto speculators in the U.S. and China. Nonetheless, on-chain activity shows that investors in the U.S. have been more bullish on Bitcoin versus their Asian counterparts since June 2022.

Related: Bitcoin fights key trendline near $20K as US dollar index hits new 20-year high

In particula, Bitcoin's month-to-month price change, which tracks the 30-day change in the regional BTC price, has been positive only during U.S. sessions. Conversely, the metric has only been negative during Asian trading hours, data from Glassnode shows.

Technical indicator hints at BTC price below $13K

Simultaneously, weakening technicals are also starting to support further downside, particularly on the larger three-day timeframe.

Bitcoin has been forming a potential "bear flag" pattern that could result in a drop below $13,000 by September, as illustrated above.

As Cointelegraph reported, persistent macroeconomic headwinds for BTC/USD continue to fuel bearish arguments against increasing evidence of a possible price bottom. 

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Original: https://cointelegraph.com/news/two-bitcoin-price-prediction-polls-same-outcome-10k-btc-is-coming
By: Yashu Gola
Posted: July 15, 2022, 9:34 am

Original: https://decrypt.co/105166/new-york-yankees-players-staff-able-convert-salary-bitcoin
By: Andrew Asmakov
Posted: July 15, 2022, 9:10 am

Original: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/15/three-arrows-liquidators-ask-singapore-court-to-recognize-companys-bvi-bankruptcy-straits-times/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines
By: Sam Reynolds
Posted: July 15, 2022, 8:19 am

Original: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/shiba-inu-record-30-yearly-spike-while-bitcoin-is-down-42/

rssimport:source : Analytics Insight

Posted: July 15, 2022, 7:25 am

Original: https://dailyhodl.com/2022/07/15/heres-whats-next-for-bitcoin-ethereum-and-cardano-according-to-trader-who-predicted-2022-btc-collapse/

rssimport:source : The Daily Hodl

Posted: July 15, 2022, 7:04 am

Original: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/bitcoin-crash-search-term-is-trending-but-btc-always-proves-it-wrong/

rssimport:source : Analytics Insight

Posted: July 15, 2022, 6:53 am

An Indian development firm looks to create a bridge between sustainability and blockchain technology with a proprietary layer-1 protocol incentivizing the use of UN sustainable development goals.

An ambitious sustainability-based blockchain project has secured $100 million in a Series A funding round to drive its development.

Indian entrepreneurs Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi have spearheaded the foundation of a fifth-generation blockchain network known as 5ire, which looks to incentivize the implementation of United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) for users of its system.

The project has now attracted a total of $121 million in investment. A seed round secured $21 million from notable tech investors including Alphabit, Marshland Capital, Launchpool Labs and Moonrock Capital.

A subsequent Series A fundraising round secured a $100 million investment from United Kingdom-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM. 5ire intends to expand its business into Asia, North America and Europe in addition to its operations center in India.

5ire presents a novel use case for blockchain technology that looks to promote practices that are aligned with United Nations SDGs. Its 5ireChain network is described as a first-layer, sustainability-driven and fifth-generation blockchain.

5ireChain is operated by a unique “sustainable proof of stake consensus protocol,” which will rank node validators based on the number of sustainable and ESG practices they follow. As its white paper explains, nodes are assigned weights based on  metrics which include their stake, reliability, randomized voting, sustainability score and previous nomination.

The firm told Cointelegraph that it will use its sizable capital investment to bankroll an aggressive growth strategy in order to implement its set of use cases and develop services for businesses looking to use 5ireChain-based solutions.

Related: ‘People should invest in all of the major layer-1s,’ says a veteran trader

The company claims to employ more than 100 staff and expects to continue to grow rapidly as it scales up its offering in the tech development and venture capital space.

5ire hopes to weather the current slump in the cryptocurrency markets courtesy of its business model being a bridge between blockchain and sustainability. It intends to build use cases with stakeholders from governments, Fortune 500 companies and family offices

Original: https://cointelegraph.com/news/indian-blockchain-firm-5ire-secures-100m-to-fund-sustainability-focused-project
By: Gareth Jenkinson
Posted: July 15, 2022, 5:50 am

Original: https://beincrypto.com/gold-stocks-bitcoin-weekly-overview-july-14/

rssimport:source : BeInCrypto

Posted: July 15, 2022, 5:15 am

Original: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/cryptocurrency/crypto-prices-today-live-news-bitcoin-dogecoin-ethereum-shibha-inu-cryptocurrency-latest-updates-15-july-2022/articleshow/92889333.cms?UTM_Source=Google_Newsstand&UTM_Campaign=RSS_Feed&UTM_Medium=Referral

rssimport:source : Economic Times

Posted: July 15, 2022, 3:35 am

Original: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/15/5ire-raises-100m-to-fund-expansion-of-sustainable-blockchain/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines
By: Amitoj Singh
Posted: July 15, 2022, 3:30 am