Miner sell-off keeps BTC at $30,000

The value of Bitcoin remained just under $30,000 on Wednesday due to recent sales by miners and the end of derivative contracts, preventing a surge in the digital currency's price. As per CoinGecko, the cost of the leading cryptocurrency rose slightly by 0.1% to $29,876 around 11:48 a.m. in New York.

BTCM's chief economist, Youwei Yang, informed The Block that "miners are disposing of their Bitcoin holdings due to an increase in the profit margin from mining". He added that "standard market adjustments and the termination of derivative contracts around the $29K mark towards the month's end may have also played a part in the price drop."

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DeFi must follow KYC new bill states

A bipartisan bill aimed at money laundering and sanctions compliance has been introduced by a team of US senators, which could have significant consequences for decentralized finance protocols if passed. The legislation, known as the Crypto Asset National Security Enhancement Act of 2023, is sponsored by Senator Jack Reeds, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Co-sponsors include Senators Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, and Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah.

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Solana Labs rolls out Solang

Solana Labs has introduced Solang, a novel compiler specifically crafted to facilitate the integration of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) developers into the Solana network. Solang's introduction provides developers, who are well-versed in Solidity - Ethereum's main smart contract coding language, with a resource that empowers them to explore and develop applications within the Solana ecosystem.

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Ethereum ICO whale moves $116 million to Kraken

An Ethereum wallet address, which had been inactive for eight years, recently relocated its full cache of 61,216 Ether, valued at $116 million, to a location on the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange. In the middle of 2014, the Ethereum network held a sale event. This allowed the initial team and co-founders to gather pre-mined Ether at a time when the network was unable to produce its own tokens.

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OpenSea suspends EtherFi NFTs

EtherFi, a liquid staking protocol, has issued a public denouncement of OpenSea following the abrupt suspension of its EtherFan collection's trade on the NFT marketplace last week. This collection featured NFTs underpinned by staked ETH. 

EtherFi and OpenSea were jointly working on the launch of EtherFan for several weeks before the collection's rollout. Their marketing plan relied heavily on secondary market transactions and mutual promotion, as revealed to The Defiant by EtherFi's CEO, Mike Silagadze.

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Other breaking news

• Axelar introduces Interchain Token Service (ITS)
• Options protocol Rysk launches the ETH/USDC Dynamic Hedging Vault (DHV)
• Fantom-based DEX Hector Network voted to liquidate $16 million treasury
• Stargate launches the USDC pool on Fantom
• Dogecoin pops 4% on another Musk tweet

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Wrapping up

Another Datawallet newsletter comes to an end. Today’s updates include OpeanSea suspending the EtherFi NFTs, while an ICO Ether whale, dormant for 8 years, just moved his tokens to Kraken. The markets experienced more volatility as miners sell their BTC, and news that DeFi will have to follow KYC rules, has the markets on edge. Stay tuned for more updates in our rapidly evolving space.