A lot has happened in crypto over the past seven days. One of the top stories involves the Bitcoin halving event, which took place on Saturday. Following the halving, Bitcoin miners will now receive 3.125 BTC as rewards. This year’s halving is the fourth since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009.
Meanwhile, ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund) analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X last Monday that the Hong Kong financial watchdog had approved Bitcoin ETFs but are not available for trade yet. He anticipated that the ETFs would start trading this week or at the start of May.
Balchunas also disagreed with some crypto analysts who claimed that Bitcoin ETFs in Hong Kong would record $25 billion in net inflows. The ETF analyst argued that the Hong Kong ETF market was too small to make that figure a reality. He added that the approved Bitcoin ETFs would be lucky to pull inflows worth $500 million.
Although the Hong Kong-approved ETFs didn’t hit the market on Monday, the news was bullish for crypto. For example, Bitcoin saw its price rise by 2% that day. However, the pump was short-lived.
Andreessen Horowitz Sets Up New Gaming Fund
On Tuesday, one of the prominent venture capitalists, Andreessen Horowitz, announced the launch of its second gaming fund. According to the company’s statement, the fund will focus on AI and Web-3 games. Later that day, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Andrew Chen tweeted that the new gaming fund has an accelerator program called Speedrun, intended to reward selected game developers with $750,000 each. Chen urged developers to pitch their gaming ideas on sr.a16z.com to stand a chance of getting funded.
Meanwhile, NFT enthusiast @Cryptopathic announced that David Wilkinson’s meme dubbed “Nightclub Meme,” which features a male and a female talking in a nightclub setting, will be auctioned. Cryptopathic stated that the starting bid was 15 ETH or about $47,987 based on ETH’s current price. The auction will end on April 22nd, a few minutes before midnight.
Worldcoin Foundation Launches an Ethereum Layer-2
On Wednesday, the Worldcoin Foundation announced World Chain, an Ethereum-layer-2 network that will collect gas fees using the WLD token. Per the announcement, verified humans (individuals holding verified World IDs) will transact on World Chain at discounted network fees. Moreover, their transactions will be prioritized.
That day, the unexpected happened. Craig Wright, who saw his claims about being the Bitcoin founder refuted by the United Kingdom High Court last month, dropped several lawsuits he had previously filed against a number of Bitcoin developers. Crypto journalist Matt Corallo was the first to break the news.
About a week ago, a senior partner at BTC Advisor, Hodlonaut, wrote on X that Wright had dropped the charges he filed against him in late 2019.
New Web3 Phone Hits Market
On Thursday, an X account with the name EthereumPhone announced the release of a new Web3 smartphone called ethOS. In a long thread, EthereumPhone explained that ethOS was available as an NFT, mintable on the Base blockchain. Those who wish to redeem their NFTs for a physical ethOS smartphone must first burn those tokens. The redeemed smartphones will be shipped starting from May 1st.
Bitcoin halving wasn’t the only major event happening on Saturday. Crypto users were also looking forward to the launch of the Runes protocol. Through Runes, token creators can now develop and launch fungible tokens in an efficient manner. The protocol’s developer, Casey Rodamor, intends to make Bitcoin-based DeFi a reality. Several tokens have already been launched via Runes. Some of them include Runix, Meme Economics, Lobo the Wolf Pup, and Uncommon Goods. It is worth mentioning that Rodamor is the developer behind Ordinals, a platform that allows anyone to inscribe NFTs onto Bitcoin.
With the mining rewards reduced by half, some crypto analysts believe that Runes will increase network activity on the Bitcoin network, prompting miners to shift their focus to transaction fees.
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