Snowden’s admission and the record difficulty of bitcoin mining. Key events of the week

The bitcoin exchange rate has fallen by 3,11% over the past seven days. The asset reached the highest values on April 26, when 1 BTC was trading at $40 661, the lowest values were recorded on April 27, at $37 969 per coin. As of April 29, the bitcoin exchange rate is $39 172 (according to Binance).

The second-largest cryptocurrency by capitalization, Ethereum, has dropped by 3,49% over the past seven days. The native token of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange (BNB) fell in value by 1,91%.

The total capitalization of the crypto market fell from $1,88 trillion to $1,79 trillion over the week, with bitcoin dominating at 40,6%. Ethereum’s share is 19,5%. As can be seen on the infographic of the Coin360 portal, most of the assets are in the red zone on April 29.

Source: Coin360.com

Restrictions by Binance

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volumes, imposed restrictions on residents of Russia. On April 21, the platform announced that it was suspending the service of accounts of Russian users who keep more than €10 000 in assets on their accounts. For such accounts, only the function of withdrawal of funds from the exchange is available. The rules apply to spot, futures, and custody wallets, as well as other Binance products such as Staking and Earn. Russian users who keep more than €10 000 on Binance are given 90 days to close all positions, starting from April 21, 2022.

Experts admitted that the platform is capable of completely blocking Russian users. For the latest news on the restrictions imposed and ways to keep your funds in case of complete blocking, read GetBlock Magazine’s special piece.

Crypto investors’ personal data will be handed over to law security agencies

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation supported a number of revisions to the draft law on the regulation of cryptocurrencies previously proposed by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Taxation Service, and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service. In particular, advertising of unlicensed cryptocurrency platforms may be banned in Russia, while exchanges and other platforms would be required to provide data at the request of investigators.

There is still no coordinated position between the departments on the regulation of mining. The Ministry of Finance did not support the FSB’s idea of the mandatory crediting of assets obtained as a result of mining to crypto exchanges. In addition, the Ministry of Finance believes it is inappropriate to introduce “unnecessarily detailed and strict regulation” at this stage of the crypto market’s development, as it may cause an outflow of customers and investors.

Russia can lead the mining industry

This was stated on April 27 by a member of the State Duma working group on the legislative regulation of cryptocurrency Andrei Lugovoy. In his view, climatic conditions and the low cost of electricity may be contributing to this. However, Lugovoy does not believe that the cryptocurrency may become a full-fledged means of payment. This position is shared by the government, the Bank of Russia, and lawmakers. According to the deputy, digital currencies should be defined as property.

A day earlier, Russia’s Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov called for recognizing digital assets as a subject of encroachment and allowing the authorities to impose restrictive measures on them. In his view, this initiative should simplify the investigation of cases of theft of cryptocurrencies, as well as make it possible to arrest them.

Snowden admitted to participating in the development of Zcash

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) official Edward Snowden admitted that he was the sixth person involved in the creation of the anonymous cryptocurrency Zcash in 2016.

In the Zcash creation ceremony, six people performed a number of tasks and took possession of parts of the private keys. Combining all the keys would allow the creation of an unlimited amount of cryptocurrency. The finale of the ceremony in the fall of 2016 was the destruction of these keys. If at least one of the six people destroyed their part of the key, the ceremony was considered a success.

Shortly after the genesis block was created, five of the six participants revealed their identities. Among them were CoinCenter researcher Peter Van Valkenburgh, and bitcoin core developer, Peter Todd. The sixth participant, under the pseudonym John Dobbertin, remained unknown until recently. He turned out to be Edward Snowden, a well-known whistleblower, and ex-CIA and NSA employee.

Dogecoin rose in price by 29%

On April 26, the Dogecoin cryptocurrency rose in price by 29% (according to Binance), the altcoin became the market growth leader in 24 hours. This came after it became known about Elon Musk’s purchase of the social network Twitter.

Musk repeatedly advocated for Dogecoin, causing sharp fluctuations in the price with his tweets. In December 2021, he said that Dogecoin was better for everyday payments than BTC. And in January this year, Musk suggested Mcdonald’s start accepting Dogecoin as payment.

According to published data, the deal to buy Twitter would be worth $44 billion. Elon Musk hoped that even his worst critics would stay on Twitter, “because that is what free speech means.”

On April 22, the Dogecoin Foundation conducted its first offline transaction using the Starlink satellite network. The Dogecoin Foundation aims to make Dogecoin an international means of payment.

Bitcoin mining difficulty surpassed a record 29,7 T

On April 27, bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 5,56% and reached an all-time high of 29,79 T, according to BTC.com. Compared to last year’s figures (23,58 T), the difficulty of mining the first cryptocurrency has increased by 20%. The bitcoin network’s hashrate also reached a maximum of 213 EH/s.

Mining difficulty defines the amount of computing power required to find a new block in the blockchain. The parameter changes every 2016 blocks, or about once every two weeks. Therefore, it takes about 10 minutes to find a block. Hashrate is the total processing power in the bitcoin network.

EU wants to tighten the rules for regulating the crypto market

European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Fabio Panetta advocated for the implementation of global rules for regulating the crypto market. He identified four key tasks for developing new rules.

The first task should be to bring the crypto market to the standards of the global financial system, including the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism). The second is to implement common taxation for all jurisdictions. The third is to tighten disclosure rules about crypto companies and regulatory reporting.

The last task, according to Panetta, is to introduce strict transparency requirements and establish the standards of conduct for service providers to protect retail investors.

Real estate for cryptocurrency in Dubai

DAMAC Properties, a Dubai-based luxury real estate developer, announced that it would begin supporting payment with cryptocurrencies. The company would convert bitcoins and ETH into fiat money before closing the deal. The company’s press release said that this decision was made in line with its initiative to use innovative technologies for customer convenience.

Ali Sajwani, General Manager of Operations at DAMAC and lead of the firm’s digital transformation initiatives, believes that the ability to pay in cryptocurrencies will accelerate the development of the “new economy” and the real estate industry.

New article in the GetBlock Magazine knowledge base

GetBlock Magazine’s knowledge base has a new article on the up-to-date ways to earn cryptocurrency without investment in 2022. Read more about them at the link.