One week in review:
Aug. 1–7 We've selected the hottest materials of the past week for you to stay up to date with the latest crypto news: | | #1. Square to acquire Australian fintech Afterpay in $29B deal | | | Jack Dorsey's digital payments firm Square entered into a $29 billion stock deal to purchase Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Afterpay this week. | | | Just like the name Afterpay implies, Square will essentially be buying the firm now and paying later, with the transaction set for the first quarter of 2022 and to be paid out entirely in Square common stock. | | | Bitcoin (BTC) proponent Anthony Pompliano was pleased with the news, noting on his web series The Best Business Show that Square is one of the only stocks he owns, as he forecasted that the firm's valuation will explode following the acquisition. | | | In an Aug. 3 YouTube video, Pomp went for sheer and utter clickbait with the title "SQUARE is going to be worth 1 TRILLION dollars," and he emphasized the potential of rolling out Afterpay's BNPL services to 70 million Cash App users and 2 million Square merchants. | | #2. Circle and Unstoppable Domains to introduce username-based USDC payments | | | Circle and Unstoppable Domains are working to introduce username-based addresses as an alternative to long-winded alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses to aid the not so tech savvy, a.k.a. newbies and boomers. | | | According to an Aug. 4 announcement, blockchain domain name provider Unstoppable Domains and stablecoin issuer Circle are collaborating to release readable ".coin" usernames for USD Coin (USDC) transfers. | | | As part of the partnership, both companies will collaborate to enable support for .coin username extensions across wallets and crypto exchanges that list the number two-ranked stablecoin. | | | Under this arrangement, USDC transfers will become akin to sending an email, likely mitigating the problem of transferring coins to the wrong address, losing funds forever and living with regrets over one's lack of due diligence. | | #3. Ethereum London hard fork goes live | | | The London hard fork arrived almost on schedule on Aug. 5, ushering in Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. An interesting feature of the upgrade is that it also ushered in some bullish sentiments from Ethereum (ETH) proponents and some sour grapes from Bitcoin maxis. | | | Ethereum has now transitioned away from a bidding-based fee market to a fixed price-and-burn mechanism, which may see the asset become deflationary if more ETH is burned than issued in block rewards. However, this may be more likely after the switch to proof-of-stake with ETH 2.0. | | | If the asset does become deflationary, it would reach the status of "ultrasound money," which is a term that has also been a long-running meme in ETH communities that mocks Bitcoiners' description of BTC as sound money due its capped supply of 21 million. | | #4. Prediction of the week. Bitcoin chart fractal suggests BTC price will have rallied to at least $80K by September | | | If this latest bullish BTC prediction turns out to be true, Bitcoiners may soon be able to start driving their lambos on the moon. | | | Nunya Bizniz, an independent market analyst, posted a bullish prediction on Aug. 1, as they highlighted that the recent rally of around 40% in late July included 10 consecutive days of lovely green candles, and not those horrible red ones that bears love so much. | | | The analyst noted that each of BTC's previous 10-day bull runs has ended up with at least a 100% price increase within 30 to 60 days. Therefore, if history repeats itself, Bitcoin's price may double and surge to new all time highs around the $80,000 mark. | | #5. FUD of the week. South Korean regulator to reportedly shut down 11 crypto exchanges | | | Crypto regulations in South Korea may become more stringent after news circulated this week that South Korea's top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), is reportedly planning to shut down a dozen local cryptocurrency exchanges amid accusations of fraud. | | | The FSC will suspend operations of at least 11 mid-sized crypto exchanges in South Korea due to alleged illegal activities and fraudulent collective accounts, according to local media outlets. | | | The publication cited anonymous industry sources claiming that the names of the exchanges were not yet disclosed, so Koreans will not know exactly what to FUD over until the names come to light. The sources argued that the mentioned crypto exchanges will be unable to get approval for operation by the FSC. | | | The report also notes that the authority is planning to implement stricter regulations for smaller crypto exchanges in South Korea, meaning that any one firm that wants to partake in illegal behaviour will have to do it on a large scale. | | #6. FUD of the week. Monero's former maintainer arrested in the US for allegations unrelated to cryptocurrency | | | Speaking of alleged illicit behaviour, Riccardo Spagni, the former maintainer of the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency, was arrested last month in Nashville, Tennessee, but not for anything related to crypto. | | | Spagni is facing fraud charges tied to alleged offenses in South Africa between 2009 and 2011, during his time serving as an information technology manager at a company dubbed Cape Cookies. | | | Spagni allegedly fabricated additional invoices from a supplier of Cape Cookies, which included inflated prices for goods and services, along with his bank details instead of the suppliers'. He now faces a hearing on Aug. 5 to determine whether he is held, pending trial. If convicted in South Africa, he faces 20 years in prison. | | | Feel free to explore the most important news with Hodler's Digest: | | | |
