News of cryptocurrencies of the 2nd week of May 2023

BTC network fee exceeded $30

In early May, the Bitcoin blockchain network set a new ATH of 685.7 thousand transactions per day, caused by a surge in activity associated with the Ordinals protocol. Following this, there was a rapid increase in the number of unconfirmed transactions and the amount of transaction fees in the network. In this regard, this week, network users were forced to pay up to $30 for sending transactions.

The most significant factor influencing the growth of commissions is the volume of transactions in the Bitcoin network, which reached 600 thousand transactions per day. The increase in network fees caused an increase in the number of pending transactions and forced the Binance crypto exchange to stop withdrawing the first cryptocurrency from its platform. Similar problems arose with many other services that provide access to Bitcoin. At the moment, the commission of the Bitcoin network is approximately $2.

Do Kwon released on bail

Do Kwon, one of the co-founders of Terraform Labs, was released from jail pending trial after paying a $436,000 bail, Montenegrin website Pobjeda reported. Together with him, accomplice Han Chang Jun was released. Both defendants presented their financial information to the court, claiming to have property worth several million. The bail amount was paid by their wives. In addition, they promised not to hide until the end of the criminal process, to regularly appear at court hearings and live at the address indicated by the defense counsel.

The court took into account the seriousness of the crime, the personal and family circumstances of the suspects, their financial situation, as well as the financial situation of the bailiffs. As a result, the loss of $436,000 bail was found to have a strong enough impact to deter suspects from trying to escape. In addition, the court took into account the need to verify the authenticity of passports and identity cards, which were allegedly issued by the competent Belgian authorities.

In the event of an escape or violation of the chosen precautions, the amount deposited as a security deposit will be credited to a special account to finance the work of the courts. It is known that if Kwon is found guilty, he could face a record sentence in South Korea — 40 years in prison.

Failures in the Ethereum network

On May 14, the Ethereum (ETH) network experienced a technical failure, as a result of which the confirmation of transactions was suspended. The network participants assumed that the validators could not cope with the processing of transactions, so new blocks did not appear. However, after about 25 minutes, the blockchain restored its normal operation.

Over the next two days, an unidentified problem in the Ethereum network again occurred, due to which transactions could not be completed temporarily. During the epochs from 200,751 to 200,758, a significant drop in confirmed transactions was recorded — up to 30%. The developers of the Ethereum client, Prysm, quickly released an update. This update includes optimizations to prevent overuse of host resources during times of instability. A new Prysm client update is planned for early next week. The developers explained that tests for changes will be carried out over the weekend.

Binance Exchange Announces Lightning Network Integration

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced on its Twitter account the upcoming inclusion of the Lightning Network. This decision was made due to the congestion of the Bitcoin network mempool and the high cost of transactions.

FixedFloat is the first crypto exchange to offer its users the Lightning Network. We are big fans of Lightning because it has many benefits: Lightning Network enables instant transactions and improves the scalability of Bitcoin, and Lightning Network transactions are more private than standard Bitcoin transactions because they are not written to the public blockchain.

Capitalization of BRC20 tokens fell to $400 million

The world of cryptocurrencies has been looking to stabilize after a significant price decline earlier this week. BRC-20 tokens were one of the market segments that felt the brunt of this correction, dropping significantly in their market capitalization. The total market capitalization of all BRC-20 tokens fell from $990 million to $379 million between May 8 and May 11, representing a 62% decline.

Users attacked Justin Sun's wallet with meme tokens

Experts from PeckShieldAlert noted a lot of transfers of meme tokens to the wallet of Justin Sun, the founder of Tron. According to Etherscan, various currencies were transferred to him, including WEED, METH and NGMI. Security experts also said that in the wake of increased attention to meme tokens, a group of attackers introduced a fake FOUR token into circulation, trying to impersonate the creator of Tron.

Analysts emphasize that this is a typical tactic. Unscrupulous actors are trying to lure naive investors by creating an implausible picture of the upcoming meme token market rally. Sun previously announced his plan to "actively trade" meme tokens. He claimed that he was ready to personally cover the losses from his transactions, and transfer the income received to charity.

Elon Musk has found his successor as CEO of Twitter

Elon Musk announced his intention to step down as CEO of Twitter. However, the move does not imply a complete severing of ties with the social network — he will continue to serve as executive chairman and CTO.

According to Musk, he has already decided on the candidacy of his successor, or rather, successor. According to information published by The Wall Street Journal and based on data from sources, this person is likely to be Linda Iaccarino, head of advertising sales at the American media company NBCUniversal.

Trader jailed for 18 months for buying a car with BTC

A French investor has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for buying a Ferrari using Bitcoin. The lawsuit against Thomas Clausi began after a complaint was filed for fraud by a French resident of Casablanca. She sold her Ferrari to him for 400,000 euros in cryptocurrency. The payment was made in full and on time in April 2021, when the BTC rate was at $60,000.

The disgruntled woman filed a complaint with the court in July of that year, when the value of BTC dropped to $30,000. As a result, the young man was fined 3.4 million euros and sentenced to 18 months in prison for using a cryptocurrency recognized as illegal by the Moroccan authorities.