Ethereum Turns 10
Ethereum is celebrating 10 years since its mainnet launch, with the first block mined on July 30, 2015. To celebrate the anniversary, the Ethereum Foundation will release a collection of commemorative NFTs, available to claim until July 31. The Ethereum Foundation emphasized that Ethereum's launch was a turning point for the internet, paving the way for financial innovation and new forms of digital property. Over 100 events were held around the world to mark the anniversary. The team called on the community to join the celebration and "help Ethereum enter a new decade."
BNB All-Time High — Price Reaches $852
Changpeng Zhao's net worth in BNB tokens has surpassed $75.8 billion, hitting a new all-time high of $852.1, according to CoinGecko. At press time, the price had corrected to $850. According to a June Forbes report, Zhao owns about 64% of the circulating supply of BNB, or about 89.1 million tokens. The entrepreneur himself previously claimed that 98% of his portfolio is BNB. An additional driver of growth could be the recent Maxwell update in the BNB Chain network, which increased the blockchain's performance.
Polygon Network Outage
On July 30, users noticed that the Polygon network stopped processing transactions and issuing new blocks. As the developers explained, the problem was related to updating data on Polygonscan, which caused the site to display incorrect information.
For several hours, the community expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of comments from the team. Later, Polygon Labs explained that the failure occurred in the Heimdall module, a component responsible for validating transactions and synchronizing with Ethereum. One of the validators unexpectedly turned off, which led to a halt in block creation for about an hour.
Amid the incident, the MATIC token fell by 5% and is trading at $0.19.
Tether Releases Quarterly Earnings Report
In the second quarter, Tether International Ltd. recorded a net profit of $4.9 billion, according to the company's report. The audit firm BDO confirmed full asset coverage. From April to June, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin issued tokens for $13.4 billion, and since the beginning of the year - for $20 billion. The total supply in circulation exceeded 157 billion USDT. The company also became one of the largest holders of US Treasury bonds with investments amounting to $127 billion.
CME SOL Futures Trading Volume Up 252%
In July, Solana futures trading volume on CME Group reached $8.1 billion, up 252% from June’s $2.3 billion. Open interest in SOL contracts increased 203%, from $132.3 million to $400.9 million, according to K33 Research. Interest in the instrument was initially weak, with trading volume in March amounting to only $12.3 million. However, activity increased sharply in July amid expectations for the launch of the Solana ETF.
On July 31, VanEck, Fidelity, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, CoinShares, Bitwise, and other managers filed updated S-1 filings with the SEC. Similar actions had previously preceded the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which increased investor confidence in the prospects of Solana funds.
Additional momentum was provided by the launch of the REX-Osprey SOL + Staking ETF (SSK), which, despite operating under the 1940 Act, directly invests in Solana and stakes at least 50% of assets.
Qubic Plans 51% Attack on Monero
The Qubic platform, founded by IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo, announced its intention to gain control over 51% of the Monero hashrate from August 2 to 31. The initiative has drawn sharp criticism from the community. Qubic uses a useful Proof-of-Work (uPoW) algorithm: mined XMR are exchanged for USDT to buy back and burn QUBIC tokens, forming a deflationary model.
In May, the platform became the largest pool in the Monero network, increasing its share of the hashrate from 2% to 27%. However, at the time of publication, according to MiningPoolStats, Qubic has fallen to fourth place. Ivancheglo called the events an "economic experiment", emphasizing that the goal is to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of the PoW model, and not malicious actions.
In response to Qubic's actions, the Monero community rallied around the supportxmr.com pool, which now controls 33.5% of the network's hashrate.
