Bitcoin is up 70% from its November low
Bitcoin has begun to show signs of resilience, with the rate jumping to $28,400 this week. The currency has posted 72% growth this year, its best quarterly gain in two years. Just a few months ago, experts suggested that Bitcoin would fall to $12,000. The fear and greed index fell to 59, down from a nearly 18-month high of 68 reached a week ago. A reading above 50 indicates that market sentiment is in the "greed" stage. This year's "greed" phase comes as cryptocurrencies are rising despite regulatory hurdles.
Mixin Network was hacked for $200 million
At the end of last week, the Mixin Network cloud services were hacked, and an unknown person stole about $200 million. Mixin Network is a peer-to-peer trading network whose goal is to scale and speed up transactions. The protocol supports popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to BlockSec analysts, the attack was aimed at cloud services where private keys were stored. As a result, the attacker gained access to 10,000 wallets, from which he withdrew funds. As reported by the protocol developers, most of the funds belong to users. They sent a transaction to the attacker's address offering a reward of 10% of the stolen funds for their return.
Pakistani scammers stole $3 million from an American
As a result of the fraud, a US resident lost $3 million. The scammers convinced the man to transfer money from his retirement account to the Kraken exchange. They then accessed the account on the exchange, converted dollars into Bitcoin and withdrew the coins. During the investigation, the police found out that the scammers were from Pakistan. They probably have little experience in scamming since they stored BTC on a centralized service. As a result, the service simply froze the coins and, with the help of the police, returned them to the victim.
Ethereum team relaunched Holesky testnet
On the second attempt, the Ethereum blockchain developers were able to launch the Holesky test network. A previous attempt on the anniversary of The Merge update ended in failure. Due to an incorrect configuration in the original genesis file, the team was pushing back the deployment date. Some validators were able to manually start the chain, but this did not lead to success. The second launch attempt took place live, the developers confirmed the integration.
Holesky will replace the Goerli testnet, which has been running since 2019. Goerli support will end in 2024. Holesky aims to validate staking solutions, evaluate infrastructure and protocols. The testnet will have many more validators than the mainnet. This solution will allow solutions to be tested under more stringent conditions.
Microsoft plans to integrate crypto wallet into Xbox
Documents have appeared on the Resetera gaming forum that contain information about Microsoft’s intentions to integrate a cryptocurrency wallet into the Xbox game console. According to media information, the leak occurred during the US Federal Trade Commission's proceedings against Microsoft regarding the purchase of Activision Blizzard. Company representatives commented on this news, noting that adding a crypto wallet to Xbox will promote decentralization and reduce fraud.
3% of blockchain industry employees are paid in cryptocurrency
Pantera Capital presented interesting survey results. 88% of employees in the blockchain industry work remotely, but only 3% agree to be paid in cryptocurrencies. Of the 1,600 respondents, every 5 at least once accepted payment in cryptocurrency. Most of them prefer stablecoins, only 13% chose BTC. The survey also revealed where the majority of employees live.
In total, according to official data, about 21,300 people work in the crypto industry. 35% of them chose the USA for their place of residence, 23.5% prefer to live in Latin America, 23.5% in Europe and the Middle East. Employee salaries depend on the region. The average employee in North America earns $193,000 per year, which is the highest among other regions. For example, in Latin America the average salary is $104,771. The crypto community is clearly not going to stop there; more and more new projects and new solutions are appearing every year.
Tecpetrol uses excess gas for mining
Oil company Tecpetrol decided to convert excess gas into energy for cryptocurrency mining. The company plans to produce at least 35,000 barrels of oil per day at the site, but given the lack of infrastructure to consume the gas released from the process, it decided to explore cryptocurrency mining as a strategic choice for consuming it. Tecpetrol hopes to begin mining cryptocurrencies between late October and early November. The main goals are to reduce environmental impact by preventing gas emissions and generate additional profits. The company has already signed contracts and is collaborating with an unnamed firm that has experience implementing similar strategies in the United States.
