Polygon Launches MATIC to POL Conversion
On September 4, the Polygon team implemented an update, replacing the utility token MATIC with POL in a 1:1 ratio. This transition was announced in July and will be automatic for most users; it can be done manually through a special portal. At launch, POL will replace MATIC for staking and gas payments in the Polygon PoS network. In the future, the new token will be used in the AggLayer aggregation system. Some of the new coins will go to reward validators, the rest will go to the treasury for the ecosystem fund and grant programs.
Bitcoin Rate Drops to $54,000
On September 6, the price of Bitcoin began to decline, falling from $56,000 to $54,000, a 3.5% loss. This decline affected other major cryptocurrencies: Ethereum also ended up in the red, falling to $2,270, a 4% decrease compared to the previous day. At the time of writing, the BTC rate is hovering around $54,550, while the ETH rate is $2,305.
Ethereum Market Depth Shrinks by 20% After Spot ETF Launch
Since the launch of Ethereum spot ETFs in the U.S., the average market depth for ETH pairs on centralized exchanges has fallen by 20% to around $14 million, CoinDesk reports, citing data from CCData. This means it now takes less money to move the spot price by 5%, indicating reduced liquidity and increased sensitivity to large orders.
On international centralized exchanges, this figure has fallen by 19% to around $10 million. While the launch of an ETF usually improves the liquidity of the underlying asset, as happened with Bitcoin, in the case of Ethereum, the expected effect has not been observed.
BNB Chain Developers Announce Ecosystem Expansion
BNB Smart Chain (BSC) has reached 1.2 million daily active users, while opBNB has reached 2.7 million. Unique wallets in BSC have grown by 30.4% year-on-year, exceeding 458 million. The average number of transactions per day was 4 million for BSC and 4.8 million for opBNB. There are nearly 800 dApps in the ecosystem, 189 of which were added during the year. BSC's TVL has reached $4.82 billion.
By the end of 2024, the BNB Chain network merger is planned to be completed, Rust-based clients are introduced, a new state storage model is launched, "real world" applications are developed, gas-free transactions are supported, and infrastructure for user acquisition is developed.
Buterin Withdrew 2.1 Million STRK from His Wallet
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has transferred about 2.1 million Starknet tokens (STRK) worth approximately $858,750 to a third-party wallet, Arkham Intelligence reports. The day before, Buterin unlocked 1.26 million STRK from the Starknet LockedTokenGrant contract. L2 network tokens were the second most important part of his portfolio after ETH. At the moment, the address marked as Vitalik Buterin contains assets worth $560.3 million. In late August, Buterin assured that he did not sell his ETH and continues to hold the proceeds from 2018. According to him, all asset sales went to support projects and charity, including L2 network tokens.
Solo Miners Have Mined 329 Bitcoin Blocks in 11 Years
Since 2014, solo miners of the first cryptocurrency have mined at least 329 blocks, according to CK Pool. Although CK Pool is not a classic pool, it provides services to individual miners who connect their hashrate and receive 98% of the block reward (minus CK Pool's fee) if they are lucky. In reality, the number of blocks mined by solo miners may be slightly higher, since they can use other methods to connect to the network. However, the probability of successfully solving a cryptographic puzzle for solo miners remains close to zero.
