The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future! (weekly crypto updates)

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What happened in the past week? Bitcoin is the word, all over the news, with everybody expecting to see ETFs soon-ish. Vitalik shared the 2024 Roadmap for ETH. Quite a few protocols were exploited lately. What else? Read below:

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• Bitcoin: Despite all this yo-yo effect, we did have BTC going over 45K once this week, in anticipation of the potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval by the SEC, but this has not happened yet. Bitcoin ETF applicant VanEck promised 5% of the profits to Bitcoin Core developers. Fidelity, Galaxy and Invesco announced the fees for their proposed BTC ETFs. Yet, there is more and more about the ETFs. It may be huge. Then we had a flash crash, going to $40750, causing over half a billion in long liquidations. Matrixport said that the high funding rates and the pullback in crypto stocks were the reasons for the crash. Indonesian police shut down 10 Bitcoin mining operations, accusing them of electricity theft worth $1M, seizing 1134 mining machines from multiple locations. JimCrames praised BTC, calling it a technological marvel, a welcome change contrasting with his past scepticism in the previous year. Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark will launch its own trading desk this year. MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor sold $216M in stock options for personal obligations and more BTC. Former Citigroup executives are to launch a new venture offering BTC-backed securities which, as they claim, do not require approval from the SEC. I do not see this happening, to be honest. Some major US exchanges filed final spot BTC ETF applications.

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• Ethereum: Vitalik shared the ETH Roadmap for 2024, focusing on the Merge and advancements like single-slot finality (SSF), emphasizing rollups, zk proofs, account abstraction, and privacy solutions. ENS token went 70% up after Vitalik called it 'super important' in one of his online posts.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: Dymension, a specialized L1 that acts as a settlement layer for RollApps, is now distributing its native token, DYM, via airdrop. Check them out! Only 14 days left to do this. There is also a project called Less Fees and Gas, airdropping on Solana, based on the amount of gas spent on ETH. We had the first rug pull on Solana when MangoFarmSol suddenly deactivated. Be aware that there is a new Solana wallet drainer now, widely used around the world. Do not click carelessly and log in using your wallet, just for some fake airdrop, and lose all your SOL tokens. Avalanche Foundation is embracing meme coins as part of the culture catalyst program. Binance added a monitoring tag to several privacy-focused digital assets such as XMR, ZEC, ZEN, and FIRO.

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• Blockchain games and NFT: In a historic feat, Solana NFT sales overtook ETH in December, with $366M, compared to $353M on ETH. Wombat Dungeon Masters' The current season has just started. On Splinterlands, the Land 2.0 latest features blog post is available now on PeakD.

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• Good news: Stake secured naming rights for Sauber's F1 car, with its ambassador, the rapper Drake, unveiling the new Kick Sauber C44. VISA launched a Web3 customer loyalty program. Prospera, a special economic zone in Honduras, has officially accepted BTC as a unit of account, allowing businesses to measure goods and services value in Bitcoin. Digital asset volumes and assets under management raised more than 67% in Q4 2023.

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• Bad news: Cross-chain bridge Orbit was hacked on December 31, with an estimated loss of $81M. There are some reimbursement scams related to this hack, going on right now, so, be careful. The cross-chain lending protocol Radiant Capital also suffered a hack, with a $4.5M loss, seconds after a new USDC market was activated, as the attackers exploited a known vulnerability. DEFI protocol Gamma Strategies was exploited losing $3.4M, using a vulnerability in the accounting mechanism. Crypto payment platform CoinsPaid had its second security breach in six months, losing $7.5M, mostly in USDT, ETH and USDC. SBF will not face a second trial, with a guilty verdict on seven counts in November, he is already facing a maximum prison sentence of over 100 years. FTX's $8B bankruptcy case legal battle seems to follow a long-term process. The founder of Taiwan's ACE Exchange was arrested, facing fraud allegations. South Korea proposes a ban on crypto purchases using credit cards. Phishing scams surged in 2023, with over $295M lost in digital assets, affecting over 324.000 users.

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• Joke of the week: European Central Bank (ECB) published a draft rulebook for digital euro payments. Coinbase wants to buy an unnamed European holding company that owns the MiFID II license, the EU's revised license with regulations for financial instruments, beyond stocks, including derivatives and cryptocurrencies.

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) (Upland - real-life virtual land) and (Rising Star - Music creators game).

...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Read.cash and Hive.

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