Among the highlights of this week is the fall of the Bitcoin hashrate due to the disconnection of mining equipment in regions of China. The reduction, which occurred just after reaching the greatest mining difficulty in its history, was slowing down the network for most of the week.
Bitcoin, for its part, lost 8.5% of its value over the course of the week . The pioneer cryptocurrency traded below $ 50,000. At the time of writing this article, BTC is trading at USD 52,186, as reflected in the market price of Latin America and Spain, according to the CriptoNoticias price calculator .
With CriptoNoticias , those interested can keep up to date on the changes in the market prices of bitcoin and ether in relation to their local currency. To do this, they can visit the BTC and ETH Prices section, which has a calculator to make conversions quickly and easily to their national currency.
These are the most outstanding news:
This week there were difficulties confirming transactions in Bitcoin. A 40% reduction in the Bitcoin hashrate slowed down the network. Consequently, in these seven days there was an increase in the number of transactions pending confirmation in the mempool and, with it, in processing commissions.
However, by Sunday, April 25, the network’s hashrate returned to levels close to difficulty, and with it, transaction fees were reduced. For this Monday, the network looks congested again, with transaction fees exceeding 150 sats / vb.
The hashrate drop was one of the main reasons that caused a second cryptocurrency price correction on April 23. The price of the cryptoactive was below $ 50,000, a price not seen in almost two months. Meanwhile, bitcoin’s dominance fell below 50% , something that has not happened since August 2018. The index registered a value of 49.79% on April 22.
Amid the price drop, Grayscale lost more than $ 1 billion to its leading product, the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC). The fund continues to trade at a significant discount compared to the volume of assets it manages. According to data from April 21, the assets managed by the fund were USD 36.46 billion.
Then, in the update on the 22nd it reflected USD 35,285 million, a loss of USD 1,175 million. Meanwhile, users of the platform for mobile payments, Venmo, can already buy, sell or save in bitcoin directly from the application (app). The service was activated on April 20 for users in the United States, according to a statement from the PayPal-owned company.
Omar Prieto, governor of the Zulia state of Venezuela, announced on April 20 that a plan is under development to massify a debit card backed by cryptocurrencies. The project was called “Bitcoin City” and would be established in all the businesses of the regional entity.
Simultaneously, the American fast food chain Church’s Chicken, which has been operating in Venezuela since 2001, announced its decision to officially implement the payment of salary bonuses for its employees with the Dash cryptocurrency.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) are investigating the trading of Binance’s tradable share tokens. They evaluate whether or not the exchange has complied with the laws of the stock market before launching the product. The platform responded to the questions by noting that it complies with European regulations.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives passed several bipartisan laws on financial services, including HR1602, which aims to foster innovation in the realm of digital assets like Bitcoin, in the United States.
Interest in the cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE) reached an all-time high of Google searches this week. This in the middle of the celebration of Dogeday (Doge Day), an initiative that emerged on social networks to promote the cryptocurrency meme. Despite this, some 872 million DOGEs that had been in their owners’ purses for five years were back in circulation this week.
It means that those who had accumulated the cryptocurrency for a long time, decided to sell their belongings for a profit (about $ 287 million) in the middle of a bull run in the price of the cryptoactive.
If you want to know the meaning of several words in the crypto world terminology, you can consult them in the extensive CryptoNews Glossary.
Atomic Swaps: in Spanish, atomic swaps. It refers to the transactional protocol that allows one cryptocurrency to be exchanged for another without the need for intermediaries, such as an exchange house. Atomic swaps are carried out by creating person-to-person payment channels that generate transactions in the blockchains of each cryptocurrency subject to the exchange.
Cryptotutorial of the week:
Emet, the digital cryptocurrency ecosystem, introduced Faswet, a cryptocurrency e-commerce platform with a simple user interface, to the crypto market, which, like its entire ecosystem, is developed on its own blockchain (EmetBG).
On this platform, you can trade with the 7 main cryptocurrencies on the market: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, EmetBG, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and Dash. In this tutorial we show you how it works.
