Digital Currency Group Sells Shares in Subsidiary’s Crypto Funds

The cryptocurrency conglomerate known as Digital Currency Group (DCG) is apparently getting ready to generate cash and maintain its liquidity by selling its assets in cryptocurrency funds that are managed by a subsidiary of the company known as Grayscale Investments.

According to a report that was published on February 7 by the Financial Times, which cited United States securities filings, DCG sold approximately one quarter of its shares in Grayscale’s Ether (ETH)-based fund for approximately $8 per share, despite the fact that each share held a claim to nearly double that amount in ETH. The filings were cited in the report.

In addition to this, it is said to have sold down small share parcels in Grayscale’s Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ethereum Classic (ETC)-based trusts. This is in addition to its Digital Large Cap Fund, which is a single fund that invests in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether, Polygon (MATIC), Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA).

The response that DCG gave when queried about the share sales was that “it is just part of our regular portfolio rebalancing.”

In spite of this declaration, there are others who feel that Barry Silbert’s DCG might be heading for some kind of financial difficulty.

Another of its companies, the cryptocurrency lending business Genesis Global Capital, filed a bankruptcy petition on January 19 and is reported to owe its creditors more than $3 billion.

Companies controlled by DCG have been significantly impacted by the contagion that has resulted from FTX’s downfall. Over the last several weeks, these companies have been forced to let go of over 500 people.

However, DCG has taken a number of actions to maintain liquidity in 2023, such as informing its shareholders in a letter dated January 17 that it would be discontinuing its quarterly dividend payments as it seeks to improve its balance sheets. This was one of the many initiatives that DCG has done.

After stating that it had received offers for the cryptocurrency media outlet CoinDesk that were greater than $200 million, DCG has reportedly sought the assistance of the financial advisory firm Lazard in order to assist it in weighing up options to sell CoinDesk, which is another of its subsidiaries.

According to the company’s website, DCG’s venture capital portfolio includes about 200 crypto-related startups, some of which include Grayscale, Genesis, and CoinDesk. Additionally, DCG has interest in a number of other businesses, such as the cryptocurrency exchange Luno and the advising company Foundry.

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Charles Hoskinson Officially Cut Ties with XRP Community

Barely a week after the news of the brawl with Ethereum Classic made the rounds, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has publicly declared he is cutting ties with the XRP community.

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According to the conversation gleaned from his tweet, Charles seems to have been the main figure behind a ton of trolls associated with the XRP community.

As an outspoken critic of many projects, it comes off as though many supporters of the XRP coin have been taking their pound of flesh on the legendary blockchain developer. Per his tweet, all of the trolling may be coming to an end.

“I think I’ve blocked most of the XRP trolls who continue to harass unprovoked. I’ve never seen a group so radically pick up a few words and run with it. Great job turning an ally into someone disgusted and totally checked out,” he said.

While many support Charles’ actions, a renowned XRP advocate, XRPcryptowolf, jumped into the conversation and advised Charles not to stereotype an entire community based on the behaviour of a selected few. However, Charles seems unperturbed in his stance, stating further;

“It isn’t a few trolls. It’s been an endless harassment campaign for days. I’m done with it. I want nothing more to do with XRP. The community has accomplished nothing but harming itself. Congratulations.” 

Actions and reactions are often tagged as balanced in what comes off as an open industry. Charles earlier confiscated the Twitter account that has served the Ethereum Classic community since 2016 and recently re-purposed it for the Ergo Community. The account has over 600k followers forcing the Ethereum Classic protocol to start building its community all over again. 

A number of industry observers were not cool with the events and how things played out, and for that reason, many may still be coming for Charles in ways he may not have envisaged.

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Charles Hoskinson Changes Ethereum Classic Twitter Account to Ergo’s

Charles Hoskinson, the blockchain leader known as one of the key figures responsible for creating Ethereum Classic and Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the parent company of Cardano recently converted the Twitter account of Ethereum Classic ( ETC) to that of Ergo Proof-of-Work network on the 6th of October.

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In a Twitter thread, Ethereum’s Classic Cooperative executive director Bob Summerville alerted the change of account. According to Summerville, the conversion of the Twitter account is an aftermath of ETC’s withdrawal of support for the 20% treasury protocol proposed by Hoskinson. This is the second time IOHK would be withdrawing from the ETC community, the first was in 2018 for similar reasons.

Summerville also claims that the account change by Hoskinson will damage both communities because Hokinson is creating drama to feed on his ego. 

He, therefore, asked Hokinson to stop using ETC’s Twitter account of over 600k plus followers as opposed to Ergo’s actual 60k plus Twitter account because Hoskinson wasn’t the creator of the account, a Twitter user @ChuckSRQ created and built it in July 2016 up to the level where the account was verified.

Hoskinson has responded by saying that he would not give up the account because he has put in so much time and millions of dollars in efforts to support the ETC blockchain community. He, therefore, promised to be even with ETC because of their stand in preserving their status quo.

Support for Ethereum Classic

So many Twitter users are condemning Hoskinson for his refusal to give back the account. 

According to a Twitter user (@CryptoHolon), many people have given their free time to the ETC network and supporting principles of decentralization. 

You were trying to change ETC’s nature with your proposal, the intentions of ETC’s twitter handle were always seen as a community handle. It’s a simple gesture, Charles.”

AntPool, a Bitmain-run Chinese mining pool, declared its support for Ethereum Classic in July and contributed $10 million to the ecosystem. Ethereum Classic is also now supported by Ethermine, the largest ETH mining pool in the world.

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Ethereum PoW Fork Token Price Drops Over 60% A Day after Mainnet Launch

Based on data from CoinMarketCap on Friday, the price of ETHW tokens from Ethereum’s proof-of-work fork has dropped by over 65% since the launch of its mainnet hardfork after the highly-anticipated Ethereum Merge took place on September 15th.

ETHW spiked as high as $60.68 in the early hours of Thursday morning following The Merge. At the time of writing, the tokens were trading at $12.80, a loss of 61% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.

The lowest point the price of ETHW exchanged hands was $8.20. The tokens traded at over $42 on Thursday before the Merge but plunged as much as 78% to as low as $8.20 in early European hours Friday.

ETHPoW is a separate Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain, forked from Ethereum’s Merge on September 15. However, its chain suffered technical issues after the launch, which put downward pressure on its ETHW token.

The team behind ETHPoW recognized the issue and fixed the network’s ChainID later on the same day. But several miners appeared to have abandoned the network despite a few major pools continuing to mine the PoW chain.

As a result, the ETHPoW hash rate dropped to 66.64 TH/s on Friday after peaking at 80.56 TH/s earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, the hash rates of other PoW alternatives for Ethereum miners like Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ravencoin, and Ergo, have experienced all-time high levels after the merge. After Ethereum’s successful merge, miners started switching their rigs to other blockchains such as the above mentioned.

According to data from crypto mining pool 2miners, the Ravencoin blockchain’s hashrate doubled from 8.29 TH/s to 18.47 THs over the past 24 hours.

Ergo (ERG), another PoW blockchain that supports GPU mining, also saw its hash rate rise over 372% in the last 24 hours from 29.05 TH/s to 157.56 TH/s currently. ERG, the native coin of Ergo, is also up 14.51% to $4.93 over the past 24 hours.

Eric Wall, the Chief Investment Officer at cryptocurrency investment firm Arcane Assets, explained that ETHPoW miners could not sustain the chain at current ETHW prices. He further added: “The daily rewards are 13100 ETH, $354k instead of $20m. There is no way miners can just ‘keep mining’ the ETHPoW chain, no matter how you adjust the difficulty. There simply aren’t enough rewards in the system to pay for the electricity bills.”

The price of ETHW fell in the past 24 hours, likely because users received the new tokens and instantly sold them on the open market. The tokens are listed on several major cryptocurrency exchanges, including FTX, Huobi, and OKX.

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Ethereum Classic Hash Rate Surges 200% Ahead of Ethereum Merge

According to data from mining pool 2miners, Ethereum Classic’s hash rate has experienced a 200% growth in the last 30 days, jumping to now at its all-time high of 64 TH/s from 30 TH/s on August 15.

Ethereum Classic has hit an all-time high hash rate of 65.49 terahashes per second (TH/s), having grown more than 40% during September ahead of The Merge.

Hash rate refers to the computational power used to mine a cryptocurrency on a proof-of-work blockchain. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, and Ether (before the merge) use a proof-of-work system, which requires lots of powerful computers and energy to process transactions.

Today, Ethereum is set to make its long-awaited shift from its proof-of-work consensus to an energy-friendly proof-of-stake blockchain consensus mechanism.

Ethereum’s move to shut down its proof-of-work consensus is set to leave Ether miners with potentially nothing to do. So, miners have announced their intent to migrate to Ethereum Classic, amongst several other proof-of-work blockchains.

These miners plan to mine Ethereum Classic and other compatible coins like Ravencoin. According to 2Miners, mining on Ethereum Classic and others like Ravencoin and Ergo is the “safest post-Merge strategy” at least in the first few days after the Ethereum Merge event.

“Currently, the most profitable coins after Ethereum are Ravencoin, Firo, Cortex, Ergo, Aeternity, Beam, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, and Callisto,” 2Miners elaborated.

The Merge Getting Ready

The mass migration of crypto miners to Ethereum Classic has been one of the major driving forces pushing its hashrate to reach new highs.

As a result, the Ethereum Classic’s native cryptocurrency (ETC) was also up by 7.53%, trading at $38.12 at the time of writing.

In July, AntPool, a mining pool based in China and owned by Bitmain, signalled support for Ethereum Classic and injected a $10 million investment in the ecosystem. Ethermine, the world’s largest Ether (ETH) mining pool, also announced support for Ethereum Classic.

Ethereum Classic’s algorithm, Ethash is compatible with equipment used for mining Ethereum. Due to this, ETC can be mined using the same GPU and ASIC machines designed for Ethereum mining.

Ethereum is about to change its consensus from proof of work to proof of stake, an update called The Merge. The upgrade is estimated to take place around 4:23 UTC on Thursday, late into the evening of September 15.

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Ethereum Classic Displayed Double-Digit Gains; What’s Next!

Ethereum Classic had experienced a sharp fall in prices on the 17th January, however, at press time ETC was seen recovering. Over the last 24 hours, ETC had gained close to 7% and was seen trading at $28. In the past week, ETC logged gains of about 17% and had broken past the $25 price mark.

ETC struggled near the aforementioned price level for the past few weeks. However, with close to 17% gains in the past seven days ETC has now managed to break the downtrend. Bitcoin was bordering $39k at the time of writing. As Bitcoin had climbed up on its chart, major altcoins followed the same price movement.

Price Analysis: ETC/USD Four Hour Chart

Source: TradingView ETC/USD

At the time of writing, ETC was priced at $28. In the past trading sessions, the coin was seen oscillating between $25 and $27 price levels respectively. Immediate resistance for ETC was at $30.31 and additional resistance marks for the coin stood at $34.22 and then at $38.68.

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On the flipside, ETC was resting in the support line of $25.84. For Ethereum Classic to move past the immediate resistance level of $30.31. The coin has to continue to trade above the $28 mark and form higher highs and lows.

ETC hadn’t traded beneath the $28 mark since January 18, the coin’s value dropped as the coin met with an intense sell-off. Over the past week, ETC buying pressure rose slowly and at press time, the asset stood near the overbought zone.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Steadies At $37,000, But What Are Options Traders Doing?

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The Relative Strength Index was parked above the 80-mark, which meant that the asset was overvalued at the time of writing. RSI was last seen hovering around the same level last in the month of November. A push from the buyers can also correct ETC’s prices over the upcoming trading sessions.

On Balance Volume also recovered considerably as OBV had met with an uptick which signalled and volume inflow had increased, which signified bullishness in the market. Awesome Oscillator depicted green signal bars which were seen amplifying at press time.

The technical outlook for Ethereum Classic remained quite optimistic. With continued demand, ETC could soon trade above the immediate resistance mark.

What’s Next For Ethereum Classic

Image Source: TradingView ETC/USD

Ethereum Classic was moving close to the $28 mark, however, in the last few days, ETC witnessed price action around the same area. Fibonacci Retracement was strong at 50% level. A fall from the current price level would push ETC back to $25 and then finally to $22.

A move above the current price level might cause ETC to experience another pullback at $31.80 at the 78.6% Fibonacci level. A major resistance point for ETC lay at $34.55 level, Ethereum Classic last traded at this price mark just a few weeks back in early January.

Strength from the broader crypto market would be required for Ethereum Classic to continue trading in an upward direction. If Bitcoin trades above the $40k mark, then major altcoins could also remain optimistic on their charts.

Related Reading | TG DAO 3.0: How a Truly Decentralized Organization Works

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Trading Titan Robinhood Rolls Out Crypto Wallet Beta Program

American financial services giant Robinhood is rolling out the beta version of its crypto wallets program after months of anticipation.

According to a new blog post, the company will hand out crypto wallets to the 1,000 customers who were on top of the program’s waitlist for testing and safety checks.

Robinhood says that by March, the number will be increased to 10,000 before the wallets are eventually distributed to every person on the waiting list.

Participants will be responsible for testing out the core features of the wallet, including potential updates as well as its safety features. The beta version of the wallet will allow users to send and receive crypto assets from Robinhood to external crypto wallets, connecting holders of digital assets on the popular trading app to blockchain projects for the first time ever.

“Beta testers will help us test core functionality and provide critical feedback to inform the final version of the product…

Connecting millions of Robinhood customers to the blockchain ecosystem in a safe, accessible setting is a massive undertaking. We take this responsibility seriously, which is why we’re rolling out wallets methodically.”

Beta testers will have a daily limit of $2,999 in total withdrawals and will be limited to just 10 transactions per day.

Robinhood first announced the crypto wallets projects last September. Currently, the trading giant supports trading for seven digital assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Litecoin (LTC).

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ENS DAO delegates offer perspective on DAO governance and decentralized identity

Earlier this month, the Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, formed a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, for the ENS community. 

Cointelegraph spoke to two ENS DAO delegates who applied for the opportunity to represent the community and stay involved in the decision making process: Victor Zhang, CEO of AlphaWallet, an open source Ethereum wallet, and Gregory Rocco, co-founder of Spruce, a decentralized ID and data toolkit for developers.

Zhang spoke about his experience as an external contributor to ENS and an early supporter since 2018. Zhang initially sought to help ENS by offering Alpha Wallet as a user-friendly tool for resolving .eth names and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. Essentially, if a user inputs an .eth name in the AlphaWallet, it will show the wallet address, and vice versa using reverse resolution. AlphaWallet also supports ENS avatars.

Zhang, also known as @Victor928, is among the top 30 delegates with the most voting power. When asked about how he plans to keep contributing to the DAO, Zhang said:

My biggest concern currently is voting power. The second largest voting power is Coinbase, a big corporation. We need to make sure the ENS is always a public group, always a neutral service, not influenced or controlled by any single party for its own interest.”

Related: ENS’ director of operations says that DAO-based governance ‘has always been the plan’

During the ENS Token airdrop, 100 million total ENS Tokens were distributed. While 25% went to users with .eth domans, another 25% of the tokens were allocated to those who “contributed in significant ways to ENS over the last four years.” The other 50% remains in the DAO community treasury.

As an external contributor, Zhang received 46,296.3 tokens. At the time of publication, this number of tokens amounted to $3,320,311.15. Zhang is among 27 contributors to receive this exact amount.

Zhang confirmed that he is, “holding it all. I’m not cashing any tokens out. As long as ENS continues to grow in the right direction, I don’t see any competitors. So that means the value is much bigger than the current market cap, if we’re looking at it as an investment.”

The day of the airdrop, Brantly Millegan, AKA “Brantly.eth,” ENS’ director of operations, tweeted about the “responsibility” bestowed upon users and added how it’s up to the ENS community to use decentralized identity “wisely.”

Gregory Rocco from Spruce discussed this concept of decentralized identity with Cointelegraph. He developed Spruce, a secure sign-in with Ethereum, or SIWE software, precisely to help users own and control their digital identities, rather than give up that data to large corporations.

He is referring to large centralized corporations such as Google, Twitter or Facebook that offer web2 users the option to login to third-party apps and services using their respective Gmail or Facebook details instead of having to create and remember individual usernames and passwords for each new account.

According to Rocco, these traditional logins have the “ultimate control” over user identifiers because “if Google pulled the rug on you, you wouldn’t just lose access to Google services, you’d also lose access to every service that you signed into using Gmail.”

The Ethereum Foundation and ENS recognized this issue and announced a Request for Proposal for the creation of a Sign-In with Ethereum package using Oauth. Spruce was selected to offer a decentralized identity alternative in September.

The goal of SIWE is to enable users to control their public identifier by owning their private keys or as Rocco put it: “‘your keys, your crypto’ but also ‘your keys, your identifier.’” Not only does Spruce’s toolkit establish a blockchain-based identity, it also enables verifiable proof of identity, ownership of assets and DAO membership. This is important in order for a user to prove his or her value to the ENS ecosystem and earn rights to upcoming airdrops.

When asked how it feels to be a delegate, Rocco said:

“I feel this motivation to stay on top of everything for ENS and be on board and establish that social contract. I believe in the future of ENS and support participation in user-controlled systems. That paradigm is the first step towards enabling users to have more control over their identity and data.”

Decentralizing identity ultimately empowers the ENS DAO and builds up its credibility as a truly decentralized organization. Both Zhang and Rocco are champions of collective ownership and hope to further promote the usage of ENS in the web3 ecosystem.