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Investor Focus Misdirects Fidelity ‘Bitcoin First’ Report
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It is now 13 years since the genesis block of the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain was created, which marked the beginning of the chain. To commemorate the occasion, the third-largest Bitcoin whale appears to be back after the new year holidays, and he or she has just completed the first sizable purchase of 2022.
On Jan. 4, the third-largest Bitcoin address added 456 BTC at an average price of $46,363, equivalent to around $21 million, according to data from Bitinfocharts. com.
456 #BTC (21,161,750 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown wallethttps://t.co/1rWMaIYR0y
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 3, 2022
At the time of this writing, the whale holds 120,845.57 BTC worth over $5.6 billion. The holder’s identity remains a mystery, but it appears that the entity is making full use of the current price volatility. Bitcoin has dropped 1.7% in the last 24 hours and 8.9% over the last week, currently trading at around $46,603.
Related: Happy Birthday, Bitcoin! Industry players share a few words
Meanwhile, the bearish factors weighing on the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2021 have persisted throughout the first week of 2022 after Bitcoin’s price fell below $47,000 on Jan. 1 and it continues to face strong headwinds on shorter timeframes charts.
Despite the short-term difficulties for Bitcoin, many investors remain enthusiastic. Analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user GalaxyBTC recently shared this chart showing a potential breakout in the first quarter of 2021.
Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool memorialized Coinbase’s first day of public trading with a nod to Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, encoding the text “NYTimes 10/Mar/21 House Gives Final Approval to Biden’s $1.9T Pandemic Relief Bill” into the first Bitcoin block it mined yesterday.
The message was taken from a New York Times headline reporting a recent stimulus package that would necessitate rampant money printing. It echoes the message that Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto encoded into the coinbase data of Bitcoin’s first-ever (or “genesis”) block, which read “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” in reference to a similar headline.
Coinbase announced that it had asked F2Pool to embed the message as a tribute to Bitcoin history. It was encoded at block height 679,187 and is now an immutable part of the Bitcoin blockchain.
“On 03/Jan/2009, Satoshi coded a message into the Bitcoin Genesis Block,” Coinbase tweeted. “As a nod to Satoshi in our listing today, we asked F2Pool to embed a message in the Bitcoin blockchain.”
As one of the earliest portals for buying bitcoin, Coinbase has been instrumental in BTC adoption. Its public listing, which saw it reach a valuation around $85 billion, is a significant marker of Bitcoin’s growth since its Genesis Block. The fact that a recent headline so closely resembling the one that Satoshi chose could be embedded into the blockchain to mark this occasion is a sign that the world needs Bitcoin now as much as ever.
A hidden Biblical message has been found embedded in a transaction in block number 666,666 of the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain.
The message is a quotation from the sixth book in the New Testament, the Epistle to the Romans. First spotted by @emzy@bitcoinhackers.org, it reads:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good – Romans 12:21.”
The transaction in question saw an equal amount of Bitcoin — 432,100 satoshis ($160) — sent to two different addresses. The first several characters of those addresses contain the words “God” and “Bible.”
Whoever sent the transactions paid over $50 in fees, equating to five times more than Bitcoin’s peak average transaction fee on the day, according to Bitinfocharts.com. This implies the sender’s goal was to have their transactions, and message, included in block 666,666 specifically.
This is not the first time a hidden message has been found embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain. The most famous example is the message found in the first block ever mined, known as the “genesis block.”
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
A follow-up was staged amid the first phase of the United States Federal Reserve’s money-printing spree in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Block number 630,000 revealed the following message:
“NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue.”
Implanting messages in the blockchain has become a common occurrence in recent years. Previous messages have come in the form of marriage proposals, poetry, eulogies and general profanity.
Second-layer Ethereum scaling solution OMG Network has been acquired by Hong Kong-based OTC trading firm, Genesis Block.
Ethereum’s proof-of-stake transition takes another step towards completion.
Blockchain analytics firm has picked up an unusual Ripple transfer valued at $40 million XRP.
According to Whale Alert, $40 million XRP was moved from an unknown wallet address to Bitstamp crypto exchange. The transaction was peculiar, as the address was reported by blockchain analytics to have been dormant for years, seven to be exact. The official announcement read:
“40,000,000 #XRP (29,496,465 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Bitstamp.”
Whale Alert also clarified that the anonymous digital address was linked to one of the oldest blocks mined, dating back to when the first genesis block was secured on Ripple blockchain. A genesis block simply refers to when the first block is mined and validated on distributed ledger technology. Whale Alert added:
“The sending address for this transaction has been dormant since 2013 until 2 days ago and is connected to one of the genesis addresses.”
The mystery of the “sleeping” XRP wallet address
Speculations that the digital wallet belonged to a Ripple founder were brought up. According to many, this can be a viable explanation since the address is one of the oldest Ripple ones, dating back to blockchain genesis. However, there is no way of verifying this hypothesis, as blocks can be mined by any node on the blockchain network.
Others have speculated that given the current cryptocurrency bull run, the owner of the Ripple wallet address has capitalized on the moment to dump XRP tokens, taking advantage of price increases.
An additional hypothesis that has been considered is that the XRP tokens have been transferred to Bitstamp crypto exchange in light of the upcoming Spark token airdrop. Spark tokens, which run on the Flare network, are a result of a Ripple blockchain fork.
Upon release, 45 billion Spark tokens will be distributed to Ripple investors who are interested, on a 1:1 XRP to Spark distribution ratio.
XRP price run
In any case, no one knows for sure, but the sudden movement of the XRP whale has stirred speculations. The most likely explanation is that the Ripple investor is capitalizing on Ripple token’s recent price run.
Ripple’s XRP token has been surging and gaining momentum, up 110% in a week. The movement has excited crypto investors worldwide, as Ripple has increased four-fold since the beginning of the pandemic.
XRP currently has hit a two-year high in price, but it still has ways to go before reaching its all-time high of $3 once again.
Many factors can account for its surge, such as Bitcoin’s bull run propelling altcoins’ upward movement, as well the increased interest in Ripple blockchain firm as it secures more projects under its belt.
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