Looking back on this week, China, the United States and Africa have taken actions to suppress cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin short sellers have temporarily won, with the price of the currency hitting a low of $50,521. Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin, and the return of the bull market awakened the ICO whale that had been dormant for 8 years. The artificial intelligence (AI) craze in the United States stimulated Worldcoin to break through a record high, and AI-related tokens generally rose.
China and the United States are “taking action” to suppress Bitcoin
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has sent letters to cryptocurrency miners requesting data on their site energy consumption and extraction configurations. More specifically, authorities require Bitcoin miners to fill out the EIA-862 Cryptocurrency Mining Infrastructure Report, which includes a series of questions about the identity of the cryptocurrency mining company, the power consumption of each mine, and more.
The letters also impose an ultimatum on data handover, which must be sent to the EIA by February 23. Answering these questions is mandatory, and EIA-862 states that "failure to comply may result in criminal fines, civil penalties, and other penalties prescribed by law."
However, the measure has been criticized by some pro-cryptocurrency mining groups. Dennis Porter, CEO and co-founder of the Satoshi Action Fund, said this is not the way for the federal government to interact with an emerging industry with huge potential.
In China, the Ministry of National Security issued a warning on its official public account, revealing that some overseas map companies use virtual currency rewards to induce domestic personnel to purchase special equipment for map check-in, thereby illegally collecting sensitive geospatial information data. In order to further increase their attractiveness, these companies also offer high rewards for specific areas to lure "collectors" to focus on collection.
Not only that, the Dalian Municipal Leading Group Office for Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising, Dalian Municipal Public Security Bureau, Dalian Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, Dalian Branch of the People’s Bank of China, Dalian Supervision Bureau of the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, Dalian Securities Regulatory Bureau, and Dalian Municipal Communications Administration Bureau On Tuesday, it issued a risk warning to prevent illegal fund-raising in the names of "virtual currency," "metaverse," and "wealth sharing," saying that such activities have disrupted the order of economic and financial activities.
In Africa, Nigeria’s naira fell to a record low as the country’s Communications Commission (NC) ordered telecommunications companies to restrict access to Binance, Kraken and Coinbase exchanges. This is certainly a noteworthy move for African markets, and in fact, the Financial Times reported that the country has taken steps to curb the depreciation of its currency.
The surge in Ethereum wakes up a whale that has been sleeping for 8 years
The Ethereum Cancun upgrade has been confirmed to be launched on the mainnet on March 13. This upgrade will introduce EIP-4844, which can greatly improve the scalability of Ethereum and is expected to reduce the second layer (Layer2) transaction cost by 10-100 times.
If the Ethereum spot ETF is approved by the SEC, it is expected to push Ethereum further upward. Wall Street investment bank Bernstein released a research report on Monday stating that it is time to pay attention to Ethereum, and Ethereum may be the only one expected to obtain SEC approval. Spot ETF digital assets.
Amid multiple benefits, Ethereum hit a maximum of $3,036 this week. Ethereum ICO investors, who had been dormant for 8.6 years, suddenly woke up on Tuesday and transferred 1,732 Ethereum coins to the Kraken exchange. If the arbitrage action is completed, the profit from this transaction will be as high as 1,000,000%. However, the address still holds 1733.12 ETH, worth US$5.2 million.
IntoTheBlock analysis pointed out that there are currently more than 16 million ETH addresses in a loss-making state (about 14.7%), and about 879,000 addresses turned profitable when it exceeded $3,000. With more than 83% of addresses in a profitable state, it is most likely that The situation is that the $3,000 level can be broken smoothly without major problems.
The AI craze stimulates collective gains in related tokens
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who launched ChatGPT to lead the wave of artificial intelligence, co-created the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, which has increased by an astonishing 273% in the past two weeks. On the evening of the 23rd, WLD successfully exceeded $9 and reached a maximum of $9.18. , hitting a record high again.
As for why WLD can rise so quickly in such a short period of time? The reason for the first wave of gains may be that OpenAI released a new artificial intelligence model Sora on February 15, which can generate short videos of amazing quality based on text input by users. The reason for the second wave of gains may be that NVIDIA released a better-than-expected revenue report on the 22nd, which drove the rise of all AI-related concept coins (TAO, RNDR, AGIX, etc.) and stocks.
However, it should be noted that the market transferred its expectations for OpenAI and Sam Altman to Worldcoin, which caused WLD to surge in the short term. But in fact, Worldcoin and Sora can be said to be two completely different projects. Therefore, when faced with the FOMO sentiment caused by market overheating, investors need to control risks and make cautious judgments.
Summarize
This week the cryptocurrency market has experienced a series of turmoils such as Bitcoin's correction, Ethereum's lead, and AI token surge. These changes reflect the complexity and uncertainty of the cryptocurrency market. Investors need to remain cautious and conduct adequate market research to make informed investment decisions. At the same time, the actions of regulatory agencies in the cryptocurrency field also deserve close attention and may have an important impact on the market.
