After a challenging 2022 for the crypto-sphere, 2023 is off to a flying start. Prices have generally been up, which is certainly a good sign, but some prices have also just as quickly retreated back to baseline. There is plenty going on in crypto market news, and as every good trader knows, keeping up with the latest information is important.
Here’s a roundup of the biggest crypto news in February 2023.
In Bitcoin news, backers of BTC were caught off guard. January saw Bitcoin rising quickly, seeming to indicate that the worst was behind us. But after fears were first alleviated, resulting in gains, they were just as quickly dashed. The PCE Price Index rose 5.4% in comparison to the previous year, a stark contrast from the predicted 5.0%.
Not surprisingly, risky assets took a hit, Bitcoin included. BTC dropped by a significant amount, putting it at $23,213 at the time of writing. Marathon Digital and MicroStrategy also lost earlier gains, falling by between 5% and 8%. The good news is that BTC and other major cryptos have been holding steady at baseline levels.
In other cryptocurrency news, the Solana blockchain has been battling a forking incident. Forking refers to a blockchain creating conflicting data, ultimately slowing activity to a crawl. The forking started at 00:53 New York time, and by 02:00 was a serious problem. Transactions per second plummeted to 93 as opposed to the expected 5000. This all came just hours after an upgrade to the system.
In an attempt to fix the problem, validators first downgraded to the previous version. However, this did not fix the issue. As a last resort, the entire blockchain was eventually restarted. The issue now seems to have been resolved.
Perhaps the biggest crypto news so far in 2023 has been in regards to FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. Since the fall of FTX, investigators have gradually been uncovering an enormous scandal. However, what many have yet to understand is how Bankman-Fried and his conspirators hoped to get away with the fraud.
As new evidence has been coming to light, the reality of the situation is being realised. It seems that, despite an elaborate masquerade, Bankman-Friend may simply have been deeply incompetent. New charges being brought against him include investment fraud, banking fraud, and election fraud. The charges could land him in jail for more than 40 years. As to how he thought he’d get away with it all, his plan seems to simply have been to curry favour with Washington D.C.
A major challenge the United States crypto-sphere is facing is regulations. Hopes were that 2023 would finally be the year that things moved forward, however the opposite seems to be happening. US regulations are hazier than ever, at least in regards to what which regulations should be adopted.
A recent call was heard for crypto to be more strictly regulated, yet still no one in government seems to have further suggestions. Fears are now that the issue of digital assets will enter into partisanship. Yet, even as some politicians appear biased, testimonies from experts, including from the Institute of International Economic Law, insist that a self-regulatory organisation would be the correct approach.
The issue is ongoing, but at least some steps toward a final solution are being taken.
From earlier in the month, also in Bitcoin news, the Bitcoin community has been buzzing with talk of Ordinal Inscriptions. Simply put, Ordinal Inscriptions refers to NFTs that are minted on a blockchain rather than outside of it. Many view the primary problem of Ethereum NFTs that they can be modified, even after being sold. NFTs minted on the blockchain, on the other hand, would be far more secure.
Ordinal Inscriptions seem like a good solution, but come with a challenge. Namely that NFTs with additional information could put strain on the Bitcoin blockchain. Since additional information would need to be transferred with each NFT, by extension, eventually transfer costs would also increase.
Ordinal Inscriptions are still under discussion.
The OneCoin Ponzi scheme ran from 2014 to 2017 and was big crypto news, reportedly stealing over $4 billion from investors. A co-founder of OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova, has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since the beginning. Now, newly discovered documents suggest Ignatova has been dead since 2018 and was killed by mobsters.
The evidence is not yet confirmed, but the reality seems to be that Ignatova’s schemes finally caught up with her.
With all the buzz around AI, it isn’t surprising that some are suggesting machines could be the future of crypto. Sentiment Analysis is the AI tech in the spotlight; a system based around using machine learning to help investors get an advantage.
With lightning-fast Sentiment Analysis, investors could get almost instant information on how a market is leaning. Which is to say; positive or negative sentiment around specific markets could be turned into valuable information.
Last in February crypto news is the incoming Ethereum Shanghai update. Slated for release in the second half of 2023, Shanghai will allow validators to withdraw their stake. Staking is, of course, central to the proof-of-stake blockchain method. But what could allowing validators to withdraw their stake actually mean?
While most say the change will simply increase the number of validators, others question if it won’t result in a flood of ETH withdrawals from the market. It remains to be seen what happens, but broad sentiments are leaning towards a positive overall impact.
As always cryptocurrencies exist in a turbulent sea, with a number of interesting stories evolving at any given time. The market is always changing, but generally always leaning towards wider acceptance. With the world in general in turmoil, 2023 might well be the most interesting in some time. As these crypto news stories progress no doubt there will be more updates in the future.
