It could appear that Ethereum will be back again to square one.

After registering a rise of over 170 % from January to 26 June, the planet’s largest altcoin has dropped all its optimistic gains this season after it documented an 8% depreciation on 16 December.

Ethereum and Bitcoin were the main crypto-assets in charge of the development of the collective crypto-market cap inside 2019. Despite the fact that Ethereum and Bitcoin are the two most valuable cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, they are very distinct and were created for different reasons, with very different internal dynamics. There are, nevertheless, some similarities between the two. Both are digital currencies that can be traded on internet trading platforms like Bitcoin buyer and stored in various sorts of wallets. Those thinking about investing in bitcoin buyer software 2022 should take the test and read the testimonials in order to make an informed decision. However, of the entire year approaches because the end, there exists a probability that ETH can start 2020 by registering a year-to-date loss.

Ethereum’s gain within 2019 bolstered its derivatives marketplace in the market right after exchanges such as for example Deribit began to facilitate ETH trading options. Nevertheless, the altcoin’s most recent depreciation has already established an impact on its derivatives items aswell.

In accordance with skew, of December has been regularly reduced the ETH choices volume because the start, crossing the threshold of $1 million only twice in the last 17 days. The 30 days of July during, the common volume was near $2 million each day.

The probability of ETH crossing its psychological opposition of $200 prior to the finish of 2019 appear bleak aswell, with the probability index rating of 1%.

Furthermore, Deribit’s ETH choices Contact/Put Ratio highlighted main bearish alarms. In the last 15 days, a rise in put agreements was furthermore observed because the Call/Place Rato remained 45/55 right now. The buy/market ratio recorded had been fairly close and also the purchasing momentum continued with an upper submit trading options.

Earlier this yr, Ethereum’s derivatives marketplace has been on a higher once the open fascination with September authorized an impressive development of over 100 %. The full total open curiosity registered in the beginning of September had been under $70 million, that was pictured at over $120 million on 18 September.

This type of scenario feels as though a distant storage for the ETH ecosystem right now, because the present-day cost of the next largest digital asset shows that ETH will be back again where it were only available in January 2019.

A lot has been going on with the Ethereum network lately, with the Istanbul hard fork recently going live on the network and Muir Glacier expected to be rolled out by New Year’s Eve. Amid these updates, the Ethereum Core Developers in their 77th meeting discussed several other EIPs, along with Eligible for Inclusion [EFI] EIPs.

PegaSys’s Tim Beiko live-tweeted the meeting and revealed the EIPs that were eligible for inclusion. EIP 1559 was one of them. The EIP proposed by Eric Conner primarily focuses on setting up the market rate for block inclusion, along with burning most of the ETH in the transaction fee. Highlighting the need for an EIP, Conner wrote earlier this year,

“The current first auction fee market works but is extremely inefficient and a large UX barrier for adoption. This proposal introduces a fixed fee concept through the use of a MINFEE. Users can pay a premium over this if they want but in general it greatly simplifies the UX.”

In the recent meeting, it was revealed that the EIP was underspecified and while the team expected to simulate or model the change, the team hadn’t incurred funding as it covered just the implementation.

Further questions on the EIP were also answered in the meeting, Beiko’s tweet read,

“Another Q: the EIP has BASEFEE and the premium fee. What prevents miners from colluding to set BASEFEE to 0, or only accepting txns with large premiums?

A: There is an averaging of the BASEFEE over a large number of blocks. Miners would need a large % of the txn volume over time to adjust the price. IOW, they’d need to be the majority of the txn demand.”

Highlighting the target of BASEFEE, Beiko wrote that a half-full block “takes a snapshot of the gas price at the time of deployment, and it can only vary so much per block. Need more engagement on the implementation to answer adversarial scenarios with more details.”

Furthermore, Péter Szilágyi reportedly suggested that a 1.5x multiplier was much safer than a 3x.

Along with other EIPs was EIP 1057, which was directed at ProgPoW. Beiko tweeted,

“And one final EFI: moving EIP-1057, a.k.a. ProgPow, into EFI. The EIP was already moved to “Tentatively Accepted” before we moved to the EIP-Centric process, but we had never made a proper decision on it.”

Furthermore, Hudson Jameson affirmed that the call was to merely move ProgPoW into the EFI list. However, ithe dev call didn’t address the status of the EIP nor if it would go into any hard fork. Jameson concluded by tweeting,

“There are still things that need to coalesce before that happens.”

After sustaining its place above $7000 in the last 14 days, Bitcoin briefly breached its assistance on 14 December. At press period, Bitcoin had been above $7000 again, however the distinction was very slender. Its valuation remained at $7068.67 because the market continuing to consolidate under $7500.

However, in accordance with information launched by glassnode, the city is still securing to its possessions despite the bearish phase inside the coin’s valuation.

Based on the analysis, month over the past, the unspent deal output or even UTXO of Bitcoin provides been found in the fewest dealings since BTC peaked back June.

Bitcoin transactions make use of these UTXOs from prior transactions to create new dealings in the ecosystem and the decline in its use has recommended that people aren’t moving their property quickly after June. The chart above furthermore recommended that Bitcoin UTXOs in loss are in its year-to-date saturated in 2019.

The metric in dialogue recommended that the HODLing sentiment in the market continues to be in play, as the right section of the community will be unfazed by Bitcoin’s present valuation.

Furthermore, the correlation between Bitcoin dealings and UTXOs developed pictured an identical decline since Bitcoin peaked inside June 2019.

Previously, it had been also documented that Bitcoin’s cost has been dictated by significantly less than 50 % of the coins inside circulation. The full total amount of coins which were dormant for over per year before 19 Might 2019, was approximated to end up being around 4.5 million.

An incident could be designed for the existing hodling sentiment of individuals as the season witnessed main involvement of finance institutions such as for example Fidelity and Bakkt, developments which were expected to increase Bitcoin’s price as time passes.

Part of the cryptocurrency ecospace furthermore speculated that Bitcoin’s imminent halving following calendar year may catalyze another main bull follow the block benefits are decrease to 6.25 BTC.

At press period, Bitcoin, the planet’s largest cryptocurrency, had been coming in at $7128, recording an insignificant increase of 0.20% in the last 24 hrs. Bitcoin got a 24-hour trading level of $17.2 billion particularly after automated Bitcoin trading became quite common among people as it trades on their behalf giving them a lot of free time.

The XRP/MXN corridor on Bitso provides been marking brand-new all-time highs with regards to liquidity every other time. The corridor mentioned a fresh ATH on 11 December 2019, where it documented liquidity of 10 million. Based on the final upgrade by the Liquidity Bot Index, XRP/MXN noted 9.02 million liquidity on 16 December. From the notable XRP/MXN corridor aside, the XRP/PHP gateway in addition has seen a growth in its liquidity.

Based on the Liquidity Bot, XRP/PHP observed a fresh ATH on 16 December since it attained 1.37 million.

According to the data supplied by Twitter consumer @hmatex concerning the ODL systems, the ODL flows for PHP were almost all active among Coins and Bitstamp.ph. Despite the fact that the quantity of everyday ODL stream was significantly less than a million, the count of quantity, as stated in the charts, was 80. However, the every week and the regular ODL circulation reflected the total amount in USD and breached a million.

On the every week chart, the total amount inside the USD had been noted to end up being $1 million and the count of the total amount has been 280. The regular monthly chart documented the total amount reaching $2 million with 657 counts of the total amount. The 4th one fourth reported the total amount to end up being as higher as 7 million and the count of the total amount was documented to be 11,311.

Nevertheless, XRP/MXN was nevertheless the most energetic corridor of most ODL systems between Bitstamp and Bitso, as recommended by the info supplied by the Twitter consumer. The daily quantity in USD had been $3 million, with the count of the total amount being 158. On the other hand, the regular ODL movement noted some 11 million, accompanied by a monthly stream of $27 million and a quarterly circulation of $116 million.

The Utility Scan that provides real-time information about ODL marked the 24-hr level of PHP with USD to end up being $139,302.55, whereas AUD-PHP got reached $97,213.65. USD-MXN documented a 24-hour level of $1.52 million.

Data Source: bitcoinvisuals

Data Source: bitcoinvisuals

2019 shed light on the lack of security engulfing several crypto exchanges. Over 10 exchanges were reportedly hacked, reporting a loss of $170 million, according to Bobby Ong, co-founder of Coingecko. These incidents shook the community, and many looked toward the Proof-of-Keys [PoK] movement led by prominent YouTuber and Bitcoin enthusiast, Trace Mayer. Mayer has been persuading investors to move their cryptocurrency away from exchanges and into a Bitcoin wallet, where they control the private keys. Calling it ‘monetary sovereignty’, Mayer appeared on Peter McCormack’s podcast where he shed light on the PoK movement.

The website represented by Bitcoin mascot, the honey badger who is walking away with the keys, represented Mayer’s cogitation about investors holding their own keys. The page emphasized this idea through a tagline that has caught on with the community, ‘Not your keys; Not your bitcoin.’ While talking about his stance on the show, Mayer noted that when the investors allow an exchange to hold their Bitcoin, a bunch of things remain unclear including accounting statements and their means of securing coins.

According to Mayer with numerous lending agreements, things begin to tangle up and become difficult to discern. Especially with unregulated exchanges, which often hold millions of dollars in customer assets and do not produce any financial statements, pose a greater threat in case something blows up.

Mayer noted:

“If something blows up you become an unsecured general creditor like you don’t have any priority.”

The Cryptopia hack, that took place in two installments in January 2019, resulted in the theft of $15 million in ETH. The exchange referred to it as a ‘security incident’ and months later appointed Grant Thronton as the liquidator. The exchange reportedly, recovered $5.02 million from third-party trust accounts, while fixed assets worth $202,534 had been sold, including 344 BTC from ‘company wallet outside of known clients’.

The YouTuber cited the infamous Mt. Gox Bitcoin heist in 2014 and told McCormack that the reason users have not been able to withdraw their bitcoin from the exchange was due to the lawsuit by Coinlab, Mt. Gox’s former business partner filed by Peter Vessenes.

Mayer questioned:

“Why would a potential breach of contract claim be superior to customer assets”

Coinlab had increased the amount of its claim against Mt. Gox in February 2019, which was claimed to be unjustified by the community. Many called it trick to block creditor payouts. Users might have to hold on longer to withdraw their assets due to the existing lawsuit, impacting the trades and causing people to lose money. He urged crypto holders to learn to hold their own private keys in order to avoid such uncomfortable situations.

Venezuelan government has been working on a state cryptocurrency named Petro which is supposedly tied to the price of the oil. In the latest development, eligible Venezuelan citizens will receive 0.50 Petro token from the government. President Nicolás Maduro announced that whoever wished to receive the giveaway amount, which is equivalent to $30, must register on the platform called PetroApp, a digital wallet to buy and sell Petros and other cryptocurrencies.

Dubbed as a Christmas incentive, President Maduro revealed that the giveaway of the nation’s state-run cryptocurrency will be a nationwide affair that is expected to further its adoption. This is not the first time that the President has initiated a Petro giveaway. Maduro had previously made pension payments in Petro, instead of the sovereign Bolivar through the Patria system.

Venezuela’s fiat currency became hyper-inflated and the country has been caught in a downward spiral for years with growing political discontent. The digital currency, Petro , was announced in the middle of this crisis in an attempt to come out of it. While the government claimed that Petro was backed by oil reserves, the digital currency project faced huge resistance from Venezuela’s National Assembly. Headed by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable, the National Assembly declared Petro to be an illegal debt issuance by a government desperate for cash and refused to identify it as a legitimate currency. Additionally, even the US Treasury called Petro, a scam.

Recently, Maduro said some 30 million barrels of oil sitting in storage tanks would serve as backing for Petro. Addressing the same, the President stated:

“I will deliver these 30 million of barrels as a liquid, physical, material backing for the Petro. The inventories of crude and products in storage tanks are available for immediate commercialization … to sustain and back the operations of the sovereign Venezuelan crypto-asset, the Petro.”

Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity [ODL] platform has been noting a barrage of transactions, especially with the popular MXN corridor. According to the ODL data provider on Twitter, H_M_X, out of the total $108 million ODL flow in the fourth quarter, the MXN corridor was responsible for $100 million in transactions. Owing to the success of this corridor, Ripple had announced plans to open gateways to several other nations soon. However, Crypto Twitter has always been prompt in piecing together information and speculating on what’s next.

Crypto Twitter speculated that Ripple might be working on a new corridor with the help of either Bittrex or Binance or both. The speculation stemmed when a Twitter user @hallwaymonitor2 asked the community about the wallet address rBgnUKAEiFhCRLPoYNPPe3JUWayRjP6Ayg.

The Tweet read:

Does this anonymous exchange account belong to Bittrex or Binance?https://t.co/yhSQ7vl3v2https://t.co/PQOfylCb3nhttps://t.co/vfRwGUp9oN

It receives ODL like txs from BTC Markets with DT 794715642

— hallwaymonitor (@hallwaymonitor2) December 13, 2019

The user noted that the address received ODL like transactions from BTC Markets, Ripple’s ODL facilitator in Australia. After digging deeper into the wallet activators, it was found that the source address belonged to Ripple co-founder, Arthur Britto. Thus, answering the question put forward by twitter user @hallwaymonitor2.

However, this did not leave Binance and Bittrex out of the picture. The user pointed out that the aforementioned address received transactions from the Australian exchange, BTC Markets, shortly after AUD/XRP trades.

@hallwaymonitor2 speculated:

“New ODL corridors should be opening somewhere anyways.”

rBgnUKAEiFhCRLPoYNPPe3JUWayRjP6Ayg transacted 300,000 XRP to a Binance [1] wallet address with destination tag 104502291 and with Bittrex wallet where it transacted 550,000 XRP with destination tag 1829104356. The small transfers of XRP on these exchanges could indicate a testing phase between the corridors. Bittrex already serves as an ODL corridor in the United States, however, Binance could be a new addition to the list.

The Twitter user in his recent tweet said:

“Honestly I don’t know is this ODL but the MO suggests it would be. The key is to deanonymize this account first and then check are they selling the arriving XRPs to FIAT or not.”

While also highlighting the suspected ODL transfers.

However, they found an old XRPL Monitor tweet with the transaction of 70,000,000 XRP from rBgnUKAEiFhCRLPoYNPPe3JUWayRjP6Ayg to rpPcmcGQ5iTXDc5zF5owxwTifkTs1qYrA6, an address activated by Bittrex.

Moreover, even though Bittrex activated the rpPcmcGQ5iTXDc5zF5owxwTifkTs1qYrA6 address, Binance appeared to be using it as a cold wallet, chimed XRP scan.

If there is a new corridor being established where Binance may act as a facilitator, the platform needs to be tested with small transactions. The current transfers taking place between BTC markets, wallet address- rBgnUKAEiFhCRLPoYNPPe3JUWayRjP6Ayg, Binance and Bittrex hint at such a testing phase.

AMBCrypto has reached out to both Bittrex and Binance for comments and will update the article accordingly. 

Unlike privacy coins, cryptocurrencies like Litecoin do not have inbuilt privacy features. MimbleWimble via extension blocks is yet to be implemented. In the absence of new cryptographic obfuscation methods, the network becomes vulnerable to malicious activities such as dusting, where hackers and scammers try to break the privacy of cryptocurrency users by sending tiny amounts of coins to users’ personal wallets.

In the latest news, Litecoin.com’s Franklyn Richards witnessed strange network activity behind Litecoin’s active addresses. In a recent blog post, Richards stated:

“On average the network typically sees around 40,000 active addresses per day, however according to data from bitinfocharts, every 7 days this value is spiking to over 70,000 before abruptly dropping back down. This has resulted in an almost sawtooth like pattern that’s pretty evident given a cursory glance.”

According to Richards, this behavior started on the 20th of August 2019. Since then, every week there has been a spike and an abrupt drop, and this trend was in force for four months. Previously, a very noticeable dust attack occurred on the 10th of August 2019. He further noted that unless a large economic network entity has implemented a method for automatically managing and moving its Litecoin holdings and speculated that this could be a continuation of the August 10th attack.

AMBCrypto had previously reported about this incident after James Jager, Project Lead at Binance Academy first identified the attack.

Interestingly, the total number of transactions did not record any surge during the same time nor did the average value being sent exhibited signs of a correlation.

Richards noted that if the activity is indeed confirmed to be dust attacks then it is up to those mining the network to introduce a new set of rules to reduce the spread of dust. Additionally, the non-mining nodes can “economically pressure miners” to implement the necessary rules.

Dust is essentially tiny amounts of coins or tokens that is so small, that even users fail to notice at times, hence the name. Since the balances are so small, it is not spendable without being included with other coins held by the user. This allows the attacker or the sender of the dust to trace and de-anonymize the victim behind the wallet.

Developers are, however, working on ways to make the network more private by deploying methods like Confidential Transactions and Litecoin’s MimbleWimble via EB should help secure users’ financial data from attackers.