The cryptocurrency market has once again turned weak, with Bitcoin (BTC) failing to sustain above the $11,000 level. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has lost 4.7% to trade at $10,458. Ether (ETH) has lost 8.3% to trade at $343.40. XRP has lost 5.4% to trade at $0.2325. The only major altcoin which has gained in the past 24 hours is LEO (LEO-$1.24, 0.2%).
Major altcoins which have lost value in the past 24 hours include OKB (OKB-$5.94, -5.2%), Litecoin (LTC-$43.39, -7.9%), Bitcoin SV (BSV-$145.76, -6%), Bitcoin Cash (BCH-$213.45, -6.3%), Tezos (XTZ-2.02 -9.7%), EOS (EOS-$2.52, -6%), Huobi (HT-$4.53, -7.1%), Cardano (ADA-$0.0811, -10%), Polkadot (DOT-$4.08, -12.4%), ChainLink (LINK-$8.87, -9.4%), Cosmos (ATOM, $4.13, -12.3%), Stellar (XLM-$0.0710, -8.1%), IOTA (IOTA-$0.2430, -8.7%), Dash (DASH-$68.05, -4.4%), Binance Coin (BNB-$23.42, -11.4%) Monero (XMR-$89.74, -3.8%) Tron (TRX-$0.0252, -8.1%).
Government level initiatives
President Aslan Bzhania from Abkhazia has lifted the ban on crypto mining
Abkhazia’s President Aslan Bzhania has lifted the ban on cryptocurrency mining. Bzhania stated that his government intends to roll out “the most optimal mechanism” to supervise cryptocurrency mining, instead of continuing with the prevailing blanket ban on blockchain-related initiatives.
However, not everyone is supporting the move. Ruslan Kvarchia, the operational and technological management director of the state-backed power firm, has blamed cryptocurrency mining as the reason behind the prevailing energy crisis impacting Abkhazia.
Regarding the prevailing power shortage and efforts made to rectify the issue, Bzhania said: “Now we are working on accounting and identifying the points where these mines are installed, it will not be possible to hide anything. (…) A government decree is being prepared, which will outline the most optimal mechanisms to regulate this process. We will not prohibit it [mining], the state will regulate it properly. This is also the first stage in solving energy problems.”
Private sector initiatives
Huawei updates its blockchain-powered cloud service, Blockchain Service 2.0
After two years, Huawei has updated its blockchain-powered cloud service, referred to as Blockchain Service 2.0 (BCS 2.0). As per the president of Huawei Cloud China, Fangming Hong, the President of Huawei cloud product series, Feng Xu, and other top executives from Huawei’s administration team, the main objective of the update is to step up the venture for business applications.
The latest and enhanced platform is supposed to meet the performance criteria of 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) while running in a commercial ecosystem. Notably, Bitcoin’s blockchain averages roughly 5 TPS, while Ethereum can manage almost double that level. The high processing speed of BCS will enable the adoption of blockchain on a commercial scale in a big way.
Hong pointed out that BCS has undergone continuous advancement in partnership with almost 100 associates across the country, backed by the domestic government, from the time it was made available commercially in 2018.
He further stated that: “The cumulative number of joint chain, alliance chain and intelligent activity has exceeded 3000, and the number of blockchain participants has exceeded 6000.”
Xu pointed out that Huawei Cloud Blockchain has rolled out over 70 ventures in seven sectors, including finance, government affairs, supply chain, health care, manufacturing, digital copyright, and energy.
Huawei stated that in the months ahead, the company intends to cooperate with Chengdu high-tech Zone to foster the creation and commercial adoption of blockchain technology.
Real estate tokens struggling as a result of COVID-19
In spite of a cryptocurrency market rally in the past few months, real estate tokens are struggling against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. All nine real estate tokens trading on the RealT platform have posted losses in August. The losses range from 1.89% to 24.90%, with four tokens losing over 15%.
To revitalize the business, the core team behind AspenCoin (ASPD), the digital token representing partial ownership in 19% of a luxury hotel (five-star, 179-room) in Colorado, is offering discounts for token holders who are willing to book a room in its resort and assist in increasing sales.
Those who possess between 10,000 to 99,999 ASPD tokens are eligible to receive a discount of up to 20% while staying at St. Regis Aspen Resort. Holders of 100,000 to 499,999 tokens will receive a discount of 35%, while holders of 500,000 or more ASPD tokens will be offered a discount of 50%.
In a calendar year, a token holder will be given a discount for a maximum stay of 30 nights.
Miscellaneous
Ethereum blockchain posts a record number of transactions
Ethereum blockchain continues to record a surge in transactions, with daily volume hitting a fresh peak against the backdrop of network congestion. On September 17th, the quantum of daily transactions on the Ethereum blockchain hit a record 1,406,000, as per data provided by the top Ethereum browser Etherscan. It is the largest number of daily transactions ever processed on the Ethereum blockchain,
As per Etherscan, the earlier peak in transactional volume was recorded on January 4th, 2018, when the Ethereum blockchain processed 1,350,000 transactions. The latest record high in daily Ethereum transactions comes against the backdrop of the ongoing decentralized finance (DeFi) craze.
The DeFi sector has seen exponential growth this year, with the total value frozen in the market reaching a peak of $9 billion in August. Several top cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and OKEx continue to list a plethora of DeFi tokens.
As several DeFi applications are hosted on the Ethereum network, the robust growth of DeFi sector has resulted in a considerable level of congestion in addition to scalability problems. Consequently, transaction confirmation charges (gas fee) on the Ethereum network have seen a steep rise, with Ethereum miners earning a record $500k in a span of one hour on September 1st. On September 18th, Ethereum miners managed to generate about $1 million in transaction fees within an hour.
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