Bitcoin did not exceed $38,000, and miners earned a record $44 million per day – ForkLog

The first cryptocurrency failed to overcome the $38,000 level, mining difficulty reached a new high, inflation in the US slowed, investors stood up for the fired CEO of OpenAI and other events of the past week.

Bitcoin did not stay close to $38,000

On November 14, the US Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a decrease in annual inflation to 3.2% in September. Experts considered this positive news for risky assets like Bitcoin, since the Fed may stop raising rates.

Initially, the first cryptocurrency practically did not react to the publication of data, but by the evening the market moved into a correction. Digital gold fell to $34,800, then recovered to ~$35,400.

The micro rally in the following days raised the rate close to $38,000 – on Binance the maximum was $37,980.

On the night of November 16-17, a new collapse below $36,000 followed.

By the end of the week, the price of Bitcoin recovered to levels around $36,500.

Almost all digital assets from the top 10 by capitalization ended the period in the “red zone”. The exception was the SOL token with an increase of 2.1%. One of the drivers of the positive dynamics of the coin was the complimentary interview with ARK Invest head Cathie Wood for Solana.

The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market decreased to $1.44 trillion. Digital gold dominance index – up to 46.7%.

Bitcoin mining difficulty has updated its maximum

As a result of the next recalculation, the difficulty of mining the first cryptocurrency increased by 3.55%. The indicator updated its maximum at 64.68 T.

The average hashrate for the period since the previous value change was 479 EH/s. The range between blocks is just over 9.5 minutes.

Miners earned a record $44 million in 2023 per day

On November 12, Bitcoin miners’ daily revenue was about $44 million, a record high for 2023, according to Blockchain.com.

This amount included block mining rewards (6.25 BTC) and network fees.

From April 2022 to October 2023, the cryptocurrency mining sector experienced negative earnings dynamics driven by a bear market. However, by November the figure went up.

Russians switched from Binance to Bybit, HTX and Deribit

In October, users from Russia took first place in the number of visits to the Bybit, HTX and Deribit cryptocurrency exchanges.

On Bybit and HTX, the share of visitors from the Russian Federation was 17% of the total, on Deribit – 16%.

Russian clients of Binance accounted for 5% of traffic.

The largest share of visitors from the United States was recorded on Coinbase (57%) and Crypto.com (25%).

In general, according to the publication, in October, traffic to crypto exchanges increased by 15.6% compared to the previous month.

Against this background, Binance announced the removal of Russian ruble trading pairs with the largest cryptocurrencies from the platform.

PrivatBank commented on the “blocking of cards due to transactions with cryptocurrencies”

Ukrainian users complained about the blocking of PrivatBank and monobank cards after buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

In one of the complaints, a PrivatBank client reported that he had made “many P2P exchange transactions on the Bybit exchange,” after which the institution refused to further service him and offered to return the funds.

Representatives of the bank explained this by the requirements of the law on combating money laundering. However, according to the financial institution, “no new financial monitoring rules are applied to clients.”

Monobank users who had “large receipts over the last seven days” faced similar problems. The bank’s support service told reporters that the reasons for blocking cards may be different, while “withdrawal of funds from cryptocurrencies” is not prohibited.

What to discuss with friends?

• An expert reported a $27 million crypto wallet hack.
• Swan Bitcoin has introduced a ban on cryptomixers. The community is preparing for the fight for privacy.
• Remembering Plasma. Vitalik Buterin on a new look at old technology.
• In Abkhazia, miners were threatened with the destruction of their equipment.

Ukraine proposed an alternative tax on Bitcoin transactions

On November 17, the Ministry of Digital Development of Ukraine registered an alternative bill on the taxation of cryptocurrency transactions.

According to the department’s proposal, the tax for individuals in the first three years after the law comes into force should be 5%, the next 5 years – 9%, after 8 years – 18%.

Legal entities are exempt from VAT with the exception of transactions with tokenized assets.

Residents of Diya.City can choose between an 18% income tax or a 9% tax on withdrawn capital.

Sam Altman was fired from his position as CEO of OpenAI. He was supported by startup investors

OpenAI announced that Sam Altman has stepped down as CEO and has left the board of directors. The position of interim CEO was taken by technical director Mira Murati.

The board made the decision based on the results of an internal review.

“Altman was not always frank with the board of directors, which prevented the latter from fulfilling his duties. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI,” the company said in a statement.

However, the largest investors of the AI ​​startup demanded that Altman be reinstated, Bloomberg learned from its own sources. The campaign to return the ex-CEO involved OpenAI’s largest sponsor with a $10 billion stake, Microsoft, as well as Thrive Capital and Tiger Global Management.

According to the publication, Altman is not against returning, but demands a change in the current board of directors. Investors support his demands.

Shortly before his dismissal, Altman spoke about plans to create general artificial intelligence, revealed details of GPT-5 and the partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft.

Dogecoin wallet will be sent to the moon

The Dogecoin community plans to send a physical DOGE wallet to the moon. The project will be implemented as part of the Peregrine Mission One mission of the space company Astrobotic.

The device will be placed in a special “Moon Capsule” with various souvenirs from around the world, including photographs, novels and even a stone from Mount Everest.

Also on ForkLog:

• The lawyer explained the legality of searching for the debtor’s Bitcoin wallets in the Russian Federation.
• Russian-speaking Bitget clients complained about the freezing of funds. The exchange called it “misinformation.”
• The OSCE taught Ukraine to track criminal Bitcoin transactions.
• Meta presented AI models for photo and video processing.

BlackRock and Fidelity filed with the SEC to launch spot Ethereum ETFs

BlackRock has submitted an application to the SEC to register a spot ETF based on the second largest cryptocurrency by capitalization – iShares Ethereum Trust.

Coinbase Custody Trust Company will act as custodian for the investment product.

Following its competitor, Fidelity Investments took a similar step.

Fidelity Ethereum Fund shares are expected to be traded on the Cboe BZX exchange. Fidelity Digital Assets Services will provide custody of the fund’s assets.

However, on the same days, the regulator postponed the decision on proposals to launch a spot Ethereum-ETF from Hashdex and Grayscale until early 2024.

Marking of illegal Bitcoin transactions will be unified for EAEU countries

The International Association of Crypto Compliance (WACC) will be created in Kazakhstan, which will implement uniform AML/CFT standards in the market.

The new public organization will be formed by leading industry representatives from the EAEU. The head of the WACC will be elected at the first congress.

Among the goals of the association:

• certification and training of AML specialists, bank employees and software development;
• cooperation with similar associations in the EAEU countries and beyond;
• standardization of AML procedures and markups among local providers;
• VASP compliance check.

What else to read?

This week we talked about what airdrop scams are and how to avoid becoming a victim of scammers.

The traditional digest collected the main events of the week in the field of cybersecurity.

The decentralized finance sector continues to attract increased attention from cryptocurrency investors. ForkLog has collected the most important events and news of recent weeks in a digest.

Found an error in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER