Bitfinity Weekly: The Halving

Welcome to Issue #102 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

What's in Today's Email?

• Global Crypto News
• This Week in our Blog
• NFT Market Bytes
• Tweet of the Week
• Meme Time
• A Matter of Opinion

Global Crypto News

⛏️ Happy Halving!: Bitcoin's 4th Halving arrived on Friday with the mining of block #840,000. The "Halving" is an event that occurs roughly every four years (after 210,000 blocks are added), which slashes miner rewards by half. Prior to the halving, block rewards were 6.25 $BTC and now they have been reduced to 3.125 $BTC. The next halving event is expected to arrive in 2028, with mining rewards slashed to 1.625 $BTC. As of Friday, there are 1.31m $BTC unmined remaining.

🪄 Spellbinding: Casey Rodarmor (creator of the Ordinals protocol) released his much anticipated Runes protocol this weekend, coinciding with the fourth Bitcoin halving event on Friday. The new protocol standards define "Runes", which are fungible tokens native to the Bitcoin blockchain--similar in fashion to already existing BRC20s, but with a 'cenotaph' function which allows for token upgrades. Runes hype drove miner fees to record-breaking heights as traders tried to outbid transaction fees in order to secure Runes mints.

🇨🇳 Eastbound and Up?: Hong Kong approved the rollout of spot Bitcoin and Eth ETFs this Monday, leading some analysts to speculate on billions of potential unlocked liquidity. Mainland Chinese crypto investors have been barred from market access since 2021. However, despite the hopeful speculation of a market reinvigorated by fresh investors, it is unclear whether the Hong Kong government's decision applies to mainlanders.

💸 Won in a Million: The South Korean won has overtaken the U.S. dollar as the most used fiat currency for trading crypto, according to 2024 Q1 data from research firm Kaiko. South Korea is known in the cryptocurrency world as having a repuation for active, aggressive traders, so much so that there is sometimes a discrepancy between Korean CEXs and international exchanges--a price difference nicknamed by traders as "the kimchi premium".

This Week in our Blog

Take this technical deep dive with us as we explore the impact of Taproot Assets on Bitcoin. As development continues, Bifinity will utilize innovative cryptographic approaches to help propogate a thriving ecosystem:

Leveraging Lightning Synergies: Bitfinity’s Roadmap for Enabling Taproot Assets

Learn how the Taproot Assets protocol ushers in a new phase unlocking possibilities for programmable digital assets.

Bitfinity BlogHans

NFT Market Bytes

⬛ A Literal Block: An eagle-eyed X user spotted a curious transaction in the Bitcoin mempool just before Friday's halving event. The transaction, which took up the entirety of a single block, contained an inscription of a 3D file of a copper block. The project behind the visually striking (and expensive) stunt was revealed to be CENTS by Sovrn Art.

🏃 Step to It: STEPN, a move-to-earn dApp based in Solana, announced a partnership with international sportswear brand Adidas on Tuesday. The two companies collaborated on an exclusive NFT collection titled, STEPN x adidas Genesis Sneakers, which will allow holders to partake in STEPN's reward incentive initiatives along with serving as a digital collectible.

👠 Design Theory: Esteemed fashion house Maison Margiela made their debut into the web3 fashion world this week. Via a collaboration with digital fashion brand The Fabricant, Maison Margiela is bringing their cult favorite boots 'the Tabi' into digital form. The MetaTABI collection will combined physical products with a digital experience delivered through NFTs.

Tweet of the Week

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

The excitement over Friday's Bitcoin halving event was palpable across the crypto landscape, as Runes speculators and tech nerds alike watched the mempool forge on to block #840,000.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bitcoin, the halving is an event that occurs approximately every four years, reducing the reward for mining new blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain by half. This mechanism is built into the protocol to control inflation and also to ensure that there will only ever be 21 million $BTC in existence. Last night's halving was especially significant because of the launch of Casey Rodarmor's Runes protocol, which is poised to be one of the biggest innovations on Bitcoin in history.

Many rushed into mint or etch new Runes (driving up transaction fees sky high), we witnessed millions of dollars woth of Bitcoin being "tipped" to miners without Runes transactions being confirmed, due to underbidding. Never in Bitcoin's history did we witness such volume and frenetic activity on a halving day before.

It is important to recognize this milestone for what it is, a truly special moment in history. The creation and evolution of Bitcoin continues to define a seismic shift in our understanding of money, finance, and technology. What started out as a deceptively simple idea outlined in a whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto has defined the world. Now we stand at the cusp of the next evolution foward.

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*Important Disclaimer: While every effort is made on this website to provide accurate information, any opinions expressed or information disseminated do not necessarily reflect the views of Bitfinity itself. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.