Daily Digest 1/25
Insight on the biggest stories of the day.
Ethereum Leaves ETH 2.0 In The Past In New Roadmap Rebrand
The long-awaited ETH 2.0 update is getting a bit of a rebranding. It will now be called “Consensus Layer” because the current name was not doing justice to the significance of the upgrades that will bring better scalability to the network. This name change will also help with confusion around ETH 2.0 staking. Some users thought they were staking ETH 1.0 tokens and would be getting in return ETH 2.0 tokens when it will just be the same original token. The upgrade has been in the works for the last two years by the Ethereum foundation.
The foundation thought that the name “ETH 2.0” needed to be adjusted as their goals were being adjusted. The simple name was ok for the start when all they wanted to do was move users from the current proof-of-work system to the new and improved proof-of-stake. The team also noted that it would take several years for the upgrade to be complete. Assuming that includes the time they have already been working on the upgrade we still may be some time away from it actually happening.
Overnight we have seen a bounce back in the crypto market and this news has not had any negative effect on ETHs price. It is now back up to around $2,400 after bottoming out closer to $2,000 just the other day. The merging of ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 is again scheduled to take place sometime this year but we will have to wait and see what happens.
Since the developers started working on it they have faced many delays and new issues that require time to fix and become more complicated as there are more people using it. It will be a challenge for them but if anyone will be able to get it done it would be the Ethereum Foundation and its large sums of money.
IMF Urges El Salvador to Discontinue Bitcoin’s Legal Tender Status
Last summer El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. The decision faced criticisms even from citizens of the country but their president, Nayib Bukele, has been a big influencer for the cryptocurrency regardless. He has constantly been buying the dips over the past year on the countries Chivo wallet.
On Tuesday the IMF recommended that El Salvador remove BTC as legal tender in the country. The report from the IMF “stressed that there are large risks associated with the use of Bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities.” They were also concerned over risks that could be associated with a Bitcoin-backed bond.
There has been no word on if El Salvador will take the advice of the IMF but they are down currently since the BTC price had a bit of a reset in recent months. It could also be that the IMF realizes the threat that BTC could quickly become legal tender in many of those nation countries if the dominoes start to fall. There is no way that Nayib Bukele entertains the idea of giving up at this point.
OpenSea Plans on Reimbursing Victims of Faulty Listing Attacks
Being an owner on a day-to-day basis can be very nerve-racking for a lot of investors as there seems to be a new way to lose them every day. Yesterday some OpenSea users saw their NFTs sold for prices well below market value due to a user interface issue on OpenSea. Bored Ape Yacht Club owners were again targeted and exploited.
The attack was carried out by at least three people that purchased 8 NFTs from unsuspecting victims. One of which was purchased for $1,800 or 99% lower than the floor price and sold for $200,000. OpenSea said that they are actively reaching out to the victims and reimbursing them. They also admitted that their user interface was “confusing.”
Going forward they are adding a new feature that will allow users to be able to see their listings and be able to cancel them. They will also be lowering the listing period from 6 months to 1 month. This is a cool feature that should be implemented as soon as possible but bots can still sweep them up if the mistake is not caught soon enough.
You have to be as careful as possible on any of these decentralized platforms because not many would actually be able to get people their money back as OpenSea can. It is upsetting to see this issue happen so frequently where collectors are separated from their NFTs seemingly so easily and at times not even their own fault.