Is bitcoin mining profitable? The difficulty of mining bitcoin began to drop precipitously as the largest-capitalization cryptocurrency’s price fell below $20,000

The Bitcoin Blockchain Network (BTC) is recording a decline in the number of active miners, which is reflected in a gradual drop in complexity. According to btc.com, bitcoin’s complexity has been dropping with each recalculation since May 10, and in late July the values dropped to the level of March this year.

Despite the decline, the situation so far does not look as dramatic as during the move of miners from China in the summer of 2021. Then it took only a little more than a month to zero out the semiannual capacity. However, it is worth noting that the current decline was the first systematic drop in bitcoin mining complexity since the “cryptocurrency winter” of 2018.

The drop in bitcoin mining algorithm complexity may be the result of a capacity outage from the network. As a reminder, the media has previously repeatedly reported on large sales of bitcoin reserves by miners to cover loans.

In June, the editorial board wrote that mining centers were in danger of closing as cryptocurrency miners were having difficulty meeting their credit obligations. Luxor Technologies co-founder Ethan Vera told Bloomberg that many lenders (Bable Finance, Galaxy Digital, bankrupt Celsius Network, BlockFi, Foundry Networks) are concerned that they have made too many loans to secure the mining devices themselves. He estimates that the firms have issued $4 billion in loans in total.

It remains unclear whether the miners could reach a consensus with their lenders. However, the weekly drop in complexity may signal that bitcoin miners still seem to have to cut back on processing capacity.

WazirX news: India’s economic intelligence agency froze assets of Binance-bought WazirX after allegations of money laundering

Indian authorities have seized $8.1 million that belongs to WazirX. This is reported by Reuters citing economic intelligence in India. The reason for the sanctions is cited as a violation of the currency regime.

Intelligence says the arrest was made as part of an investigation into helping instant loan companies, laundering proceeds and converting criminal money into cryptocurrency. In addition to WazirX, the investigation also includes several fintech companies that were actively sponsored by Chinese hedge funds, the intelligence agency said. However, it is not clear which hedge funds are in question.

Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance, commented almost immediately on the news of the connection with WazirX. According to him, Binance “never completed” the takeover of WazirX. He acknowledged that the company had announced the purchase of WazirX, but had not completed the purchase. What exactly was the reason for freezing the deal remains unclear. At the same time, it is worth noting that WazirX does not exist as such. 

At the same time, Zhao admitted that WazirX did use Binance wallets. Moreover, the parties even set up a system of “offchain transactions to reduce fees.”

Earlier, the media reported that about $350 million may have been laundered through WazirX. According to Indian Finance Minister Pankaj Chaudhary, the investigation found that the cryptocurrency storage system in WazirX is entirely tied to Binance wallets. Also, in fact, no transactions were recorded between the two exchanges via the blockchain.

This is not the first time WazirX has come under scrutiny by local authorities. For example, in January 2021, Tax India found that WazirX had evaded taxes totaling nearly $5.5 million. Because of the violations found, the exchange was fined $6.6 million.

Moreover, in the summer of 2021, WazirX was also accused of money laundering. Then India’s economic intelligence agency suspected the company of helping to launder about $7.9 million. Indian rupees were first converted into tether (USDT), and later they were transferred to Binance. Accusations of violations of Indian law became active in the media after the company was taken over by another trading platform, Binance, in 2019.

Daily crypto news: Starbucks will develop loyalty program with web3 tools, Solana developers found alleged culprit of ecosystem exploit, ZBExchange withdrew cryptocurrency for nearly $5 million – these and other news in our review

Bitcoin (BTC) started Thursday with a rise, according to CoinMarketCap. The cryptocurrency is trading at $23,123. Bitcoin’s 24-hour low was recorded at $22,790 and its high was at $23,578.

In the top 10 most capitalized cryptocurrencies, Binance Coin has the best results for the day (+6.85) and week (+11.24). Within the last seven days and 24 hours, all cryptocurrencies except Cardano and a lot of stablecoins showed positive dynamics. ADA’s loss for the week was 0.39%.

According to Latest crypto news, in the top 100 most capitalized cryptocurrencies, according to the resource CoinGecko, the best result for the day (+34.7%) and week (+109.1%) was recorded at Optimism. Cronos was the most actively losing price in the last 24 hours ( 8.88%). Tennessee (-20.0%) recorded the largest losses during the week.

A cryptocurrency worth almost $5 million was withdrawn from the hot wallet of cryptocurrency exchange ZBExchange. The assets fell into the hands of fraudsters because of the hacking of the trading platform. The attackers sold the obtained cryptocurrency for Ethereum on a lot of decentralized crypto-exchanges. 

The developers of the cryptoproject Solana, whose ecosystem was exploited on the night of August 2 to 3, 2022, found the culprit. While investigating the incident, the organization’s team discovered that the security breach was related to Slope’s mobile cryptocurrency wallet.

Earlier, the project team urged users, for security purposes, to move cryptocurrency to cold storage and shared recommendations. The details of the incident are still under investigation.

The popular coffee chain Starbucks is planning to launch a loyalty program based on web3. This, during a phone conversation with investors, was announced by the company’s CEO, Howard Schultz. According to Schultz, the program will allow Starbucks to introduce new methods of customer engagement, expanding its approach to the “digital community” as well as increasing the list of available rewards. The company previously said it intends to enter the NFT marketplace by the end of 2022.