Days
Hours
Mins
Sec
until the Bitcoin Halving!
Learn more

Ethereumā€™s Shanghai upgrade leads to 1m+ ETH withdrawn 

April 12thā€™s Ethereum Shanghai upgrade let ETH stakers withdraw their tokens from the network 

Over one million (currently 1.02m) ETH has been withdrawn from Ethereumā€™s staking protocol in less than a week since the Shanghai upgrade was baked into the blockchain. Through the same period, 373k ETH has been deposited into staking contracts. There is still another 115k+ ETH patiently waiting to be withdrawn over the next month or so.  

Ethereumā€™s latest blockchain fork, known as the Shanghai upgrade, went live on the 12th of April without a hitch. The biggest change in this package was allowing those staking ETH to withdraw their locked-up tokens from the blockchain. Some investors had previously been unable to access their coins since the Beacon Chain went live way back in 2020. – 

Pundits were uncertain how the blockchain upgrade would affect the tokenomics of Ethereumā€™s network, but so far, the results have been positive. Since April 12, the price of Ethereum is up more than 10%. It has breached the $2k USD barrier for the first time in nine months, before falling back below. Ā 

Article Thumbnail Image
Beginners Guide to Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade
Beginner
7 minutes

The increased liquidity for stakers on the Ethereum network has promoted activity on crypto exchanges. It will be an interesting watch to see if the next million of ETH withdrawals have the same beneficial impact on the ecosystem, or if this increased supply on the market negatively impacts the price.  

eToro announces crypto and stock integration with Twitter 

Twitter doubles down on social investing by adding live crypto and stock data to feeds.  

Elon Muskā€™s short tenure as CEO of Twitter has been tumultuous, to say the least. Not everyone has been a fan of the sweeping changes heā€™s made to the platform. But this time, heā€™s (literally) on the money.  

Twitter has long been the go-to platform for crypto traders to argue about which meme coin is going to moon next. By partnering with eToro, Twitter has taken these not-so-polite discussions to the next level. The idea is to cultivate a greater sense of community among traders and create a space for sharing investment ideas.Ā 

The way it all works is pretty straightforward. Users can check up on their favourite cryptocurrencies (or stocks) by searching for its cash ticker. For example, want to see the live price of Bitcoin? Just punch $BTC into the Twitter search bar. 

This change has resulted in some speculating whether Musk has plans on making Twitter itself a trading platform sometime in the future, or if he will buy eToro, but this is all speculation at this point. 

Grayscale launches Solana Trust 

Grayscale builds on its portfolio of stocks pegged to cryptocurrencies with GSOL allowing traders to buy and sell SOL indirectly.  

Grayscale Trust are a prestigious asset manager when it comes to cryptocurrencies. The firm was one of the first to grant exposure to Bitcoin via the traditional stock market, in the form of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The American company is back at it again, this time pegging Solana tokens to the Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL).  

GSOL has actually been open for private investors since November 2021, but will soon be released for the general public. The Solana Trust fund so far carries $2.9m in SOL, which it uses to ā€œpegā€ the price of GSOL to the value of Solana coins.  

Crypto investors can trade-in their assets for shares in the funds, while retail investors can buy GSOL the same way theyā€™d buy anything else on the stock market. Currently, thereā€™s still around 300k GSOL available for investors to snaffle up. 

There are several advantages to investing in GSOL as opposed to the native cryptocurrency. Grayscale Trusts are regulated, which may appeal to the wary investors. Additionally, thereā€™s no need to worry about self-custody ā€“ Grayscale stores all of their digital assets in secure cold wallets.  

Itā€™s not all roses for stock market funds of cryptocurrencies, though. Investors buying GSOL will typically pay a premium on the real-time price of SOL, are subject to management fees, and are restricted from staking opportunities or participation in the Solana network. 

Elon Musk to launch truth-seeking artificial intelligence platform TruthGPT 

The AI chatbot will supposedly push back against the apparent bias of current AI tech like ChatGPT 

The year of the AI is upon us, and who else would throw their hat into the ring than one of the worldā€™s richest people, Elon Musk. On a 17 April FOX news report, Musk announced he is developing ChatGPTā€™s sworn enemy ā€“ TruthGPT. 

The over-arching goal of the new chatbot is to ā€œunderstand the nature of the universeā€, but will spend its downtime plotting the demise of ChatGPT. Generally, Musk believes the current state of AI chatbots is too biased toward the left-wing and that they are ā€œprogrammed to lie to us for political effect.ā€ In other news, FOX, the station Musk was appearing on, is well-known for its fair and unbiased take on current political events. 

How exactly TruthGPT will buck the purported trend of left-leaning chatbots is still unclear. Thereā€™s no information on whether the startup is already underway, or if TruthGPT is still just an idea.  

But Muskā€™s concerns go deeper than the political. He is a staunch believer that AI, as it is presently developing, will result in total annihilation for the human race. However, by creating a bot that understands all the secrets of the universe, he contends that perhaps the AI will be more forgiving toward humans. 

ā€œWe recognise humanity could decide to hunt down all the chimpanzees and kill them. But weā€™re actually glad they exist, and we aspire to protect their habitats.ā€ Apparently, the same principles apply to artificial intelligence. 

In the meantime, the crypto community is already having fun with the idea. A group of developers have created a memecoin called $TRUTH, which they hope will grab Elonā€™s attention.  

Want to trade on the go?

Download the app

Download our App and buy, sell and trade Crypto anywhere at any time.

330 reviews
526 reviews