NewsFlash Articles Data Fundraising BlockBeats Pro

Important news you may have missed during the Chinese New Year

Read this article in 10 Minutes

BTC price is strong, Starknet airdrop is online, Ethereum Cancun upgrade date is confirmed, Pudgy Penguins price exceeds BAYC

During the Chinese New Year period in 2024, the overall situation in the encryption industry is improving. BTC has reached a new high since December 2021, and some new and old projects have also had significant updates during this period. BlockBeats has compiled important industry dynamics worth knowing during the New Year period in this article.

BTC surges, net inflow of funds in the market for consecutive days

On February 11th, Bitcoin broke through $48,000; on February 14th, Bitcoin broke through $52,000, reaching a new high since December 2021. At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin was $51,880. During the Lunar New Year holiday, Bitcoin continued to rise, recovering all the "sell news" decline after the spot ETF was passed.

The main reason for the price increase is the net inflow of funds from major trading institutions. On February 14th, James Butterfill, research director of CoinShares, stated on social media that the total net inflow has exceeded $4 billion since the launch of Bitcoin spot ETF. On February 17th, according to BitMEX Research data, the net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETF this week was $2.2734 billion, and the total net inflow since January 11th has reached $4.9269 billion.

除了交易市场热钱涌动，随着比特币减半临近，比特币挖矿难度也在日益攀升。2 月 16 日，据 BTC.com 数据显示，比特币挖矿难度在区块高度 830,592（2024-02-15 22:41:50）处迎来挖矿难度调整，挖矿难度上调 8.24% 至 81.73 T，创历史新高，目前全网平均算力为 567.92 EH/s。

Translation:

Aside from the hot money flowing into the trading market, as the Bitcoin halving approaches, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining is also increasing day by day. On February 16th, according to BTC.com data, the Bitcoin mining difficulty underwent an adjustment at block height 830,592 (February 15, 2024, 22:41:50), with the mining difficulty increasing by 8.24% to 81.73 T, reaching a historical high. Currently, the average network computing power is 567.92 EH/s.

BackPack launches a points system, SOL trading volume ranks first in the entire network

On February 14th, the cryptocurrency trading platform Backpack launched an account trading volume points system. The ranking of the points system will serve as an important reference data for future large-scale marketing activities, such as airdrop eligibility or Launch Pool projects.

On February 17th, SOL trading volume on Backpack ranked first among all trading platforms for three consecutive days. In the past 24 hours, SOL trading volume exceeded 670 million US dollars, while on Binance it was 554 million US dollars and on Coinbase it was 69.74 million US dollars.

Starknet Airdrop Launched

On February 14th, the native token of the Ethereum Layer 2 network Starknet, STRK, will begin distribution through the Provisions program of the Starknet Foundation on February 20th. It is reported that approximately 1.297 million wallet addresses are eligible to receive STRK, with a total airdrop of approximately 700 million tokens, with most of the receiving addresses being personal addresses. Eligible users will have four months (until June 20th) to claim the tokens.

Ethereum Cancun Upgrade Date Confirmed

On February 16th, Christine Kim, Vice President of Research at Galaxy, summarized the 181st Ethereum Core Developer Execution (ACDE) conference call. Developers shared the latest updates on their preparations for the activation of the Dencun upgrade on the mainnet, and also discussed various Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).

The client team plans to release the final version of Dencun later next week, and the expected activation date for the Dencun upgrade on the mainnet is March 13th.

Due to the influence of Sora's launch, AI sector tokens have seen a general increase in value.

Due to the launch of a new AI system called Sora by OpenAI, AI token prices have seen a general increase. As of February 16th, the following is true:

WLD 24-hour increase of 28.18%, current price is 4.165 US dollars;

The decentralized AI project Bittensor's token TAO has increased by 5.8% in the past 24 hours, and is now priced at $654.98.

The SingularityNET token AGIX, in the field of artificial intelligence networks, has seen a 24-hour increase of 21.8%, with a current price of 0.39 USD.

Artificial intelligence, computing expansion, and data-driven blockchain infrastructure platform Phoenix token PHB has increased by 8.2% in the past 24 hours, with a current price of $1.21.

The decentralized data sharing protocol Ocean Protocol's token OCEAN has seen a 7% increase in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $0.546 USD.

The Fetch.AI token FET, for the artificial intelligence ledger, has seen a 6.6% increase in the past 24 hours and is currently priced at $0.717 USD.

NFT trading volume hits nearly one-year high, with Pudgy Penguins leading the way

On February 12th, according to The Block's statistics, the NFT transaction volume on the Ethereum mainnet reached its highest level since the end of February last year in the past week. The trend of NFT transactions minted on the Ethereum mainnet has remained relatively stable, indicating that the recent surge in transaction volume is mainly driven by NFT sales rather than minting. In addition, the market value of blue-chip NFTs rose by 5.7% month-on-month to $3.05 billion in January, and the transaction volume rose by 15.4% month-on-month to $543 million.

In the past week, the blue-chip NFT Pudgy Penguins has continuously set new historical lows. On February 17th, the floor price of Pudgy Penguins broke through 22.65 ETH, with a 24-hour increase of 13.71%, already higher than the floor price of 22.55 ETH for the BAYC series NFT.

Chain game Pixels goes live on Binance Launchpad, with 1 day left until the end of mining

On February 8th, Binance launched the 46th phase of its new coin mining project, Pixels. Users can invest BNB and FDUSD into the PIXEL mining pool on the Launchpad website after 08:00 on February 9th, 2024 (GMT+8) to receive PIXEL rewards. The total mining period for PIXEL is 10 days. Following this, Pixels announced that the in-game currency BERRY will gradually be phased out and all BERRY holders will receive PIXEL rewards. As a result of this news, the value of BERRY in the Pixels game continued to rise, with a 24-hour increase of 161%.

On February 9th, Pixels officially announced a strategic financing of $4.8 million with participation from Framework Ventures. As of the time of writing, the funds participating in PIXEL mining on Binance have exceeded $8 billion, including over 2 billion FDUSD and over 16 million BNB.