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Uniswap founder burns $650B HayCoin against speculation

Uniswap's Hayden Adams burned 99% of the HayCoin (HAY) supply on Oct. 20 over concerns about price speculation.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams burned 99% of the HayCoin (HAY) supply on Oct. 20, according to an announcement on X (formerly Twitter). The majority of the tokens have been removed from circulation due to Adams’ concerns about price speculation over the previous days.

Adams deployed the HAY token for testing five years ago, before the launch of the decentralized protocol Uniswap. He created a small test liquidity pool with a tiny fraction of the total supply and kept over 99.9% of HAY tokens in his wallet. Just a few weeks ago, the token was trading like a memecoin in the six-figure range:

"Over the years, a few people have noticed it and bought it as a joke/for the novelty of it. Was extremely surprised to see people buying and selling significant dollar amounts this past week, treating it like a memecoin. Crypto can be weird sometimes."

According to Adam's post, about $650 billion worth of HAY tokens were burned. The Uniswap’s founder dubbed price speculation as "silly," noting that he does not want his profile picture associated with the token:

"Ultimately, I’m uncomfortable owning almost the entire supply (~99.99%) of a token that people are memeing and speculating on, so I decided to burn the full amount in my wallet (”valued” at an absurd ~$650b)."

When a token is burned, it is permanently removed from circulation. But it also creates inflationary effects on their price since it decreases the amount of available units. At the time of writing, the HAY token is traded at $2,392,640, up over 235% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

Adam’s move raised a few eyebrows on X. Aside from the impact on the HAY price, users pointed out that the token burning could be considered a taxable event. "Assuming a cost basis of $0, a ~$650 billion disposal gives rise to ~$128 billion long-term capital gains liability," wrote a user.

Others suggested that Adams could have sold the tokens before burning them and donated the profits.

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NFT investor accidentally burns $135k CryptoPunk trying to borrow money

While going through the unfamiliar process of wrapping NFTs, Riley accidentally sent the asset to a burn address, permanently deleting the NFT from circulation.

A nonfungible token (NFT) from the CryptoPunks collection worth 77 Ether (ETH) was sent to a burn address to be permanently destroyed. However, the collector’s intent was just to borrow some money against it to buy another NFT.

NFT collector Brandon Riley added CryptoPunk #685 to his collection on March 13 by paying 77 ETH, hoping to hold it for the long term.

As a seasoned investor, Riley knew the importance of procuring new NFTs right before crypto markets took off into a new bull market. As a result, he decided to borrow some money against CryptoPunk #685 by using a popular technique known as wrapping.

While going through the unfamiliar process of wrapping NFTs, Riley accidentally sent the asset to a burn address — which permanently deleted the NFT from circulation, as shown below.

Trading history of CryptoPunk $#685. Source: dappradar.com

“I was told to follow the directions exactly, so I did,” explained Riley, but in the process, he ended up losing 77 ETH, which was worth $135,372.16. He explained:

“I was not wrapping this punk to sell it on Blur. It was to be my “forever punk.” The number is exact reverse of my ape. I was only wrapping it because I needed to borrow some liquidity from it.”

While members of Crypto Twitter believed that the NFT collector must have had “deep pockets,” Riley contradicted the rumors by revealing that he had purchased CryptoPunk #685 through borrowed money.

“I just shouldn’t have attempted this on my own I guess,” was Riley’s takeaway from the conundrum. On the other hand, Crypto Twitter also blamed confusing user interfaces and complex instructions for the investor’s loss. As a result, the community unanimously agreed on the need to revamp the front-end processes for crypto ecosystems.

Related: Improving Bitcoin NFT marketplace infrastructure sets the stage for ecosystem growth

NFT wash trading increased by 126% in February, confirmed a CoinGecko report. The top six NFT marketplaces — Magic Eden, OpenSea, Blur, X2Y2, CryptoPunks and LooksRare. X2Y2, Blur and LooksRare — saw a rise in wash trading for the fourth straight month, with a total volume of $580 million.

NFT wash trading volume, January 2022–February 2023. Source: CoinGecko, Footprint Analytics

As Cointelegraph previously reported, the issue of wash trading stems from a lack of clear regulations.

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Ethereum price at $1.4K was a bargain, and a rally toward $2K looks like the next step

ETH’s correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics all suggest that the path to $2,000 is programmed.

Ether's price (ETH) reached $1,400 on March 10, which proved to be a bargain as the cryptocurrency rallied 27.1% until March 21, at the time of writing. However, the three reasons that supported the price gain, including correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics, all suggest that the path to $2,000 is set in stone. 

There are numerous explanations for Ether's 19.4% decline over the past six months. The Shanghai hard fork upgrade was delayed from March to early April and after Shanghai, Ethereum's roadmap includes the "Surge," "Verge," "Purge," and "Splurge" updates. In reality, the longer these intermediate steps to achieve scalability take, the greater the likelihood that competing networks will demonstrate efficacy and possibly establish a competitive advantage.

Another potentially concerning issue on the minds of investors is the real chance of price impact when validators are finally able to unlock their 32 ETH deposits following the completion of the Shappela hard fork. While it is impossible to predict how many of the 16 million ETH currently staked on the Beacon Chain will be sold on the market. There is a compelling argument in favor of the transition to liquid staking platforms, as they can use liquid staking derivatives on other decentralized finance networks without sacrificing their staking yield.

Traders could construct a narrative based on regulatory uncertainty, especially after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's September 2022 statement that proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies could be subject to securities laws. In February 2023, the SEC reached an agreement compelling the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken to cease offering crypto staking services to U.S.-based clients and the exchange also paid $30 million in disgorgement.

Correlation versus application-focused tech companies

To understand why Ether gained 15% in less than three days after briefly trading below $1,400 on March 10, traders must switch from a price-based analysis to a market capitalization comparison. On March 10, Ethereum’s market cap closed at $175 billion.

Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce are similar to Ethereum in that their software enables users to access shared computing resources and resources. This is in contrast to chipmakers NVidia and TSM, infrastructure providers Microsoft and Oracle, and technology companies Apple and Cisco that heavily rely on equipment.

ETH vs. Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), Salesforce (CRM). Source: TradingView

The market capitalizations of Oracle, Salesforce and SAP are comparable to Ether's at $233 billion, $188 billion, and $149 billion, respectively. Ultimately, centralized and decentralized solutions permit businesses to integrate their proprietary software so that all third parties and relevant departments can consult, process, share, and store data.

Considering the past six months of data, Ether's price has performed similarly to those companies. The drop below $1,400 on March 10 was illogical if the correlation between application-focused tech stocks and the price of Ether remains valid.

ETH’s total value locked sticks at $30 billion

The Total Value Locked (TVL) of the Ethereum network was $24 billion on November 24, 2022, and increased by 30% to $30 billion by March 21, 2023. Therefore, if no other factors influence the price, one could anticipate a 30% price increase during that six-month period. Except that was not the case on March 10, when Ether traded at $1,400, representing a mere 8% increase from six months prior and indicating a disconnect between the value deposited in the network's smart contracts and the ETH price.

This 22% difference between the 30% increase in TVL and the 8% increase in ETH price indicated that Ether's true value should have been near $1,700, a level that was reached three days later on March 13, 2023. This simple model excludes a number of variables that influence supply and demand and the resulting price level, but it does provide an indication based on historical data.

Related: Coinbase submits petition to SEC explaining that staking is not securities

Ether's deflationary mechanism is in full force

On November 10, 2021, the price of Ether was $4,869, a record high for the cryptocurrency. However, a great deal has changed since then, including the burning of 3,016,607 ETH via the EIP-1559 Improvement Proposal. This equates to an additional $5.4 billion in capitalization that would have otherwise been created, thereby adding to the supply side and restraining price appreciation.

Currently, the market leader Bitcoin (BTC), is trading down 59% from its $69,000 all-time high. That does not necessarily mean Ether should reduce the gap versus Bitcoin, but it shows how discounted ETH currently stands at $1,780. The deflationary standard paves the way for Ether’s perception as a scarce digital asset, which is particularly promising during inflationary periods in the global economy.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

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$77,588,814 in Ethereum Burned As ETH Transforms Into Deflationary Crypto Asset

,588,814 in Ethereum Burned As ETH Transforms Into Deflationary Crypto Asset

The supply of the second-largest crypto asset Ethereum (ETH) is deflating, thanks to the success of a major upgrade known as EIP-1559. New numbers from Ultrasound.Money show 50,317 ETH worth $77.5 million has burned since the upgrade went into effect in August of last year. The overall supply of ETH began to reverse in January, […]

The post $77,588,814 in Ethereum Burned As ETH Transforms Into Deflationary Crypto Asset appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

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Alameda tried to redeem 3,000 wBTC days before bankruptcy: BitGo CEO

The CEO of Bitgo stated that the Alameda representative failed the security verification process required to convert Wrapped BTC into BTC.

Mike Belshe, the CEO of digital asset custodian BitGo has confirmed that Alameda Research attempted to redeem 3,000 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) in the days before FTX’s bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11. 

During a Dec. 14 Twitter Spaces hosted by decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher Chris Blec, Belshe confirmed the firm knocked back the redemption request because the unknown Alameda representative involved didn’t pass Bitgo’s security verification process and seemed unfamiliar with how the wrapped Bitcoin burning process worked.

“[The security details] didn't match the process. So we held it up and we said no, no, no, no. This is not what the burn looks like. And we need to know who this person was.”

“So we held it and while we were holding it, waiting for a response on those issues [Alameda] went bankrupt and of course, once they went bankrupt, everything halted,” Belshe added.

The Bitgo CEO also said that Alameda’s 3,000 BTC mint request remains “stuck” on the platform’s dashboard, adding that the firm would most likely leave the tokens where they are until they’re dealt with by the trustees taking on Alameda's bankruptcy case.

Alameda’s failed mint transaction request of 3,000 wBTC in exchange for 3000 BTC. Source: wBTC Network Dashboard.

Alameda’s attempt to unwrap the 3,000 wBTC was also confirmed on the Ethereum transaction aggregator Etherscan.

While this would have ordinarily triggered the redemption of BTC, Bitgo has a security mechanism set in place before the conversion takes place, which is what Alameda failed.

It is not understood what the motive was for attempting to redeem the $50 million worth of wBTC, but it is understood that FTX executives were attempting to raise funds from a variety of sources to stave off bankruptcy up until the last minute.

Analysis from Arkham Intelligence on Nov. 25 found that Alameda pulled $204 million from eight different addresses from FTX.US five days before its parent firm eventually filed for Chapter 11.

Related: Alameda had ‘unfair’ trading advantage, special access to FTX funds: CFTC filing

wBTC is a tokenized version of BTC, which can be redeemed for BTC when it is sent to a burn address, triggeringthe release of BTC. The conversion is made at a 1:1 ratio.

The tokenization of wrapped Bitcoin enables Bitcoin holders to interact with Ethereum-based smart contracts and decentralized applications.

Bitgo co-developed wBTC in 2019 alongside blockchain interoperability protocol Ren and multi-chain liquidity platform Kyber. wBTC is also managed by the decentralized autonomous organization wBTC DAO, which comprises over 30 members.

The wBTC dashboard currently shows that BitGo now holds 202,255 BTC in custody against 199,238 wBTC in circulation, amounting to an overcollateralization rate of 101.51%.

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Damien Hirst livestreams the burning of $10M in art for NFT project

"The Currency" is the name given to Hirst's NFT project which examines the value of digital art versus physical art.

Britain’s wealthiest living artist, Damien Hirst, has started setting fire to millions of dollars worth of his own artworks as part of his nonfungible token (NFT) project called “The Currency.”

During an Oct. 11 live stream of his London gallery at 12:30pm local time, Hirst burned hundreds of his own “The Currency” artworks, ensuring that they exist only in the form of an NFT moving forward.

“The Currency” is the name given to Hirst’s first NFT collection which dropped last year — made up of 10,000 NFTs each tied to a physical oil painting.

The project has been part of Hirst’s social experiment that tests the worth of purely digital art versus physical art.

Collectors who had bought one of the $2,000 floor-priced NFTs were given one year to decide whether they would keep the NFT or trade it in for the physical painting.

In July, the deadline for the decision was reached, with 5,149 paintings to be delivered as physical pieces of art, and 4,851 paintings to exist only in digital form.

Asked about how he felt burning the artwork, Hirst said: "It feels good, better than I expected,” according to a report from the BBC.

The remaining oil paintings will continue to be burned at the Newport Street Gallery until The Currency exhibition closes on Sept. 30.

Source: Instagram

“A lot of people think I’m burning millions of dollars of art but I’m not, I’m completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions,” said Hirst the day before the burn event.

“The value of art, digital or physical, which is hard to define at the best of times will not be lost, it will be transferred to the NFT as soon as they are burnt.”

Hirst’s The Currency collection is listed on NFT marketplace OpenSea with a floor price of 5.1 Ether (ETH), worth $6,539 at the time of writing. The most recently sold piece named V-Day of consent, sold for 5.08 ETH.

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Binance burns $1.8M in LUNC trading fees following community proposal

According to the crypto exchange, the burn was the equivalent of 1,863,213.47 USDT — roughly 5.5 million LUNC.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it completed the first burn of Terra Classic tokens’ trading fees in response to a community proposal from September.

In an Oct. 3 update, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the exchange had burned roughly $1.8 million worth of Terra Classic (LUNC) — formerly Terra (LUNA) — trading fees for LUNC/BUSD and LUNC/USDT spot and margin trading pairs. According to Binance, the burn included the equivalent of 1,863,213.47 Tether (USDT) — roughly 5.5 million LUNC.

The exchange’s original announcement from Sept. 26 said the burns would be completed every Monday — making the next event on Oct. 10 — sending trading fees to a LUNC burn address. Many in the Terra community proposed the burn strategy as part of efforts to revive LUNC, whose price had dropped to almost zero in May and briefly surged by more than 250% in September.

Related: Do Kwon shares LUNA burn address but warns ‘LUNAtics’ against using it

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, whom many in the crypto space want held to account for his role in Terra’s collapse, has been targeted by South Korean authorities for allegedly violating the country’s capital markets laws. A warrant has been issued for his arrest and Interpol added Kwon’s name to its Red Notice list, requesting that local law enforcement — many have suggested he may be in Singapore — detain the Terra co-founder. At the time of publication, Kwon’s whereabouts are unknown, but he said on Twitter on Sept. 26 that he was “making zero effort to hide.”

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LUNC investors react to CZ’s 1.2% trading tax recommendation on Binance

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, recommended a flat 1.2% trading tax on LUNC trades that could be burned to reduce the token’s total supply and improve its price performance.

The infamous collapse of the Terra ecosystem, which erased market prices of TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA tokens, continues to trouble anxious investors as co-founder Do Kwon, crypto exchanges and the community together tries to identify the best route for a sustainable price recovery.

Most recently, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, the CEO of crypto exchange Binance, recommended a flat 1.2% trading tax on LUNC trades that could be burned to reduce the token’s total supply and improve its price performance. Addressing the community, CZ stated:

“We will implement an opt-in button (on the Binance exchange), for people to opt-in to pay a 1.2% tax for their LUNC trading.”

However, the exchange would begin the taxation for opt-in traders following the consensus of 25% of the LUNC investors, making sure that early adopters “are not the only few paying an extra 1.2%.”

A blanket trading tax of 1.2% will be implemented for all LUNC trading only after opt-in traders reach 50% of the total LUNC trading volume on the exchange.

The recommendation split up the LUNA community as some supported CZ’s decision to implement the opt-in button while others interpreted it as market manipulation from a centralized entity.

CZ backed LUNC burning but believes in community voting, allowing traders on the platform to finalize the suggestion, adding, “We listen to and protect our users.” However, the entrepreneur is aware that unless the change is implemented across all exchanges and on-chain, LUNC traders would prefer moving assets to other exchanges that don’t have the burn.

Related: South Korean authorities ask Interpol to issue 'Red Notice' for Do Kwon: Report

On the other end of the spectrum, South Korean authorities are trying to track down and arrest Kwon for the Terra collapse.

On Sept. 14, a court in Seoul, South Korea, issued an arrest warrant for Kwon and five other people for violating the country’s capital markets law.

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For 38 Consecutive Days Ethereum Gas Fees Record the Lowest Rates Since 2020

For 38 Consecutive Days Ethereum Gas Fees Record the Lowest Rates Since 2020In 43 days, the Ethereum network could finally see a full transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) via The Merge. Meanwhile, during the last 38 days, Ethereum’s layer one (L1) onchain transaction fees have dropped below the $5 mark and tumbled even lower by the end of July. At the time of writing, the […]

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Do Kwon shares LUNA burn address but warns ‘LUNAtics’ against using it

Upon a persistent request from the Terra community, Kwon went against his initial plan and publicly shared a burn address for LUNA on May 21.

The recent Terra revival plan announced by Do Kwon, the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, received mixed reactions as many questioned the effectiveness of a hard fork in reviving the fallen prices of LUNA and UST tokens. Instead, the part of the community recommended burning LUNA tokens as the most plausible way to achieve a comeback.

Kwon’s proposal to preserve the Terra ecosystem involves hard forking the existing Terra blockchain without the algorithmic stablecoin and redistributing a new version of the LUNA tokens to investors based on a historical snapshot before the death spiral. However, several crypto entrepreneurs, including Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, opined that:

“Reducing supply should be done via burn, not fork at an old date, and abandon everyone who tried to rescue the coin.”

Upon a persistent request from the crypto community, Kwon went against his initial plan and publicly shared a burn address for LUNA on May 21. Every LUNA token sent to this address will be burned immediately, effectively reducing the circulating supply of LUNA tokens.

Two days after sharing the LUNA burn address, Kwon reiterated his point of view that reducing the circulating supply of LUNA tokens will have no impact on the market price, stating, “nothing happens except that you lose your tokens.”

The Terra co-founder clarified that the burn address was shared with users only for information purposes and warned against using it:

“Happy to provide for information purposes but want to clarify that you should not burn tokens unless you know what you are doing - I for one cannot understand.”

However, the revelation resulted in more confusion among investors. As Cointelegraph previously reported, LUNA’s insane volatility serves as a lucrative opportunity for investors as many try to recoup their losses and others eye profitable trades.

Kwon has previously confirmed that Terra is no longer minting new LUNA tokens, which is one of the main reasons why investors believe a burning mechanism will improve LUNA price owing to scarcity.

Amid an unclear roadmap for a resolution, investors are advised to refrain from making abrupt financial decisions as the master plan for Terra revival continues to be under public scrutiny.

Related: Near Protocol picks up slack, onboards Tracer following Terra's downfall

As a direct consequence of Terra’s collapse, numerous projects sought to migrate to different blockchain ecosystems fighting for survival. Near Foundation, too, played its part by recently onboarding Tracer, a Web3 fitness and lifestyle app.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Near Foundation’s (NEAR) Nicky Chalabi highlighted that projects like Tracer seek alignment with the ecosystem’s core values and that:

“Projects must watch the interests of their community and users because, in the end, that’s the most valuable thing you have.”

Chalabi further advised Terra projects to migrate only after considering the interests of their users and communities, stating "That can actually define your success."

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