What Happened in the Crypto Industry & NOBI During the Past Week?

Hi NOBI’s! Cryptocurrencies are off to a great start in 2023, and they have been up until now. Most crypto assets are starting to rise from the grave and record a fantastic trend of rising prices. Apart from that, several important agendas are also being prepared to launch, one of which is the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade. According to predictions, this upgrade will trigger the ETH price to skyrocket to US$2,000. What’s the reason? We recap what’s been happening in the crypto industry during the past week!

1. Ahead of Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade, is ETH Price Ready for A Blast to US$2.000?

Ethereum (ETH) is expected to begin a new era with the Shanghai Upgrade, which is set to launch in March. Many experts believe that the price of ETH will once again surpass the $2,000 mark. The Shanghai Upgrade is initially planned to bring further widely anticipated innovations, such as proto-danksharding, which is a simpler data sampling process that makes layer-2 transactions on Ethereum drastically cheaper and faster.

The Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade will be the first major update since The Merge, which transitioned the network to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism last September. The Merge also introduced the ability for users to deposit ETH into the network to become validators and help authenticate on-chain transactions. In return, these users can collect rewards in the form of newly generated ETH.

Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 is finalizing 🚀🚀🚀

It started out with a few issues because the config wasn't correctly applied on geth (we disallow overriding the mainnet config). The config is applied correctly and all nodes are in agreement. We will start some evil nodes,.

— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) January 23, 2023

2. Indonesia to Launch National Cryptocurrency Exchange in June 2023

Didid Noordiatmoko, the acting head of Bappebti, stated that the government through Bappebti is ready to present a crypto asset exchange in 2023. These provisions are contained in the formulation of the results of the Rapat Kerja Bappebti 2023 which took place on January 19-20 2023. This commitment is also in accordance with the mandate of Undang-Undang Nomor 32 Tahun 1997 about Commodity Futures Trading.

“In accordance with the direction of the Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan, Bappebti immediately makes a complete physical trading ecosystem for crypto assets in Indonesia. In other words, we are ready to present a crypto exchange in 2023,” Didid explained in his statement, Jakarta, Friday (20/1).

3. This Spanish Airline Giant Embraces Crypto as a Payment Method

Vueling will be the first budget airline in Europe to accept crypto assets as a means of payment for its services. The company announced on January 14, 2023 that they are exploring the use of blockchain technology and NFTs to enable customers to purchase airline tickets using crypto assets.

Vueling Alliance and Distribution Manager Jesus Monzo revealed that Vueling stated that this move would transform his company into the first low-cost airline to accept crypto assets as a means of payment in Europe. This functionality is expected to be available on airline websites in the third quarter of 2023, and will use UATP technology, the global payments network for airlines, although the company has not indicated which cryptocurrencies they will accept in the future.

4. US Prepares to Operate Nuclear Powered Bitcoin Mining in 2023

The United States will open its first nuclear-powered data center offering Bitcoin mining in the first quarter of this year. This data center is named Cumulus Susquehanna and is located in Pennsylvania, United States of America.

Reporting from Yahoo Finance, Wednesday (25/1/2023), this project has been completed by Cumulus Data, which is a subsidiary of independent electricity producer Talen Energy. The data center is expected to start hosting nuclear-powered Bitcoin mining and cloud computing services in the first quarter of 2023.

5. Cathie Wood Sees Potential Crypto Rebound amid Whiffs of a Fed Pivot

CEO and chief investment officer of crypto investment and innovative technology company ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, in a company video blog released on January 23, 2023 revealed that crypto assets have the promising potential to experience phenomenal changes in 2023. That’s thanks to declining inflation rates and the Federal Reserve’s central bank action that’s about to roll.

Reporting from Cointelegraph on Wednesday (25/1/2023), starting the discussion with a summary of macroeconomic prospects, Cathie explained that currently, there are already visible signs that indicate inflation will decrease, where the Fed must immediately rotate in 2023. Given the current situation From this, risky assets such as crypto assets will also benefit from improved economic prospects and increasingly loosening financial belts.

That wraps up for Crypto This Week. We’ll see you at the next one!