Bitcoin Core 23.0 released, network hashrate ATH

    New Bitcoin version, Panama’s crypto law, Bitcoin-backed loan by Goldman Sachs, and more.

    Learn about industry news, development updates, community happenings, and other aspects of the PoW world!

    Mining industry

    Bitcoin

    Bitcoin hashrate reached a new ATH. The latest difficulty adjustment recorded a +5.56% change. During the last 2-week cycles, the average hashrate reached 213 EH/s. The highest hashrate of 236.51 EH/s was marked on 2022-04-28.

    Bitcoin mining profitability

    That also indicates a fiercer competition with increasing difficulty and falling price. The unit revenue falls down to $0.16 per 1 TH/s, compared to $0.18 two weeks ago.

    Bitcoin mining has become more efficient despite huge hashrate competition. According to the BMC report, in Q1 2022, Bitcoin mining efficiency surged 63% YoY, while sustainable energy mix increased by 58%.

    Ethereum

    Similar to the trend of Bitcoin, Ethereum also saw its highest hashrate during the past few days. The highest number was 1,063 TH/s on 2022-04-18. At the time of writing, the unit revenue is around $0.04 per 1 MH/s, which is slightly lower than that of two weeks ago.

    Dev and network

    Bitcoin

    Bitcoin Core 23.0 has been released with many improvements, including wallet, peer-to-peer communication and network, fee estimation, and so on. To learn more about the new changes, you may check out this post.

    Ethereum

    Ethereum continues to test The Merge. The mainnet shadow fork 2 has been undergoing the test very smoothly. Adrian Sutton reviews the test in this Twitter thread.

    The latest Ethereum Core Devs Meeting is going to take place on 2022-04-29. Topics on Merge updates, shadow fork updates, and more will be discussed. Devs are also expected to reach a decision on the merge testing progress, which will decide whether the difficulty bomb will be delayed as previously discussed.

    Litecoin

    Taproot has been locked at block height 2249856. MWEB’s locking in is also approaching. At the time of writing, the progress is more than 43% in Window 5 of the signaling period. View the progress here.

    Hathor

    Hathor introduced its upcoming rate limits for its public transaction mining service, capping it at 20 requests per minute starting from 2022-05-23. Users will be required to access an API key if they require extra rates. Check details here.

    Dash

    Dash v18 Release Candidate is now available for use on testnet. The formal v18 is going to be a major release and will introduce many improvements. Check the product brief to learn more.

    Decred

    During the voting period, several new consensus rules have been locked in, thus they will be activated at block 657280 in less than 2 weeks.

    Firo

    A new discussion on whether to speed up token emission speed has been brought up in the Firo community. Pros and cons have been mentioned, and a poll is possible to be initiated if the discussion gains sufficient traction.

    Application and adoption

    Bitcoin

    Panama has passed a bill that would give Bitcoin legal status and remove capital gains.

    Goldman Sachs has offered its first Bitcoin-backed facility, which could be considered a significant step to accelerating Bitcoin adoption.

    Ethereum

    Optimism, an Ethereum L2 solution, has announced the Optimism Collective as a large-scale experiment in governance. The Optimism Collective will be governed co-equally by two houses, the Citizens’ House and the Token House. The token OP and related plans have been introduced.

    Dogecoin

    The first Dogecoin transaction that does not require the Internet was made via RadioDOGE.

    Community and more

    Ethereum

    HackMoney2022, a virtual DeFi hackathon powered by ETHGlobal, will be hosted from 2022-05-06 to 2022-05-27.

    The Ethereum Foundation report has been published. This report summarizes the foundation’s achievements in 2021, explains its philosophy and principles, and also shares how the foundation allocated resources in 2021.

    The website ethereum.org shared its Q2 roadmap. Several items, including merge prep, revamping the Wallet pages, redesigning the Learn page and more are aimed to be shipped in Q2.

    Kadena

    Kadena has announced a $100M grant program for web3 builders. All high-quality, open-source projects for gaming, metaverse, NFT, Web3, DeFi, and DAOs are open for application.

    Xaya

    Xaya’s Q1 update has been released, bringing news including Game Channels tests, working on Polygon, SME rebrand, and so on.

    Horizen

    Horizen has released its Q1 review. It includes various highlights, such as adding new integrations and pairs, tokenization platform, and progress on zkAudit, SDK and EVM compatibility prototype.


    The PoW Round-Up is our bi-weekly report on the major news and mining insights in and around the Proof of Work ecosystem.

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