Over $26 million was stolen from investors in March through fake Solana memecoin presales.
Shiba Inu plans to launch its own L3 network built on Shibarium in Q3 2024.
Since January 2024, Bitcoin whales have accumulated a massive 266,000 BTC, worth $17.5 billion.
The Japanese Yen hit a 34-year low due to hyperinflation, trading at zero against Bitcoin on value comparison.
Some Ethereum community members miss Proof-of-Work (PoW), but Vitalik Buterin pointed out PoS's benefits like reduced energy consumption.
We had the usual last week—the same old thefts, launches, whale accumulations and devastating crypto crashes in the crypto industry.
We had Solana memecoin developers steal worth of $26 million from unsuspecting victims, a major cryptocurrency getting its own L3 network, as well as something about the Japanese Yen crashing to zero against Bitcoin.
We have compiled these stories into a single article, helping you stay on top of things. And without further ado—Here’s everything to know:
The memecoin mania is especially strong in this cycle, considering how new projects happen to spring up almost every day, especially on the Solana network.
Similar to what we saw in the Ethereum ICO issue from 2017, developers are starting to take advantage of things, and have managed to scam investors of a staggering $26 million via memecoin presales in March alone.
Developers who ran off with funds
ZachXBT, a blockchain expert, was the first to draw attention to this.
The analyst tweeted within the week, that memecoins that were put up for presale throughout March managed to raise around 180,650 SOL tokens, which were worth $26 - $28 million at the time of the tweet.
The social platforms of scam projects like $MOONKE, $LIKE, $FROG and $SORRY have gone radio silent, and are now fully abandoned.
Keep in mind that these scams were only about a dozen, compared to a total of 35 projects that collectively garnered around $150 million in investment.
According to reports, after getting $73 million in funding, the Shiba Inu team is building a layer 3 network with Zama's homomorphic encryption technology.
For more context, L3 networks work in just the same way as L2s.
Take Ethereum for example—Ethereum needs more scalability, and can only handle so many transactions per second.
Because of this, L2 networks like Optimism and Arbitrum were introduced, to process transactions separate from the main Ethereum chain, ensuring that more people have access to the security that Ethereum provides.
L3 networks do just the same but are built on top of L2s—which is what Shiba Inu is trying to accomplish.
According to reports, a test version of the new layer 3 network will be introduced in the third quarter of 2024, and will be built on top of Shibarium as its L2.
A new SHIB L3 is incoming
So far, Shiba Inu has received funding from Polygon Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital, and a host of others.
Bitcoin might be going through a financial rollercoaster at the moment, but its whales are unfazed.
According to a recent tweet from Santiment, since the beginning of 2024, large Bitcoin holders have accumulated an additional 266,000 BTC, worth a staggering $17.5 billion.
According to the data aggregation platform, this $17.5 billion stash is spread out between accounts holding between 1,000 BTC to 10,000 BTC, and now holds around 1.24% of Bitcoin's total 21 million supply.
Santiment’s outlook on Bitcoin
Moreover, Santiment also says that investors are experiencing a high degree of FOMO, considering how many expect Bitcoin to suddenly take off and hit the $70,000 zone once again.
This sounds impossible, but it happened.
The Japanese Yen, the third-most traded fiat currency in foreign exchange markets, fell flat against Bitcoin within the week.
The Japanese yen plummeted to a 34-year low as authorities battled to control the country's hyperinflation.
Bitcoin versus the Yen
However, in terms of absolute monetary value, Bitcoin (BTC) beat the yen while the Japanese government struggled through this dilemma. At the time of writing, one Japanese yen is still worth 0 Bitcoin according to Google Finance.
During the week, it came to light that some Ethereum community members miss the old days of Ethereum being a Proof of Work (PoW) blockchain, just like Bitcoin.
Community members miss PoW
According to a new thread from Amanda Cassatt, the CEO of web3 marketing studio, Serotonin, these nostalgic community members had concerns with things like centralization, the balance of power between miners and other stakeholders, as well as how “connected to the real world” mining is, compared to staking.
Ethereum’s centralization problem
Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, entered the discussion and pointed out that the old PoW system had flaws that didn’t quite align with the long-term goals of the network.
Moreover, keep in mind that the switch to Proof of Stake (PoS) reduced the Ethereum network's energy consumption by a staggering 99.95%.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.