Crypto Trends Weekly – Aug. 20 – 26

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Aug. 20 – 26, 2022):

Aug. 20: Crypto exchange FTX made up a billion dollars in revenue last year. FTX’s revenue saw an increase of over 1,000%, going from $89 million to $1.02 billion as of 2021. The company also completed numerous acquisitions and was able to add to its global reach, CNBC said, citing internal audited financials.

Aug. 21: Decentralized exchange Uniswap has blocked 253 crypto addresses, data leaked on GitHub revealed. It was the first time Uniswap shared details on this matter, adding further information on its methodology.

Aug. 22: Bitcoin transaction fees dropped below $1 for the first time since 2020. In addition to the `latest Bitcoin upgrades, the drop in transaction fees can be attributed to multiple factors, including falling market prices and lower mining difficulty.

Aug. 23: Crypto exchange Binance announced zero-fee trading for the ETH and BUSD trading pair ahead of the upcoming Merge. The much-anticipated Ethereum upgrade is set to happen around September 15. Recently, there has been vast activity around ETH trading as the market prepares for the event.

Aug. 24: Following the US government banning the Ethereum mixing platform Tornado Cash, the stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings Ltd. revealed that the company would not “freeze Tornado Cash addresses.” The recent blog post about the subject says Tether is waiting for instructions from law enforcement. The stablecoin issuer has yet to receive a request but hinted it would comply if it did.

Aug. 25: Coinbase announced it will launch its own liquid staking token, titled cbETH, which users can get in exchange for ETH that Coinbase will stake on the proof-of-stake version of Ethereum. Ahead of Ethereum’s Merge, the exchange aims to diversify the liquid staking market, which is currently single dominated by the Lido protocol.  

Aug. 26: The latest data for August indicate that the summer downturn in NFT marketplaces has continued – down 45% for a month. According to The Block’s Data Dashboard, the NFT marketplace volume for August was $369.53 million, compared with $675.43 million in July.

Crypto firms and exchanges dealing in ETH have made announcements informing clients of any preparations needed ahead of the Merge, from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. While crypto whales are moving their ETH funds to exchanges as the shift approaches.