Crypto Flipsider News – Whale Buys $21 Million BTC, Melania and Musk on Bitcoin Genesis Block, Chainlink and Fantom Rallies, Solana Down for the Third Time, Grayscale Rebalances DeFi Fund, Polymarket $1.4 Million Fine

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• Whale Buys $21 Million in the Bitcoin Dip, Melania Trump Celebrates Bitcoin at 13, Musk Takes Jibe

• Chainlink (LINK) and Fantom (FTM) Ride the Bulls in Bearish Market

• Scalability Over Stability: Solana Experiences Third Network Outage

• Finding the Balance – Grayscale Drops Bancor and UMA from DeFi Fund

• Polymarket Hit With $1.4 Million for Unregistered Swaps

Whale Buys $21 Million in the Bitcoin Dip, Melania Trump Celebrates Bitcoin at 13, Musk Takes Jibe

The 13th celebration of the Bitcoin Genesis block was not enough to keep Bitcoin from its lackluster performance. As Bitcoin dipped under $47k, the third-largest Bitcoin address bought $21 million worth of Bitcoin.

Taking advantage of the dip, the entity added 456 BTC at an average price of $46,363 to their Bitcoin stash. At the time of this writing, the whale holds 120,845.57 BTC worth over $5.6 billion.

Just weeks after her shocking debut in the NFT world, Melania Trump is back again, this time celebrating the launch of the Bitcoin Genesis block. The former first lady took to Twitter to celebrate the 13th birthday of Bitcoin. She tweeted;

Flipsider:

• While Melania Trump has come out as a Bitcoiner, many are expecting to hear her husband’s stance. Donald Trump once referred to Bitcoin as a scam. 

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has taken a jibe at the Bitcoin genesis block. Reacting to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s tweet of the Genesis block code, Musk said it reminds him of his time hexing an edited version of “Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny – a role-playing video game released in 1988.

Why You Should Care

Bitcoin has come a long way since the first block was mined on January 3, 2009 – now a trillion dollar asset. 

Chainlink (LINK) and Fantom (FTM) Ride the Bulls in Bearish Market

Despite the mild slide of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most altcoins, which have struggled to make gains in the last few days, Chainlink (LINK) and Fantom (FTM) are experiencing a major bullish outbreak. 

Following the presentation of plans for cross-chain interoperability on Chainlink by Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, LINK has been on a strong rally. Over the last 24 hours, Chainlink has gained more than 8%, setting a new weekly high at $23.76.

The 24 hours price chart of Chainlink (LINK). Source: TradingView

Ethereum-Layer-1-competitor Fantom (FTM) is the star of the altcoin rally, gaining 20% over the last 24 hours. FTM has now peaked at $2.91, its highest point since November. FTM now trades at $2.898.

The 24 hours price chart of Fantom (FTM). Source: TradingView

The recent rally brings Fantom’s total gains to 115% in two weeks. The Fantom price rally comes along with the surge in the daily active addresses.

Flipsider:

• Regardless of the impressive performances, LINK and FTM are yet to breach their ATHs set in May and October 2021, respectively.

Scalability Over Stability: Solana Experiences Third Network Outage 

Solana made a name for itself in the crypto space as a highly scalable decentralized blockchain. Consistently processing over 2,500 transactions per second, Solana earned the name the Ethereum-Killer – with Ethereum only able to handle between 15 – 45.

While Solana tops the scalability charts, stability has been the bane of the network. In the early hours of Tuesday, January 4, the Solana network was reportedly hit with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The DDoS attack sent the Solana Network offline for a couple of hours – the third time the network would be forced offline over the last 6 months. Wu Blockchain announced that by 8:00 UTC, the issue had been fixed, and Solana was back to functioning properly. 

According to a Grayscale security report from December 2021, the repeating trend of DDoS attacks on Solana stems from possible flaws in the cryptography underlying the network.

Flipsider:

• Despite its lack of stability, Solana remains one of the fastest networks, claiming to process 50,000 transactions per second.

Why You Should Care

To remain a top challenger of Ethereum, Solana has to strike a balance between scalability and stability.

Finding the Balance – Grayscale Drops Bancor and UMA from DeFi Fund

Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest cryptocurrency asset management company, with over $46 billion in assets under management, has restructured its DeFi Fund – the second time since the fund was introduced in July 2021.

In a January 3 report of its quarterly rebalancing, Grayscale revealed that it has dropped Bancor (BNT) and Universal Market Access (UMA) from its DeFi fund. The fund now has $11.6 million assets under management.

Flipsider:

• In addition to removing Bancor and UMA, AMP, the native collateral token of the Flexa payment network, has been added to the Grayscale DeFi Fund.

The Grayscale DeFi Fund now consists of nine DeFi protocols following the rebalancing. Uniswap (UNI) has the highest weight, 42.33%, while Aave (AAVE) contributes 13.06%, Curve (CRV), 10.63%, MakerDAO (MKR), 8.99%, and AMP contributes 7.39%.

Why You Should Care

Grayscale has continued showing interest in DeFi protocols intended to accelerate the development of the blockchain into a mature peer-to-peer money system.

Polymarket Hit With $1.4 Million for Unregistered Swaps

Polymarket, a crypto platform where users make predictions on politics, economic indicators, and other real-world events, has been hit with a $1.4 million fine by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

According to the CFTC, Polymarket did not operate with a Designated Contract Market (DCM) or Swap Execution Facility (SEF) registration. These two registrations are important for any firm offering binary options in the United States.

Polymarket allows users to pick one of at least two options on given trades, such as who might win the 2020 presidential election.

In addition to the $1.4 million fine, the CFTC has ordered Polymarket to shut down its various markets and offer users full refunds on charges. Acting Director of Enforcement, Vincent McGonagle,  announced that “all derivatives markets must operate within the bounds of the law regardless of the technology used.”

Flipsider:

• Polymarket has replied to the allegations, stating that it would wind down three of its markets and offer refunds to its users by January 14.

Why You Should Care

As regulators turn their gaze to the crypto industry, crypto service providers would need to become more compliant to operate in different countries.