Last Week in Review: Ethereum keeps burning ETH, and NFT playlists on Spotify?

by Team Luno
· 3 minute read
Ethereum

The highlights from last week’s headline grabbers. All the important news, numbers and events from the crypto industry in easy-to-read, digestible news bites. 

News from the block

🍃 Ethereum keeps burning ETH following the Merge 

  • Ether’s daily issuance dipped below zero to -2.7% on 14 February, according to Glassnode. This means that more ETH is being burned than created. In other words, Ethereum is going deflationary. 

Source: Glassnode

  • This is good news for Ethereum in the long run. The less ETH created, the less ETH in circulation, and, according to the laws of supply and demand, the more valuable the coin could become. In theory, at least. 
  • How does ETH burning work? Ethereum destroys a certain portion of transaction fees, paid in ETH, every day. The busier the network, the more ETH gets burned, and vice versa. If the supply continues to be more than the burn rate, which is much slower when markets are down, less NFTs minted on Ethereum and so on, the coin goes inflationary. 
  • Read our bumper feature on all there is to know about the Ethereum Merge HERE. 

🔑 Ethereum one step closer to unlocking staked ETH

  • Ethereum developers are readying the Sepolia Ethereum testnet for activation of the Shanghai Upgrade on 28 February. 
  • A testnet is a fail-safe environment similar to the real network, and allows developers to test upcoming upgrades without impacting the main network.
  • The Shanghai upgrade will allow network validators with staked Ethereum to withdraw funds that have been locked since September 2022, when Ethereum switched to proof of stake. 
  • This is the second-last test before the Shanghai Upgrade is executed on the Ethereum Mainnet, expected to happen sometime in mid-March. 

🥳 US investors remain positive about crypto despite volatile market

  • Morning Consult polled 2,200 people in the US and found that 20% owned some form of cryptocurrency. This number has remained consistent each quarter since 2022. 
  • 67% of respondents agreed that the global financial system is in need of an overhaul. 
  • “Universally, Americans are frustrated by the inequality in the financial system and are hungry for change. Crypto investors and younger cohorts of Americans still believe that crypto is a worthwhile investment in the future that can lead to societal benefits,” the authors noted. The report was commissioned by Coinbase. 

🎛️ Spotify testing playlists that can only be accessed by NFT owners

  • The NFT acts like a key that unlocks a specific playlist on Spotify. 
  • NFT holders will be able to connect their Web3 wallets to Spotify, where the app will authenticate the NFT and unlock a playlist. 
  • Only a few NFT communities are currently taking part in the test, including metaverse band Kingship, who are signed to Universal, as reported in Hypebeast.  

TL;DID read

“Goldman Sachs, Hamilton Lane and Siemens are among institutions choosing to represent real-world assets as digital tokens on a blockchain,” says Blockworks.

  • A few powerhouse financial institutions are looking at the potential of blockchain technology in trading bonds and other assets faster and more efficiently than traditional platforms. 
  • Limited market hours and slow settlement times are but a few of the issues plaguing legacy systems. 

Read the full story HERE. 

Crunching the numbers

17,413,289 – The amount of Ethereum deposited in staking pools. 

14.46% – The percentage of all Ethereum in staking pools. 

-2.2% – The issuance rate of Ethereum on 14 February, turning negative and recording a new all-time high rate of deflation. 

91.92% – Issued Bitcoin supply. 

410 – Number of days remaining at present calculations before the next Bitcoin halving. 

The crypto time capsule

It’s not crypto but it impacts everything. Household inflation over 22 years, visualised by the Visual Capitalist.

Crypto trivia

What is staking? 

Manfaat Investasi yang Terasa Sampai Hari Tua

Staking is a way of earning extra cryptocurrency by helping to verify cryptocurrency transactions. You can stake cryptocurrency in projects that use a proof of stake consensus mechanism to process transactions, such as Ethereum or Cardano. 

Got more questions? We have the answers HERE. 

Worth a watch

Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Block, talks about how he got into Bitcoin and why he believes it’s the future. 

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