Last Week in Review: What is the Bitcoin Kimchi premium, and Ethereum due for another upgrade

The highlights from last week’s headline grabbers. All the important crypto news, numbers and events in three bullet points or less.
News from the block
Latest Ethereum upgrade aims to reduce fees for apps on the network
- The Dencun upgrade aims to reduce fees for Layer-2 projects built on Ethereum.
- The upgrade introduces new types of transactions, called blobs, which will optimise how Layer-2 networks on Ethereum settle transactions.
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Fewer newly-made millionaires this Bitcoin rally
- While it’s being debated whether we have actually entered a bull run, the numbers show that the latest significant Bitcoin price rally is producing fewer Dollar millionaires than the last bull run in 2021.
- “According to data tracked by Paris-based Kaiko, less than 2,000 millionaires, or wallets with $1 million worth of bitcoin, are created daily. That’s significantly lower than the last bull run, which bred over 4,000 millionaire wallets per day and over 2,000 wallets with a $10 million balance per day,” CoinDesk reported.
- “This could be due to a few things: (1) New capital has yet to arrive in full force. (2) Large whales are taking profit as BTC hits new highs. (3) Whales are storing their holdings with custodians, rather than personal wallets,” Kaiko said in the weekly newsletter.
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BlackRock aims to allocate Bitcoin to three of its funds
- BlackRock said in a Thursday filing it may buy shares of bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) traded on “national securities exchanges” for the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund, reports Blockworks.
- “Our actions in this space will continue to be guided by what is best for our clients and the applicable investment strategy of the fund,” the representative told Blockworks in an email.
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Pantera Capital raising funds to buy FTX’s Solana stack
- Asset manager Pantera Capital reportedly wants to buy $250 million of Solana from the FTX estate, Bloomberg reports.
- Pantera initiated the Pantera Solana Fund to acquire the coins.
- The coins will be sold at a discounted rate of 39% to interested investors, who must hold the Solana for four years, as per the sale agreement.
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Is the Bitcoin Kimchi premium back?
- The so-called Kimchi-premium trade, through which Sam Bankman Fried made millions of Dollars, recorded a two-year high, CoinDesk reports.
- The Bitcoin Kimchi Premium is when Bitcoin sells for a higher price in South Korea compared to the rest of the world. Traders aim to take advantage of this by buying Bitcoin at lower prices on global exchanges and selling it at higher prices on South Korean exchanges.
- It’s not as simple as it sounds, though. “Pocketing gains from the arbitrage is quite difficult. Korea has strict capital controls, and it is challenging for foreigners to withdraw large amounts of money from the country. It means big funds cannot capitalize on the trade, and smaller investors may not have the required infrastructure,” Shaurya Malwa of CoinDesk explained.
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