The fourth halving took place on the Bitcoin network, spot ETFs based on the first cryptocurrency and Ethereum were approved in Hong Kong, Pavel Durov gave an interview to Tucker Carlson and spoke at Token2049, as well as other events of the past week.
Bitcoin ended the week at $65,000
The first cryptocurrency started the week at $64,000. On April 15, Bitcoin rose above $66,000, but the next day it collapsed to $60,000. On April 17, digital gold recovered to $63,700. On April 18, the first cryptocurrency fell again to $61,000, but returned to $65,000 on the same day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $65,000.
BTC/USDT hourly chart of Binance exchange. Data: TradingView.
Most of the top 10 digital assets by capitalization finished the week in the “green zone”. The exception was Toncoin (-6.1%).
Data: CoinGecko.
The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is $2.5 trillion. Bitcoin dominance index – 55.1%.
The fourth Bitcoin halving took place
On April 20, the fourth halving took place on the Bitcoin network at an altitude of #840,000. The reward for a found block has been reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
Block mined by ViaBTC pool. The difficulty of mining the first cryptocurrency was 86.39 T.
What will the price of Bitcoin be after the halving?
Users paid 37.6256 BTC (about $2.4 million) in fees to include 3,050 transactions in Bitcoin halving block #840,000.
Against the background of the halving and the launch of Runes, fees on the network of the first cryptocurrency soared above $200.
Hong Kong regulator approves spot ETFs based on Bitcoin and Ethereum
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has approved applications by Boshi International, HashKey Capital, China Asset Management and Harvest Investment to launch spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
According to Matrixport calculations, demand for local exchange-traded funds based on the first cryptocurrency will reach $25 billion.
What to discuss with friends?
The miner moved $3.3 million worth of bitcoins that had been dormant for almost 14 years.. Trust Wallet developers warned about iOS vulnerability. The Open Network launched a hub for meme coins Memelandia. DEX Drift on Solana will launch a governance token and conduct an airdrop.
Pavel Durov gave an interview to Tucker Carlson and spoke at Token2049
Telegram founder Pavel Durov said in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson that he solely owns the messenger and keeps part of his savings in bitcoins.
According to Durov, he initially abandoned the idea of attracting venture capital money for the development of Telegram in order to maintain independence – “the goals and missions of the company may run counter to the priorities of investment funds.”
At the same time, the businessman admitted that he had never thought about money in the context of Telegram, since it did not correspond to his lifestyle.
“I have several hundred million dollars in my bank account, bitcoins purchased 10 years ago, but I do nothing with them. I don’t spend it on real estate, planes or yachts,” Durov said..
His main priority is freedom, and acquiring things “gives a connection to a physical location”. In addition, he prefers to focus on the work and development of Telegram.
“I want to make decisions that will affect the communication of a billion people, and not choose the color of the seats in the house,” the businessman said.
The only third-party funds that the messenger received were income from the issue of bonds and the launch of the Telegram Open Network (TON) cryptocurrency project.. There was never any talk of selling a stake in the company.
According to Durov, at the moment Telegram is not planning an IPO , although such a possibility is not excluded in the future. Now the messenger team aims to reach 1 billion monthly users within a year.
Durov calls Telegram's growth “organic”. Users love the product for its features, speed, security and recommend it to friends, comparing it with other services. The latter, according to Durov, are still copying what Telegram implemented six years ago.
The businessman also spoke about the pressure on the messenger from governments of different countries. Some of the requests received were legitimate – they were about groups promoting violence or terrorist activities. Others crossed the line – encroached on freedom of speech and privacy of correspondence. Telegram ignores the latest.
In addition, the FBI attempted to recruit one of the messenger engineers and force him to build into the code certain tools that would obviously become backdoors.
On April 19, during the Token2049 conference in Dubai, Durov announced payments in Toncoin to content creators and the possibility of purchasing goods for cryptocurrency.
On the same day, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, Tether, added support for the TON network.
Opinion: why TON fell after Durov’s announcements and what awaits the ecosystem
Also on ForkLog:
Boston Dynamics introduced a new type of robot Atlas. Binance announced the launch of the Megadrop platform. Notcoin postponed listing date. Avail will give away 600 million AVAIL as part of an airdrop.
The founder of Animoca Brands predicted Bitcoin at $1 million
The founder of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu, said that he has no doubt that the price of the first cryptocurrency will reach $1 million.
“I believe Bitcoin can eventually reach over a million dollars. But I am confident – not because it is a store of value, but because in the future it will become one of the most important status symbols of the digital economy,” he said.
According to Siu, the availability of financial blockchain services and Web3 games are more important than the entry of large players from traditional finance into the industry. He noted that in places like the Philippines or some Latin American countries, “millions of people” lack access to banking services and even education.
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