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On-chain data reveals that crypto whales are snapping up the native asset of a hot Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 project by the millions.

Blockchain-tracking firm Lookonchain says that digital asset manager Amber Group sent millions of dollars worth of Arbitrum (ARB) tokens to crypto exchanges OKX and Binance, where they could potentially be sold on the open market.

Two related addresses of Amber transferred 11.2 million ARB ($15.8 million), out of which, 7.3 million ARB ($10.3 million) was transferred to OKX and Binance and currently holding 4.47 million ARB ($6.3 million).

While Amber Group reduced its ARB holdings, Lookonchain says several crypto whales have been in the process of accumulating ARB. According to the analytics firm, one whale collected a total of 4,048,947 ARB worth $5.7 million from OKX and Binance within the last 48 hours.

A second whale received 4,099,517 ARB worth $5.78 million from OKX over the same timeframe. Meanwhile, a third crypto whale accumulated 1,003,798 ARB worth $1.41 million from crypto exchange Binance.

At time of writing, ARB is trading for $1.34, trading mostly sideways over the past week.

Lookonchain also recently spotted an Ethereum whale that staked nearly $100 million worth of ETH through a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform.

A whale staked all 53,024 ETH ($95.5 million) through Abyss Finance

Through on-chain data tracking, we found that the ETH of the whale was bought from Poloniex, Gemini, Bittrex and other exchanges in 2017 and 2018, with an average buying cost of ~$368.

Generated Image: Midjourney

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Crypto Whales Accumulating Ethereum Scaling Altcoin by the Millions, According to On-Chain Data - The Daily Hodl

Bitcoin and Ethereum prices were unmoved in response to US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP). The US jobs report turned out to be a non-event from crypto market participants. It is likely that the event was priced in by traders as both Bitcoin and Ethereum prices rallied close to psychologically relevant price levels over the past week.

Also read: Breaking: US Nonfarm Payrolls rise by 236,000 in March vs. 240,000 expected

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) dropped its NonFarm Payrolls report earlier today, noting a 236,000 increase in payrolls against the market expectation of 240,000. Februarys job report showed an addition of 326,000 in NonFarm Payrolls.

There was a decline in the Unemployment Rate, down to 3.5%, and Average Hourly Earnings nosedived to 4.2%.

In response to the report, Bitcoin and Ethereum remained unmoved. It's important to note that the release of the report ahead of the Easter holiday could be one of the reasons why zero-to-low volatility was noted in crypto prices.

It is somewhat likely that the anticipation surrounding the US jobs report, with expectations for a mixed report that have been confirmed, helped drive Bitcoin and Ethereum prices to key levels over the past week. Bitcoin price had climbed to $29,000, close to the psychological barrier at $30,000, and Ethereum hit a new 2023 high, crossing above $1,900.

ETH/USD and BTC/USD 4-hour price charts

The recent spike in Bitcoin and Ethereum prices, prior to their pullback supports, raised the likelihood of the event being priced in by market participants.

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US Nonfarm Payrolls turn out to be a non-event for Bitcoin and Ethereum - FXStreet

Cryptocurrency can be one of the more complicated things to get into. Understanding which digital asset is about to enjoy a bullish run or which blockchain is the best platform to develop an application can be complex. The crypto market is accompanied by a myriad of challenges and drawbacks and investors have to be certain about a coin before they decide to invest. Looking at Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogetti (DETI) as examples, well use this article to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of investing in cryptocurrency in 2023.

The major risk associated with buying crypto is volatility. The value of a coin can fluctuate wildly in a very short space of time. This means investment can appear speculative as there is no guarantee that the crypto being bought will always be trading profitably for investors. Whilst this volatility can generate high returns, it can also lead the way to significant losses.

Sometimes this can be triggered by unexpected events.

The year 2023 has been something of a difficult grieving process for the cryptocurrency market after the FTX crash. This triggered a domino effect as Silvergate Capital, a crypto-focused bank, was followed by banks specialising in digital currency in announcing the closure of its operations. This led to the crypto market bleeding heavily as even the two biggest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, began trading bearishly as investors lost confidence.

Another risk that comes with cryptocurrency is the potential for hacking. Because cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible, it can be difficult to recover funds if they are stolen. Additionally, if you lose your private key or forget your password, you may not be able to access your funds. The threat of hacking is particularly prominent; a report published last year by the United Nations found that billions of dollars had been stolen from crypto-related businesses by cybercriminals.

Cryptocurrency does however generate incredibly promising rewards when everything falls into place together. Bitcoin and Ethereum are prime examples of that. Bitcoin might have started off as worth just a few cents but it is now worth over $28,000 per coin with a market cap of around $548bn.

The rewards arent just about filling your pockets immediately either. Blockchain technology has been revolutionary in how it has allowed applications to be developed using them. Ethereum has led the way on this and has cultivated a reputation of high trust and reliability amongst developers. On top of that, the Ether token is a very lucrative investment for crypto traders, as its currently selling for around $1,838 on the market.

And though, as mentioned previously, this is not a solid indication of the future, Bitcoin and Ethereum underline the resilience of the cryptocurrency market. Prices can crash, but they often recover too.

An issue with the financial market, in general, today is that it is controlled by governments or financial institutions, its not beholden to customers. There are, however, many crypto coins that are accountable and rooted in those who use their services. Dogetti is an example of that. Known as a meme coin, it establishes humour and mafia tropes to build a tight-knit community that sustains it.

Dogettis unique selling point is that its ecosystem embeds investors into the platform and ensures they have both a stake and a voice in the coin. This can involve ensuring that all who hold DETI tokens receive some earnings from a 6% tax on all transactions on Dogettis NFT Marketplace. It can also mean entrenching the representation of DETI members into the decision-making process of the platform through the DogettiDAO feature.

Dogetti (DETI)

Presale: https://dogetti.io/how-to-buy

Website: https://dogetti.io/

Telegram: https://t.me/Dogetti

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Dogetti_

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What Are The Benefits And Dangers Of Buying Cryptocurrency In ... - NewsWatch

The newly launched ZeroSync Association is bringing zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to Bitcoin (BTC), allowing users to validate the state of the network without the need to download hundreds of gigabytes of blockchain history or trusting a third party.

Based in Zug, Switzerland, the ZeroSync Association is a non-profit entity supported by various community stakeholders, including core contributors Robert Linus, Tino Steffens, Lukas George, and Max Gillett, as well as supporting partners, such as Lightning Labs, among others.

For the first version of its software, ZeroSync is using Cairo, the programming language brought to life by StarkWare, the Israeli-based company developing popular Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions StarkEx and StarkNet.

ZeroSync is the first production attempt to radically upgrade the Bitcoin protocol, StarkWare's ecosystem lead Louis Guthmann told Decrypt. It would transform the way people think about the system at a fundamental level.

Commonly referred to as zk-STARKs, StarkWares version of ZKPs does not require the potentially vulnerable trusted setup phase, while claiming to be more scalable and efficient than zk-SNARKsan iteration of ZKP used, for example, by the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash.

StarkWare initially deployed zk-STARKs exclusively on the Ethereum blockchain, and seeing them go live on Bitcoin is a logical next step, according to Uri Kolodny, CEO and co-founder at StarkWare Industries.

This could have a profound effect on how Bitcoin users interact with the network, Kolodny said in a statement shared with Decrypt.

To give Bitcoin developers easy access to ZKPs, ZeroSync is developing a software development kit (SDK) that allows them to generate custom validity proofs depending on individual use cases.

A key part of this SDK is ZeroSyncs client which enables fast initial block download (IBD) and the implementation of the first full proof-of-Bitcoin consensus.

Syncing the Bitcoin blockchain can be a painful process as, depending on your internet connection speed, downloading the history of transactions can take days or even weeks, with new blocks added every ten minutes on average.

According to ZeroSync, its client can be used not only to sync a full node much faster but also without needing to make any code changes to the Bitcoin Core software.

The technology can also be applied to compress the transaction history of validation protocols such as Taro, a protocol for issuing stablecoins on Bitcoins Lightning Network, or, for example, to enable Bitcoin exchanges and custodial services to provide proof-of-reserves.

After years of frustration about slow syncing, users will be able to sync with the network much faster, and with less computation. Its a technological leap akin to the transition from slow dial-up internet to high-speed broadband, said STARKs co-inventor and StarkWare president Eli Ben-Sasson.

While StarkWare, which funds the initiative along with Geometry Research, plans to keep its focus on Ethereum, for Ben-Sasson personally this development closes a circle.

The StarkWare president recalled a Bitcoin conference held in 2013, where he had the eureka moment recognizing the cryptography he helped to invent could change blockchain.

But it was clear that the journey needed to start on Ethereum. Now, exactly ten years later, STARKs have proved themselves on Ethereum and are heading to Bitcoin reaching new horizons, said Ben-Sasson.

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Tested on Ethereum, StarkWares Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Now Live on Bitcoin - Decrypt

Polygon, an Ethereum scaling platform, released its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) beta to the public Monday, the latest launch in what is expected to be one of 2023s hottest blockchain trends.

Polygon also said that it is making all aspects of its zkEVM open source, so developers are able to study and share the code, allowing them to contribute to more innovations in the zero-knowledge space.

We want to be extremely aligned to the Web3 ethos, Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of Polygon, said in an interview with CoinDesk. We want more experimentation.

As part of the ceremony of the announcement, according to the Polygon team, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, was granted the privilege of initiating the first transaction on the new zkEVM, livestreamed at ETHGlobal at 4:30 p.m. Central European Time (10:30 a.m. ET).

The transaction that Buterin sent on the zkEVM was successful, where he sent 0.005 ETH to a random address with the corny message, ostensibly referencing Neil Armstrong's famous first words upon walking on the moon: "A few million constraints for man, unconstrained scalability for mankind."

Over 50 companies shared that they would build using the Polygon zkEVM technology, according to Polygons press release.

Buterin himself has promoted the development of scaling systems for Ethereum since at least 2020, and noted in a blog post in August the various versions of zkEVMs come with trade-offs such as speed versus the degree of compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine programming environment.

"In general, it's healthy for the space that all of these types are being explored," he wrote.

Although the Polygon zkEVM is live for users, Nailwal warned that it is still a new technology, which is why it is being called a beta mainnet.

It's a new technology, so we are going to put ample warnings for the users that please be cautious on this, don't bring your life savings into it immediately, Nailwal said.

Nailwal said he believes ZK technology is the future of Ethereum.

In 18 to 24 months, you will see almost all of the large web3 applications being built on the zero-knowledge-proven layer 2 chains, Nailwal said.

UPDATE (14:40 UTC): Adds details on transaction sent by Vitalik Buterin.

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Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta Goes Live; Ethereums Buterin Sends First Transaction - CoinDesk