Cryptocurrency
‘Concerning precedent’ — bloXroute Labs’ MEV relays to reject OFAC blocks
One of the largest producers of censorship-resistant blocks on Ethereum has made a complete u-turn, announcing it will start censoring OFAC-sanctioned blocks across all of its MEV relays in compliance with local laws.
The firm, bloXroute Labs — which has produced at least 400,000 Ethereum blocks from its two leading Maximal Extraction Value (MEV) relays — made the announcement of its policy change on Dec. 18 in a post on X (formerly Twitter), noting:
“Effective immediately, all bloXroute relays will reject block bids if they contain OFAC transactions.”
An “OFAC transaction,” as described by bloXroute Labs, is any that interacts with a wallet that has been sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC.
All of bloXroute Labs’ relays will be affected, including the “bloXroute Max Profit” relay, the second largest censorship-resistant MEV relay with over 380,000 blocks produced since the Ethereum Merge on Sept. 15, 2022, according to data shared with Cointelegraph by Australian blockchain development firm Labrys.
Despite the news, bloXroute Labs says it is still committed to keeping Ethereum decentralized and permissionless while operating within the bounds of the law.
announcement:
bloXroute MEV Relays to reject blocks w/ OFAC tx
effective immediately, all bloXroute relays will reject block bids if they contain OFAC transactions (Tx which interact with addresses appearing on the OFAC SDN list)
We remain committed to supporting ETH… pic.twitter.com/9kEdAy82yf
— bloXroute Labs (@bloXrouteLabs) December 18, 2023
However, some members of the Ethereum community claim that stricter compliance measures are now limiting pathways to credible neutrality on Ethereum.
This “sets a concerning precedent for the industry,” Labry’s CEO Lachlan Feeney told Cointelegraph.
“Like the internet, censorship should be avoided [at the protocol level] and instead, rules and regulations are best applied at the application level,” Feeney explained.
Given Ethereum is a global infrastructure, Feeney said he was concerned that more countries will enforce their own sanctions, which could make it “impossible” to construct a block that complies with all regulatory regimes around the world:
“What happens when China or Russia wants transactions sanctioned? Should these sanctions be applied also, even if they are sanctioning legitimate U.S. businesses?”
What, even bloXroute is censoring now?
Man, we really need those inclusion lists if we don’t want Ethereum to become a FED chain, sure this one change won’t cause a big difference but most relays and builders will bend a knee to OFAC
Maybe PBS was a mistake after all… pic.twitter.com/qzt0OgUhUl
— arixon.eth (@arixoneth) December 18, 2023
About 36% of blocks are currently censored due to those blocks containing OFAC-sanctioned transactions, according to MEVWatch.info, down from a peak of 78% on Nov. 20. It has mostly hovered around 30-40% since March.
MEV relays are used by validators to extract value from a blockchain network by adding, removing, or changing the order of transactions in a block. As MEV profits often come at the expense of ordinary users, MEV-Boost relays were introduced to minimize that harm.
Related: Flashbots builds over 82% relay blocks, adding to Ethereum centralization
Censorship on Ethereum became a concern when it transitioned to proof-of-stake on Sept. 15, 2022. A month before that, the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control started sanctioning certain wallet addresses linked to criminals and transactions from cryptocurrency mixers, such as Tornado Cash.
This has cornered many MEV relays worldwide to choose between keeping Ethereum credibly neutral or complying with local laws.
Feeney said he isn’t sure whether bloXroute was forced into compliance but he’s sure the decision wasn’t made lightly — as the firm acknowledged that it would reduce the win-rate of their relays.
Magazine: Ethereum restaking: Blockchain innovation or dangerous house of cards?
Cryptocurrency
Logan Paul NFT buyback shows celebs can’t ‘play around’ in Web3
Community members have reacted to YouTuber Logan Paul’s buyback announcement, delivering on his year-old promise to refund the disgruntled investors of his nonfungible token (NFT) project CryptoZoo.
The NFT project was supposed to be a play-to-earn (P2E) game that lets players buy, sell, breed and trade animals with crypto. The YouTuber announced the project in August 2021, but the game was never released. This sparked allegations of fraud and led to a class-action lawsuit against the celebrity.
Throughout the controversy, several commentators called out Paul to make the investors whole. They’ve also kept a watchful eye on the progress since Paul promised refunds almost a year ago.
On Jan. 4, Paul finally shared a website that lets the NFT holders participate in a $2.3-million buyback program, where Paul would repurchase the NFTs at their original price. According to the YouTuber, claims can be submitted on the website through Feb. 4.
Related: Logan Paul backflips on defamation lawsuit against Coffeezilla, apologizes
While the news looks positive for those who bought the NFTs, some believe there’s an ulterior motive behind Paul’s move. YouTube sleuth Stephen Findeisen, better known as “Coffeezilla,” posted on X (Twitter) to flag a disclaimer on the website saying that buyback program participants are “waiving any actual or anticipated claims” against Paul and CryptoZoo.
Making a video on the Logan Paul situation: i’m super happy some of the victims will get refunded 1 year later.
but let’s not pretend there isn’t ulterior motives. Logan is being crushed in a lawsuit right now. As usual he’s trying to save his own skin. pic.twitter.com/ESmeE8gP1x
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 5, 2024
Meanwhile, others celebrated the move as a win for the community. Crypto content creator Mason Versluis celebrated the fact that Paul is officially refunding CryptoZoo investors. The content creator added that mainstream celebrities “can’t just play around in the Web3 space with no accountability.”
YouTuber Erling Mengshoel Jr., more commonly known as “Atozy,” gave a shoutout to commentary channels that held Paul accountable. According to Mengshoel, who has almost 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, this wouldn’t have happened without them.
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Cryptocurrency
BTC price bounces 5% as investor says Bitcoin ETF ‘99.9% done deal’
Bitcoin (BTC) returned above $43,000 into Dec. 19 amid fresh news over the United States’ would-be first spot price exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Bitcoin ETF excitement still simmering
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a BTC price recovery taking the market to local highs of $43,456 after the daily close.
After starting the week on an uncertain footing, BTC/USD swiftly gathered strength, with the Dec. 18 candle closing over 5% above the day’s low.
Later, news came that asset manager BlackRock, among the applicants to launch the first U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF, had changed the policy around redemptions for its product to include BTC as an option.
“An in-kind redemption of some or all of a Shareholder’s Shares in exchange for the underlying bitcoin represented by the Shares redeemed generally will not be a taxable event to the Shareholder,” the latest iteration of BlackRock’s S1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) states.
The document also places new rules over exchange of baskets of shares for cash rather than BTC, the latter subject to regulatory approval.
The SEC is due to begin making final decisions on spot ETF in early January, and next month has become a make-or-break point in Bitcoiners’ diary.
As Cointelegraph reported, various BTC price predictions hinge on successful approval, this now thought to be overwhelmingly likely after years of delays and rejections.
“The level of SEC engagement and back/forth/changes on the bitcoin ETF tells us this is a 99.9% done deal,” trader and investor Bob Loukas reacted to the latest developments on X (formerly Twitter).
The SEC delayed a final decision on several Ether (ETH) ETFs to May this week.
Bitcoin trader: $50,000 possible before 2024
Between now and then, however, Bitcoin faces both the yearly candle close and various macroeconomic data releases which could add to holiday season volatility.
Related: ‘Inherently bearish’ below $41.5K — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week
Traders continue to draw lines in the sand both above and below spot price, with a trip below $40,000 still on the cards.
In a video update on Dec. 18, Crypto Ed, creator of trading group CryptoTA, forecast that eventuality playing out before a final push higher potentially sending BTC/USD to $50,000 before the end of 2023.
“Let’s see later in the week how this develops,” he concluded, giving a low target of $38,000.
Popular trader and analyst Matthew Hyland is also optimistic about further upside thanks to a bullish divergence in Bitcoin’s relative strength index (RSI) versus price on daily timeframes.
#BTC confirmed this bullish divergence at the daily close earlier
Already above $43k currently pic.twitter.com/8qyCBYtMcV
— Matthew Hyland (@MatthewHyland_) December 19, 2023
Daily RSI was at 60.45 at the time of writing, having cooled from overheated levels as Bitcoin fell from its recent 19-month high above $44,000.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Cryptocurrency
Why a gold rush for inscriptions has broken half a dozen blockchains
The latest degen “gold rush” to inscribe everything from profile pictures to memecoins has led to at least half a dozen blockchain networks cracking under pressure over the past week.
The last few days have seen Arbirtrum, Avalanche, Cronos, zkSync, and TON all suffering partial or full outages recently due to inscriptions, with modular data availability network Celestia the latest to succumb, according to industry researchers who posted a screenshot of its block explorer on Dec. 18.
Videos have also been posted of mass minting on the Celestia network.
“The team is actively investigating, but we can confirm that a sustained surge of inscriptions triggered the sequencer to stop relaying transactions properly,” Arbitrum confirmed on Dec. 16 amid a 78-minute outage.
Meanwhile, Cronos developer Ken Timsit reported that the team implemented a network update to activate dynamic transaction fees that change with transaction volume.
“The chain can now more effectively withstand traffic spikes like the one that took place this week, which was caused by high demand for inscriptions,” he said.
What is driving the gold rush?
Like Bitcoin Ordinals, which allows data such as text, images, and videos to be inscribed directly on-chain — people have now realized they can do the same thing on Ethereum and other EVM-based chains by inscribing data on transaction calldata.
Crypto developer Shardul Mahadik explained:
“Bitcoin inscriptions are equivalent to writing on the smallest denomination of a currency bill (UTXO model). EVM inscriptions are the equivalent of the notes are remarks field on a payment app. Where you make a 0 transaction to yourself and write data in the notes field. (acc model)”
Over the last few days, most of these have been BRC-20-type tokens, themed after various collections such as Bitcoin Frogs and various new token tickers such as BMBI, BEEG, and GROK according to ordinals tracker Ord.io.
Crypto researcher “cygaar” postulated that users are sending token mint and transfer transactions to themselves with call data because operations are cheap.
They are being heavily used in an attempt to replicate ERC-20 successes on other chains, but much of the activity is the same users spamming small mints repeatedly due to the lower cost of minting compared to smart contract interactions.
Inscriptions have taken down multiple chains and caused huge gas spikes over the last couple of days.
However, very few people actually understand what’s going on.
Here’s a simple explanation of inscriptions – how they work and why they’re being spammed everywhere : pic.twitter.com/IjQ6wuypRX
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) December 18, 2023
Bitcoin developer Eric Wall theorized earlier this month that EVM inscriptions could be seen as a way for retail to access low-cap crypto assets.
ICOs have been regulated and restricted and many projects start with token sales limited to venture capital firms or accredited investors.
“Burning gas/wasting blockspace is one of the last distribution mechanisms that exists with open access to retail,” he said. He described inscriptions as “BRC-20 derivatives,” adding:
“Since *anyone* can participate in the issuance of a specific ticker (mining it by burning blockspace) from day one, it is one of the few last bastions where retail can get in at the ground floor in a not-yet-clearly-illegal fashion.”
However, Michael Rinko, an analyst at crypto research firm Delphi Digital, didn’t see the logic behind it. “I kinda just see it as the new hot thing,” he told Bloomberg before adding, “There is zero rationality behind it.”
Related: Daily gas spent on EVM inscriptions surges to record high of $8M
Meanwhile, blockchain sleuth ‘ZachXBT’ warned about crypto influencers shilling shitcoins in a Dec. 19 post on social media.
“The market was trending up for weeks yet they still have to resort to this to trade profitably,” he said before adding, “This is your warning so do not come crying to me if you get dumped on.”
Take note of influencers who are shilling coins with a lower market cap or liquidity than their entire follower count.
The market was trending up for weeks yet they still have to resort to this to trade profitably.
This is your warning so do not come crying to me if you get… pic.twitter.com/Z6n2wllM2w
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) December 18, 2023
As reported by Cointelegraph on Dec. 18, inscriptions on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible chains have surged over the past few days.
According to Dune Analytics, more than $6 million was spent on gas on inscriptions on Dec. 18, and a record $8.3 million was spent on them on Dec. 16.
However, on Dec. 18, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal noted that minters were switching to Polygon due to its favorable gas fees.
Highest number of inscriptions on @0xPolygon POS, 161m.
More than 2X the amount of inscriptions on the second ranked chain for inscriptions.
Fun part, afaik the gas fees still stayed under 10 cents, i heard horror stories that on somechains it went to as high as $400. Peak… pic.twitter.com/RC91DaOGhx
— Sandeep Nailwal | sandeep. polygon (@sandeepnailwal) December 18, 2023
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