Vitalik Buterin Disappointed in ETH Payments

It's no secret that the second cryptocurrency by capitalization, Ethereum, is far from being the optimal means of payment, since transactions with the asset take a long time, and the commission for such transfers may exceed the cost of the paid product or service. However, now the co-founder of the coin, Vitalik Buterin, has “walked in the shoes” of the average Ethereum user and felt it first hand. In a recent blog post, he talked about an incident that happened back in 2021. Then the crypto-architect was in Argentina and tried to pay 0.003 ETH for tea, but his transaction request was not processed due to the fact that the minimum deposit for the exchange he used was 0.01 ETH. Then Buterin simply paid 0.007 ETH extra and did not attach much importance to this situation. Although, from a technical point of view, a number of errors led to this result, which should have been worked on to improve the user experience of coin owners. But already in 2022, Vitalik faced this problem again, when the commission limit did not allow him to pay for tea. As a result, the co-founder of Ethereum realized that many users may not even know the terms of commissions. In addition, some transactions in ETH are waiting in line for processing for several hours. Therefore, Buterin recognized that it is first of all important to increase the speed of the blockchain, and then gradually begin to regulate commissions.

 

Lyn Alden Warns of BTC Volatility

In a recent interview on Swan Signal, macroeconomics expert Lyn Alden says that the current price of bitcoin provides investors with a rare opportunity to start accumulating the flagship crypto from the lowest price levels. However, the economist also warns traders about a possible increase in BTC volatility in the near future. In addition, he believes that there is a very high probability that bitcoin could fall in price in the second half of this year if federal monetary policy drains liquidity: “I do have some concerns around the second half of the year because once they resolve the debt ceiling, you’re going to see the Treasury almost certainly try to suck back liquidity out of the market to fill back up its Treasury account and if the Fed is still withdrawing liquidity at that time, you can have a rapid decrease in liquidity. So you could get negative retests.” According to an expert in macroeconomics, for investors, the long-term perspective and taking into account the main indicators of the network are important factors. However, to predict exactly what market conditions will be even at the end of this year, and even more so to predict the features of the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System, perhaps only shamans can. “Professional traders will try to get the best they can out of this, but I think for the vast majority of people I would just point out that by most measures this is a kind of deep value zone based on a lot of different factors and metrics. I think it [investing in Bitcoin] is attractive in the future from three to five years.” And, of course, only on free funds ;)

 

 

“BTC and ETH Are on the Right Track”: Cathie Wood

In an interview on CNBC, Ark Invest fund manager and founder Cathy Wood praised Bitcoin for being the most decentralized and transparent blockchain and also credited Ethereum for being innovative and decentralized, which gave it confidence in the crypto space. Wood also compared Bitcoin to the infamous FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Freed, and said there are obvious reasons why he prefers other blockchains: “Sam Bankman-Fried didn’t like bitcoin. Why didn’t he like it? Because it’s completely decentralized, transparent, he couldn’t control it.” She added that the firms that went bankrupt in 2022 during the crypto winter, which included FTX, crypto lender Celsius, and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), were “completely opaque and centralized.” The prosperous future of crypto, according to Wood, is based on “three revolutions”: “There’s the money revolution, which is mostly bitcoin, or bitcoin and ether. There is the financial services revolution, which is Ethereum. And there’s this notion of digital property rights… that’s Web3.” This is how, according to Wood, digital assets will gradually destroy the “fossil” of traditional finance.