Welcome back to the distributed registry. This is Francis Yu, crypto reporter for MarketWatch.
Cryptocurrency miners had a great start to the year. Bitcoin has risen from less than $17,000 in early January to nearly $24,000.
Meanwhile, Dogecoin is on the rise and Elon Musk is reportedly developing Twitter's payment system and considering adding the cryptocurrency.
But Berkshire Hathaway Vice President Charlie Munger has called for a ban on cryptocurrencies in the United States.
Find me on Twitter @FrancesYue_ to share about cryptocurrency, this newsletter or your personal story with digital assets.
Meeting of minersDue to rising energy prices, cooling bitcoin prices, and increasing mining difficulty, bitcoin mining reserves are growing after the difficult 2022.
Riot Platforms Inc. Actions continue. They are up 119 percent this year, while rival Marathon Digital Holdings is up 132 percent over the same period. Shares of Ebang International Holdings are up nearly 200% since the start of the year. Shares of Hive Blockchain Technologies surged 183 percent and Hut 8 Mining Corp. shares surged as much as 179 percent.
That rally echoes other risky assets, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite up 16 percent this year. Analysts say this could also be better fundamentals for crypto miners.
According to Andy Long, CEO of White Rock Management, since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has increased by 45%, so the profits of miners have increased significantly. Margins were very low in December. For many miners, production costs are uncomfortably close to the value of the coin,” Long told Distributed Ledger by phone.
Meanwhile, while bitcoin mining difficulty hit an all-time high on Wednesday, it didn't increase as much as some miners thought, Long explained.
Mining difficulty measures how hard it is to find bitcoin blocks: as the number increases, miners must use more computing power to mine the coins. The difficulty level is set to increase as the number of miners increases and vice versa to maintain a constant Bitcoin mining rate.
Global energy prices, which rose last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, have also fallen, due to a relatively mild winter in Europe and efforts to protect the continent. "In terms of energy prices, we're probably expecting a quiet summer," Long said.
Saber56 CEO Phil Harvey said that while he doesn't believe the bear market is over, most miners will break even or profit as long as Bitcoin sells above $18,000.
Quote of the weekMunger criticized cryptocurrencies again in an article published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. They are responsible for "minor profits" made by private companies, but sold to the public without prior government approval, and suggested that the US should ban China's leading cryptocurrencies.
Sometimes large cryptocurrency shares are sold to promoters at low prices, and the public buys them "without fully understanding the promoters' dilution in advance," Munger writes.
MarketWatch's Anviksha Patel writes more here.
Doji jumpThe Financial Times reported on Monday that Dogecoin has increased by 9.6% in the last seven days, Twitter is making progress in its efforts to create a payment system and the cryptocurrency may be part of it.
The report says Twitter implemented regulatory permissions and created the software necessary to make payments through the site. Musk expects the payment system to use fiat currency at first, but citing anonymous sources, the crypto system being developed will be added later.
The news has reignited hopes among some cryptocurrency enthusiasts that the social media giant will offer more use cases for digital assets, particularly Musk's long-backed Dogecoin meme token.
Fast encryptionAccording to data from CoinDesk, the price of bitcoin increased by 3.9% last week and was trading at $23,848 on Thursday. According to data from CoinDesk, Ethereum increased by 3.8% to around $1,678 in the same range.
| The biggest victory | Price | 7 day return |
| do | 1.75 dollars | 97.9% |
| dYdX | 3.35 dollars | 73.2% |
| Spirit | 0.63 dollars | 53.8% |
| Root | 0.06 dollars | 45.2% |
| Room | 0.43 dollars | 43.3% |
| Source: CoinGecko, February 2 |
| The biggest loser | Price | 7% income per day |
| Size | 147.31 dollars | -5.5% |
| The sign of the lion | 3.35 dollars | -5.5% |
| BitDAO | 0.55 dollars | -4.5% |
| that's great. | 2.42 dollars | -4.2% |
| Suitable | 17.72 dollars | -4.5% |
| Source: CoinGecko, February 2 |
Coinbase Global Inc. Shares continue. It's up 49.6% in a week, to about $79.37. Shares of MicroStrategy are up 18.8% this week to $291.50.
Crypto miner Riot Blockchain Inc. It rose 20.8% to $7.41 on Thursday. Shares of rival Marathon Digital Holdings fell 8.1 percent to $8.02 last week. Ebang International Holdings Inc. has grown. It has increased by 8.3% in the last week and is trading at $8.89.
Overstock.com Inc shares are down 1.6% for the week at $24.78.
Block Inc. Shares continue. Square has previously risen 7.7% to $87.49 in a week. Tesla Inc. Shares continue. By 17.8%, to $189.14.
PayPal Holding Inc. It increased by 6.7% during the week, trading at $86.18. Nvidia Corporation. It rose 8.3 percent to $214.51 last week.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Shares continue. At 16%, to $87.20 per week.
Among crypto funds, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy rose 2.6% on the week to $14.91 on Thursday, while short ETF partner Bitcoin fell 3.7% to $26.96. The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF was up 0.9% last week at $9.48, while the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF was up 4.4% at $24.32.
The Gray Bitcoin Confidence Index has risen 5.4% to $12.82 in the past five days.
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