Are China and the United States giving up on Bitcoin mining? (This week’s highlights 3/2–9/2)
Perhaps this weekly report is also the last article in the Year of the Rabbit. I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. As we prepare for the New Year, I hope you can make big money in the Year of the Dragon and get more benefits in the crypto. With the arrival of a lot of good news in 2024, I hope everyone can seize various opportunities and achieve financial freedom in the new year.
Highlights this week:
- China and the United States have different attitudes towards Bitcoin mining. The United States plans to mine, but China shows resistance
- Ethereum’s decentralized social project Farcaster was successfully launched, attracting 120,000 users in one week
- The airdrop season is coming, multiple projects are in preparation, and users are actively participating to welcome the bull market
China and the United States have different attitudes towards Bitcoin mining. The United States plans to mine, but China shows resistance
When talking about Bitcoin mining, people naturally think of the upcoming Bitcoin halving event. After the halving, the new BTC reward per block will be reduced from 6.25 now to 3.125. In addition to this upcoming event, we also noticed today the completely different attitudes towards Bitcoin mining between China and the United States.
The U.S. Department of Energy requires Bitcoin miners to provide power consumption statistics to understand how miners use computing power and then estimate the power required for Bitcoin mining. I think this is a step for the United States to further layout the Bitcoin market after the implementation of Bitcoin ETF, and mining has become their focus. The United States is gradually deploying and focusing more on Bitcoin mining, which is also an affirmation of the value of Bitcoin.
On the contrary, China has shown strong resistance. Relevant departments in Beijing jointly issued the document “Beijing’s Implementation Plan for Further Strengthening Energy Conservation (2024 Edition)”, which pointed out that virtual currency “mining” activities in Beijing must be resolutely cleaned up in accordance with laws and regulations, emphasizing the need to clean up virtual currency mining activities and demonstrate This reflects China’s tough attitude towards Bitcoin mining and its stance on cracking down on virtual currencies.
This is not the first time that China has shown a tough attitude towards cryptocurrencies. I think that when understanding China’s attitude towards virtual currencies, we can also observe the development of virtual currencies in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is committed to becoming Asia’s virtual currency city, and it also implements strict supervision. It plans to launch a Bitcoin ETF and a Hong Kong dollar stable currency. It also strictly supervises virtual asset service providers and requires them to apply for a license. Personally, I think China’s attitude towards virtual assets is still unclear, and we should probably observe and find out when to enter the market.
Ethereum’s decentralized social project Farcaster was successfully launched, attracting 120,000 users in one week
The Farcaster project that attracted attention this week attracted many users and was affirmed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik, who believed that this project brought entertainment to the development of Ethereum. In just one week, Farcaster attracted more than 120,000 users to participate, and its cumulative agreement revenue exceeded the $500,000 mark.
Since the advent of Friend.Tech in 2023, people have gradually paid attention to the application scenarios of social circles in the blockchain. The value of decentralized social platforms is becoming increasingly prominent, especially in today’s usage environment. I think decentralized social platforms will have great potential in the next bull market.
In the past bull market, projects mainly focused on decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized games (GameFi). Although these projects brought considerable benefits to users, they lacked interactivity. In contrast, decentralized social projects (SocialFi) can provide users with a more diversified experience, not only providing benefits, but also providing rich interactivity. Let us do a small experiment and observe the apps on your smartphone that are used the longest. You will find that the influence of social platforms is huge.
Farcaster created a social platform protocol that allows developers to easily build their own social platforms, reduce development time, and solve possible problems in advance. Therefore, I will keep a close eye on this project and believe it has greater potential than GameFi. In the future, I will write an article that will provide an in-depth analysis of why I think it is worth investing in the SocialFi narrative.
The airdrop season is coming, multiple projects are in preparation, and users are actively participating to welcome the bull market
Perhaps as the Lunar New Year is approaching, many blockchain projects are actively preparing for airdrop activities to attract users to participate in mainnet interactions and seek low-cost returns. During these two weeks, I participated in a few airdrops, and here are some of them for you to participate in and earn extra money.
Merlin Chain — As a Layer 2 project of Bitcoin, Merlin Chain has announced its upcoming airdrop event. Users only need to go to People’s LaunchPad and invest a small amount of Bitcoin to participate in the airdrop. You can enter and start the mission using the following link: Merlin Chain LaunchPad
Puffer Finance — As an LST project on Ethereum, Puffer Finance has a TVL of close to 580 million and is supported by Binance Lab. Currently in the Chapter 2 stage, users can exchange Lido’s StETH for pufETH to earn points that may be converted into airdrop tokens at a later date. Interested users can participate using the following link: Puffer Finance Quest
EigenLayer — EigenLayer, as a leading LST project, has recently opened up staking again, encouraging users to place various LSD tokens on the platform. EigenLayer is also a project with a high probability of launching tokens. Many people also hope to pledge it. Because the project is very huge and has just exceeded 3 billion TVL, participating in the mining airdrop is also an opportunity to earn income. Interested users can participate in staking: EigenLayer Staking
Finally, I would like to wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year again and hope for a fruitful harvest in the new year.