ETH reaches its all-time high after the Federal Reserve Chairman's speech, two pools concentrate 51% of the hash rate on the Bitcoin network, and Solana recorded a speed record and other events last week.
Ethereum recorded
The main focus in the cryptocurrency market over the past seven days was on the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. Anticipation of his speech at the Jackson Hole conference caused sharp market fluctuations.
Bitcoin started Monday with a sharp drop from 118 thousand dollars to 115 thousand dollars.
The correction defined the direction of the first half of the week. By Thursday, as the brief recovery stalled, the price of digital gold dropped to 112,000 dollars.
However, on the evening of August 22, digital gold nearly fully recovered from its decline, thanks to the positive effect of Powell's speech. In less than two hours, the price of digital gold exceeded 117 thousand dollars.
The Federal Reserve Chairman hinted at his readiness to cut interest rates in September, but also pointed to weak labor market data and a slowing economy.
Currently, the percentage of investors expecting a rate cut at the next Federal Reserve meeting is 75%, although the figure reached 89% immediately after Powell's speech.
Ethereum has once again outperformed Bitcoin in its weekly performance, rising by 5% compared to 3%. At the same time, amid general optimism, the currency managed to update its all-time high, albeit just a few dollars higher than its predecessor (4889 dollars on the Binance platform).
The second-largest cryptocurrency is trading at around 4770 dollars.
The entire past week of trading in Bitcoin ETFs was accompanied by outflows, with the amount reaching 1.17 billion dollars.
A similar situation was observed in Ethereum products, where 578 million dollars were withdrawn. However, on August 21, the funds attracted 288 million dollars, covering nearly a third of the losses.
Overall, most altcoins performed better than the main currency. On August 21, BNB reached its all-time high of 881 dollars.
The price of XRP remained above 3 dollars, while SOL prices rose to 205 dollars.
The total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market exceeded 4 trillion dollars slightly. Bitcoin's dominance dropped to 56.4%.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at a level of 53, indicating neutral sentiment.
The difficulty of Bitcoin mining and the mining pools
On August 22, following another recalculation, the mining difficulty of the first cryptocurrency increased by 0.2%, renewing the record at 129.7 terahashes.
Weekly Review: Ethereum Updates to All-Time High, and Bitcoin Pools Control 51% of the Hash Rate
The hash rate (7-day moving average) is 945 exahashes/second. The record value of 966 exahashes/second was recorded on August 7.
At the same time, the daily transaction volume (7-day moving average) on the Bitcoin network dropped to 3.13 Bitcoin. The last time these values were recorded was in 2011.
Hashrate, the price of hashing is about 55 dollars per person per day.
It also became known this week that mining pools Foundry USA and AntPool controlled more than half of the hash rate of the first cryptocurrency network, opening the door to the possibility of a 51% attack.
#According to WhaleWire CEO Jacob King, the last time this happened was in 2015, when GHash.io reached a similar level of dominance. At that time, the mining pool voluntarily reduced its share of the hash rate after a wave of criticism.
King expresses concern about the centralization risks ignored by advocates of digital gold. He believes the market is currently supported by unsustainable factors:
Manipulation of stablecoins;
Fear of missing out individual investors;
False narratives spread by extremists.
This situation sparked debate in the community. Many questioned the likelihood of a 51% attack, while others pointed out that Foundry USA and AntPool are based in different jurisdictions - the United States and China. This makes coordination between them unlikely.
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