The crypto market is continuing a strong rebound from its dip over the past couple of days. Meanwhile, Eth2 upgrade Altair quietly goes off without a hitch.

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and pals are generally having a green day, with Bitcoin’s bounce back above US$60K intact, and much of the altcoin market looking in decent shape.

At the time of writing, the OG crypto is looking to be on a firmer footing compared with the past 48 hours or so. It’s up about 3.5 per cent since this time yesterday, and changing hands for roughly US$61,400.

The overall crypto market cap is sitting around US$2.71 trillion, give or take a few hundred million dollars.

In terms of price action, there are no backwards movers in the top 10 by market cap, and really not too much negativity  happening today across the board for notable projects in the top 300 or so coins.

We’ve been covering the dog meme coins quite a bit this week, and it seems their time in the sun isn’t quite done yet. Both Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) are still crushing it in the top 10, posting 26 per cent and 20 per cent gains respectively over the past 24 hours. SHIB is up 155 per cent this week.

A look up and down the charts tells us that at least a handful other pooch-based projects are still howling at the moon – Australian Safe Shepherd (ASS) is up 50 per cent, for instance.

That said, nothing goes straight up forever – a big, steaming doggy dump might be something to try to stay one step ahead of.

Here’s the Director of Growth Marketing at the US Kraken exchange, Dan Held, with his take on the crypto industry right now, and its occasional infighting about who’s better, who’s best…

 

Ethereum upgrades with Altair

An important Ethereum upgrade known as Altair has quietly been implemented smoothly today, as part of the development of the “Beacon Chain”.

The Beacon Chain roll-out is a long process and just the first stage of implementing Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, which will merge with the current mainnet as part of the overall transition to Ethereum 2.0.

Using yield-earning stakers as network validators, PoS blockchain consensus mechanisms are 99 per cent more energy efficient than the proof-of-work (PoW) model, which is the method Bitcoin and its vast network of miners employs.

Eth2 is something most ETH fans believe will cement the blockchain as the undisputed layer 1 smart-contract leader – for good, case closed.

Among other things, such as fixing some issues with validator incentives, the Altair upgrade brings “light-client support” to the core Eth2 consensus. Light clients are small nodes able to run on “lower-resource” hardware – such as a mobile phone.

This sort of functionality essentially gives PoS much more agility than PoW – and less of a technical barrier to entry to operate as a validator on the network and earn rewards.

 

Also in the news: Matt Damon; India, Wharton, Volt ETF

• Prominent exchange Crypto.com is on a Mars mission, launching a US$100 million global ad campaign called “Fortune Favors the Brave”, starring actor Matt Damon.

Matt “The Martian” Damon opens the door to Mars in the Crypto.com ad

• India’s government says it may regulate crypto as a commodity, and is  looking into creating a legal framework for cryptocurrencies as “assets” as early as February.

• The Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania is launching a blockchain course and is enabling payments for it in crypto – a first for a US uni.

• The Volt Crypto Industry Revolution and Tech ETF launches on the New York Stock Exchange today. It gives investors exposure to 30-odd firms that hold large amounts of BTC.

 

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