This Week [In] Crypto: Musk Wants Twitter, Crypto in War, ETH 2.0 Shadow Fork, Worst NFT Bid

Be[In]Crypto has you covered with the latest news from April 11 to 17, beginning with Elon Musk and his tender offer to buy Twitter.

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Elon Musk and Twitter

On April 9th, Elon Musk was unveiled as Twitter’s largest shareholder and was widely expected to take a place on the company’s board. However, things took a U-turn when Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, announced that Musk would no longer be joining Twitter’s Board.  

On Thursday, Musk revealed that he filed a tender offer with the SEC, offering to buy Twitter for $43 billion. His hostile takeover strategy involved offering stakeholders $54.20 per share in cash, and was driven by his desire to unlock Twitter’s extraordinary potential and lack of faith in the directors.

His quest to buy Twitter has hit several roadblocks, with some pundits alleging that $54.20 per share is a small amount compared to the $70 that it reached last year. Less than a day after announcing his desire to buy the company, he was toppled as Twitter’s largest shareholder by Vanguard Group.

“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk. His comments have been construed as a threat to dump his holdings, leading to a steep decline in Twitter’s value.

The twists and turns of Russia-Ukraine war

From Musk and Twitter to the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine, Russia’s continued invasion and presence in the country has triggered a spike for crypto assets, as citizens turned to them to hedge their wealth while entities used them to raise funds for charity.

Despite the initial surge, Bitfury’s Crystal Blockchain argues that there have been no large spikes of on-chain activity since the first week of the conflict.

Following the slamming of sanctions on Russia and certain entities, there have been heightened levels of concern that oligarchs could turn to cryptocurrencies to bypass sanctions. A Chainalysis report debunked the claims by arguing that using the “free float” model, it would be difficult to move a large cache of funds without causing “major price crashes.”

On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Finance is one step closer to providing a comprehensive framework for cryptocurrencies that provides clarity for investors.

The draft legislation is incredibly detailed and it is believed that the stiff sanctions imposed by Western powers may be responsible for the latest move.

Women are flipping the script in crypto

Men have always dominated cryptocurrency circles, but research carried out by Australian exchange, BTC Markets, has noted the turning of the tides.

According to the report, female participation in the space has surged to over 172% in 12 months, while male participation hovers around 80 percent.

Even with new participants in the space, women are reportedly still making larger initial deposits than men. The report noted that women were more risk-averse than men, which impacts trading behavior, as women only traded twice daily compared to men that traded up to 5 times a day.

Their superior risk aversion has paid dividends for the women, as the data from Fidelity shows that women performed better than men by up to 0.4% on average. Fidelity’s report seconded several points raised by BTC Markets and went on to note the growing amounts that women were putting into investment vehicles.

Ethereum 2.0 is upon us 

During the week, Ethereum’s first mainnet shadow fork went live, bringing the network closer to the transition to Proof-of-Stake. To date, the shadow fork merge has processed over 1.5 million transactions and has an average block time of 13.8 seconds.

“We’re very close to a historical event. We’re testing PoS on Ethereum. Today will be the first mainnet shadow fork ever. We’re roughly 690 blocks (~2 h) away from TTD,” Marius Van Der Wijden, a leading Ethereum developer shared to Twitter.

With the conclusion of the mainnet shadow fork, the devs have lined up another on the 22nd of April. The upcoming shadow fork will offer clarity regarding the timeline of the actual merge that would see the network leave the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism behind.

Jack Dorsey’s NFT tweet 

Jack Dorsey’s NFT tweet that garnered $2.9 million last year, has failed to hit stellar numbers after it was relisted for sale. The bids for the NFTs amounted to just 7 with the highest bid being for a paltry $280 despite having an opening bid fixed at $48 million.

The NFT was purchased in March 2021 by Sina Estavi, the founder of two cryptocurrency firms in Malaysia. Estavi stated that he would donate 50% of the proceeds from the resale to charity. Given the poor showing of the auction, Estavi noted that he “might never sell it”.

The poor showing of Dorsey’s NFT tweet is a symptom of the broader decline across the NFT ecosystem, which is evident throughout Crypto Twitter. Transaction volumes in the space are down by over 80% from January while average daily prices had fallen from $6,200 to less than $2,000.

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