BT Daily News: Despite Bear Market, Bitcoin Holders are On the Rise, and more
1. Despite Bear Market, Bitcoin Holders are On the Rise
Though Bitcoin’s price has been suppressed for months, this may not necessarily mean that adoption of the asset is slowing down.On-chain data from IntoTheBlock shows that the number of non-zero Bitcoin addresses has steadily increased since the crypto market peak in November.
As the crypto intelligence platform indicates, about 41.9 million addresses currently hold a balance on Bitcoin’s network. That’s narrowly shy of the all-time high of 42.07 million addresses logged in early August.
“The number of #Bitcoin holders has been growing in the bear market,” said IntoTheBlock on the matter last week. “Over 42M addresses are currently holding $BTC, 4.5M more than a year ago.”
Addresses do not necessarily translate to new users, however. One person may use multiple addresses (ex. security purposes), while multiple people may also use one address (ex. a crypto exchange).
For instance, some popular wallet providers like Ledger bake multi-address accounts into their systems by default. That means the wallet generates a new address for the user every time they select “receive” on their account within the software. The measure is intended to increase on-chain privacy for users, making their payments more difficult to link back to their identity.
Bitcoin’s ratio of active addresses to addresses with balances is just 2.36% this week – down from 12% back in 2013.
In absolute terms, daily active addresses peaked in 2021, and have since hovered around 1 million.
2. German Bitcoin Miner Expects Revenue Of $205M For 2022 – Despite Volatile Markets
Northern Data, a German Bitcoin mining company’s CEO, Aroosh Thillainathan, shared a letter to shareholders on December 21st that included a positive and strategic update on the company as 2022 approaches to end.The CEO stated that the company anticipates revenue of €190-194 million ($201.4 million to $205.64 million) for the year 2022. He explained that the Bitcoin miner company strived hard to meet its market-adjusted target in 2022.
But unfortunately, it was difficult – not just because of the volatile crypto markets that were affected by issues, fluctuations, and low confidence levels – but also because of unmatched macroeconomic circumstances.
Aroosh asserts that in 2022, despite having many tough rivals, they substantially increased their market share in mining. They have made significant investments in the growth and development of their financial department.
Additionally, he claims that to stabilize and enhance their financial situation in 2022, they put a lot of effort into strengthening their management and streamlining their three business divisions to make them more cost-effective.
In the near future, he will invest in order to take advantage of both the medium- and long-term prospects presented by High-Performance Computing (HPC) megatrends.
He further said that they would deliberately play to their strengths and take advantage of any openings presented by this crisis and any others that may arise in the future.
3. Russia’s crypto mining bill could be finalized in January 2023
Russia’s cryptocurrency mining bill, which would legalize crypto mining and the sale of mined crypto, could be approved by January, according to a report by local news agency Tass on Dec. 23.The bill was introduced in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on Nov. 17, 2022. At the time, Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the Financial Market Committee of the State Duma, expected the bill to pass all three parliamentary readings in December.
According to Aksakov, the passing of the bill was delayed since critics believe that the bill could create a gateway for capital flight from Russia.
Aksakov admitted that the concerns regarding capital flight risks are legitimate and he will work with the critics to revise the bill.
Russia’s crypto mining bill, if passed into law, would enable Russians to legally mine cryptocurrency. Additionally, the bill would permit Russian miners to sell their mined cryptocurrencies on foreign platforms.
According to an Interfax report on Nov. 18, the law would also allow Russian miners to sell mined crypto within the country under an “experimental legal regime.” Cryptocurrency payments were banned in the country in July.
It is to be noted, that earlier this month, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation said that it conceptually supports the bill. However, the monetary authority is against allowing Russians to sell mined crypto within the country, Interfax noted in a report on Dec. 7. According to the central bank, miners should be permitted to sell mined crypto only on foreign exchanges and to non-residents.
Despite the delay, Aksakov is optimistic that the mining bill could be revised to sufficiently address the concerns of critics and that it will be ready for approval in January 2023. However, he noted that if an agreement is not reached with the critics by next month, the passing of the bill could be postponed further.
In September, Russia created a draft framework to allow the use of cryptocurrencies for cross-border transactions. On Dec. 19, TASS reported that the Russian central bank plans to test the use of crypto to settle international transactions within the regulatory sandbox framework.