Kalam Crypto #39: Two days from the Merge, Saudi Arabia hires crypto chief

This week, the Ethereum Merge is just two days away, Saudi Arabia hires a crypto chief & special offers from CoinMENA.

12 Sep, 2022

CoinMENA Team

Author

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." Herman Melville

Ahlan wa sahlan, and welcome to the 39th edition of CoinMENA's weekly newsletter, Kalam Crypto, the last edition before Ethereum switches to proof of stake! This week, the Ethereum Merge is just two days away, Saudi Arabia hires a crypto chief & special offers from CoinMENA. All that and more, so let's dive into this week's letter, and talk crypto:

Prefer to listen to Kalam Crypto instead? Check out our podcast:

Lightning Round ⚡️

A quick rundown of the week’s headlines:

Ethereum Merge two days away: Ready, Set, Merge! Bellatrix, the last major upgrade before Ethereum moves to proof-of-stake, was successfully activated on 6 September 2022. The final step of the Merge is expected to occur on Thursday morning, 15 September 2022.

Saudi Central Bank hires crypto Chief: The regulator hired Mohsen AlZahrani to lead its virtual assets and central bank digital currency program.

MicroStrategy wants to buy the dip, again: MicroStrategy, the largest institutional bitcoin buyer, plans to sell as much as $500 million in Class A shares and use the proceeds to buy more bitcoin.

Coinbase proposal to Maker DAO: If the deal is accepted, Maker DAO will deposit a third of their USDC reserves, worth $1.6b, to Coinbase in exchange for a 1.5% yield. Maker DAO would earn up to $24 million in revenue from the investment.

Bitcoin HODLers are hodling: Data from the trading analysis platform, TipRanks, showed that 62% of wallets have not sold Bitcoin for over a year amid the prevailing bear market, despite bitcoin price dropping by over 70%.

Global News 🌍

Whitehouse climate change crypto report: The Whitehouse released a report outlining the potential environmental impacts of crypto. The report was slightly critical of proof-of-work (PoW) but did acknowledge that it incentivizes the construction of more renewable energy capacity and is "likely to help rather than hinder U.S. climate objectives." Proof-of-Stake (PoS) was touted as a more environmentally friendly option, but the report did not discuss the technical tradeoffs between the two. The comparison between PoW and PoS in the report is somewhat limited as it only focuses on one aspect, energy use, without addressing the material differences between them. Reductive comparisons such as these are counter-productive and fail to address the many differences between the two consensus mechanisms. In reality, both PoW and PoS are valid methods, depending on the desired use case of each. However, the report is a good first step for lawmakers to gain a better understanding of crypto.

Local News 📍

Saudi Arabia hires crypto Chief: Saudi Arabia’s banking regulator appointed Mohsen AlZahrani to lead its virtual assets and central bank digital currency program. This is a welcome sign that the Gulf’s largest economy intends to adopt and regulate cryptocurrencies in the near future.

Keep an eye on 👀

The ETH/BTC ratio: Have you heard of the “flippening”? Ethereans believe that one day, Ethereum will overtake (flip) bitcoin, and become the #1 cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market capitalization. So “Wen flippening?” could it be after the merge? Keep an eye on the ETH to BTC ratio which at the time of writing sits at 0.08 and has increased 20% in the last 6 months.

CoinMENA News 🗞

Save & Earn: Save 25% on trading fees until 15 September 2022. Trade any digital asset for $25 and above and be in the running to earn 25% of your trades back, worth up to $3,000! The trading period ends on 16 September 2022 at 11 PM Bahrain/KSA time.

Did you know 🤔

If you google “the merge” you’ll get a countdown timer to the exact time of the Ethereum merge. Try it and see for yourself!