- The Litecoin Halving has been a major focus for investors in the month of July.
- The month also witnessed several unfortunate incidents of hacking and exploitation.
One topic has dominated coverage of the cryptocurrency industry in recent weeks. Among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, the approaching Litecoin Halving has become the most awaited event. In addition, as anticipation for the event grew, its value increased to $110 on June 30. Moreover, the price is facing high volatility as investors are getting ready for the big event.
On August 2, 2023, the much-anticipated Litecoin Halving event will take place. Investors have been paying close attention to the price of Litecoin (LTC) for most of this month.
Shiba Inu Ecosystem
With the upcoming release of Shibarium, a layer 2 blockchain based on the Shiba Inu protocol, the Shiba Inu ecosystem has attracted the interest of investors. Soon to be released, it will provide improved scalability and productivity to the ecosystem.
SHIB and BONE, two utility tokens in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, have garnered the most attention ahead of the launch. Moreover, the crypto world is buzzing with the release of the Shibarium Beta Bridge for testing last week.
XRP Saga
Following Ripple’s partial victory over the SEC this month, XRP, Ripple’s native cryptocurrency, has seen a spectacular rebound. As a consequence of this successful legal battle, XRP has been relisted on major cryptocurrency exchanges, leading to an increase in both demand and trading volume.
However, the US SEC has given hints that it plans to appeal the Summary Judgement in the Ripple vs. SEC issue, which might be bad news for the XRP community.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin tried to start a new rally towards $31,000 at the end of June, after many Bitcoin ETF registrations. On July 14th, Bitcoin hit a new yearly all-time high of $31,657. Currently, Bitcoin is experiencing a period of consolidation.
It reached a record high of $31,474 for the year in early July, but it has since struggled to retain its position due to the extreme volatility of the markets. In only two weeks, the price dropped to the $29,000 range. Bitcoin’s price action over the last two weeks, despite swings, has shown its optimistic posture.
The whale alert indicates that there are now a large number of whales engaged in Bitcoin transfers. Around 2,459 BTC worth approx. $72,661,201 USD was transferred to an anonymous Binance wallet last week, with many such transactions recorded this month.
Ethereum
On July 30th, Ethereum (ETH) reached the eighth year since its inception. Ethereum’s trading price has experienced significant volatility in 2023. The first time this year that the price of ether exceeded $2,000 was in April. It rose to a high of $2120 and remained there for three days.
Three months later, on July 14, ETH breached $2,000 for the second time and reached $2028. The altcoin’s spike was brief, and it has since traded for less than $2K. Moreover, some of the greatest MEV block rewards in Ethereum history were disclosed by core developer Eric.eth today.
Significant Exploits
Poly Network briefly halted operations on Sunday, July 2, after a major assault that affected more than 57 assets across many blockchain platforms. Moreover, the Multichain hack in July resulted in losses of about $125 million. Also, two attackers in the first week of July used a vulnerability in the Azuki DAO governance token contract to make off with 35 ETH.
More than $765,000 worth of NFTs were stolen in a SIM swap attack on the Gutter Cat Gang NFT project on July 7. On July 11, hackers exploited a security hole to steal $455,000 from Arcadia Finance.
On the same day, hackers breached the Aptos Foundation’s Twitter and directed the account’s followers to a fake website where they could sign up for a fake airdrop.
In addition, nearly $47 million was stolen from a number of projects using Vyper, an alternative programming language for Ethereum smart contracts. The attacks happened on Curve Finance, an automated market maker platform, and targeted stable pools on July 30.
In conclusion, the cryptocurrency industry has seen significant developments and events in July. The Litecoin Halving has been a major focus for investors, driving up the price and causing high volatility. However, July also witnessed several unfortunate incidents of hacking and exploitation in the crypto space, resulting in substantial losses for various projects.
