⛏️Bitcoin Rallies Despite Large Miner Challenging Censorship Resistance

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TLDR Blockchain sleuths identified six transactions from wallets sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department that were sanctioned by the Chinese-based F2Pool mining pool since the start of September.

SO WHAT The incident comprised the first instance in which a non-U.S. entity complied with U.S. sanctions targeting cryptocurrency addresses, calling into question Bitcoin's censorship resistance. Chun Wung, an F2Pool co-founder, said the miner is waiting for community consensus before deciding whether to censor sanctioned transactions.

READ MORE: Non-US Bitcoin Miner Gets Caught Censoring Transactions

TLDR A new round of spot Bitcoin ETF hype drove gains for digital assets, with Bitcoin posting new year-to-date highs. The bullish momentum followed separate meetings between the SEC with BlackRock and Grayscale regarding their pending ETF applications.

SO WHAT Traders inferred the meetings as a sign the SEC is preparing to approve the spot Bitcoin ETFs, igniting a flurry of bullish buying. Grayscale followed up on its meeting with an update registration filing on Nov. 22.

Read More: BTC Tests Year-To-Date Highs Amid Spot Bitcoin ETF Progress

TLDR Governance for PancakeSwap, the top decentralized exchange on BNB Chain, passed a proposal to adopt Vote Escrow (VE) tokenomics. The mechanism allows stakers to vote on how the protocol allocates rewards.

SO WHAT The new tokenomic design will allow staker to vote on how which pairings offer the greatest rewards to PancakeSwap liquidity providers. The proposal contributed to bullish momentum for PancakeSwap's CAKE token, which doubled in price over the past 30 days.

Read More: PancakeSwap Adopts Vote Escrow Tokenomics

TLDR Avalanche's on-chain activity spiked 2,000% following the launch of ASC-20, a new token standard inspired by Bitcoin Ordinals. The network processed nearly 6.4M transactions on Nov. 21.

SO WHAT The deployment of ASC-20 comes as Ordinals-inspired tokens are proliferating on new networks. Polygon also enjoyed a surge in activity following the launch of PRC-20 tokens last week, processing more than 16M transactions in a single day.

Read More: Avalanche Transactions Skyrocket 2,000% On ASC-20 Hype

TLDR We examined Binance's balance sheet to assess whether the world's leading exchange can cough up the cash to pay down its $4.3B settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Binance's on-chain reserves indicate a surplus cash reserve of $6.35B, with analysts emphasizing the exchange likely holds additional funds off-chain.

SO WHAT The data suggests that Binance can comfortably pay off the $4.3B in fines and disgorgement. With roughly half of Binance's balance surplus comprising stablecoins, it is unlikely Binance will need to offload an enormous amount of volatile assets to honor the settlement, coming as a relief to crypto investors.

Read More: Binance Slapped With Hefty $4.3B Fine – Can It Actually Pay It?

TLDR Trading bots have surged to contention in the past week, driving more than $4B worth of trades in the past 18 months and emerging as top gas-guzzling protocols.

SO WHAT Bots are changing the web3 landscape, with developers building products specializing in sniper trading, MEV extraction, and trading terminals. However, ordinary DEX users who do not embrace these bots may now be operating at a competitive disadvantage.

Read More: Bots, Terminals, and LLMs — Crypto UX is Getting a Makeover

TLDR Modular blockchains are emerging as a bustling sector in crypto, comprising specialized blockchains serving different functions within the web3 stack.

SO WHAT Unlike their monolithic counterparts, modular chains seek to overcome the notorious blockchain trilemma by allowing developers to leverage multiple specialized networks to guarantee scalability, decentralization, and security.

Read More: What Are Modular Blockchains?

• Ethereum Layer 2 TVL tags new all-time highs
• Aave to onboard wstETH to Base v3 deployment
• DYdX community votes on proposal to launch incentives

• US CFTC Warns Crypto Exchanges, Says Binance Is Just the Beginning4 (CoinGape)
• Terra Co-Founder Do Kwon's Extradition Approved by Montenegro Court (Decrypt)
• UK investment funds get green light for tokenization (The Block)