Argentine authorities are asking cryptocurrency companies to report users who move high amounts of money. Entrepreneurs in that sector consider there is a witch hunt and ask not to regulate against technologies.

The Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) and the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP) collect information on people who operate with cryptocurrencies. In addition, they seek to monitor the activities of exchanges and have even ordered the closure of their bank accounts.

Data requests and notifications from both agencies to exchanges and other cryptocurrency companies date back several months.

Although some firms claimed not to have problems with regulatory agencies, at least five companies in the sector had their bank accounts closed. That could be due to a directive from the BCRA to banks to discourage the proliferation of those companies. The financial regulator says it is only after those not complying with the legal requirements the country’s authorities request.

In Argentina, there are almost two million user accounts on cryptocurrency platforms. Although there are 50 of those companies, the Argentine Chamber of FinTech has only registered 25.

To reduce that unregulated growth, the Central Bank has requested information during this year. In addition, financial entities have closed the accounts of many exchanges by directive of that parent entity. A representative of that sector sees the measure as a witch hunt, of which banks are the primary target.

The BCRA and the AFIP Are Also After Cryptocurrency Savers

Besides the controls on Argentine exchanges, the Federal Administration of Public Revenues also has cryptocurrency owners in its sights. The director of the BCRA, Miguel Pesce, stated that the mission of the Central Bank is to monitor crypto assets to avoid the country’s exchange laws.

Pesce previously claimed that they were studying the interoperability between banks and exchanges. However, the BCRA does not want cryptocurrency companies to enter that sector.

For that reason, the Argentine government asked cryptocurrency firms for information about users who move large amounts of money. That violates people’s privacy, one of the fundamental principles of the ecosystem.

As these companies have to provide information for the AFIP and the BCRA, they do not have many choices. Any document they present will have the nature of a sworn statement, which implies that they have everything to lose.

The Position of Exchanges Owners on Those Measures

The CEO of an Argentine exchange expressed that he sees a market that tends to be more strict and tight in preventing money laundering. However, he argued that he does not clearly understand the position of the banks or how they handle some policies of the BCRA.

That same person believes that they should not regulate against new technologies but rather promote them as they are beneficial to society. He expressed that he hopes that the BCRA will contribute to having an egalitarian market without banking pressure.

A new crypto bill could enter the National Congress before the end of the year. Previous initiatives did not come to fruition but could serve as the basis for regulation in this area.

By Alexander Salazar

Altair is the first update to Beacon Chain and the ultimate step leading to Ethereum’s full transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) procedure.

The first Ethereum 2.0 update since the network got activated in December 2020 happened successfully this week.

As reported by various Ethereum developers through Twitter, the Altair update got successfully activated on Wednesday. This update is the first update to the Beacon Chain, the name given to the Ethereum 2.0 proof-of-stake (PoS) chain, since its release in December last year.

ETH 2.0 developers Preston Vanloon and Raul Jordan took to their personal Twitter accounts to let the community know that the update got completed.

Altair marks a significant step in Ethereum’s transition process from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus procedure to one of PoS, and this may be the last update before the Ethereum mainnet merge.

Altair, and the Changes it Brings

The update intends to bring the Beacon Chain with lightweight customer support, minor patches for incentives, accounting for idle leaks by the validator. The update also increases the severity of the reduction and clean-ups for the accounting of validator rewards.

Paul Hauner is the current developer for Altair on Lighthouse, an implementation of ETH 2.0. He recently clarified to Cointelegraph that the update now brings at least two new changes.

99% of Nodes Got Updated

The Altair update came as a hard fork, and it caused all validators on the network to update to stay offline. Anyone working in a Beacon node or a validator must update the client version to the new standard, or they could risk getting caught in an incompatible chain.

Fortunately, it seems that many validators have updated successfully. According to information that came from the Beacon Chain, there are currently 248,553 active validators and just under 2,000 inactive validators.

Vanloon highlighted in a tweet that the share initially dropped to 93.3% during the first epoch after the update. However, that figure quickly raised to around 95% and has since risen to 98.7%. Hauner assured Cointelegraph that currently, almost all validators are on board.

Validators that are not updated could not participate in the new consensus mechanism and will also face the risk of removal and paying penalties.

According to Hausner, those validators who didn’t get updated need to update and then reboot their nodes. They would start validating again once their node approaches the Altair chain.

 The Transition to PoS

The successful upgrade represents a vital step on the Ethereum project path and means that everything is going straight ahead for the transition to PoS. The final Ethereum 2.0 update, which will bypass the proof-of-work mechanism, might happen in February 2022.

Developer Ben Edgingtonhighlighted the importance of Altair in a blog post this month. He clarified that, representing the only Beacon Chain update before the merger, ensuring the 2022 schedule depended on the achievements of this step

By: Jenson Nuñez

The addresses of 10,000 top investors hold a third of the total wealth of Bitcoin. The concentration is even higher in mining, which could be a security risk for the network.

The controversial discussion about the centralization of the total wealth of Bitcoin is still blowing its war horn. As various studies have already highlighted in the past, a recent report suggests that the supply of bitcoins remains concentrated in a few hands.

An investigation led by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that the top 10,000 individual Bitcoin investors hold about a third of the total coins in circulation.

The study, reported by Bloomberg in the first instance, shows that this group owns at least 5.5 million bitcoins. This amount represents almost a third of the 18 million mined coins so far.

Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million tokens, of which 18.8 million have been mined and represent the circulating supply of the first cryptocurrency, according to current data from CoinMarketCap.

10,000 Individual Wallets Possess 1/3 of the Total BTC

The matter of Bitcoin concentration has been a controversial discussion among the digital currency community.

Even after Bitcoin has been branded by advocates as a decentralized financial mechanism accessible to all without prejudice of gender, race, nationality, etc.  The discussions had shown clear reflections on the subjects behind the addresses with Bitcoins and how to manage them.

However, it has been a very sneaky topic to tackle because many of the massive addresses do not typically represent individual investors but rather exchanges or entities that own Bitcoin on behalf of third parties. Likewise, it is also problematic to separate the addresses belonging to the same individual or entity.

Using a method to differentiate the addresses of individual investors and exchanges, NBER researchers found that, by the end of 2020, personal wallets controlled around 8.5 million bitcoins while entities accounted for 5.5 million coins.

The study also found that the top 1,000 individual investors controlled about 3 million bitcoins out of the 8.5 million at the top 10,000 investors. The concentration among individual investors could be even higher than the results in the data analysis.

On the other hand, the researchers highlighted that the concentration on Bitcoin mining, the process of mining new coins, is too deep.

Bitcoin Mining Concentration is Even Higher

According to NBER, only 10% of the top cryptocurrency miners are responsible for 90% of Bitcoin’s mining capacity. Meanwhile, the data indicates that only 0.1% (around 50 miners) control 50% of the mining capacity.

The curious thing about the study is that it found that this concentration might vary according to the prices of the cryptocurrency, tending to reach high peaks with increases and to decrease when a solid price falls.

These figures are alarming for the security of the Bitcoin network. A high concentration of the network’s mining power could make the blockchain vulnerable to a 51% attack.

By: Jenson Nuñez