Global Hive Buzz

Within the initial 30 minutes of its launch, Bitcoin spot ETFs have generated a trading volume exceeding $1 billion.

The eagerly anticipated Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) officially launched today following SEC approval received yesterday. The market response was overwhelmingly positive, resulting in explosive trading volume within the initial 30 minutes. Across the 11 approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, the trading activity surpassed $1.2 billion in the first half hour of market opening, as reported by Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) led the pack with an impressive $446 million in volume during the initial 30 minutes, surpassing the next highest ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which recorded $389 million in trades. In total, five of the newly introduced ETFs surpassed the $100 million mark within the first half-hour.

With the barrier of a Bitcoin spot ETF successfully broken, attention has now shifted to the potential approval of an Ethereum spot ETF. Notable asset management firms such as BlackRock and Fidelity have previously submitted filings for an Ethereum Trust ETF. The prevailing sentiment suggests that a spot Ether product may be feasible, especially considering the SEC's apparent openness to crypto ETFs.

Near Foundation plans to reduce its workforce by 40%, attributing the decision to a shift towards decentralization.

The Near Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the Near ecosystem, has disclosed plans to downsize its workforce by approximately 40%, affecting 35 employees in departments like marketing, business development, and community teams.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol and CEO of the Near Foundation, emphasized that the organization's operations would remain unaffected. He assured a commitment to aiding affected employees in securing new opportunities either within the Near ecosystem or in the broader cryptocurrency industry.

Polosukhin explained that the decision to reduce staff followed an internal review revealing that "the Foundation has not always been as effective as it could be, sometimes moving too slowly and trying to do too many things at once." As a response, the Foundation opted to "significantly consolidate the core Foundation team to focus on a narrower and higher-impact set of activities."

Developers within the ETH community express fear regarding the proposed increase in gas limits put forth by Vitalik Buterin.

The second-largest blockchain, Ethereum, is currently facing a pivotal decision regarding a proposal from its co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, to increase the gas limit.

On January 11, Buterin recommended a 33% increase in the gas limit, aiming to enhance the network's throughput. The proposal suggests raising the limit from the existing 30 million to 40 million, potentially enabling more transactions per block and augmenting the network's overall capacity.

Expressing concerns, Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden outlined the challenges in his January 11 blog post titled "Why increasing the gas limit is difficult." He emphasized that while storage costs might be manageable, a larger state size could potentially hinder the speed of accessing and modifying data.

Péter Szilágyi, Ethereum team lead, echoed similar apprehensions, underscoring the trade-offs associated with a higher gas limit. While it may improve transaction capacity, it could also result in faster state growth, slower synchronization, and heightened risks of network attacks and spam.

Although increasing the gas limit could theoretically enhance the network's throughput and capacity, it comes with the trade-off of increased hardware loads and potential security risks to the network.

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