Layer-1 blockchain platform Wire Network announced the launch of its blockchain interoperability protocol called Universal Polymorphic Address Protocol (UPAP).

In the Web3 ecosystem, which is comparatively nascent to the larger crypto market, the primary interaction occurs over digital goods and NFTs. However, the growing number of Web3 platforms lack interoperability which could be a huge roadblock to a seamless Web3 experience. Wire Network aims to change that with its universal wallet address protocol.

Blockchain interoperability is the ability to share information across different blockchain networks without restrictions. With the evolution of the blockchain industry, hundreds of new protocols and blockchain standards have emerged. Thus, the interactions among different blockchains become complex. This is where interoperability helps in bridging that gap.

The new UPAP protocol aims to address the interoperability problem in the web3 ecosystem. While there have been several interoperability solutions in the past, most of them were limited to a particular ecosystem or a particular issue such as liquidation and fund transfers. 

Interoperability can be achieved via different methods such as cross-chains, sidechains, proxy tokens, swaps, etc. Many blockchain platforms have focused on interoperability in the past, for example, Polkadot allows different blockchains to plug into a larger, standardized ecosystem while Cosmos employs an inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol to establish blockchain interoperability.

UPAP, on the other hand, promises to offer an interoperability solution with universal readable wallet addresses to send and receive nonfungible tokens (NFTs), perform cryptocurrency swaps, and add liquidity pairs across any blockchain.

The interoperability solution gets rid of most of the complexities involved with existing solutions and requires no bridges or oracles.

Anyone can integrate the UPAP wallet into a blockchain that uses Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) cryptographic algorithm. Users will need to import the mnemonic code from their choice of wallet and UPAP would create a universal address, using which users can send any asset across any blockchain.

Crypto exchange Binance.US has removed trading fees for Bitcoin (BTC) spot market trades, following in the footsteps of Robinhood which pioneered no-commission crypto trading in 2018. 

Brian Shroder, CEO of Binance.US said the move makes the company the first U.S. crypto exchange to eliminate spot trading fees for Bitcoin for all users and without trading volume requirements. He added that they would also not be earning a spread on trades.

“We see this as an opportunity to revolutionize the way fees are approached in our industry, increase accessibility to crypto, and better support our market and customers in a time of need.”

The news of increased competition on fees puts pressure on its competitors to do likewise. Shares in rival U.S. exchange Coinbase fell 9.71% on Wednesday, going down to $51.91 per share. Robinhood (HOOD), which is already at all time low prices, saw its share price stay relatively stable (-0.79% to $7.49 at the time of writing.)

Coinbase currently charges trading fees of between 0% and 0.50%, Kraken charges fees between 0% to 0.26%, and FTX.US charges trading fees of between 0% and 0.20%.

The amount charged as a trading fee typically depends on the currency pair, 30-day trading volume, and whether the order is a maker or taker order.

Shroder told Bloomberg on June 22 that Binance.US would not be earning a spread from its no-fee transactions, and would instead be generating revenue from other sources including a new staking service.

“We take no spread, because we are not involved in the transaction."

He said the zero-trading fees would generate positive user sentiment that will “bring us new users,” and said there are plans to expand the list of tokens that will offer zero-fee trading in the future. At present users of the U.S.-licensed exchange can take advantage of fee-free trading on four Bitcoin spot market pairs — BTC/USD, BTC/USDT, BTC/USDC, and BTC/BUSD.

Addressing his 8,200 Twitter followers, Shroder added that the company will also be rolling out a new tiered pricing model, which will go into effect in the summer.

The tiered system will be split into three parts, Tier 0, which offers free trading on certain cryptocurrencies, including the BTC pairs recently announced, Tier 1 and Tier 2, which will have trading fees determined on a “per-asset” basis. More information on this is expected in July.

Formed in 2019, Binance.US is the American affiliate of crypto-exchange giant Binance. The exchange caters only to American cryptocurrency traders and is managed independently to the main company.

Robinhood was one of the early pioneers of zero-fee stock trading when it was founded in 2014, prompting a number of online brokerages to follow suit in the years following. No commission trading for crypto began in 2018. Though it doesn’t charge fees, it is able to earn a spread on its no-fee transactions. In trading, a spread is the difference between bid (sell) price and ask (buy) price of a trading pair.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap has overtaken its host blockchain Ethereum in terms of fees paid over a seven-day rolling average.

The surge appears part of a recent spate of high demand for DeFi amid the current bear market. Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms such as AAVE and Synthetix have seen surges in fees paid over the past seven days, while their native tokens, and others such as Compound (COMP) have also boomed in price too.

According to data from Crypto Fees, traders on Uniswap accounted for an average daily total of $4.87 million worth of fees between June 15 and June 21, overtaking the average fees from Ethereum users which accounted for $4.58 million.

Uniswap’s most advanced V3 protocol (based on the Ethereum mainnet) accounted for the lion's share of the total fees with $4.4 million, while the V2 variant also contributed a notable $336,556.

During this period, Ethereum’s total fees only outpaced Uniswap’s on two days out of the seven. In terms of a peak day of fees generated, Uniswap topped out at $8.36 million on June 15, beating out Ethereum on the same day at $7.99 million.

Top fees paid: Crypto Fees

Uniswap enables peer-to-peer (P2P) swaps of Ethereum-based tokens without having a central authority to facilitate trades. This is achieved by automated smart contracts. Under Uniswap’s fee structure, fees are paid by traders to liquidity providers who receive 100% of the fees on the DEX.

Considering Ethereum is the blockchain home to the majority of DeFi, and is known for its expensive fee structure, a DEX such as Uniswap beating out the blockchain in fees over a week is notable.

According to data from CoinGecko, UNI has pumped 17.4% over the past seven days to sit at $5.18 at the time of writing. Recent acquisitions of the NFT marketplace aggregator Genie and the appointment of the former president of the New York Stock Exchange Stacey Cunningham as an advisor at Uniswap Labs may have contributed to this.

DeFi surge

Uniswap is not the only platform to see a surge in its fees and token price of late, as data is also showing strong investor demand for several DeFi platforms despite the current bear market.

Lending protocol AAVE and synthetic derivatives trading platform Synthetix in particular are ranked third and fifth in terms of average fees paid over the past seven days with $981,883 and $600,214 apiece.

Much like Uniswap, AAVE saw a surge of fees on June 15, as its total increased by 69% to $1.44 million. Its native token AAVE has also pumped 22% since then.

Sythentix’s rise has been the most notable. The platform saw a whopping 928% increase in fees paid between June 11 and June 13 as the figure rose to $843,297. The total fees then dropped to roughly $400,000 by June 17, before surging another 150% to roughly $1 million on June 19.

The boom can also be seen by observing Synthetix’s native asset SNX, the price of which has gained 105% since June 19 to sit at $3.08 at the time of writing. A key reason behind this appears to be the Synthetix Improvement Proposal 120 that went live last week that enables users to “atomically exchange assets without fee reclamation” therefore increasing the speed of trading.

Bucking this trend however, fees on lending platform Compound have been declining since April, and generated a mere seven day rolling average of $11,753 over the past week, though its native token COMP has increased 16.7% within that time frame to sit at $40.50.

The Chinese government has capitalized on the violent downturn in the crypto market by warning crypto investors that Bitcoin prices are “heading to zero.” 

The South China Morning Post reported on June 22 that Chinese national news media agency Economic Daily had issued the warning about the largest cryptocurrency by market cap to further dissuade citizens from adopting the use of crypto.

The Economic Daily report says the west is to blame for creating a highly-leveraged market that is “full of manipulation and pseudo-technology concepts” which it said was an “important external factor” which contributes to Bitcoin’s volatility.

“Bitcoin is nothing more than a string of digital codes, and its returns mainly come from buying low and selling high,” said the newspaper.

“In the future, once investors’ confidence collapses or when sovereign countries declare Bitcoin illegal, it will return to its original value, which is utterly worthless.”

The Chinese government banned Bitcoin mining last July and has grand plans to launch its central bank digital currency (CBDC) called the digital Chinese yuan (e-CNY) nation-wide. It banned all cryptocurrency transactions last September, and infamously banned foreign crypto exchanges from operating within the country in 2018.

The Chinese Government isn’t the only one weighing in with predictions about where they see Bitcoin’s price going.

On Monday, founder and CEO of market analysis firm DeMark Analytics Tom DeMark told Marketwatch he believes the crypto market is in line for prolonged price reductions because BTC has fallen below 50% from its November peak of $69,000,

“Such breakdowns bespeak a high probability that recovery to the all-time Bitcoin highs will require many years, if not decades, to accomplish.”

However there is still a chance for it to bounce back into the $40,000 range within the next few months he said.

“This does not negate the prospect of up to 50-56% recovery over upcoming months which implies bitcoin rally back to $40,000-$45,000.”

In contrast to Beijing’s warnings, the Bank of England (BOE) has begun to see the upside potential of building wealth in the crypto space during a bear market.

Deputy Governor for the BOE Jon Cunliffe told Bloomberg on June 22 that the crypto firms that manage to stay afloat during the current downturn could be the “dominant players” in the industry when things turn around.

“Whatever happens over the next few months to crypto assets, I expect crypto technology and finance to continue. It has the possibility of huge efficiencies and changes in market structure.”

Meanwhile El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele addressed the Bitcoin world on June 19 in regards to the slumping BTC prices. He tweeted that people should “stop looking at the graph and enjoy life,” because he is confident that prices will recover.

President Bukele has come under fire for investing in the cryptocurrency and sustaining tens of millions in losses so far but Minister of Finance Alejandro Zelaya has argued that they are not losses “because we have not sold the coins.”

As of the time of writing, BTC is trading at $20,386, 71% down from its high and 0.7% down over the past 24 hours according to CoinGecko.

United States Securities and Exchange (SEC) commissioner Hester Peirce said the newly released SEC Agency Rule List is full of “hot-button” topics implemented in an unreasonable hurry, while crypto was ignored.

Commissioner Peirce, who is sometimes referred to as Crypto Mom for her strong positive views on cryptocurrency, released a statement concerning the SEC Spring 2022 Regulatory Agenda and the SEC Agency Rule List.

Though the SEC list had no entries that made explicit reference to crypto, Perice noted that one of the proposed rules, Amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16, “might regulate crypto protocols or platforms through an unmarked backdoor.”

She went on to name four areas relating to crypto where regulatory clarity “would be appreciated.” Those included defining securities and issues related to custody, including the agency’s controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121.

Peirce also critiqued the agency’s agenda, saying that the SEC set forth "flawed goals and a flawed method for achieving them", claiming the agency has focused on “hot-button matters outside our remit,” such as diversity, climate change and human capital management.

The agenda also reflects a “rush of radical rulemakings”, Peirce said, with short comment periods and market participants forced to implement multiple rules simultaneously.

“The agenda, if enacted, risks setting off the regulatory version of a rip current — fast-moving currents flowing away from shore that can be fatal to swimmers. [...] The pace and character of the rulemakings on this agenda make for dangerous conditions in our capital markets.”

Peirce is often the lone dissenting voice on the SEC board, particularly when it comes to crypto. She has criticized the agency for “leading with enforcement” and failing to provide the industry with regulatory guidance.

The cryptocurrency market entered a sell-off phase in the first week of June, seeing a market-wide route with the majority of cryptocurrencies falling to a 4-year low.

The deteriorating market conditions have also affected Bitcoin (BTC) mining profitability adversely, forcing miners to liquidate their BTC holdings.

New data from Arcane research shows that public Bitcoin mining firms sold 100% of their BTC production in May compared to the usual 20-40% earlier.

In the first four months of 2022, public BTC mining firms sold 30% of their mined production, which increased 3X folds in May and is expected to rise even further in June.

While public BTC miners only make up to 20% of the total network hashrate, their behavior often reflects the sentiments of private miners as well.

Miners collectively hold 800,000 BTC, making them one of the biggest whales in the market. Out of these, public miners hold 46,000 BTC and their selling spree could push the price further down.

The condition has only worsened in June with the Bitcoin price falling below the 2017 high of $20,000 and recording a new 4-year low of $17,783. Miner’s to exchange flow, a data metric that shows the volume of BTC sent by miners onto exchanges has reached a new high in June, reaching a level not seen since January 2021.

As Cointelegraph reported earlier, BTC miner’s to exchange flow ratio has hit a new 7-month high when BTC price tanked below $21,000. The decline in the price of BTC has also made many mining machines unprofitable, forcing miners to leave the crypto market.

Bitcoin hash price is a mining metric that represents the miner revenue on a per terahash basis. It is the average value — in fiat currency — of the daily rewards a miner gets per each terahash calculation (USD/TH/s per day), which has fallen to a new 1.5-year low.

Bitcoin Hash Ribbon, an indicator that tries to identify periods where BTC miners are in distress and may be capitulating, has crossed, indicating many miners are unplugging their machines due to lack of profitability.

At a time of BTC price decline and miner crisis, many believe it is a strong price bottom signal as well, especially when miners start giving up.

BTC slumped below $21,000 again and was trading just above $20,000 at press time, seeing a 6% decline over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw a dramatic change of mood into June 22 as multi-day highs gave way to a fresh dive under $20,000.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

BTC could see accumulation below key trendline

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD abruptly halting its latest gains to hit lows of $19,947 on Bitstamp.

The largest cryptocurrency had passed $21,700 the day before, its best performance since June 16, but momentum waned during Wall Street trading.

For popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital, there was danger in BTC/USD being unable to reclaim its 200-week moving average (MA).

A classic support line in previous bear markets, Bitcoin had formerly retained the 200-week MA as support with wicks below it characterizing macro price bottoms.

“If BTC can't reclaim the 200-week MA as support... Then one of the scenarios of what could happen would involve downside to new lows before the formation of an Accumulation Range for the first time below the 200-week MA,” he warned.

The 200-week MA stood at $22,420 at the time of writing.

BTC/USD 1-week candle chart (Bitstamp) with 200-week MA. Source: TradingView

Fellow trader Credible Crypto was more optimistic on the short-term perspective, telling Twitter followers that he did not foresee spot price going much lower.

Zooming out, Crypto Tony likewise highlighted the “demand zone” that BTC/USD was now acting in.

“On the macro we can see a few things here. We broke down clearly from a distribution range. We are now testing the first demand zone from this range. A reaction is expected, but not a bottom yet in my opinion,” he tweeted.

“A wick down to $17k - $15k on the cards.”

Whales look to reduce BTC exposure

For the largest BTC hodlers, meanwhile, signs of change were already visible in on-chain data.

According to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, on June 20 and 21, Bitcoin whales deposited over 50,000 BTC to exchanges. This followed 58,000 BTC in inflows on a single day on June 13.

Overall inflows from whale wallets thus remained elevated on an intraday basis, while still not matching the levels seen during some previous sell-offs.

On May 9, for example, the same group sent over 80,000 BTC to exchange accounts, the most since March 2020.

Bitcoin whale exchange deposits chart. Source: Glassnode

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, whale buyers meanwhile created a potential major support level just above $19,000.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the blockchain engineering firm behind the Cardano network has released some “disappointing news”, announcing a one-month delay to the long-awaited Vasil upgrade.

The Vasil upgrade is set to provide a “massive performance improvement to Cardano” and its smart contract capabilities according to Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson. It was previously slated to go through on June 29, however the latest estimate is now set for the last week of July.

IOHK’s head of delivery and project Nigel Hemsley noted in a June 20 blog post that the core Input Output Global (IOG) team working on the upgrade “is extremely close to finalizing the core work” but there are still seven bugs that remain outstanding and require work. None of them are categorized as “severe," he added.

“The work on Vasil has been the most complex program of development and integration to date, from several angles. It's a challenging process that requires not only significant work from core teams, but also close coordination across the ecosystem,” Hemsley wrote.

As a result, the Cardano Foundation — the non-profit that oversees the development of Cardano — and the IOG team agreed to defer sending the Vasil hard fork to the Cardano testnet from June 20 until June 29.

Once the testnet has been hard forked, devs from Cardanao-based decentralized apps (dApps) and stake pool operators SPOs will have roughly four weeks “to carry out any required integration and testing work” before the Vasil hard fork is initiated on the mainnet in late July:

“This is only reasonable and should not be rushed. The working assumption should therefore now be a Cardano mainnet hard fork occurring during the last week of July.”

“We recognize that this news will be disappointing to some. However, we are taking an abundance of caution to ensure that we do this deployment correctly,” Hemsley added.

The Vasil hard fork is the biggest upgrade to Cardano since the Alonzo hardfork from September which finally enabled smart contracts on the network. This latest upgrade is set to introduce four network improvements dubbed “CIP31, CIP32, CIP33, and CIP40.”

In theory, these upgrades are designed to reduce the size of transactions, therefore increasing the network’s throughput and lowering transaction fees on the network.

Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform aiming to provide competition to Ethereum as a smart contract network with lower fees. It is currently ranked seventh out of all crypto assets in terms of market cap at around $16 billion.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Peirce has spoken out against crypto company bailouts, arguing it’s actually better to “let these things play out,” to create a more sustainable industry. 

Peirce, the most pro-crypto commissioner for the United States SEC, told Forbes that the recent crash in crypto, though painful, is separating strong companies from the weak.

“When things are a bit harder in the market, you discover who's actually building something that might last for the long, longer term and what is going to pass away,” she said.

The commissioner made it clear she did not support bailouts for anyone in the crypto industry, particularly those that mismanaged risk and became over-leveraged.

“Crypto does not have a bailout mechanism [...] I don't want to come in and say that we’re going to try to figure out a way to bail you out if we don't have the authority to do it. But even if we did, I would, I would not want to use that authority, we really need to let these things play out.”

The SEC commissioner’s comments come amid a slew of insolvencies, lay-offs, and hiring freezes within the crypto market.

Crypto whales to the rescue

FTX and Alameda Research founder Sam Bankman-Fried is taking a different approach and has been stepping in to rescue crypto companies struggling due to the market crash.

On Tuesday, Bankman-Fried informed his 706,900 Twitter followers that he and FTX will be injecting $250 million into BlockFi through a revolving credit facility to bolster its balance sheets and strengthen the platform.

It came only days after Alameda Research agreed to give Voyager Digital a 200 million USDC loan and a “revolving line of credit” of 15,000 Bitcoins (BTC), worth $446.3 million at current prices, to be used “if needed to safeguard customer assets.”

Bankman-Fried told NPR on Sunday that this is something he and his companies have done “a number of times in the past” to “stem contagion” amid a cascade of falling crypto companies.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital called the FTX CEO the “new John Pierpont Morgan,” in reference to the Wall Street financial baron who pledged his own money and convinced others to do the same to shore up the banking system during the 1907 Bankers’ Panic.

“He is bailing out cryptocurrency markets the way the original J.P. Morgan did after the crisis of 1907.”

Peirce argues however that the downturn can be a valuable learning opportunity for market participants and regulators to see how the market moves in times of stress.

“It is helpful for us to see the points of connection. It's a moment, not only for market participants to learn, but it's also for regulators to learn so that we can have a better sense of how the market operates.”

The market turmoil has already badly affected lending platform Celsius Network and crypto-focused hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which is facing insolvency after incurring roughly hundreds of millions in liquidations tied to the ongoing collapse of Ether’s price.