Crypto Twitter This Week: Back to Work After Bitcoin Halves Expectations

It’s been a rollercoaster week for Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency landscape, with most eyes fixed on the four-year Bitcoin halving that finally takes place in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 20th.

Monday brought an encouraging rebound after a weekend of declines. As expected, Hong Kong has joined the digital asset ETF party, approving Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs.

On Tuesday, news broke that venture capital and investment firm Andreessen Horowitz has launched its second gaming fund with Web3 and AI-forward games in mind. It comes with a new accelerator program called Speedrun, which will inject $750,000 into each cohort member. “It’s never too early for us to get involved,” declared a16z general partner Andrew Chen.

The gaming fund is part of a larger $7.2 billion fundraising across multiple sectors.

On a more whimsical note, word has come that another famous meme (and a new member of the “man captions” category) will be up for auction. The starting bid is 15 ETH (approximately $47,100) and the auction begins tomorrow.

On Hump Day, the Worldcoin Foundation announced World Chain, an Ethereum layer 2 based on Optimism that uses ETH as its native token and Worldcoin (WLD) as its gas fee. “Verified humans, including the more than 5 million verified World ID holders, will receive preferential block space over bots and gas allowances for regular transactions,” the foundation said.

On the same day, a complicated saga appeared to be coming to a close when Craig Wright, the alleged untrustworthy creator of Bitcoin, dismissed his case against a dozen Bitcoin developers after suffering a decisive defeat in the UK’s High Court.

The news came a week after Wright. Separate legal battle halted In Norway.

In cryptocurrency hardware news, a newcomer has announced a new smartphone. This is a Google Pixel 7a running ethOS. Yes, it comes with NFTs.

The second half of the week saw expectations cut in half, including whether or not it would actually land on Meme Day. (At least that was the case in UTC.)

Important members of Crypto Twitter have become more invested in the Runes launch, which is scheduled to take place simultaneously. Bitcoin mining costs skyrocketed after the halving, which some believe happened thanks to Runes. Takeout? Any reduction in Bitcoin mining rewards may be offset by network activity generated by the new fungible token protocol.

The Bitcoin halving happened overnight on Saturday morning and Crypto Twitter celebrated.

At least briefly.

When a significant Bitcoin block was created, miners received amazing bonuses.

For runes, the race for the first batch has begun. Within minutes the winner was revealed.

Casey Rodamor, Bitcoin developer and creator of the Loon protocol, planned ahead and set Loon to come to fruition at the next halving, four years from now.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.