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The difficulty of mining bitcoin is poised to set a new all-time high this week as miners continue to deploy new mining machines to cash in on recent spike in revenue.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has entered the bitcoin mining and energy production space.

The company will begin operations in Uruguay in partnership with an unnamed “local licensed company,” it announced Tuesday.

“By harnessing the power of Bitcoin and Uruguay’s renewable energy capabilities, Tether is leading the way in sustainable and responsible Bitcoin mining,” Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether, said in the announcement. “Our unwavering commitment to renewable energy ensures that every Bitcoin we mine leaves a minimal ecological footprint while upholding the security and integrity of the Bitcoin network.”

The news comes shortly after Tether said earlier this month that it will invest up to 15% of its profits in bitcoin on a regular basis to strengthen its reserves. Today’s news shows Tether’s continued bullish stance on the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

As for choosing Uruguay to mine bitcoin, Tether said the South American country has emerged as a global leader in renewable energy, achieving a 94% electricity generation from renewable sources, predominantly wind and solar power.

“Blessed with abundant natural resources, Uruguay offers ideal conditions for the production of renewable energy, facilitating the establishment of wind farms, solar parks, and hydropower projects, guaranteeing a consistent supply of clean and environmentally friendly energy,” Tether added.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The company is only allowing crypto and transfers to platforms that comply with Coinbase-led Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST).

The latest price moves in bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets in context for May 30, 2023. First Mover is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter that contextualizes the latest actions in the crypto markets.

India’s central bank is trying to expand the global narrative around cryptocurrencies beyond “financial stability and integrity to macro-financial and cross-sectoral implications and risks of crypto-assets.

RNDR has been a good high beta Nasdaq play in recent weeks, one portfolio manager noted.

Crypto networks Optimism and Sui are set for token unlocks this week that will see each of their circulating supply of tokens increase significantly.

Ethereum Layer 2 network Optimism is seeing the largest unlock, according to Token Unlocks, with 387 million tokens set to be released on May 31 — worth $590 million. This represents 9% of the total supply of tokens and a 114% increase to the current circulating supply. The tokens will primarily be split between core contributors and investors.

This comes a week ahead of Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade, which is set to lower fees and improve performance. That said, the price of Optimism’s native token OP has still dropped from $1.64 to $1.52 in the last 24 hours — ahead of the unlock — down 6%.

The Sui unlock

Layer 1 blockchain Sui will see a much smaller token unlock of 61 million tokens ($62 million) on June 3, which will increase its circulating supply by 13%. There will be regular unlocks like this until November, when the circulating supply will double — similar to Optimism’s unlock this week.

The difference with the Sui unlock is that the tokens will be going to retail users as an airdrop, as noticed by Alex, an analyst at crypto trading firm Scimitar Capital, as part of its community access program. Some tokens will also be going to the Sui Foundation.

“So even though the OP unlock is for 114% of supply and SUI is for 13%, there are other complex factors you should consider when evaluating the relative impact on price for these events,” he noted on Twitter.

There have already been some big token unlocks this month. On May 28 Avalanche unlocked 9.5 milion tokens ($139 million), representing 1.3% of its token supply. However, there was no significant impact to the token’s price.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The central bank has examined the use of distributed ledger technology and smart contracts for its potential new digital currency.

The New Qredo remains aimed at the institutional crypto market, but now it’s low-cost and open to anyone, says COO Josh Goodbody.

DeFi project Ede Finance admitted that it made a decision to manipulate prices, after the protocol was exploited for around $580,000.

The attacker who exploited it claimed they were a white hat — acting for good – and that they were trying to expose how the Arbitrum-based project worked, according to security analysts PeckShield. They claimed — in messages sent over the blockchain — that the project’s core team had a backdoor that allowed them to liquidate any user’s trade on the supposedly decentralized protocol. They said this activity involved using fake prices and claimed the intention was to steal user funds.

The attacker said that if the developers admit to this practice, they would return the funds minus a 10% bounty for themselves. They also mentioned there were additional vulnerabilities.

The Ede Finance developers replied, “Yes we acknowledge making an ill-advised decision to manipulate the price. However our intention was to blacklist those who had previously exploited the system, fully aware that all transactions are recorded on the blockchain. We did not aim to misappropriate users funds as this would leave a traceable record.”

The team then said it would remove the smart contract that enables this behavior. They also said they would agree to the terms of the bounty and said they would use their own funds to cover the shortfall. The team offered the exploiter 5% of the team’s token allocation — subject to vesting periods — for pointing them the other vulnerabilities out.

PeckShield also noted that while the project had been audited, the length of the audit was just three days.

The project’s native token has falled from $2.43 to $1.18 over the last 24 hours, down 51%.

Ede Finance has not yet responded to a request for comment.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.