Ether Jumps to Nine-Month High Ahead of 'Shapella'; Liquid Staking Tokens Surge
At least four wallets from bitcoin’s early days have seen signs of activity in the past few days, sparking conversations on Crypto Twitter about the possible reasons behind the activity. The investors are known as 'whales' because they hold large amounts of tokens in their digital wallets and can influence the price or sentiment around a token. One such wallet, which was last active in 2012, moved more than 400 bitcoins ($11 million) over the weekend. Another whale wallet moved 279 bitcoins earlier in April after over 10 years of inactivity. The identities of these whales are unknown, and none of them has said publicly why they are making the moves. The silence has spurred speculation on Crypto Twitter, with possible reasons ranging from developers of the dark web site Silk Road getting access to the whales' wallets to insiders in the know moving tokens ahead of bad news. Some have speculated that the holders' wallet passwords have been cracked. Old wallets have repeatedly been the target for hackers and online thieves, and earlier this month, a massive 'wallet draining operation' affected whales and early holders of ether. The movement of these whales comes on the back of several other whales moving large quantities of bitcoin and ether in the past few weeks.The metaverse market is bouncing back ahead of Apple's release as trading volume on related tokens spikes to $905 million. Cryptocurrency's virtual reality (VR) sector has surged by more than 7.9% over the past 24 hours according to CryptoSlate data, as investors anticipate Apple's (AAPL) big VR headset reveal on Monday. Hailed as Apple's first major product release in a decade, the tech giant's share price has risen by 7.4% in the past two weeks, a trend that has been matched by virtual reality and metaverse crypto tokens today. UnmuteALTAVA CMO on Bridging Fashion and Technology00:54Why Prada Is at the Forefront of Digital Fashion and Metaverse16:36What Will The Metaverse Look Like in the Future?01:22The Sandbox Wants to Make India Its Largest Market Within the Next Two Years11:34Saudi Arabia's NEOM Is Working to Build the 'City of the Future' With Blockchain, Web3: Yat SiuDecentraland (MANA) is considered the largest VR-related token with a market cap just shy of $1 billion, and is up by 5.4% over the past 24 hours despite the wider crypto market shedding 1.5% of its value over the same time period, according to CoinGecko. Five-dimensional metaverse project Wilder World (WILD) is the sector's top gainer for the day, soaring by 18.8% over the past 24 hours to cap a 119% gain over the past 30 days. Goldman Sachs noted in a research report last year Apple is one of two companies leading the way in virtual and augmented reality. The tech giant is expected to mass release a mixed reality headset in Q4 of this year, according to a recent Morgan Stanley investor note. The wider metaverse sector has suffered during the crypto winter, with several assets falling more than 80% from their all-time highs. However, the recent bounce indicates that the tide may be shifting. A total of $905 million in trading volume has been exercised on metaverse tokens over the past 24 hours, with the group's overall market cap rising to $8.65 billion, according to CoinGecko. Edited by Nelson Wang.Sandwich bots are front-running punters of newly issued tokens such as pepe (PEPE) and chad (CHAD) – meme coins with no intrinsic value that caught wind of Crypto Twitter degens almost overnight as the tokens zooted over 10,000%. A sandwich attack, traps a user's transaction between two transactions, which is then further manipulated to gain profits. This is done by front-running the victim's trade by buying the same asset, and then selling tokens to the victim in the same trade for a slightly higher price. Sandwich attackers aren’t typically a form of exploit but are looked upon in crypto circles as a type of predatory behavior, which skims value from users, leads to a spike in gas fees and doesn’t benefit either the network or the user. The victim might not notice it, but for sandwich bots the gains can run into millions of dollars as they target thousands of wallets and skim a few dollars each time. A wallet named “Jaredfromsubway.eth,” a likely nod to the popular sandwich chain, has spent over $2 million in the past week on Ethereum network fees trying to sandwich traders punting on predominantly low-cap tokens. That has driven up fees of the entire network, data from Dune Analytics shows. Each transaction on the Ethereum network costs over $10 as of Asian morning hours on Wednesday – ten times more than last week’s $1 level. Gas fees have spiked. (Dune) The actions of Jaredfromsubway.eth mean they spent 7% of all fees on Ethereum in the past 24 hours, the data shows, becoming the top spender on the network. That is ahead of fees spent by Arbitrum, a layer 2 blockchain that batches transactions on the Ethereum network, and Uniswap, the most-used decentralized exchange. It is unclear how much Jaredfromsubway.eth made from their front-running actions, but given they spent a significant amount – and continue to do so – the gains likely exceed costs by a significant amount. As such, research firm Sealaunch has estimated Jaredfromsubway.eth's gains at over $1.4 million since Tuesday, as per a tweet. Meanwhile, the pepe frenzy is on in full force. Pepe tokens nearly doubled in value in the past 24 hours as Crypto Twitter traders moved over their DOGE-themed token obsession to bet on the internet meme instead, as CoinDesk reported. Scores of pepe wannabes have popped up as well, as have chad, wojak, and babypepe – each a nod to internet memes. Most of these are unlikely to last beyond a few weeks. But unlike then, entities like Jaredlikesubway.eth is eating the gains while fresh.
