This Week in Crypto: November 26, 2023

Welcome to This Week in Crypto, where we dive further into the top news in the crypto market that created global impact. Today, we are taking a look at the following headlines:

1. Binance receives $4.3 billion USD fine, CEO CZ is forced out
2. BTC whales migrate from Binance to Coinbase
3. BTC could jump to $40,000 USD, analysts predict
4. MXC rolls out gas fee fix to dramatically reduce token claim gas fee

Binance Receives $4.3 Billion USD Fine while CEO CZ is Forced Out

As part of the US SEC’s crackdown on centralized exchanges, Binance has been entangled in a long legal battle with the SEC. It appears that SEC is claiming victory, as Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (better known as CZ) have admitted wrongdoing. Binance’s CZ reached a plea deal with the SEC, admitting that he failed to prevent money laundering on Binance. As a result, Binance is issued a fine of $4.3 billion dollars while CZ has been handed over to the US Department of Justice to carry on the agreed-upon clauses such as stepping down as CEO, removing himself from Binance, and other undisclosed agreements.

The proof of reserve issued by Binance has shown that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has enough to cover the $4.3 billion fine. However, as concerns grow as to whether Binance has enough of its own assets — not user deposits, illiquid assets, or non-crypto assets- to cover the fine, a massive line of withdrawals has continued. As of 2 days ago, a whopping sum of $956 million USD worth of assets have been withdrawn from Binance.

Binance users should take caution and tune in to all updates from Binance.

BTC Whales Migrate from Binance to Coinbase

Since the release of the news related to Binance, many BTC whales have been spotted migrating from Binance to Coinbase. According to data, while the BTC deposits in Binance have decreased by 5000 BTC, deposits in Coinbase have increased by 12000 BTC.

The possible reason many BTC whales have chosen Coinbase could be that Binance has been ordered to cease operations in the United States by the US SEC and thus many American users are forced to find a platform that is friendly to users based in the United States.

BTC Could Jump to $40,000 — Analysts Predict

As more people expect a bullish market in 2024 thanks to the upcoming Bitcoin halving, analysts have predicted that the price of BTC will most likely break above the $40,000 level despite the negative news surrounding Binance. Currently, the price of BTC is sitting around the $37,000 level.

The jump of Bitcoin to the $40,000 level would be significant, as the market prepares for the BTC halving in 2024 which would bring the shutdown price of BTC to $50,000.

MXC Rolls Out Updates to Reduce Gas Fee by 60%

M2 Pro and NEO miners may have noticed that during the last week, there were frequent spikes in gas fees that saw users being asked to pay extremely high prices to claim their mined tokens. After days of non-stop development, the development team at MXC Foundation rolled out an interim solution. With gas fee optimization, the new fix has significantly reduced the token claim gas fee by an average of 60%. Compared to the height of the spike, the reduction is closer to an average of 90%.

There are further gas fee optimization planned, along with a data compression method so that the weight of data on the chain is lighter, thus further reducing the token claim gas fee for the miners.

We thank our miners for their continued patience and pledge to continue to improve the MXC zkEVM blockchain’s performance.

This Week in Crypto: November 26, 2023 was originally published in MXC Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.