A post published on Monday, the Ethereum Foundation has alerted developers and miners that the “Muir Glacier” upgrade is set to occur at 9.2 million blocks, which is currently on pace for New Year’s Day. The upgrade follows less than a month after Ethereum’s highly anticipated “Istanbul,” update, and marks a series of upgrades for the network as it transitions to Ethereum 2.0.

The official post states, 

The Ethereum network will be undergoing a scheduled upgrade at block number 9,200,000, which is predicted to occur on Wednesday, January 1, 2020. The exact date is subject to change due to variable block times and timezones.

According to a previous post detailing the upgrade, Muir Glacier will serve to delay the planned increase in Ethereum’s mining difficulty by an estimated 611 days. 

Ethereum Cat Herders provided an explanation for the delay,

Once the difficulty increase of the difficulty bomb is too great for the block time retargeting mechanism, it results in an increase in block times for the network. This results in a degradation in the usability of Ethereum due to waiting for confirmation for transactions and Dapps as everything takes longer throughout the network.

Node operators and miners will be required to download the updated client software in order to be in compliance with the network, which some users are bemoaning given the New Year’s Day holiday launch.

One of the largest alleged scam projects in the cryptocurrency world, a recent report shows that over $100 million worth of Ethereum was transferred from a company wallet to an unknown.

$100M In ETH Transferred From PlusToken

The popular cryptocurrency monitoring resource, Whale Alert, recently caught a large transaction of 789,525 ETH worth over $105 million at the time. What’s conspicuous about it is that it originated from PlusToken’s wallet.

The transaction took place earlier today; however, the recipient address is unknown. As already six members of the initial team have been arrested, the community speculates that at least one is still at large and is currently accessing the funds.

PlusToken’s Alleged Scam History

PlusToken saw the light of day as a cryptocurrency wallet that can actually generate high rates of return to its users. All they had to do is purchase the PLUS crypto tokens with Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the returns would be generated by “exchange profit, mining income, and referral benefits.”

Even though this might sound fishy at the moment, PlusToken became popular in China, being listed on several exchanges in the country. Moreover, it reached a price of $350 per token before it started melting down as the community began noticing irregularities and authorities started cracking down on it.

Beijing claimed that PlusToken is an illegal Ponzi scheme, and Chinese law enforcement went to Vanuatu to make the mentioned above arrest of six people. Later, the police officers deported all of them to mainland China.

After the arrests, a Chainalysis report tracked at least 800,000 ETH and 45,000 BTC being transferred from PlusToken official wallets to the scammers’ own addresses to launder. It also says that another 790,000 ETH were untouched in another wallet, which could be today’s major transaction.

Is PlusToken To Blame For The Price Crash?

The cryptocurrency market lost around $12 billion of its total market cap after a few consecutive days of negative price movements. Bitcoin’s price, for example, touched $6,400, while Ethereum went below $120, Litecoin was at $35, and more.

The same report was released a few hours before the price decline began, and it also shows that liquidations of such a notable amount of cryptocurrencies could be behind the drop.

According to it, the scammers had cashed out $185 million worth of stolen digital assets using OTC brokers. However, Chainalysis couldn’t confirm for sure if the liquidation is to blame for the price decline but noted that it was plausible:

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According, to the CoinFloor Blog Post on 17, Dec 2019 it has announced that it will no longer support Ethereum in 2020. Coinfloor will also be delisting Bitcoin Cash (BCH) on January 3, 2020. The exchange plans to retain the only Bitcoin on its platform.

Post Words…”We are excited to announce that Coinfloor will focus on providing Bitcoin only services from the 3rd of January 2020, on the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin’s launch The decision will allow Coinfloor to provide a richer set of services for the world’s leading cryptocurrency while maintaining focus on simplicity. Over the short-term, the business’s aim is to strengthen its position as the UK’s number one Bitcoin exchange “Continue on Post…

CEO of Coinfloor said: “No other cryptocurrency currently comes close to Bitcoin’s track record, industry support, or brand recognition, so focusing on Bitcoin made perfect sense. Bitcoin is the dominant decentralized, value-driven, and inflation-proof cryptocurrency, which gives it the potential to become the best form of money the world has ever seen”

On 3rd of January 2020, CoinFloor Users Will Not Able to Buy/Sell, BCH and ETH. However, Ethereum custody and withdrawals will continue Supported until 3rd Jan. But will incur an increased administrative fee.

Bitcoin is way ahead of everyone else

The blogpost also disclosed that Ethereum technology has yet to be proven. Thus, it has to find solutions to several pending issues on its network. Including its proposed transition from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0.

At the same, according to the exchange, bitcoin is already bringing solutions to real-life issues,. Nwosu stated that: “People are looking at improving Bitcoin, […]but Bitcoin is already a good solution to the problem. Everything else is cream on top of the coffee. It is already solving the problem today.”

The exchange however disclosed that it might relist Ethereum. 

To add, Coinfloor is the first crypto exchange to become crypto monogamous. It claims that this is because it realized that Bitcoin is “way ahead of everyone else.” Nwosu also added that he hopes more exchanges will follow its decision in the near future.

In a recent interview, Tom Jessop, the president of Fidelity Digital Assets spoke about Fidelity’s plans.

During it, the host asked him about the company’s attempt to provide custody for other digital currency like Ethereum.

Jessop answered that the firm carried out a lot of work on it. He also said that if client demand exists, then Fidelity Digital Assets could support Ethereum in 2020.

Obstacles to institutional crypto adoption

The digital asset launched earlier this year, Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS) offers cryptocurrency custody. As well as trading tools for institutional investors and traders. However, the firm only supports Bitcoin which some analysts say keeps FDAS from challenging crypto-native firms like Coinbase and BitGo.

At the same time, Jessop cited obstacles to institutional crypto adoption. He mentioned factors like price volatility, lack of regulatory clarity.

Also, Jessop said that the lack of a track-record serves as one of the biggest obstacles to institutional adoption of a given cryptocurrency. He noted that Bitcoin holds the longest track record. Thus, the cryptocurrency gets a stronger appetite from institutional investors to allocate capital to the crypto, as compared to cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. Hence, the reason Fidelity isn’t supporting it at the moment, he added.

Quoting Jessop: “How do I know that if I buy this thing, it’s gonna be around tomorrow?. Like what indication of durability or longevity exists based on the fact that the history of this asset is 10 years old?”

“I think many of these things solve themselves with time,” he added.

Custody should be a base requirement

In the interview, Jessop also spoke about how custody should be a base requirement on the hierarchy of needs. He referred to custody as a service that needs to be delivered to people to create a sense of safety and soundness. He believes other factors like trading builds on custody.

Quoting him: “We’re an organization that’s been around for decades. We’re also not necessarily thinking about the next 18 to 24 months, we’re thinking about three-plus years in terms of the evolution of the space, and what the potentials for financial services at large.”