General News
Crypto Markets Update
The Crypto markets have been on the rise this week, particularly since last Wednesday’s release of Core CPI data in the US. As it seems, the CPI figure reflected that inflation is now slowing down at least in the United States. Markets have reacted to these news with great optimism, as they expect central banks to respond by starting the money printer again. They might be right, as all the aggressive measures taken by central banks to fight inflation have caused a lot of trouble for the economy of many countries. Finding themselves at the gates of recession, governments could soon start pressuring central banks to relax their monetary policies in order to stimulate the economy and fight unemployment.
However, if money printing does indeed return, inflation will not take long to follow. Central banks will then be forced to fight it by withdrawing liquidity once again. If that happens, we should expect Bitcoin to fall once more, as it seems to continue trading as a risk-on asset instead of an inflation hedge. For that reason, it is probably better to stay cautious for the moment. Perhaps as a reflection of this uncertain future, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index stayed in the “Fear” level this week.
Ethereum
But this week’s most important news had a lot more to do with Ethereum than with Bitcoin. Ether went up more than 20% this week, as The Merge finally got a tentative release date. The Ethereum developers have set The Merge to happen when the Total Terminal Difficulty reaches the value of 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000. This would place it either on the 15th or the 16th of September. From then on, Ethereum will be a Proof of Stake blockchain instead of Proof of Work; an event that has been greatly anticipated by many.
Moreover, this week there was a lot of discussion surrounding Tornado Cash; a coin mixing service for Ethereum that was recently sanctioned by the US Treasury. Following this, Circle; the issuer of the stablecoin USDC, decided to block all addresses linked to Tornado Cash. These decisions have sparked a heated debate, as they showcase the lack of decentralization affecting most existing stablecoins. There were also news today that the developer that created the code for Tornado Cash was detained by the police in Amsterdam. These actions are very concerning, as they show that most regulators still intend to crack down on decentralized services that they cannot control.
StakeCube in Numbers
This was a pretty good week for StakeCube as well, with significant growth across most indicators. SCC in particular went up quite substantially following the appearance of pretty heavy buy orders on the SCC/BTC pair. Only exchange volume went down this week, as the unusual high volumes we were getting on the SAPP/BTC pair seem to be cooling down.
- User Count: 146,561 +0.23%
- Pool Value: 712.68 BTC +1.60%
- SCC Price: $0.328 +11.56%
- SCC Market Cap: $3,553,000 +13.26%
- Daily Exchange Volume $51,220 -46.06%
- Daily SCP Transactions: 21 +23.53%
First place on the Top 5 Gainers this week was for DogeCash, as they managed to more than double in price in this period! SCC also made the Top 5, continuing with the price increases that have been accumulating over the last few weeks.
Top 5 Gainers
- DOGEC +100.4%
- NEBL+44.4
- SMART +16.5%
- ETH+13.9%
- SCC +11.6%
Coin Delistings Update
Last week we mentioned that we were considering the delisting of a few coins with problematic wallets and blockchain explorers, as they require too much maintenance work from our technical team. You can read more about it here:
https://stakecube.info/this-week-on-stakecube-5th-of-august-2022/
We are now in a position to announce our decision regarding all of these coins:
KYDC
As we mentioned several times in previous editions of this newsletter, we will be delisting KYDC on Monday, the 15th of August. This was our official announcement:
https://stakecube.info/this-week-on-stakecube-29th-of-july-2022/
Please withdraw all your KYDC before this date. After that, withdrawals will be closed and these funds will be considered lost.
CTSC & HCC
We can now confirm that on August 15th, 2022 we will start the process of delisting for CTSC and HCC by removing the trading pairs from the exchange. To better manage your funds, we strongly suggest that you cancel all your exchange orders on these trading pairs as soon as possible. Find them here:
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/ctsc_btc
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/hcc_btc
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/ctsc_scc
Withdrawals of CTSC and HCC will be closed on August 31st, 2022. If you are currently holding CTSC/HCC on StakeCube, please withdraw it before the deadline. If you do not withdraw your CTSC and HCC before this date, we will consider that you are giving up these funds, and you will not be able to claim them, or obtain any form of compensation.
Please also note that, in case withdrawal becomes impossible for reasons external to StakeCube, we will be forced to close the withdrawal service, and will not be able to cover any losses that users incur as a consequence. This can be the case if the blockchain stops generating blocks during that period, or if transfers of funds on-chain simply stop working. Therefore, please make your withdrawal as early as possible.
ULG
The ULG team has provided us with a new blockchain explorer, which will at least allow us to verify transactions. Because of this, we have decided to keep ULG listed, but we will keep staking disabled for it, as there is a very high risk of chain forks.
LUX & DAPS
Both of these coins will definitely be delisted, but we cannot specify a date for this at the moment. The wallets of both of them are not working, which makes withdrawals impossible. On August 15th, 2022, we will close all trading pairs of these coins. The wallets will stay in maintenance until either we receive an update for the wallets or we find another way to process withdrawals. We will keep you informed in future editions of this newsletter. Find here the trading pairs for these coins:
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/lux_btc
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/lux_scc
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/daps_btc
https://stakecube.net/app/exchange/daps_scc
Graphene Airdrops
We have no update yet regarding the missing Graphene tokens from the last 2 airdrops. As we stated before, once we receive the tokens, we will proceed to credit them to the users that are entitled to them.
Wallets in Maintenance
This is the status of all wallets currently in maintenance:
- BLTG and TUP: The blockchain is forking multiple times a day and becoming stuck behind the latest block height even more often.
- DAPS: The wallet does not sync and immediately bans peers.
- HCC: The blockchain explorer is broken, which means we cannot verify any transactions.
- LUX: The wallets are resyncing at the moment.
Ethereum Merge
As we mentioned before, Ethereum will be undergoing an upgrade very soon called The Merge. The Merge gets its name from the fact that it will merge the Ethereum Mainnet into the Beacon Chain, switching the Ethereum algorithm from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. We know now that this event will tentatively take place on the 15th or 16th of September.
StakeCube will be supporting this upgrade. All your ETH and ETH tokens on Stakecube will remain on the new Proof of Stake chain after the merge. This does not require any action on your part.
In case the upgrade leads to the appearance of blockchain forks, with two or more competing versions of Ethereum running; StakeCube will evaluate their viability in order to airdrop the forked versions or support their withdrawal. We will release more information regarding this process as the situation unfolds.
Also, should something unexpected happen during the upgrade, we reserve the right to adapt to the arising circumstances as we see fit and will inform you of our next steps accordingly.
XLR Swap
As preparation for the swap, a snapshot of all XLR balances was taken on block 1,129,470, and the wallet was placed into maintenance. Deposits are withdrawals are not possible, as the blockchain was stopped with the latest update. We will keep you informed regarding the next steps once they’re clear.
MineCube Situation
A few weeks ago, we conducted a poll to determine what to do with the miners that we currently have at MeaTec. In the poll, MineCube users made the decision to move the miners to a new provider: PowerMining. You can consult the results of said poll here:
https://stakecube.info/this-week-on-stakecube-8th-of-july-2022/
We would like to point out that if you don’t see any update in our newsletter, it generally means that there is no update to be given. StakeCube has communicated and will communicate everything as it happens, and if there are no updates then we have nothing to communicate.
Although we still have the intention to fulfill the wishes of MineCube users, at the moment it does not make sense to initiate the process. PowerMining has higher electricity costs than MeaTec, and with that our miners would not be able to obtain any positive revenue. In other words, if our miners were running at the PowerMining facilities, they would be losing money. Consequently, if we made the move now, we would be spending funds uselessly, making it even more difficult for users to recover their investment. The main reason why mining is not profitable anymore is the very elevated network difficulty, combined with still far from ATH cryptocurrency prices. This was not the case when we designed the poll, but unfortunately Crypto prices crashed a lot after that.
As you can see in the above chart, mining difficulty has barely gone down even though Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are trading at a fraction of the value they had a year ago. Unfortunately and until this situation changes, we have no choice but to keep the MineCube system as it is. Every Thursday, when our accrued balance is higher than maintenance costs, we will request the withdrawal of our mining rewards and distribute them to MineCube worker holders shortly after receiving them. However, keep in mind that unless Bitcoin goes up in price significantly, the accrued value might still be zero, as it was for the last couple of months.
We know that this might not be what you wanted to hear, but keep in mind that StakeCube does not have any obligation or commitment to offer any alternative plan. For now we reserve the right to apply our terms of service:
We will, accordingly, terminate the contract between StakeCube and single user accounts who keep causing trouble through support tickets or through our official social media channels.
Once the mining situation improves and we find the plan to move the miners economically viable, we will inform you.
Stake or Die NFT Collection
Our team member Derek has created a unique set of skeleton NFTs that he will be giving away over the weekend. Check it out here!
If you think they’re cool and you want one, go say hi to him on Telegram or Discord, and make sure to follow him on Twitter:
https://mobile.twitter.com/cryptopokalypse
There are only 100 so hurry up before they’re all gone!
Development News
StakeCube V3 Screenshots
Oleg rewarded us with a few more StakeCube V3 screenshots this week. Remember that you can see all of them in the #V3-Alpha channel on Discord. Also, keep in mind that these are all provisional and the final version might not look exactly like this. The screenshots show the “Settings” pages that StakeCube V3 will make available to the user.
Security
The Security page will allow users to set up and change all basic security measures already existing in the current version (password, 2FA and email). But in V3 users will have at their disposal a series of additional features that provide an extra layer of security. These are, for example, a whitelist of addresses to withdraw to, a whitelist of devices from which login is allowed, and a phishing code verification system.
Additionally, StakeCube V3 will give users the possibility to freeze their account temporarily or delete it without the need to open a support ticket. Users will also be able to consult the login history, to verify that no suspicious activity is taking place. All these features provide the user with extra control over their account and their private data.
KYC Verification
As you probably know, StakeCube has an optional KYC verification system that allows users to expand their daily withdrawal limit. In StakeCube V3 we have added this system to the website, in order to make it frictionless and much more intuitive.
API Management
StakeCube V3 will also offer a page to create and manage API private keys which provide access to markets and real-time trading through third party sites and applications.
SCP Development
The wallet GUI is currently experiencing a minor performance overhaul, speeding up responsiveness for users with a large number of transactions, tokens and stake rewards, while also cleaning up the code to be more modular and readable. Here’s this week’s simplified changelog:
- Optimised ‘tokens’ renderer.
- Optimised ‘activity’ renderer.
- Optimised SCP-2 staking UI.
- Optimised number handling (pure primitive non-casting integers).
- Upgraded dependencies for security.
Next on the roadmap is adding multi-address support (account switching) to SCP Wallet; letting users generate, import/export individual wallets and swap between them with ease, as well as polishing the SCP-1 and SCP-2 developer experience with a custom developer dashboard with statistics and tools!
Wallet Maintenance News
We updated the following wallets:
XLR
Previous version: 3.1.0.0
New version: 3.2.0.0
This update was made to prepare for the swap.
Security Notice
Please read the following information regarding the security of your account and funds:
The StakeCube.net team will:
- Never contact you first
- Never ask you to send them or move coins to some other address
- Never ask you for remote access or to install any third party software
- Never ask you for your password or 2FA codes
- Never provide support using direct messages
If you observe any of these listed behaviors, someone is trying to steal money from you. This applies to all of our social media channels. Our team will post official messages in the appropriate channels, and we only offer support through our ticket system on our support email:
support@stakecube.zohodesk.com
Please, also take into account the following measures to keep your account secure:
- Enable 2FA in the account settings
- Enable IP verification in the account settings
- Use a strong password
- Change the password regularly
- Never share your password with others
- Never allow remote access to your devices
- If you require assistance, use only the official channels
- Download software only from verified sources
SCP Wallet is now signed with JSKitty’s public PGP key. This allows users to verify that the wallet has been cryptographically signed and approved by him. Even if our GitHub is compromised, the downloads are still safe as long as the PGP verification confirms that the files have not been tampered with. If you download SCP, please verify the binary against our developer’s public key:
Social Media and Other Important Links:
- Discord: https://discord.gg/RTJKjdwEsY
- Telegram: https://t.me/Stakecube
- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/964396784312480
- Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/StakeCubeEcosystem
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/stakecube
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stakecube/
- SCPScan: https://scpscan.net/
- SCC Explorer: http://79.143.186.234/