Decentral Block Post

Update December 18, 2023 10:09PM UTC: The Zilliqa mainnet has been restored and is now fully operational. 

The $383-million Zilliqa ecosystem is experiencing disruptions due to a “critical situation” impacting the network.

According to a Dec. 18 post by developers, the Zilliqa blockchain faces a “technical issue that has resulted in an interruption to block production.” Blockchain data shows that daily transactions on Zilliqa subsequently plunged by roughly 50% to 30,906, compared to an average of 61,000 in the past few days.

Activity has since paused, with the last transaction occurring at around 11 am UTC, with no new blocks being produced since then. “The team are working hard to recover the network,” wrote Matt Dyer, Zilliqa’s CEO, in a follow-up.

Related: Zilliqa teases Web3 gaming console, Funko teams up with Warner Bros

Irys, a prominent layer-2 network within the Arweave ecosystem, allegedly has plans to fork the Arweave network with the intent to “drop the dataset and reset the token supply,” according to a Dec. 17 post by Arweave founder Sam Williams.

He alleges that despite the existence of a safe upgrade mechanism with Arweave, Irys developers plan to proceed with a hard fork that “appears to be a play motivated by greed.” The Arweave founder wrote:

“Given this situation, Arweave intends to remove the Irys bundlers from the trusted set on the main Arweave gateways. This will lead to significant delays before user data is available.”

In a rebuttal post the same day, Irys developers stated, “Are we developing new provenance tech? You bet your ass we are,” accusing Arweave developers of “active censorship” in response to alleged efforts to “deplatform Irys from Arweave.” Developers added, “Stay tuned to this space; we have plenty of powerful new features we’re thinking through, and we can’t wait to share them.”

In the past two days, the Arweave token has lost over 20% of its value and is now trading at $8.90, partly due to the unveiling of the allegations. Irys is currently the largest layer-2 network on Arweave, accounting for over 90% of the blockchain’s 16 million daily transaction volume. However, the network’s volume has fallen by 31% since the allegations surfaced.

The Solana memecoin frenzy continues as a trader turns $226,000 into well over $1.6 million by gambling on a token with a beanie-wearing dog as its mascot. 

Between Dec. 13 and 15, a crypto trader bought over 19 million Dogwifhat (WIF) tokens, a dog-themed memecoin, as it debuted on the markets within the Solana network. According to blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, the trader bought the tokens at an average price of $0.01137. Currently, the tokens’ total value hovers at around $1.69 million, making the trader about $1.47 million in profits within five days. 

As a new wave of interest hits the Solana ecosystem, memecoins based on the network have started to deliver massive gains. On Dec. 8, a dog-themed memecoin called Bonk (BONK) became the third-largest memecoin by market capitalization, joining fellow dog-themed memecoins Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) in the top three and overtaking Pepecoin (PEPE), the frog-themed memecoin. 

Bonk’s price jumped by 370% in the 30 days leading to Dec. 11, going from $0.0000028 to $0.00002 at the time of writing. The token outpaced the growth of fellow dog memecoins SHIB and DOGE, which grew 20% and 35% in the same period. 

Related: Trader allegedly saw over 5,000x gains after Ankr protocol hack

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week in risky territory as sell-offs from whales mark a change in mood.

The latest weekly close has done little to comfort nervous traders as a pause in “up only” BTC price activity continues.

With just two weeks to go until the yearly candle concludes, the countdown is on — together with the pressure — across risk assets.

Macro data releases — key short-term volatility catalysts — are set to keep coming for the remainder of December, with United States gross domestic product (GDP) figures due as markets digest last week’s moves by the Federal Reserve.

It seems as if a “Santa rally” is less and less on the cards for Bitcoin at present. As high fees leave a bitter taste in hodlers’ mouths, commentators suggest refocusing on next month’s potential spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval.