Bitcoin Miners Earned Over $1B in February
A study by Block Research revealed that Bitcoin miners generated over $1.06 billion in February 2022.
The revenue largely came from block rewards with network transaction fees contributing another $12.92 million.
Miner earnings declined for the fourth consecutive month, with a 12.9% slide from January to February. In October 2021, mining generated nearly $1.72 billion, but income has been steadily declining. The all-time high recorded revenue for miners was $1.75 billion back in March 2021.
Hacker Group Anonymous Offers Russian Soldiers $52k BTC For Each Surrendered Tank
The infamous hacker organization Anonymous has allegedly offered Russian soldiers bitcoin bounties to abandon their tanks. The group will reportedly pay $52,000 in BTC for each surrendered tank.
To collect the bounty Russian soldiers have to hoist a white flag over their tank with the word “million” to signal their surrender. The message distributed by Anonymous on social media platforms reads, “Russian soldiers, everyone who wants to live with their families and children and not die, the Anonymous global community has collected over 1,225,043 rubles in BTC to help you.”
The hacker group has also reportedly conducted cyberattacks on Russia. The group declared war on Russian leader Vladimir Putin back in February 2022, and warned that if Putin didn’t halt the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow would face unprecedented cyber-attacks worldwide.
BTC Adoption Rising in Falling Economies
Arcane Research has reported that citizens of Ukraine are buying bitcoins to protect their life savings during the country’s war with Russia.
Ukrainians are buying both BTC and Tether with their national currency, the Hryvnia, frequently using the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. Data shows that the trading volume for the USDT-Hryvnia pair surged from $6 million to nearly $8.5 million soon after Russia attacked Kyiv. Similarly, the trading volume for the BTC-Hryvnia pair shot up from $1 million to about $3 million in the same period.
Soon after the war started, the Ukrainian government received a donation of more than $5 million from Ethereum and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood. The country had already received contributions totaling over $20 million in BTC, ETH, and Tether from donors around the globe.
Arcane Research further reported that “Like Russians, Ukrainians are also buying crypto as never before. Many Ukrainians believe their banking system can collapse due to the war, so they’re using crypto as a haven.”
Following Russia’s exclusion from the SWIFT international payment system and sanctions from governments worldwide, the Russian ruble dropped a record 30% in a single day in February 2022. In response to the economic crisis, Russian citizens have tried to safeguard their hard-earned wealth by turning to cryptocurrencies.
A similar pattern of accelerating cryptocurrency adoption can be seen in Turkey, another country with a weakened fiat currency. Since the start of 2022 the Turkish Lira has reportedly lost over 50% of its value. During the same period Turkish citizens have explored safe-haven assets like gold, U.S. dollars, and BTC.
In Turkey, the Kraken crypto exchange could find no significant gender or age divide in these new crypto converts, suggesting broad interest among Turkish citizens. Also, a survey conducted by a leading Turkish bank found that citizens over the age of 40 were much more interested in crypto, a demographic that would usually be more conservative. Metaverse tokens and stablecoins have also grown in popularity in Turkish trading circles. Blocktopia, a metaverse game, was one of the most popular trades registered on Kucoin in Turkey in 2021.
