The Block

Quick Take During its two-week pre-alpha, “Nyan Heroes” ranked among the top 30 most-played games on Epic Games Store as more than 200,000 users downloaded the web3 title. A full PC version of the game, with NFT integration, is expected to be released early next year.

Bitcoin’s halving event is currently estimated to occur at around 8:30 p.m. ET today. We asked several firms in the industry what impact Bitcoin’s fourth halving will have on miners as the block subsidy reward gets cut from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Quick Take Tether is expanding its U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin USDT and its gold-backed stablecoin XAUT to The Open Network (TON). USDT will go live on TON on Apr. 20, and XAUT will follow in the coming months, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told The Block.

Bitcoin proponents argue the halving could have a big impact through the reduction of new supply. However, some say that this will have a minimal effect that will only impact some miners.

Market volatility has resulted in over $152 million in cryptocurrency liquidations over the past day.

Bitcoin’s next halving event, when the miners’ block subsidy reward gets cut in half, is now less than 100 blocks away, according to The Block’s halving countdown. The estimated time remaining would see Bitcoin’s fourth halving arrive at around 8 p.m. ET today, with the block subsidy dropping from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Bitcoin, ether and other major cryptocurrencies dropped in value following the news of Iran’s retaliation against Israel.

Quick Take Avraham ‘Avi’ Eisenberg was convicted for fraud charges related to the Mango Market exploit, reports Bloomberg. Mango Markets was hacked in October 2022 after someone artificially pumped the price of MANGO, the platform’s native token. Eisenberg later returned $67 million in funds to Mango Markets, and the protocol’s community allowed him to keep $47 million in a governance vote.

Quick Take A white paper for the Heroglyphs Protocol was unveiled late Wednesday, designed to incentivize Ethereum solo stakers with new tokens by mimicking elements of proof-of-work systems. Pseudonymous co-author Manny said Heroglyphs’ launch was coming on Friday.

Tether has announced a company reorganization to deliver a range of new decentralized infrastructure solutions. The company has formed four new divisions called Tether Data, Tether Finance, Tether Power, and Tether Edu(cation).