Transactions on layer 2 rollup Arbitrum surpassed those on Ethereum yesterday, continuing the speedy growth that network has seen so far in 2023. The number of transactions yesterday of 1,103,398 was up from 159,919 at the start of the year, according to Arbiscan. The Ethereum network saw 1,084,290 transactions yesterday, according to Etherscan. The boosted activity on Arbitrum may be a result of users expecting a potential airdrop, according to Walter Teng of Fundstrat Global Advisors. There have, however, yet to be any plans made or announcements to this effect.

(Alina Grubnyak/Unsplash)

Developers of the Klaytn blockchain have proposed burning 5.28 billion KLAY tokens, amounting to around 48% of the total supply, worth around $1.65 billion. The Klaytn Foundation has submitted this proposal to its governance council with the aim of helping develop Klaytn into a sustainable decentralized network. The 2 billion tokens that remain will be reserved for use cases and scenarios that help to facilitate deflationary economics for KLAY, with the goal of creating long-term value. Voting on the proposal commences today and will continue until Feb. 28.

Google Cloud is to become a validator on the Tezos network, marking the tech giant’s latest integration with a blockchain network following similar moves with Ethereum and Solana late last year. Corporate customers of Google’s cloud computing service will be able to deploy Tezos nodes in order to build Web3 applications on the network. Integrations of this kind should demonstrate the interest tech giants are taking in blockchain and Web3 projects and may promote confidence of other firms looking to move into the industry.

Decentralized storage network Filecoin’s FIL has led a surge among shared storage protocols this week as the corresponding platforms have seen an increase in their usage.

FIL is up more than 62% over the past seven days to $8.10, according to CoinDesk data. Bitcoin and ether are ahead 10% and 7%, respectively, over the same time frame. This comes ahead of the March unveiling of the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), which is seen as enabling new applications or market contracts and thus increased usage, Messari research analyst Mihai Grigore told CoinDesk.

Turning to bitcoin (BTC), its attempt to surpass and hold above $25,000 has failed a number of times over the past week. Analysts for Bitfinex believe the move to $25,000 was driven by both “over-leveraged long positions” and "liquidating over-eager shorts.”

Traders who bet on price increases liquidated $130 million of their long positions, while those who bet on price falls liquidated around $179 million of their BTC short positions in the past seven days, according to data from Coinglass.

“Historically, this type of price action, where both the longs and shorts are wiped off simultaneously, has resulted in a range formation,” Bitfinex's team said. “The most probable move going forward is to scale out of positions partially and wait for the range to form without a strong directional bias.”

Source: Glassnode

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