Huobi Research Weekly (Vol.128) 2020.8.17–2020.8.23）

Abstract

This week, the overall market capitalization for the top 100 cryptocurrencies decreased of 3.46%, with 52 projects decreased in value to varying degrees. According to coinmarketcap, as of August 23, 2020, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies was 363.5 billion U.S. dollars, decreased of 3.46%, and the total market cap of the top 100 cryptocurrencies was 356.0 billion U.S. dollars, decreased by 3.41% from last week. 7 cryptocurrency projects entered the top 100 this week, namely BTM、SOLO、HUSD、HMR、KSM、BAL and NXM. As of August 23, 2020, Bitcoin was traded at 11,664.85USD, 1.88% lower than its price last week. Ethereum was traded at 391.38USD, 9.70% lower than its price last week.

The hashrate of Bitcoin decreased but Ethereum increased by this week. This week, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin not changed and the difficulty of mining Ethereum increased. The average number of transactions per block increased and the average block size of Bitcoin increased. The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Ethereum decreased this week.The average transaction fees of Bitcoin increased but Ethereum decreased. LSK was the most active project on GitHub this week.

The average bitcoin Hashrate for the entire network reached 121.8 EH/s, decreased by 4.32% from the previous week.Average Hashrate for the entire Ethereum network was 208.53TH/s this week, increased by 0.57%. Average difficulty for mining Bitcoin this week was 16.94T, as same as last week. The average difficulty of mining Ethereum this week was 2629.83TH, increased by 0.87% from that of previous week.

In network activity, the average size of each block was 1.32MB, increased by 7.32% from last week; there were on average 2292 transactions recorded in each block, increased by 13.97% from the previous week. The average number of transactions per block in Ethereum this week was 183.1, decreased by 2.35%. The average size of each block was 40782.28 bytes, decreased by 4.19% compared to last week. Average transaction fees of Bitcoin this week was $3.47, increased by 35.71% from last week. Average transaction fees of Ethereum this week was $2.822, decresead by 21.28%. The total number of Bitcoin addresses was 52886211 increased by 259200 (0.49%). Lisk was the most active project on GitHub this week, with 73 commits submitted in the past week.

In terms of community activity, Tron, Bitcoin and Ethereum are the most popular communities on Facebook. On Twitter, the most popular communities are Bitcoin, Ripple and Tron.

2 investments activities took place in the blockchain industry this week, Zhong Chi blockchain got 10 million yuan in Angel round investment from Guo Xiong capital, ZWS got strategic investment from IOST Foundation.

1. Weekly Market Review

1.1 Market overview

This week, the overall market capitalization for the top 100 cryptocurrencies decreased of 3.46%, with 52 projects decreased in value to varying degrees. According to coinmarketcap, as of August 23, 2020, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies was 363.5 billion U.S. dollars, decreased of 3.46%, and the total market cap of the top 100 cryptocurrencies was 356.0 billion U.S. dollars, decreased by 3.41% from last week, among which, OMG had the largest increased of 129.61%, bringing its market cap ranking from №44 to №24, LUNA had the largest decreased of -19.88%, bringing its market cap ranking from №68 to №80. In addition, there were 7 projects that entered TOP100, namely, HUSD (HUSD, increased 3.06%, Now №98), HMR (Homeros, increased 7.16%, Now №99), SOLO (Sologenic, increased 8.98%, Now №96), BTM (Bytom, increased 14.60%, Now №89), BAL (Balancer, increased 21.67%, Now №87), KSM (Kusama, increased 36.27%, Now №92), NXM (NXM, increased 80.50%, Now №74). As of August 23, 2020, Bitcoin was traded at 11,664.85USD, 1.88% lower than its price last week. Ethereum was traded at 391.38USD, 9.70% lower than its price last week.

The overall 24h trading volume decreased this week. Overall, the 24h trading volume decreased by 21.05% compared with the same period of last week. In this week, 36 of the top 100 projects increased in 24h trading volume, led by ATOM with a weekly increase of 343.00%; there were 63 projects decreased in their 24h trading volume, there were 46 projects that saw over 20% decrease in their 24h trading volume, while 9 projects fell by more than 50%, led by RVN, with a decreased of -75.39%.

The top 10 cryptocurrencies’ market value increased, the market share distribution remained stable. On August 23, 2020, the overall market cap of the top 10 cryptocurrencies was 306.8 billion USD, decreased by 4.00% from last week, accounting for 84.42% of the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies, decreased by 0.48% from last week. The market value proportion of TOP10 project basically stable. BTC’s dominance was 59.27%, increased by 0.95% from last week.

1.2 Segment Analysis

Among TOP 100 cryptocurrency project segments, the total market cap of Platform Project got the largest decrease. The average market cap of Asset-backed Project got the largest decrease. As of August 23, 2020, the total market cap of coin projects reached 245.6 billion USD, decreased by 2.25%. The average market cap of coin projects reached 6.29 billion USD, increased by 0.26%. The total market cap of platform projects reached 63.4 billion USD, decreased by 7.63%. The average market cap of platform projects reached 1.92 billion USD, decreased by 10.43%. The total market cap of application class projects reached 36.4 billion USD, decreased by 5.04%. The average market cap of application class projects reached 1.45 billion USD, decreased by 1.25%. The total market cap of asset-backed token projects reached 10.5 billion USD, increased by 2.28%. The average market cap of asset-backed token projects reached 3.51 billion USD, decreased by 31.82%.

The market segment distribution of the top 100 cryptocurrencies remained stable. As of August 23, 2020 among the top 100 projects, the number of coin class projects decrease 1, application class projects decrease but platform class projects increase 1, asset-backed token class increase 1. The largest overall market cap by segment was still coin projects, accounting for 68.98% of the total market cap of top 100 projects.

Note: According to the different attributes of cryptocurrencies, Huobi Academy of Blockchain Application will divide them into four categories: Coin, Application Class, Platform Class and Asset-backed Token.

Coin Project: Refers to a type of asset developed based on blockchain technology that does not correspond to a specific use scenario and whose main function is only the transaction target. Its asset value is mainly reflected by liquidity.

Platform Class Project: A type of asset that is associated with the development of the underlying technology of the blockchain and is supported by the right to use or participate in the platform.

Application Class Project: Refers to a type of asset that is associated with a specific application scenario and is supported by a certain right of use, participation, or dividend.

Asset-backed Project: Refers to a class of assets that is linked to actual assets such as gold and US dollars and supported by the value of physical assets.

2. Technical Statistics

2.1 Cryptocurrency Mining Statistics

The hashrate of Bitcoin decreased but Ethereum increased by this week. From August 17, 2020- August 23 , 2020 ,the average bitcoin Hashrate for the entire network reached 121.8 EH/s, decreased by 4.32% from the previous week.

Average Hashrate for the entire Ethereum network was 208.53TH/s this week, increased by 0.57%.

This week, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin remain the same and Ethereum increased. As of August 23, 2020, average difficulty for mining Bitcoin this week was 16.94T, as same as last week. The average difficulty of mining Ethereum this week was 2629.83TH, increased by 0.87% from that of previous week.

The number of blocks in Bitcoin decreased by 8.50%,Top 5 rankings had changed. The overall distribution of the Ethereum mining pools rankings had changed, the number of blocks increased 0.28%. In the past week, Bitcoin mined 990 blocks, decreased by 8.50% from the previous week. Among the top five pools were F2Pool、 Poolin、 BTC.com、AntPool、Huobi.pool, these 5 pools mined 160、122、116、95 and 95 blocks respectively, accounting for 16.16%、12.32%、11.72 %、9.60% and 9.60% of all Bitcoins mined this week. The Hashrate was 19.08EH/s、14.55EH/s、13.83EH/s、11.33EH/s and 11.33EH/s, respectively.

In the past week, Ethereum’s entire network mined 48399 blocks, increased 0.28% from the previous week. The top five pools were SparkPool, Ethermine, Zhizhu.top ,F2pool, and Nanopool, each mined 12343、10593、3997、3985 and 2825 blocks respectively, accounting for 25.5026%、21.8868%、8.2584%、8.2336% and 5.8369% of all Ethereum mined this week, respectively.

2.2 Activity Statistics

The average number of transactions per block increased and the average block size of Bitcoin increased. The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Ethereum decreased this week. According to blockchain.info, from August 17, 2020- August 23, 2020, the average size of each block was 1.32MB, increased by 7.32% from last week; there were on average 2292 transactions recorded in each block, increased by 13.97% from the previous week.

According to etherscan, the average number of transactions per block in Ethereum this week was 183.1, decreased by 2.35%. The average size of each block was 40782.28 bytes, decreased by 4.19% compared to last week.

Number of unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin increased by 209.14%. Number of unconfirmed transactions in Ethereum increased by 1.09% from the previous week. As of August 23, 2020, the number of 7-day average unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin network was 4906, increased by 209.14% from last week. There were 159268.26 unconfirmed transactions in the Ethereum network, increased by 1.09% from last week, with the lowest amount of unconfirmed transactions in the week being 134360 and the highest amount being 218570.

Total transaction fees of Bitcoin increased but Ethereum decreased. As of August 23, 2020, average transaction fees of Bitcoin this week was $3.47, increased by 35.71% from last week. Average transaction fees of Ethereum this week was $2.822, decresead by 21.28%.

The average number of distinct miners per day in Ethereum decreased by 2.19% from last week. From August 17, 2020- August 23, 2020, the average number of distinct miners per day in Ethereum this week was 53.5, decreased by 2.19% from last week.

The number of nodes in Bitcoin decreased ,The number of nodes in Ethereum decreased this week. As of August 23, 2020, there were 10402 Bitcoin nodes, decreased by 0.36% compared to last week, of which 1890 nodes were in the U.S, 1749 nodes were Germany, and 166 nodes were in China(№10), each accounting for 18.17%, 16.81% and 1.60% of the total number of Bitcoin nodes, respectively.

As of August 23, 2020, there were 8600 Ethereum nodes, decreased by 5.89% from the previous week. Specifically, there were 2326 nodes in the U.S, 1167 nodes in China, and 878 nodes in Germany, each accounting for 27.05%, 13.57%, 10.21% of total number of nodes, respectively.

This week, the growth rate for new addresses of Bitcoin increased. According to the data on blockchain, as of August 23, 2020, the total number of Bitcoin addresses was 52886211 increased by 259200 (0.49%).

LSK was the most active project on GitHub this week. From August 17, 2020 — August 23, 2020, Lisk was the active project repository on GitHub with a total of 73 commits.

2.3 Community Activity Statistics

The top three most popular cryptocurrencies on Facebook were Tron, Bitcoin and Ethereum in descending order, with 956k, 619k and 177k fans respectively. The top three most popular cryptocurrencies on Twitter were Bitcoin, Ripple(XRP) and TRON, with 1.1million , 961.6k, and 520k followers, respectively.

3. Weekly Blockchain News Review

3.1 Industrial Application

1. Farmers Could Soon Be Hedging Their Risks With Decentralized Weather Data

Arbol, a platform that allows farmers to hedge weather risks, is integrating Chainlink data oracles.Arbol’s CEO, Siddhartha Jha, told Cointelegraph that the company uses blockchain technology to solve a problem that affects billions of people around the world:“It’s crazy that so much of the world’s livelihood, it’s about two to three billion people, they estimate, is affected by weather day to day.”Farmers are likely the hardest hit by weather unpredictability. For many, severe weather conditions can lead to the loss of their livelihood, or even starvation. Jha claims that Arbol both lowers the entry barrier and makes hedging less expensive. With blockchain, settlements and payouts can be instant, whereas in the centralized world, participants may have to wait weeks, if not months. Farmers can hedge against various adverse weather conditions having a negative impact on their crops. They can buy a hedge — for example, if a temperature in their region reaches a critical level, which will trigger an automatic payout. By adding Chainlink’s oracalized weather data feeds, the company’s platform has become more decentralized and resilient.

2. Major Turkish Terminals Join IBM and Maersk’s Blockchain Shipping Platform

TradeLens — the blockchain shipping platform created by IBM and Danish logistics giant Maersk — has signed on a major Turkish-owned international terminals operator.TradeLens is a global supply chain management platform designed for containerized freight and logistics, which was first launched by IBM and Maersk back in April 2018. It works by providing standards-based open APIs that allow supply chain data to be immutably and securely tracked and shared using a permissioned blockchain. Now that integration is complete, the terminals operator will be able to access data flows to help with the more efficient management of assets and containerized cargo.Six main messages will reportedly be operational in the API-supported data exchanges between Yilport and the platform: “gate in, gate out, vessel load, vessel discharge, actual load date list and actual discharge date list.”Via TradeLens, this container shipping-related data is accessible on the permissioned blockchain for a range of different stakeholders across the supply chain, such as shippers, agencies, port operators, customs authorities or financial service providers.

3. Korean Tourist Hotspot Mandates Use of COVID-19 Blockchain App

Jeju Island, a southern island in South Korea, is one of the most popular tourist destinations for Koreans and has about 15 million visitors annually.It now requires those visitors to use a decentralized identity (DID) blockchain technology based app that claims to offer private, secure COVID-19 contact tracing. An August 19 announcement said that Jeju Province had reached an agreement with South Korean blockchain company ICONLOOP to introduce the system.Starting this week, visitors will be required to download the Zzeung mobile app when arriving on the Island and verify their identity using a Korean telecom service. A verifiable credential at the backend will be issued via a public blockchain network to guarantee that there is no forgery or tampering of any information.Zzeung was designated as an innovative financial service (“MyID”) by Korea’s Financial Services Commission in recognition of its convenience and security. Jeju is sometimes known as ‘Bit Island’ due to its embrace of technology, particularly blockchain. Visitors will need to set up fingerprint authentication or a PIN code which will be stored in a private blockchain network. Each visitor’s personal identifying information, and records of where they visit, are separated to ensure personal privacy. The data is kept private unless a COVID-19 case is discovered.

3.2 International Policies

1. Russia Pilots Federal Voting on Waves Blockchain

Russia is set to pilot a national blockchain-based e-voting system in September. The new system was developed in partnership between Rostelecom, Russia’s largest integrated provider, and Waves Enterprise.Another recent blockchain e-voting experiment in Russia ended in fiasco after the system suffered a number of setbacks and attacks. The Russian government used a different blockchain provider of digital services and solutions, Bitfury, for that particular implementation however. Artem Kalikhov, chief product officer of Waves Enterprise, said that their work with Rostelecom was independent of that previous pilot. Kalikhov said that the system developed by Waves employes zero-knowledge proofs and many other advanced cryptographic primitives. He also is prideful of the implementation for not relying on a single point-of-failure.The team is securing the platform using five main encryption keys:“They generate encryption keys, these keys are being generated in a decentralized fashion by blockchain nodes that run cryptographic services. The public keys get published on the blockchain.”

2. Standard Chartered Conducts First Blockchain Trade in Bangladesh

Standard Chartered PLC, a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England, has successfully leveraged blockchain technology to conduct Bangladesh’s first blockchain trade transaction, according to Newage on August 16. The Standard Chartered bank issued a Letter of Credit (LC) for the trade between garment exporter Viyellatex Ltd and Viyellatex Spinning on the Contour blockchain network. LC is a letter from a bank guaranteeing that a buyer’s payment to a seller will be received on time and for the correct amount. The entire transaction was reportedly paperless and completed digitally through Contour’s network. Contour’s blockchain network builds on R3’s Corda blockchain and enables all participants to leverage the network to create and renew trade data in real-time for global distributed digital trading. It added that:“Contour improves data transparency, removes administration costs and reduces friction in global trade: all of this leading to an overall increase in efficiency and reduction in costs for all parties.”

3. Bank of England Joins Key Roundtable on Central Bank Digital Currency Design

The Bank of England will take part in a key meeting tomorrow to discuss central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and their possible infrastructural designs. Hosted by global central banking think tank, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), on Aug. 19, the roundtable will involve the BoE’s senior fintech specialist, Simon Scorer, alongside delegates from the Swiss National Bank, ING Nederland and the Hungarian National Bank (Magyar Nemzeti Bank). The CEO of enterprise-focused blockchain platform Cypherium, Sky Guo, will also join the discussion.A key focus of the meeting will be to tackle the ways in which blockchain technology can benefit various models for CBDCs. This includes the use of smart contracts — e.g., as with designs for “programmable money” — and models for interoperable blockchain networks both within and beyond national borders. Guo said that as long as CBDCs remain in their early phases of conception, “now is the time to debate the advantages and disadvantages of infrastructural ideas, especially related to how these instruments will interact and operate with each other.” Each central bank delegate — the BoE’s Simon Scorer, Magyar Nemzeti Bank’s chief digital officer Anko Szombati, ING’s blockchain team IT specialist Cees Van Wijk, and Swiss National Bank governing board member Thomas Moser — will present their institution’s findings from internal CBDC research.

4.Weekly Investment Activities

2 investments activities took place in the blockchain industry this week, Zhong Chi blockchain got 10 million yuan in Angel round investment from Guo Xiong capital, ZWS got strategic investment from IOST Foundation.

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