Huobi Korea Is Done With Huobi Global

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and it's time to pump those web3 muscles.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 👋 Huobi Korea To Split From Parent Company
• 🌡Shanghai Announcement Warms Up The Market
• 😎Cool Fact Tuesday
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

HUOBI KOREA WANTS TO SPLIT FROM PARENT COMPANY

It's being reported that the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Korea plans to buy back shares from its parent firm, which goes under the name of Huobi Global.

And then... Change its name. They're done with Huobi Global.

Huobi Global was experiencing problems recently.

They cut their staff by 20%, and other rumors of difficulties at the exchange have been circulating for weeks.

 So the Korean division decided that if the ship is sinking, they're not going down with it.

Huobi Global was once a partner, and an ambassador of Busan's ambitious goal of becoming a "blockchain city". However, they were dropped from the list last year, along with four other partners.

Despite these setbacks, Huobi Korea was still considered to be one of the top exchanges in the country when it was certified in 2021.

The decision to break ties with the parent company was prompted by the publication of a reserve proof report, which revealed that Huobi Global has over $3 billion in reserves, with 43.3% of it being the exchange's own tokens, HT.

The Korean cryptocurrency exchange is currently 72% owned by Huobi Global's co-founder, Leon Lee.

However, it looks like this is about to change as Lee is set to sell his stake to Cho Kook-bong, the Huobi Korea chairman.

All in all, it seems that Huobi Korea is ready to distance itself from its struggling parent company and make a fresh start.

TL;DR: Amidst Huobi Global's troubles, Huobi Korea wants to split from the parent company, change its name and stand back firmly on its feet.

SHANGHAI ANNOUNCEMENT WARMS UP THE MARKET

Last week, Ethereum developers announced a test launch date for the next major update called Shanghai. It's coming as soon as the end of February.

This update will level up the entire network's performance by introducing a new feature - sharding.

Sharding is designed to improve the blockchain's scalability by dividing the entire network into smaller pieces - shards. This will make transactions faster.

News of the major network's imminent release ramped up the market's energy, causing the exchange rate of individual tokens of the liquid-stacking platforms to rise substantially.

For example, LDO (Lido DAO) has gained 4.1% in the last 24 hours. But LIDO Finance is not the only player in the field of liquid staking.

The situation with other similar services, such as StakeWise, Frax and Rocket Pool, is similar. The latter, however, could see significant growth in the nearest future.

Unlike Lido, Rocket Pool is more decentralised, which makes it attractive to a mass audience.

BTW. What's a liquid-staking platform, and why is it important to talk about them?

These services allow you to get a certain asset in exchange for locked ETH.

This sets them apart from conventional staking platforms. The received token can be used to generate revenue in other DeFi protocols.

General availability, capital immobility and illiquidity are the three main drawbacks of staking platforms.

But liquid-stacking services allow these "disadvantages" to be mitigated.

And as for why their tokens are rising, it's simple. The Shanghai upgrade is expected to unleash a significant amount of ETH.

Moreover, there are there other promising protocols with game-changing models to compete with such established competitors as Lido Finance.

Therefore, an arbitrage will occur when Beacon (the main Ethereum chain) gets unlocked and stakers will be able to choose between who can give the best staking yield.

Emmm... what's an arbitrage?

It's a way of making money from price differences in the same asset on different cryptocurrency markets.

In this case, stakers can choose between many liquid staking pools aiming to receive the best staking yield.

So, this will create an influx of new capital to such platforms, which is what causes rate hikes.

As a reminder, the release of the Shanghai mainnet is scheduled for March. And the testnet will be released as early as the end of February.

TL;DR: Ethereum devs announced the Shanghai update's testnet launch date. It's scheduled for the end of February. This caused the prices of liquid-staking platforms' tokens to rise significantly.

COOL FACT TUESDAY

It's Tuesday. Here's some cool stuff.

Just 2 days ago, a mysterious unknown wallet transferred 4 BTC to... Satoshi Nakamoto's genesis wallet.

In addition to the 50 BTC mined from the genesis block, the wallet has already accumulated over 72 BTC.

So... That's a cool way to become a millionaire. Just invent a world-changing, history-redirecting technology, and sit down while others send you bitcoins.

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• "Godfather" Crypto Malware Warning from German Regulator. A warning you can't refuse.
• Beware: Fake Pokémon NFT Game Spreading Malware. Gotta catch them all, except for this one.
• Mastercard and Polygon to Launch Mastercard Artist Accelerator Program. To infinity and beyond.