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Privacy on trial: Earlier this month, the trial of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev began in the Netherlands, and it will bring the legal boundary between software development and criminality into sharp relief. Pertsev faces charges of laundering over $1.2 billion through the crypto-mixing service, which will likely have major implications for global privacy-enhancing technology development. Experts worry a conviction could lead to a crackdown on blockchain privacy tools, chilling investment and innovation in the sector. The trial’s outcome may set a precedent, influencing the future of decentralized finance and the legal landscape for blockchain developers worldwide. As the crypto community watches closely, the final verdict could affirm the safe harbor for privacy tool developers or signal a more restrictive environment ahead.

Miners make bank: In March, Bitcoin mining operations achieved a record-breaking $2.01 billion from block rewards and transaction fees, marking the highest income in Bitcoin’s history and eclipsing the previous high of $1.74 billion in May 2021. This surge in earnings arrives as the cryptocurrency community anticipates the upcoming halving. Over the course of March, Bitcoin miners successfully extracted 4,412 blocks, with Foundry USA leading by mining 1,312 blocks, or nearly 30% of the total. The network’s hashrate held strong at 606 exahash per second, with the daily value of mining power, or hashprice, remaining above $100 throughout. With just 2,754 blocks until the fourth halving, the mining community watches eagerly to see how this milestone will further impact their earnings.

Learn about Bitcoin with language models: Aleksandar Svetski, the entrepreneur behind the Spirit of Satoshi AI chatbot, showcased its capabilities at Bitcoin Amsterdam, highlighting its proficiency in Bitcoin and economics. This Bitcoin-centric AI, developed by Svetski’s startup, is trained on reputable Bitcoin resources and principles from the Austrian school of economics, aiming to provide responses akin to those a Bitcoin enthusiast might offer. The development process involves both automated training and a human element, where the community contributes to refining the AI’s accuracy in exchange for satoshis, leveraging a unique “proof-of-knowledge” mechanism. Svetski envisions Spirit of Satoshi becoming a pivotal educational tool for those new to Bitcoin, aiming to correct mainstream misconceptions about topics like inflation and embody the spirit of Bitcoin’s foundational philosophy.

The Bitcoin halving has arrived: The famous “bitcoin halving,” in which the rewards doled out for the work of mining bitcoin blocks is cut in half, came a little after 8 p.m. Eastern time on Apr 19, 2024. This occurred as the 840,000 block was mined, and it means that the coinbase rewards have fallen from 6.25 bitcoin per block mined down to 3.125 bitcoin per block mined. This will doubtless have effects on how miners operate, and puts the question of how to pay them going into the future back in the center. This is one of the things that Core Chain has always been designed around, check out our YouTube channel for more information!