According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is679,984.25 GH/s，mining difficulty is9,165.47T. ETH's price ：$ 2,952.21 Avg Gas Price：178.00Gwei Pending Txs ：126381

Institutional investors were buying the dip on the back of China’s latest FUD, with digital asset investment products generating $95 million worth of inflows last week. According to CoinShares’ Sept. 27 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, a surge in dip buying helped drive a sixth consecutive week of inflows for institutional crypto investment products broadly. The $95 million worth of inflows between Sept. 20 and Sept. 24 marks a 126% weekly inflows increase. BTC and Ether investment products led the pack with $50.2 million and $28.9 million worth of inflows respectively.

Rob Kaplan, the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas will step down from his position after more than six years. In a Sept. 27 announcement, the Dallas Fed said Kaplan, its 13th president and CEO, would be retiring beginning Oct. 8. The 64-year-old cited recent attention to his “financial disclosure risks” in his decision to step down, likely referring to news outlets reporting that he had traded stocks in companies including Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Tesla in 2020 while casting his vote on U.S. monetary policy. The Dallas Fed president has denied any allegations of impropriety, saying he “adhered to all Federal Reserve ethical standards and policies.” He added his “securities investing activities and disclosures met Bank compliance rules and standards.”

In the wake of yet another iteration of China’s enduring crackdown on cryptocurrency, a particularly influential narrative on Crypto Twitter suggests that by banning Bitcoin (BTC), China has definitively put itself on the dark side of the struggle, while the collective West must now resolutely throw its weight on the opposite side by embracing crypto. Granted, this framework for thinking about the relationship between political power and decentralized finance is appealing for crypto allies. Yet the news coming out of the United States gives few reasons to believe that policymakers there see the situation this way. It appears that U.S. elites are bent on preserving the incumbent financial order and restricting the growth of the digital asset space, if with a less heavy-handed toolset than their Chinese counterparts. This middle-of-the-road approach is more likely to land the U.S. somewhere in the center of the dark/light continuum spanning from China to the still-unattainable ideal of a society that had embraced a fully disintermediated financial system.

Ethereum (ETH) developer Virgil Griffith has pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he conspired with North Korea to violate United States sanctions law.  On Monday, Griffith pleaded guilty in New York to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which forbids U.S. citizens from exporting technology and intellectual property to communist countries. As part of the plea deal, Griffith could face up to six-and-a-half years in prison. Formal sentencing is expected to commence in January 2022. Virgil, who served as senior researcher for the Ethereum Foundation, was arrested in November 2019 after attending a conference in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang earlier in the year. Prosecutors allege that the developer gave a presentation on how to launder money and evade sanctions using blockchain technology.

Major U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley has more than doubled its shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust since April. According to a report from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, filed Sept. 27, the Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund, which invests in established and emerging companies throughout Europe, owned 58,116 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, or GBTC, as of July 31. At the time of publication, the price of GBTC is $34.28, making the investment bank’s exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) roughly $2 million — Morgan Stanley reported thatthe shares cost $2.4 million. Previous filings show that Morgan Stanley has increased its shares of GBTC by more than 105% since April. Cointelegraph reported in June that the investment bank held 28,298 GBTC, worth roughly $1.3 million at the time. 

Amid the ongoing legal battle between Ripple and United States’ securities regulators, a former U.S. Treasurer and Ripple board member has voiced support for XRP. Former Treasurer Rosa Rios, who joined Ripple’s board of directors in May 2021, took to Twitter on Sunday to reiterate her confidence in XRP while criticizing other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC). Rios argued that jurisdictions like China are now cracking down on Bitcoin, as cryptocurrencies like BTC allegedly provide nothing more than a tool for speculation. Tagging Bitcoin, Ripple and its payment ecosystem, RippleNet, the former U.S. official wrote:

In an online interview with Times of India, Jamie Dimon, CEO of investment banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase, slandered Bitcoin’s popular appeal, despite stating that the leading digital asset could increase 10x in a matter of five years.  A historically staunch critic of Bitcoin (BTC), Dimon called it a fraud back in 2017 and cited the reported capability for criminals to evade capture from authorities by operating their financial transactions in BTC rather than U.S. dollars. When Times of India asked the CEO whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency assets should be banned or regulated, Dimon responded:

Google, the leading indicator used to track the popularity of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies, celebrated its 23rd anniversary on Monday. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when both were students at Stanford University, the search engine has spent the majority of its 23 years of existence being one of the primary entry points to the internet. Following the inception of cryptocurrencies, Google has been the primary method to search for new coins, track market trends and learn how to buy crypto.

Coinbase will soon allow United States businesses to deposit employees’ paychecks directly into accounts at the cryptocurrency exchange. In a Monday blog post, Coinbase senior director of product Prakash Hariramani said the exchange would be offering direct deposits for workers who want to use their paychecks to purchase crypto with no transaction fees. Users can set up direct deposits through a supported payroll company on the Coinbase app, or through a company’s human resources department. Hariramani said users will have the option to deposit “as much or as little” of their paychecks as they want in the feature rolling out in the next few weeks. Coinbase cited “time-consuming and inconvenient” frequent transfers as part of the reason for the service, saying direct deposits would allow users a more efficient and faster way to earn crypto rewards.

Sparkpool, the second-largest Ethereum mining pool in the world, is suspending operations due to the ongoing Chinese crackdown on crypto. The mining pool officially announced that it has suspended access to new users in mainland China on Monday in response to Chinese authorities initiating new measures to combat crypto adoption in the country. Following the initial restrictions made last Friday, Sparkpool will continue shutting down services, and plans to suspend existing mining pool users both in China and abroad on Thursday.

The node count for Bitcoin’s leading layer-two solution, the Lightning Network (LN), has spiked to record levels following a surge of adoption. According to on-chain analytics provider Glassnode’s Sept. 27 Week on-Chain report, the number of Lightning Network nodes increased by 160% during September to tag a record high of 15,600. At the end of August, just 6,000 LN nodes were live. The number of channels, or connections between different nodes, on the LN has also hit a peak of 73,000 representing an average of 4.6 channels per node, the report added. Bitcoinvisuals is currently reporting an average of 9.3 channels per node as of Sept. 26.

Facebook has announced it will allocate $50 million to a two-year fund tasked with beginning work on realizing the firm’s vision for a virtual metaverse. A Sept. 27 announcement articulates Facebook’s roadmap for building its metaverse, with the funding slated to back “global research and program partners” looking to build out the platform in addition to internal research. The metaverse won’t be built overnight by a single company. We’ll collaborate with policymakers, experts and industry partners to bring this to life,” emphasized the announcement.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has delivered a report to Congress containing recommendations from small businesses seeking regulatory clarification on the role of digital assets.  In a Monday announcement, the SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation reported on recommendations from the commission’s 40th Annual Small Business Forum held in May. Participants at the forum — including all five SEC Commissioners, 14 members of SEC staff, 12 small business advocates, 11 guest speakers, and 610 other participants from the U.S. public — recommended that the U.S. Congress “clarify the status of digital assets to make clear when it is a security.” The recommendation from the Small Business Forum included no additional details regarding the reason the group sought changes to the regulatory framework concerning digital assets. However, the SEC clarified in its response that the current standard in determining whether cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) qualify as "investment contracts" and thus securities is to use the Howey Test. In addition, the Commission cited a 2019 framework published by the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology, or FinHub, “analyzing whether a digital asset is an investment contract and whether offers and sales of a digital asset are securities transactions.”

Crypto exchange Bitfinex completed a highly consequential transaction on Sept. 27 when sending $100,000 of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) to the layer-2 subsidiary platform DeversiFi. For reasons unknown, the exchange paid 7,676 ETH, equivalent to $23.7 million, marking quite possibly the largest gas fee ever recorded on the Ethereum blockchain.  According to blockchain data from EtherScan, the deposit transaction was initiated at 11:10 UTC this morning from Bitfinex’s second-largest wallet, via a second address, to the wallet of DeversiFi. The transaction carried an “erroneously high gas fee”, even though DeversiFi promotes a service to “avoid gas costs and frustration, saving you time and money with every trade or swap.” To put the enormity of this fee into context, consider the fact that the average transaction fee on the Ethereum blockchain currently stands at 0.013 ETH, or $39.96. In addition to this, two weeks ago, $2 billion of BTC was transferred between unknown wallets for an infinitesimal fee of $0.78.

African cryptocurrency exchange Yellow Card has concluded a $15 million Series A financing round led by some of blockchain’s biggest venture funds, underscoring the growth potential of digital assets on the continent.  The fundraiser, which was described as the largest ever by any African cryptocurrency exchange, will enable Yellow Card to scale its operations across Africa and onboard new talent, the company announced Monday. The Series A came roughly one year after Yellow Card successfully raised $1.5 million from various investors. The investment round was led by Valar Ventures, Third Price and Castle Island Ventures with additional participation from Square, Inc., Blockchain.com Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, BlockFi, MoonPay and others.

Immutable X, the scaling solution for layer-2 NFT protocol Immutable, has penned an agreement with Together Labs to integrate into the platform's native social metaverse IMVU. The partnership will foster the creation and distribution of NFTs within the game's virtual ecosystem. IMVU, pronounced "imm-view," is a blockchain simulation game akin to The Sims or Second Life in which players can design, inhabit and interact with virtual worlds. Parented by Silicon valley-based firm Together Labs — a technological architecture working on the social media experience with the implementation of the crypto and all its ecosystem facets — IMVU has 200,000 active creators and 1 million daily active players.

A former lead developer for the Bitcoin network has postulated a possible future for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency which includes an epic price prediction. Software developer Gavin Andresen published a recent blog post called “A Possible BTC Future” in which he predicts the demise of the Bitcoin network. Before BTC meets its end, it will reach a price of $6 million per coin in 2061, Andresen predicts. Before you get too excited, he added that $1 million dollars today will be worth $6 million in the next forty years, due to massive inflation.

Dan Berkovitz, one of three commissioners currently serving at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will be joining the Securities and Exchange Commission as general counsel following his departure in October. In a Tuesday announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said Berkovitz would assume the role of general counsel starting on Nov. 1, two weeks after stepping down as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, where he has served since 2018. Berkovitz said he will be working with SEC chair Gary Gensler on a “regulatory agenda that will enhance investor protection.” Though his term at the CFTC was originally set to end in 2023, Berkovitz announced in September that he was planning to leave on Oct. 15. His departure follows U.S. President Joe Biden tapping Kristin Johnson and Christy Goldsmith Romero to fill the CFTC seats left by former chair Heath Tarbert and Brian Quintenz. The White House has not yet named a possible replacement for Berkovitz.

Institutional investors are increasingly looking to move into cryptocurrency investment to grow their revenues in the long term, a new survey revealed. As many as 62% of global institutional investors with zero exposure to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) said they expect to make their first investments in cryptocurrencies within the next year, according to a new survey by European investment manager Nickel Digital Asset Management. Released Tuesday, the survey interviewed 50 wealth managers and 50 institutional investors across the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates. Nickel conducted the survey online in May and June 2021.