Jed McCaleb’s XRP bag is almost gone, Ethereum’s difficulty bomb delayed, and FTX

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

After 8 years dumping billions of XRP, Jed McCaleb’s stack runs out in weeks

Ripple Labs co-founder and former chief technology officer Jed McCaleb is nearing the end of his eight-year-long XRP dumpathon. The former Ripple exec has been gradually shedding his stash of 9 billion XRP since his departure in 2014. As of June 30, McCaleb only had 81.53 million XRP worth $26.55 million remaining, much to the delight of die-hard Ripple supporters.

80,000 Bitcoin millionaires wiped out in the great crypto crash of 2022

The number of wallets holding over $1 million worth of Bitcoin has decreased by roughly 80,000, from 108,886 on Nov. 12 to a mere 26,284 as of June 30. That represents a 75% plunge within nine months. However, with the price of BTC crashing down to the $20,000 region and potentially lower, it may also give more people a chance to become whole coiners.

Ethereum fork a success as Sepolia testnet gears up to trial the Merge

On Thursday morning, the Gray Glacier hard fork designed to delay the difficulty bomb successfully went live on Ethereum. The hard fork will delay the difficulty bomb by roughly 100 days as developers work to get the final stages of the Merge completed. Over the next few days, the Sepolia testnet is also set to run through its Merge trial, making it the second of three public testnets to do so.

Bear market will last until crypto apps are actually useful: Mark Cuban

Billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks the current bear market won’t be over until there’s a stronger focus on applications that provide utility. Speaking on the Bankless podcast, he noted, “It lasts until there’s a catalyst and that catalyst is going to be an application, or we get so low people go ‘fuck it, I’ll buy some.’”

BlockFi announces deal with FTX US, including ‘option to acquire’ for $240M

Amid rumors that FTX US was planning to acquire beleaguered crypto lender BlockFi for as little as $25 million, BlockFi CEO Zac Prince revealed Friday that the actual deal was more costly. According to Prince, BlockFi signed agreements with the derivatives exchange for a $400-million revolving credit facility. As part of the deal, FTX US will have the ability to purchase BlockFi outright for up to $240 million. Still, that’s a drop in the bucket compared with BlockFi’s valuation this time last year, which was roughly $5 billion.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $19,433.55, Ether (ETH) at $1,058.95 and XRP at $0.31. The total market cap is at $867.7 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are TerraClassicUSD…