The market of Bitcoin might be optimistic and more than greedy. However, there are some factors in the crypto space that are shaking it off due to the crypto crackdown of China. Just recently, the Ethereum GasNow (the website of Sparkpool) has been closed. The move was taken after Sparkpool put closure on all activities thereof on September 30 following the new crypto ban implemented on the crypto transactions throughout China.
GasNow website inaccessible
The GasNow website’s previous URL no longer directs the consumers to the specific location, which contained figures regarding gas prices depending on different speed requirements. Even the consumers, at the time of press, who attempted to reach the website, were rather re-directed to a website related to Bitcoin, which asked for donations from the visitors. The closure has been previously announced by Sparkpool that referred to the regulatory requirements as the reasons behind the step.
According to the official Twitter account of the respective mining pool, it was located in China’s Zhejiang, having its foundation laid in 2016. Moreover, it has been reported by Sparkpool on its formal website that API service and manual withdrawals would be halted on October 15th. In addition to this, it also mentioned that the customers could have access to historical data through the respective website till October 30th.
A new management
It was until 30th September that the status of Sparkpool was that of the second-largest mining pool of Ethereum having just “Ethermine” above it. Nonetheless, after the crackdown, a slippage was seen in the hash rate of Sparkpool, which impacted it to a drastic level, as per Poolwatch. As a consequence, 27.4% of the overall network hash rate was controlled by Ethermine, whereas the previous rank of Sparkpool was taken over by “Hiveon” even then it controlled the hash rate just up to 10.2%. Notwithstanding Sparkpool’s loss, the ecosystem of Ethereum appears to be improving. The deposit contract of Ethereum 2.0 remains the highest account as per Etherscan’s Ether balance. The holdings of the contract contain across $31B (or more than 7,974,786 Ether at the time of press. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index has a hint for what is expected to happen next. During August this year, the United States, at the time of press, accounted for up to 7,974,786 Ether.
Ethereum metrics
The Etherscan’s Ethereum Gas Tracker pointed out that the normal gas fee, at the time of press, counted to about 55 gwei. In the meantime, the Fear and Greed Index of Ethereum signaled “greed” by recording a position of 73.