April 30 (Cointime) -  According to data analytics platform Glassnode Alerts (@glassnodealerts), the number of Bitcoin addresses holding at least 0.01 BTC has reached a new all-time high (ATH) of 11,826,207.  

At 11:06 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on April 29, 2023, at block height 787,500, the number of blocks left to discover until the next Bitcoin blockchain halving is now fewer than 52,500 blocks. This means the network has progressed 75% through the 210,000-block halving cycle, which will ultimately result in a reduction of the block reward from 6.25 bitcoins per block to 3.125 bitcoins per block.

Legendary trader Peter Brandt expressed a bullish view on the prospects of Bitcoin price, considering the behavior in last 24 months. Earlier, the trader predicted that Bitcoin price was likely to reach the $40,000 range. Referring to the ups and downs in Bitcoin dominance pattern for the last two years, Brandt said he was optimistic of a huge rise in BTC price if a breakout from the current level is seen.

Earlier today, crypto analyst “Crypto Rand” highlighted a significant rise in Bitcoin Mining Difficulty – a surge of over 30% since January 13, 2023.

A 49-year-old resident of Kolkata, India, reportedly drowned in the Hooghly River. The primary autopsy found no evidence of violence, suggesting he committed suicide. 

According to Stacks CEO Muneeb Ali, Bitcoin requires “very little modification” at its base layer to enable true “ZK rollups” – a layer two scaling solution for batching transactions that is commonly used on Ethereum.  “They’re just two OP codes,” said Ali, “like either OP STARK verify, or OP SNARK verify – and that can be done.” Ali doesn’t expect the change to happen for roughly another four to five years, however, given the slow pace at which Bitcoin’s base layer tends to evolve. Even without those changes, Ali is confident that more development can take place on Bitcoin for it to catch up to more developer-friendly chains. His company Stacks – a self-described Bitcoin layer “1.5” – has developed a protocol called sBTC to bridge BTC from layer 1 to layer 2 chains in a relatively decentralized manner.

As of April 28, 2023, the number of Ordinal inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has exceeded 2 million, according to current statistics.

In recent years, cryptocurrencies have become increasingly popular as a means of exchanging value on the internet.