Bitcoin's Lightning Network has experienced impressive growth, with routed transactions increasing from 503,115 in August 2021 to 6,599,553 in August 2023, representing a 1,212% growth. The Lightning Network is a layer-2 scaling solution built on top of the Bitcoin network that allows people or companies to move money between one another without needing to use the blockchain to verify the transaction. <br>

According to data from The Block, Bitcoin's network transaction volume has sharply declined after reaching a historical high last month. From May to mid-September, the weekly average transaction volume of Bitcoin fluctuated between 400,000 and 500,000 transactions. On September 20th, it reached a peak of 600,000, setting a new historical high. However, by October 9th, the weekly average transaction volume of BTC had sharply dropped to around 283,000 transactions, the lowest level since the end of February. Analysts from The Block Research pointed out that there is a clear correlation between the Ordinals inscription and Bitcoin transactions, and the decline in Ordinals inscription activity may lead to a decrease in BTC transaction volume.

A trader who accurately predicted the bottom of the 2018 bear market for Bitcoin is warning that the cryptocurrency could repeat its 2020 price action and drop from $10,000 to $4,000 in a matter of weeks. The trader, known as Bluntz, believes that Bitcoin has already hit a cycle bottom at around $15,000, but could still drop to $19,000 before entering a full-blown bull market next year.

According to CoinGecko data on October 10th, Bitcoin's market share has risen to 48.50%, with a daily increase of 0.42%; Ethereum's market share is currently reported at 17.09%; USDT's market share is currently reported at 7.52%. The current total market value of cryptocurrencies on the entire network is about 11.128 trillion US dollars, with a daily decline of 1.5%.

Bitcoin has maintained its position as the world's largest cryptocurrency despite selling pressure in the market, with its share in the overall crypto market surpassing 50%. This has strengthened its reputation as a safe haven asset or a valuable diversification option for traditional market investments. Meanwhile, Ethereum has been underperforming, experiencing a 32% rise in value this year compared to Bitcoin's 66%. Concerns have arisen regarding Ethereum's growth and future prospects, with activity and transaction fees on the network decreasing and the coin's supply increasing.

Market observers predict that Bitcoin's current sideways price action could turn bullish as early as November if it follows similar patterns to previous cycles leading up to a halving event. Historically, November 21 has been a key pivot point for Bitcoin's price to begin trending upward as it heads towards the next halving.

On October 10th, it was reported that a Bitcoin whale address that had been dormant for over 6 years was activated. At 23:32:46 last night, all 2,995 BTC (approximately $82.27 million) in the address were transferred to two new addresses. The address originally received 3,200 BTC on May 7th, 2016, and then remained dormant after transferring out 204 BTC on September 3rd, 2017.

A Bitcoin developer named Robin Linus has proposed a new system called BitVM that enables Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts without altering Bitcoin's consensus rules. This system allows for more expressive off-chain smart contracts on Bitcoin without requiring a soft fork. BitVM's architecture is based on fraud proofs and a challenge-response model, and it enables the computation of a variety of interesting applications, such as games like Chess, Go, or Poker, and verification of validity proofs in Bitcoin contracts. However, the model is limited to a two-party setting with a prover and a verifier, and a significant amount of off-chain computation and communication is required to execute programs.

Charlie Munger, the 99-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, reportedly stated at Zoom's Zoomtopia conference that most digital assets, including Bitcoin, will eventually become worthless. Munger, a well-known skeptic of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, called investing in crypto "stupid" and claimed that "most of those investments are going to zero." He also expressed his belief that artificial intelligence is receiving more hype than it deserves, stating that "old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well." Munger's comments were made at Berkshire Hathaway's 2023 shareholder meeting.

The Associated Press reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a US presidential candidate who supports Bitcoin, announced that he will withdraw from the Democratic Party and run as an independent.