Academics from the Intellectual Property Centre Law School of Austral University in Argentina have proposed a system that uses smart contracts and NFTs to enforce ownership of unique plant varieties. The system would allow farmers to register their non-fungible plant varieties with an Ethereum smart contract system, minting an ERC-721 token for each seed collected, and then sell the NFTs via MetaMask. While some critics argue that democratizing access to these assets could undermine the system, others suggest that scarcity may only make sense for digital artifacts. The author, David, is an Editor based in The Netherlands who focuses on data-driven journalism and is passionate about permissionless and decentralized networks.

The recent Ethereum Community Conference in Paris has sparked discussions about the new Ethereum upgrade, ERC-4337, which enables account abstraction. This feature simplifies the use and ownership of wallets, allowing users to log in with their email, Google account, or phone number. The goal of this upgrade is to make the cryptocurrency experience more user-friendly and to abstract away the complexities of crypto wallets. The industry is currently in a race to create successful and seamless user experiences, with the next phase of innovation predicted to involve paying for gas with tokens.

Whale Alert has reported that wealthy crypto investors have transferred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. One high-net-worth trader moved 14,159 Bitcoin worth $421.7 million from an unknown wallet to another, while another transferred 1,881 Bitcoin worth $55.9 million to Coinbase. Other large transactions involved Ethereum and Solana, with one whale moving 27,366 ETH from Binance.US to an unknown wallet and another moving 2,000,000 SOL from Binance to an unknown wallet. There were also transfers of Shiba Inu and Chainlink.

Ethereum has entered an ascending price channel, which could indicate a bullish trend if it follows previous patterns. However, the recent breakdown from the $2,000 level may apply downward pressure on ETH. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is hovering around the neutral 50 mark, but maintaining its level above 50, implying a potential uptrend. Meanwhile, Shiba Inu (SHIB) is experiencing a rapid reduction in volatility, potentially leading to an increase in selling pressure. On the other hand, Pepe (PEPE) has touched its local low and is resting on a 50 Exponential Moving Average (EMA) line, suggesting a potential price boost.

The implementation of Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, The Merge, has led to a significant reduction in its annual carbon footprint, resulting in a decrease of over 99% in carbon footprints and more than 99.9% in annual electricity consumption. In contrast, Bitcoin's carbon footprint has increased significantly over the past three years, with annual emissions estimated to surpass the yearly greenhouse gas emissions of countries like New Zealand and Cambodia.

The price of Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, has experienced a slight decline in the past week due to increased selling pressure in the digital asset market. On-chain data suggests that this downward trend may continue in the future. According to IntoTheBlock, 、

Ethereum's price has been struggling to reach the $2,000 milestone and is currently being defended at the $1,900 level by bullish investors. A group of whales have been buying more ETH to counteract the selling pressure, with 150,000 ETH worth $288 million added to their balances between July 15 and 20. The rising user acquisition rate on the Ethereum network suggests that the community is building momentum for the next bull rally, with network growth surging 49% from July 5 to 20. These factors indicate that ETH is likely to hold the $1,800 support and potentially rebound above $2,000.

Ethereum, a major player in the DeFi space, experienced a significant decline in network revenue and daily active addresses during Q2 2023, according to a Bankless report. The network's revenue dropped by 33.3% YoY, from $1.27 billion to $847 million, due to a decrease in transaction fees.

The 'Opepen Edition' Ethereum NFT collection, which features Pepe meme-inspired graphics and was initially curated by artist Jack Butcher, has experienced a surge in value and popularity thanks to social media hype. Despite being initially distributed for free, the floor price of the collectibles has risen from 0.47 ETH to 0.90 ETH in just five days, with a current floor price of 0.81 ETH.

Despite facing significant fluctuations and high volatility in Q2 2023, Ethereum demonstrated resilience and attracted an influx of new users to its protocol. The platform displayed substantial growth in various aspects during this period, including an increase in market cap dominance.

Los Angeles-based NFT artist Ellie Pritts has opened her first solo exhibition in New York City at the Bitforms gallery. The exhibition features eight animations that are available to mint as NFTs on Ethereum, as well as physical prints.

An Ethereum ICO participant who had been inactive for over eight years has resurfaced and transferred 61,216 ETH, worth over $116 million, to crypto exchange Kraken. The participant had received the ETH for only 31 cents a coin at Ethereum's Genesis, worth around $18,980 at the time.

The global market cap has decreased by 0.4% to $1.2T, while the fear and greed index dropped to 55 from yesterday's neutral position of 57. Bitcoin is trading at $30.04K with a daily gain of 0.24% and a weekly decrease of 2.1%, and its volatility is decreasing as indicated by the Bollinger bands.

The transition of Ethereum's consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake was a difficult task, but was accomplished without downtime. Lido, the largest liquid staking protocol, has also undergone improvements, including the addition of a staking router mechanism.

At the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin praised the elegance of modern account abstraction, which does not require changes to the underlying protocol. Account abstraction involves switching from Externally Owned Wallets to smart contract-based wallets, potentially making managing a crypto wallet as easy as managing an email account.

In the past 24 hours, there has been an increase in activity from crypto whales, with large amounts of coins being sent to exchanges as the market shows signs of weakness. Whale Alert, a blockchain monitoring service, has reported several large transfers of Bitcoin and other digital assets from large entities to various crypto exchanges.

A recent survey conducted by CryptoVantage found that 78% of Americans who invest in cryptocurrency believe that Bitcoin will reach a new all-time high. 23% of respondents predicted this would happen within the next year, while 47% believe it will happen within the next five years.

According to The Block's data dashboard, the outstanding debt of Compound, a decentralized lending protocol on Ethereum, has exceeded $1 billion. This marks a significant shift in the crypto market, which was previously affected by a credit crisis in 2022, resulting in the bankruptcy of lenders such as BlockFi and Celsius.

Neon Labs has launched the "Neon EVM", which allows developers to write Ethereum applications on top of Solana. This smart contract built on top of Solana enables developers to deploy Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) code, which was previously not possible on the network.

PeckShield, a blockchain security firm, has confirmed that criminals stole $480 million through DeFi hacks in the first half of 2023. The three main types of DeFi attacks were logic bugs, oracle manipulation, and privilege exposure. Despite a 75% decrease in DeFi criminal activity compared to 2022, Ethereum remains the main target for hackers. Chainalysis has reported a decrease in the flow of illicit funds to suspicious addresses, but ransomware attacks and impersonation scams have increased.