“Bitcoin” search on Google and Baidu spiked to an all time high of the year. View in browser

"The US dollar has fallen to 1/5000th of a Bitcoin"  ~ Erik Voorhees
Market State

The entire crypto market is up by 25% reaching $180.6 billion since last week. Bitcoin saw the price of $5200 during the week. Ether gained 25% over the week, currently trading around $177. There are several theories why the prices surged suddenly. During the price surge there were some big Bitcoin orders with over a thousand Bitcoin each. A Chicago based cryptocurrency over-the-counter desk reported that they had over 10 separate transactions went through them with more than 1000 Bitcoins within an hour. Another theory that might have triggered the price movement is the looming Bitcoin halving event that will take place in the summer of 2020. Overall, people are getting more interested in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. “Bitcoin” search on Google and Chinese google, Baidu spiked to an all time high of the year during the Bitcoin price surged last week.

Check the latest Bitcoin Price
Quiz of the week

What is the cryptographic hash algorithm used by Bitcoin?

  1. CryptoNight
  2. Equihash
  3. SHA-256

Scroll down to see the answer at the end of the newsletter.
Top stories of the week
EU Forms Blockchain Group With Over 100 Firms

European Union has launched a new Blockchain group called the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) to promote adoption of blockchain across the EU. INATBA’s mission is to facilitate regulatory frameworks and business reforms that are needed to help unlock the full potential of blockchain technology. More than 100 large organizations have announced their commitment to the new Blockchain group including notable members such as SWIFT, IBM, Ripple, ConsenSys, IOTA, L’Oreal and Barclays. By signing the charter, the members agreed to cooperate together to support the development and adoption of interoperability guidelines and standards, to promote public and private sector collaboration and to ensure the system’s integrity and transparency.
True GBP, Tokenized British Pound Stablecoin

TrustToken, aAn audited stablecoin issuer funded by Andreessen Horowitz, is launching its second ERC-20 stablecoin called TrueGBP (TGBP) which will be pegged to the British pound. In March, 2018 TrustToken launched its first stablecoin TrueUSD, which is also an ERC-20 stablecoin that is pegged to the US dollar. The company recently partnered up with crypto-lending platform Cred to offer up to 8% annual interest on stablecoin holdings. Stablecoins are becoming popular in the crypto space. This month another new stablecoin called Universal Euro, will be launched by a crypto exchange Bittrex, along with five other blockchain firms, which can be staked for 8% interest. (You can learn about staking in our “Crypto word of the week” section.)
Canadian Dollar Pegged Stablecoin Launched

Coinsquare, Canada’s top crypto exchange, is launching the first Canadian dollar backed stablecoin, named eCAD. Coinsquare’s eCAD will be used as cross-border payments, remittances, peer-to-peer lending, merchant adoption, trade settlements, and as a foreign exchange conversion tool. The stablecoin will provide the stability of the Canadian dollar with the benefits of a digital currency. According to Coinsquare, every one eCAD created, one Canadian dollar will be held in reserve, however the exchange failed to disclose the method. The exchange also invited anyone interested in partnering to contact them. Last month Coinsquare acquired StellarX, a decentralized exchange built on Stellar Network.

The First Ripple Exchange Traded Product Goes Live

Swiss stock exchange SIX Group has partnered up with Amun AG, Swiss fintech startup and launched the first exchange traded product (ETP) that tracks XRP price on the Swiss Exchange. ETP is a security that follows the price of the underlying asset. Previously the partnership had already launched Bitcoin and Ether ETPs. This year they plan to introduce more single asset ETPs to the market. The XRP ETP is called Amun Ripple and listed under the AXRP ticker symbol. Amun is famous for its Amun Crypto Basket Index EPT that trades under the ticker symbol HODL and tracks 5 top cryptocurrencies. The ETPs have annual management fee of 2.5% and are backed by Amun AG firm.

The US SEC Released Its Framework for Digital Assets

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has published an official statement titled “Framework for ‘Investment Contract’ Analysis of Digital Assets” providing guidance on ICOs and analysis on whether or not a given digital asset is a security. The SEC also released a no action letter to a crypto token project TurnKey Jet Token (TKJ), a small aircraft carrier, which offered and sold tokens without registering. The SEC took no action because the platform for TKJ is already fully developed at time of sale, tokens are pegged at $1 and restricted to TurnKey Jet wallets only. Though the SEC framework recognizes cryptocurrencies as digital assets it still leaves some questions unanswered, leaving the door open to regulatory confusion in the future.
Dogecoin Surged 194% Within a Week

There have been several April Fool’s crypto jokes and fake stories last week, such as the SEC had approved Bitcoin ETFs, Kraken exchange introduced the launch of MacCoin, which is a stablecoin fully backed by Big Macs by McDonald’s, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency”. The official Dogecoin team continued the fun by asking users who should be the next CEO of Dogecoin. Musk won the election with 54% and temporarily changed his twitter profile to “CEO of Dogecoin”. Following the buzz of Dogecoin caused by Elon Musk, the price of Dogecoin quickly rose by 194% and became the 24th most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Tweet of the week
Meme of the week
Crypto word of the week

Staking is an alternative way of validating new blocks. After block validators create a new block they receive rewards and earn passive income. In order to validate a new block, cryptocurrency owners stake or deposit their holdings in a smart contract for a period of time to vote on the latest ledger state. The more stake you have, (the more coins you own) the more likely you will become the next block validator. Some cryptocurrencies require a minimum amount of stake. Ethereum is switching to Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism in the future and a minimum of 32 Ethers is necessary to become a block validator on Ethereum blockchain.
Quiz answer

What is the cryptographic hash algorithm used by Bitcoin?

The correct answer is “C”.

The SHA stands for Secure Hash Algorithm. It’s a cryptographic hash function. SHA-256 algorithm generates an almost-unique, fixed size 256-bit (32-byte) hash. Hash is a function that converts any given data into a fixed length set of numbers. It is a one-way function, which means that just by looking at the hash of a data, it is almost impossible to tell what the original data was. SHA-256 is used in Bitcoin mining and public address creation.

Thank you for reading :) 

Have a great day!

Cheers, 
MrCoin
💌 hello@mrcoin.eu
📞 +36 16 555 333
MrCoin

96 Kensington High Street, London, W8 4SG, UK

Privacy

No longer want to receive these emails?
Unsubscribe