Bitcoin is one of the most tightly regulated currencies on the planet.

MrCoin

Weekly Crypto Recap

Bitcoin is one of the most tightly regulated currencies on the planet. Fortunately, Bitcoin is regulated by algorithms, which are pure; fiat currency is regulated by politicians, who are corruptible. I know which one I trust more. ~ Erik Finman, Bitcoin investor

Market State

BTC: €5,516.41 | -3.13% since last week

ETH: €381.68 | -6.86% since last week

BCH: €605.45 | -12.83% since last week

LTC: €65.3 | -13.23% since last week

During the past week the cryptocurrency market was in upward trend up until early Tuesday when prices started to drop. Bitcoin is down by 3.13% to €5,516.41 while Ether is down by 6.86% to €381.68 since last week. The overall market cap crept down to €220,73 billion losing 5% of its value over the last 24 hours. The sudden downtrend might be due to the Bancor hack incident. Bancor, Isreal based decentralized exchange has been hacked earlier Tuesday and €11 million worth of Ether was stolen. Since Bancor is a decentralized exchange, user funds are not affected as the users store their funds in their own private wallets. It’s the Bancor wallet’s smart contract that that had security flaw. The Bancor exchange is currently down due to investigation and the price of Bancor’s own token, BNT is down 16% after the hack.

Quiz of the week

What is a Bitcoin wallet?

It’s a Bitcoin address
A software that can send and receive Bitcoins and store your private keys
A website or a software that allows to buy and sell Bitcoin

Scroll down to see the answer at the end of the newsletter.

Top stories of the week

Estimated 4 Million Bitcoin is Lost Forever

New research by Chainalysis, revealed that 20% of all the Bitcoins in existence is lost forever. This is due to the loss of private keys by the users. Interestingly, Chainanalysis classifies the one million Bitcoins that belong to Satoshi Nakamoto as lost forever. These missing coins will only make Bitcoin even scarcer and will play a big role in determining the market price.

Stop Trying to Create Money Out of Nothing

Agustín Carstens, the General Manager of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) stated that “creating money from nothing” has “never worked” and urges cryptocurrency enthusiasts to ”stop trying to create money”. The crypto community found the message laughable as central banks are the ones which create money out of thin air.

Binance ‘Expects’ 2018 Profits up to $1 Billion

Changpeng Zhao, CEO Binance told Bloomberg that Binance is expecting a profit of $500 million in 2018 alone, with the best-case scenario resulting in $1 billion. Binance has over 10 million users, generating an average of $1.5 billion in trade volume every day. The figures show Binance has not only survived but thrived in the cryptocurrency market that has dropped by over 70% since the start of the year.

Ethereum Fees Increase by 7000%

Transaction fees on the Ethereum network have skyrocketed with fees increasing over 7000%. The minimum safe transfer fee has increased to $0.5-$0.8 from $0.01. The sudden network clog was due to airdrops, which are tokens given away for free to the community by crypto projects. Since ICOs are expensive and regulated by governments, crypto startups are switching from ICOs to airdrops.

IBM Wins $1 Billion Government Contract

The Australian government has awarded IBM with a AU$1 billion contract to develop blockchain, automation and artificial intelligence. The partnership will deliver significant savings over the next five years and supports Australia’s goal to become one of the top-three digital governments in the world by 2025.

South Korea Legitimizes Blockchain Industry

South Korea is planning to officially legalize cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. Cryptocurrency exchanges will soon be categorised as “Cryptoasset exchanges and brokerages” and blockchain platforms like EOS and Ethereum will be classified as “Blockchain-based software supply and development businesses.”

Swiss Stock Exchange to Launch Distributed Ledger

Swiss Stock exchange, SIX is planning to launch a cryptocurrency SIX Digital Exchange (SDX). SIX Digital Exchange will be fully operated and controlled by the Swiss National Bank and financial regulator. The SDX will be powered by blockchain technology and will provide a safe environment for issuing and trading digital assets, and enable the tokenisation of existing securities.

Bittrex and Invest.com Partner on a New Crypto Trading Platform

Bittrex, US-based cryptocurrency exchange and invest.com, London-based derivative and equity trading platform announced a partnership to launch a crypto trading platform for EU customers. The new trading platform will combine invest.com’s portfolio management expertise with Bittrex’s cutting-edge trading platform technology and selection of 200 tokens.

Tweet of the week

Meme of the week

Crypto word of the week

The cryptocurrency scalability problem refers to the capability of a cryptocurrency network to handle a growing amount of transactions. Bitcoin can process 1MB size of transactions every 10 minutes. With an average transaction size of 250 Bytes, this means the network can process 4000 transactions (1 000 000Bytes / 250Bytes = 400) every 10 minute, which translates to 3-7 transactions per second. This limit on the transaction amount causes a bottleneck in the network as more and more people use Bitcoin. Currently the issue is being solved by the Bitcoin community through innovations like Lightning Network and Schnorr signatures.

Quiz answer

Which one is the least safe place to keep your cryptocurrency?

The correct answer is : “B”

A Bitcoin wallet is a specialised software that can send and receive Bitcoins and stores your private keys. There are also hardware versions of Bitcoin wallets which store your private keys on a USB device.

Thank you for reading :)

Have a great day!

MrCoin

MrCoin

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