It is normal for Bitcoin to lose 80% of its value from time to time.
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MrCoin

Weekly Crypto Recap

"Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own” ~ Baron Rothschild

Market State

BTC:  €3,328.75 | -15.62% since last week

ETH:       €94.42 | -18.83% since last week

BCH:      temporarily suspended

LTC:       €26.41 | -8.84% since last week

The crypto market hit a new low, losing 37% of its value. The overall market is currently sitting around €107.26 billion. Bitcoin touched a yearly low of €3,165 while keeping its dominance of 53% of crypto market. Whenever Bitcoin plunges down altcoins follow it. The mainstream media have been proclaiming the death of Bitcoin, that it is going to 0. Bitcoin is not dead. It is normal for Bitcoin to lose 80% of its value from time to time. Bitcoin is not a normal investment and it certainly is not a get rich quickly tool. Those who bought Bitcoin for the wrong reason are exiting the market, while those who recognise the potential of Bitcoin, are accumulating it.

Quiz of the week

How fast is each new Bitcoin block found?

  1. Exactly every 10 minutes
  2. On average, every 10 minutes
  3. Every 60 minutes

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

Top stories of the week

Coinomi

Bitcoin is Close to Overtaking MasterCard

MasterCard, the world’s leading money transfer system is being challenged by Bitcoin. Last week Bitcoin moved $8 billion in a 24 hour period, whereas MasterCard moves about $11 billion daily. MasterCard was founded in 1966 and has been around for 52 years. While Bitcoin is a relatively new technology which was created ten years ago. Credit cards handle small transactions, at an average $25 per transfer. An average Bitcoin transaction value is about $27,000. Considering the size of the transaction Bitcoin offers a low transaction fee and a fast transaction time. With this growth, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Bitcoin eventually surpassed MasterCard.

Ethereum10

Bakkt Launch Delayed to January 2019

The Bitcoin futures trading platform, Bakkt will start on 24 Jan.2019 instead of 12 Dec.2018. The new date is still subject to regulatory approval. In an announcement on Medium, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler stated that more work was needed on a regulatory review from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Bakkt will enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a regulated global network. The platform is primarily focusing on Bitcoin due to its high liquidity, customer demand, and classification as a commodity by CFTC. Bakkt also announced that it is open to adding other digital currencies on its platform.

Reddit

Bitcoin Miners Shutting Down Their Machines

In the last two weeks over 600,000 Bitcoin miners have shut down their mining equipment due to a crypto market crash. Mining a single Bitcoin takes roughly 51,000 kWh with Antminer S9i, the latest Bitcoin miner. This is the equivalent of one day’s power consumption for 1700 households. A standard electricity rate is about $0.12 per kWh. With this rate, mining one Bitcoin costs $6100. The recent drop in the price forced a lot of miners to turn off their equipment. US-based Bitcoin mining firm Giga Watt filed for bankruptcy. Chinese miners are in trouble too. Hash rates are coming down as Bitcoin miners turn off rigs. However, the more miners leave the mining difficulty will drop thus making it profitable for those who remain.

Telegram

Fake Copy of Trezor One Device

Trezor,  the hardware wallet provider warned its users about fake Trezor devices being spotted on the market. These fake devices look exactly the same as the original ones but are cheaper and seemingly originate from China. Since Trezor company is not the manufacturer of these fake devices they don’t guarantee their function. Thus, these fake devices are not suitable for secure storage of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. However, there are a few ways to identify the fake devices. The fake Trezors are sold at a cheaper price. Also, the hologram of fake ones are from Trezor’s older packaging. The easiest way to make sure getting the original Trezor device is that to buy them from the official Trezor webshop or from its authorized resellers.

Bitcoin Mining

Ohio is Accepting Bitcoin for Taxes

Ohio has become the first U.S. state to allow taxes to be paid in Bitcoin. Payment processor BitPay will process Bitcoin on behalf of the state of Ohio with a 1% fee and will then convert the Bitcoins to dollars for the state treasurer’s office. The initiative is only for businesses currently. The idea to accept Bitcoin for tax payment is initiated by a politician Josh Mandel. Mandel has been a fan of Bitcoin since he was appointed as Ohio State Treasurer in 2011. Mr. Mandel sees Bitcoin as a legitimate form of currency thus he initiated the program where businesses can pay their taxes using cryptocurrency for the first time.

MetaMask Presents Mustekala

MetaMask team introduced its Mustekala light client. A node is a device that connects to a blockchain network. A full node is a device that verifies and enforces all of the rules of the blockchain and downloads an entire copy of the blockchain. Running a full node is very resource intensive, it requires a lot of memory and storage. Whereas light clients do not store the entire copy of the blockchain, only specific elements of the blockchain that they need to operate. Mustekala light client will allow users to share information with each other. The goal of Mustekala light client is to have its own browser support, be fast and seed its data to other users for better distributed networks. Mustekala is not ready and still in development.

Tweet of the week

Bitcoin Network

Meme of the week

Bitcoin Network

Crypto word of the week

Bitcoin Network

The hashrate is the rate at which hashes of a block are being solved. The more miners join a cryptocurrency network, the higher the network hashrate is. The higher the Bitcoin price the more miners are incentivized to mine Bticoin thus higher the hashrate. It isn’t true vice versa. Adding more hashrate doesn’t increase the price of Bitcoin but it makes Bitcoin more secure. The amount of electricity used by miners is embedded in the blockchain. An attacker would have to spend more energy than the rest of the miners combined. When the price of Bitcoin falls miners lose profit and don’t have financial incentive to mine. The hashrate falls when miners leave. Less miners means lower competition, thus profitability of remaining miners increase and bringing back equilibrium.  

Quiz answer

How fast is each new Bitcoin block found?

The correct answer is : “B”

Different cryptocurrencies have different times they take to mine a block. This is called blocktime. In Bitcoin’s case, a new block is added to the blockchain every 10 minutes on average.

 

Thank you for reading :) 

Have a great day!

MrCoin

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