For the first time pension funds have joined the launch of venture capital fund that invests in cryptocurrency. View in browser

"Paper money is going away and cryptocurrency is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper." - Elon Musk
Market State

We have experienced quite a gain during last week. The total market capitalization increased by $17 billion to $143 billion. Unfortunately it didn’t last long. During the Sunday sell-off the market lost its gain. Bitcoin briefly reached $4200 level before falling back to $3850. Other cryptocurrencies experienced the same movement. Most coins recorded a notable gain and fell back. Ethereum’s next update is scheduled this week on the 28th of February which might cause more price action.  

In terms of cryptocurrency development a lot has happened. Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume has launched their decentralized exchange. Samsung has confirmed that its new smartphone model Galaxy S10 has a built in cryptocurrency wallet. A Chrome extension called tippin.me is allowing Bitcoin transfers directly on Twitter via Lightning Network. MetaMask, the popular Ether wallet passed 1 million downloads in the Chrome store. The total supply of DAI stablecoin has reached 84 million for the first time. DAI is backed by Ether. The DAI collateralization ratio is usually over 300% which means behind every DAI there is $3 worth of Ether is locked up.
Check the latest Bitcoin Price
Quiz of the week

What is Proof of Stake?

  1. A signature needed to make a transaction from a wallet
  2. A private key to access a wallet
  3. A transaction validator protocol

Scroll down to see the answer at the end of the newsletter.
Top stories of the week
U.S. Pension Funds Invest In Cryptocurrencies For The First Time

New York based Morgan Creek Digital, an asset management firm has announced the launch of its new venture capital fund with the first ever involvement of U.S. pension funds. $4 million of the $40 million fund will be directly used to purchase cryptocurrency and the rest will invested in promising crypto companies such as Coinbase. The decision to invest in cryptocurrencies are based on firstly the fund’s belief in the future of cryptocurrencies, secondly they observed that cryptocurrencies are not correlated to big global events that influence the traditional assets, thus cryptocurrencies are a great complement to their portfolio. Morgan Creek Blockchain Opportunity Fund is an unusual partnership between venture capital flowing into crypto and those companies aiming to use cryptocurrency to prepare for retirement. Interestingly, a huge pension fund that manages $5 billion assets for police officers and other state employees has joined the investment in the new fund.
BitGo Announces Insurance Protections for Digital Assets

BitGo, the cryptocurrency custody provider has announced the launch of its digital asset insurance coverage through a partnership with Lloyd’s of London. The insurance plan offers to cover up to $100 million per incident insuring the funds that are completely under BitGo’s control. BitGo obtained its insurance coverage from the prestigious Lloyd’s of London, the world's leading insurance service provider to businesses. The plan will cover losses in the event of third-party hacks or insider theft by executives or employees, loss of private keys held by BitGo in cold storage or impediment to physical access. The service comes at no additional charge to BitGo users. More information is available on insurance whitepaper and Bitgo’s webinar on insurance on 12th of March.
Bitcoin Tips to Twitter Users

There has been a lot of buzz around the Lightning Network lately. This is due to the emergence of several innovative Lightning Apps (LApps). One of them is called tippin.me which is a Chrome extension that adds a Lightning tip button on every single tweet of yours so you can accept micro Bitcoin payments directly on Twitter via Lightning Network or you can send Lightning tips to Twitter users. Tippin.me is not only for Twitter, you can add Lightning button on any website by copying and pasting a few lines of code. In order to interact with Lightning apps you need to have Lightning supported wallet, such as BlueWallet or Eclair. Other popular LApps that utilise Lightning Network are Satoshi's Place which is an online canvas where anyone can add pixels, Koala Studio an online chess, Lightning Pizza where you can order pizza via Lightning currently only in USA.

Introducing DexPay A New Point of Sale

DexPay is an open source Point Of Sale (POS) that allows shops to accept DAI, Ether and other cryptocurrencies without being exposed to volatility. This is possible as DexPay instantly converts the cryptocurrencies into DAI, where the value of DAI is pegged to USD. The app allows you to put your public address, insert an amount, generate a QR code and let the customers select the currency they want to pay with. The DexPay project had been awarded the 1st POA prize during Status CryptoLife Hackathon in Prague, Czech Republic. Now the project has been made possible by a grant from the MakerDAO Stable Fund. The Stable Fund is a $45 million fund that provides free grants of up to $25000. DexPay app is completely secure as merchants don’t store their private key in the app.

Binance Launches DEX Testnet

Binance has released a testnet for its Binance DEX (decentralised exchange) and Binance Chain. Binance DEX is built on top of the Binance Chain blockchain and powered by Binance Coin (BNB). On Binance DEX users have complete control over their own funds. Currently Binance’s Trust Wallet is integrated with Binance DEX, along with the Ledger Nano S. In order to use Binance DEX users need to have BNB coins just like they need to have Ether on Ethereum DEX-es. The Binance DEX aims to provide fast transaction speed through Binance Chain’s near-instant transactions with one-second block times. Binance DEX is not fully decentralised as the transaction validators (nodes) on Binance Chain are all owned by Binance themselves.

Bitmain Announces Its New Mining Chip

Despite the prolonged bear market, Bitmain, the Chinese mining hardware manufacturer has continued to develop cryptocurrency mining chips. Bitmain has launched a new Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash mining chip that is 28.6% more energy efficient than its predecessor. The new mining chip is called BM1397 and enables faster and cheaper mining. BM1397 will be integrated into the upcoming Antminer S17 and T17 mining devices. Due to the bear market Bitmain had to fire up 85% of its workforce last year. It was leaked that Bitmain had to sell 6000 BTC and 750000 BCH to cover its losses during Q3 and Q4 2018. If Bitmain’s new product is as efficient as promised the company might see some revenue.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Comes With Crypto Wallet

Last week Samsung officially introduced its new range of smartphones. Their latest model Galaxy S10 has a built in cryptocurrency private key storage. There is a video tutorial featuring a Samsung Blockchain Wallet that holds Bitcoin and Ether.  In the fourth quarter of 2018 Samsung shipped total 70.4 million smartphones worldwide. Millions of people will be exposed to cryptocurrencies thanks to Samsung’s built in wallet. The pressure mounts on other smartphone manufacturers to introduce cryptocurrency wallet solution on their upcoming products. The crypto community is looking forward to Apple catching up to develop cryptocurrency features.
Tweet of the week
Meme of the week
Crypto word of the week

Whitepaper is a brief description of the crypto project, the purpose of the cryptocurrency and the problem that the currency is intending to solve.
Quiz answer

What is Proof of Stake?

The correct answer is “C”.

Proof of Stake is a consensus algorithm that is used by by cryptocurrencies to validate transactions.

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

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