PRICE CHANGE WTD/YTD

- BTC ($3,574): -1% / -5%
- ETH ($125):  +6% / -6%
- LTC ($42): -9% / +38%
- XRP ($0.31): 0% / -12%
- Crypto Market Cap ($121B): 0% / -3%
- BTC dominance: 53%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- JPMorgan Chase announced that it was creating its own stablecoin called JPM Coin to instantly settle payments between clients of its wholesale payments business, which moves more than $6 trillion around the world everyday. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously called Bitcoin a "fraud" in 2017, though he's repeatedly said he sees many ways the bank could use blockchain technology. The bank started developing JPM Coin about a year ago in response to client demand, and will begin testing with a small number of institutional customers in the coming months. JPM Coin is backed 1:1 to USD and will be limited to JPMorgan customers doing JPMorgan transactions. The JPM Coin will be issued on the Quorum Blockchain and subsequently extended to other platforms. Link. 

- Coinbase users can now withdraw Bitcoin SV following the Bitcoin Cash hard fork back in November. On November 15th Bitcoin Cash experienced a hard fork because developers couldn't agree on an upgrade, and the currency split into Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC. Shortly after the split, it became clear that Bitcoin ABC had more support than Bitcoin SV so it became what we now call Bitcoin Cash. Coinbase doesn't plan to support BSV trading but will enable users to withdraw their BSV tokens from their Coinbase accounts. Link. 

- Over 150 people bought pizza with bitcoin this week using the Lightning Network. Crypto payments startup Fold launched a web-based Domino's portal on Wednesday, and made fiat pizza purchases on behalf of lightning users. Overall the Lightning network set new record highs this week with more than 26k payment channels facilitating $2.4 million in transactions, a 39 percent increase compared to last month. The Fold web app plans to integrate lightning for all its shopping options over the next six months, including Starbucks, Whole Foods, Dunkin Donuts, Target and Uber. Fold is also partnering with custody startup Casa, for a direct integration withs its Lightning-enabled browser extension. Link. 

- Square CEO Jack Dorsey said during a recent podcast that his company's Cash App would integrate lightning capabilities sometime in the future. Dorsey is an investor in startup Lightning Labs. Link. 

- Chainalysis, a firm that provides governments and companies tools to scan blockchains for nefarious activity, announced a $30 million Series B led by Accel Partners with participation from existing investor Benchmark. The company provides crypto exchanges, government agencies, and banks with software to analyze transactions that occur on blockchain in real-time. The company has over 100 financial firms as clients. Link. 

- The number of Bitcoin transactions per day has reached a one-year high of 326,000. Last time when the number of transactions was this high was in December 2017 at the height of the speculative mania. Link. 

- Brock Pierce announced he was trying to get Mt. Gox's 24,000 victims their money back and build a new company from its brand. Mt. Gox was the leading crypto exchange in 2013, handling 70 percent of all Bitcoin trades; however in 2014 it was discovered that the exchange had more than 700,000 bitcoins stolen over the past few years and was forced into bankruptcy. There are roughly $630 million and 150,000 Bitcoin waiting to be distributed in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy trust, and Pierce hopes to rescue even more of the lost crypto and return it to shareholders. Pierce also plans to reprise the Mt. Gox brand and build an independently-governed exchange to challenge Coinbase and Binance. Link. 

- Poloniex, the Circle-owned crypto exchange, announced it was listing privacy coin Grin for trading, becoming the first major exchange to do so. Deposits are currently live on the exchange, and withdrawals will be enabled within a few weeks. Poloniex is also pledging between 25 to 50% of all Grin transaction fees to the Grin General Fund, Grin's development fund. Link. 

- Despite the crypto winter, Fairfax County Retirement Systems announced it was investing $21 million into a blockchain fund managed by Morgan Creek. Though this commitment represents less than 1 percent of assets, it appears to be one of the first such bets on the sector placed by institutions of this kind. The commitments are coming from Fairfax county's employee pension fund as well as its police officers' fund. Link. 

- Canada-based crypto exchange Coinsquare acquired decentralized exchange StellarX for an undisclosed amount. StellarX is a decentralized exchange native to the stellar protocol and offers trading in a range of cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies (one of the few DEX's to offer fiat trading). Link. 

- According to a survey of 71 global institutional investors, including private equity, hedge funds, and pension funds, 19 percent of institutional investors believe that digital assets will be regularly invested in and traded by 2021. 16 percent of those surveyed responded that they would invest in the ICO market within three years, and 41 percent said they would enter the sector in the next five years. Another poll released last month showed that 40 percent of institutional investors consider the invention of blockchain tech as the most important technological innovation since the invention of the internet. Link. 

- Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume, announced that it was delisting and ceasing trading of five tokens: CloakCoin, Modum, SALT, Substratum, and Wings. In November, it was reported that the SEC was investigating whether SALT Lending's ICO was an unregistered securities offering. According to CoinMarketCap, approximately 80 percent of SALT's liquidity came from Binance in the last 24 hours. Link. 

- Coinbase paid out a $30,000 bounty to the finder of a critical bug in its systems. The bounty is the largest to be posted on vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform HackerOne, which has previously seen smaller bounty payouts mostly in the range of $100 - $1,000. Coinbase has confirmed that the vulnerability has since been fixed, but didn't provide details on the issue. Based on the severity of the code flaw found, Coinbase offers rewards in four tiers: $200 (low), $2,000 (medium), $15,000 (high), and $50,000 (critical). Link.