Crypto weekly is authored by maaria
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($6,748): +7% / -49%
- ETH ($487): +8% / -33%
- LTC ($84): +5% / -62%
- XRP ($0.48): +4% / -75%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain closed a Series B funding round that valued the firm at approximately $12 billion. Sources say the company raised between $300 million to $400 million. Investors in the new round include Sequoia Capital China, Coatue, and EDBI, a Singapore government-backed investment fund. Link.
- In the first half of the year, more than $760 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from exchanges-- nearly three times more than in all of 2017. There are more than 1,600 crypto coins and tracking them all is increasingly difficult, which gives criminals an opening to cypher coins into anonymous/untraceable wallets. Link.
- Users spent an all-time high of $2.7 million in ether to send transactions last Monday, leading to higher gas prices on the Ethereum blockchain. Critics say that surging gas prices indicates that Ethereum needs to seriously consider scaling options, such as sharding, in order to decrease congestion and get consumers to continue transacting on the platform. Link.
- The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, expects a net profit of $500 million to $1 billion in 2018, according to its CEO. Average daily turnover at the exchange is roughly $1.5 billion, and it now has 10 million users. Link.
- SIX, the owner of Switzerland’s securities exchange in Zurich, is creating a platform for trading digital assets. The platform will offer fully integrated, end-to-end trading, settlement, and custody services, the first of its kind. Link.
- Coinbase announced this week that it had onboarded 10 customers for its new institutional-grade custody service. It turns out that Coinbase’s custodian partner, Electronic Transaction Clearing (ETC), was fined $80,000 four months ago for repeatedly putting customer’s assets at risk. Under previous management the firm had repeatedly used customer deposits as collateral for loans to fund its own operations. Link.
- Block.one, the company that designed the EOS blockchain software, has appointed a former executive from Jefferies Group to lead its $1 billion venture capital arm. Block.one intends to invest over $1 billion in the EOS.io platform, of which approximately $700 million has already been allocated through VC partnerships in the US, Europe, and Asia. EOS raised a record $4 billion in its year long ICO ending on June 1. Link.
- Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has hired former NYSE Chief Information Officer, Robert Cornish, to serve as its first CTO. The exchange, founded by the Winklevoss brothers, announced that Cornish’s first project would be to improve market execution and futures trading. Link.
- Ripple is facing its third class-action lawsuit in three months. Like previous lawsuits, the lawsuit alleges that XRP is a security. Link.
- The FBI has 130 cases tied to cryptocurrencies encompassing crimes such as human trafficking, illicit drug sales, kidnapping and ransomware attacks, among other things. Link.
- Crypto.com, registered in 1993 by a professor at UPenn, was sold to Monaco for a rumored $10 million. Monaco is best known for developing a crypto debit card. The company plans to rebrand as Crypto.com. Link.
- The largest political party of India is accusing the ruling party of money laundering almost $1 billion through bitcoin. Link.
- Facebook appointed one of its senior engineers, Evan Cheng, as first Director of Engineering, Blockchain. The move comes months after an executive shuffle that led to the creation of a dedicated blockchain group. Link.
- Chinese technology company, Xunlei Limited, known as the BitTorrent of China, announced the launch of a new distributed file system aimed at support blockchain platforms. The ThunderChain File System (TCFS) combines features of existing platforms like IPFS and Filecoin, while adding new security and flexibility tools. Link.
- A new IBM patent application outlines a way for developers to catalog coding updates and milestones on a blockchain. The idea is to use a distributed network to track the accomplishments of coders as they work together on a project. Link.