PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($3,991): -28% / -70%
- ETH ($115): -35% / -84%
- LTC ($31): -26% / -86%
- XRP ($0.39): -25% / -80%
- Crypto Market Cap ($130B): -30% / -78%
- BTC Dominance: 54%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Prices of cryptocurrencies and tokens continued to plunge this week,
with the market cap of the entire market falling 30 percent. Notably
Bitcoin fell below $4,000 this week, a number it reached in August of last
year. Link
- The Bitcoin Cash wars are over. Over the past few weeks, a hard fork led
to two different chains vying for the name of Bitcoin Cash, the world'
fourth largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin ABC, the chain promoted by investor
Roger Ver and Chinese mining giant Bitmain, will be in charge of Bitcoin
Cash going forward. Bitcoin SV will continue developing its own version of
the chain, but will no longer hold the Bitcoin Cash name. Link
- According to a report by Outlier Ventures, VC investments in crypto have
increased from $900 million in 2017 to $2.85 billion so far in 2018, a
316% increase. * * Funding has also shifted towards earlier rounds like
Seed or Series A versus the later stage, pre-ICO rounds funded in Q2. Link
- Q3 ICO fundraising was $1 billion, down from $3.8 billion raised in Q1,
a decline of almost 74 percent according to a report from Outlier
Ventures. Though the number and size of token fundraising has declined,
this quarter saw token structures that were far more complex in their
designs, indicating the market is shifting its focus from using token
sales as not just a fundraising mechanism but also as a business model
innovation. Link
- Last year Lightning Labs developer Alex Bosworth launched the Yalls (
https://yalls.org/ ) blog to test crypto micropayments with the Lightning
Network, a bitcoin scaling solution that makes micropayments feasible by
keeping them off the blockchain and sidestepping transaction fees.
Bosworth said that from April through early November blog participants had
processed nearly 20,000 invoices with the Lightning Network. It costs
roughly one cent to read a Yalls article, half a cent to leave a comment
on a post, and 10 cents to react to a post with an emoji. Publishing an
article is free. Link (
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-lightning-invoice-micropayments )
- Ohio appears set to become the first state to accept bitcoin for tax
bills. Beginning this week, Ohio business will be able to pay for
everything from cigarette sales taxes to employee withholding taxes with
bitcoin - eventually, the initiative will expand to individual filers.
Ohio is partnering with crypto payment processor BitPay, which will
convert taxes paid in bitcoin to dollars for the state treasurer's office.
Link
- Coinbase's Chief Policy Officer, Michael Lempres, is leaving the company
to take a new role at venture fund Andreessen Horowitz. Link
- Bitcoin's hash rate dropped by 44 percent from its all-time high on August
27th. The decrease was not unexpected as mining profits were squeezed by
competition and falling prices. Link
- An Ethereum developer published previously undisclosed internal
documents about a potential upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain in 2019.
Participants of the meetings include Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin. The
potential upgrades discussed include potentially replacing the Ethereum
Virtual Machine, which processes smart contract code, and introducing
storage fees for smart contracts. Link
- Chief Executive Patrick Byrne announced plans to sell Overstock's retail
business to focus on tZero, the blockchain-based trading system he
launched under the Overstock umbrella. The platform would enable the
trading of assets that can be easily traced and tracked, and is expected
to launch with trading capabilities for its own security token, for which
it raised $134 million earlier this year. The tZero platform has missed
multiple milestones, but is expected to go live early next year. Link
- The Bitfury Group, a blockchain tech company, recruited two veterans of
the traditional financial world to guide strategy and growth. Antoine
Dresch, co-founder of Korelya Capital (which led a recent funding round
for Bitfury), joined the company's board of directors. Annette Nazareth,
former member of the SEC, joined Bitfury's Advisory Board. This fall
Bitfury raised $80 million in funding, released a new mining chip, and
presented a coffee machine capable of connecting to the Lightning Network.
Link