This week has been an interesting one marking the end of October and at the same time marking the beginning of November. Many interesting things happened in the cryptocurrency industry with the leading cryptocurrencies, regulation, and hacks.
If you missed any of the news, no worries here is a roundup of the major stories for you to have a feel of the most recent issues in the industry.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin though it has experienced some rough times, some people still seem to be highly interested in in the asset, one of which is Jack Dorsey. This is suggested by the Twitter CEO and strong fan of Bitcoin tweeting Bitcoin whitepaper published by Satoshi Nakamoto as his way of celebrating Bitcoin’s 10th anniversary. Dorsey tweeting the white paper to his 4 million followers shows he still believes in a bright future for bitcoin, a thought he has expressed himself.
ETF
The crypto community was led to believe the SEC was to let known its position on nine Bitcoin ETF applications by 26th October but after more than one week after the “deadline”, no information has been released concerning the ETFs. This is because SEC had scheduled a different date for conclusions on the nine ETF applications it was to review.
The actual scheduled date is said to be the 5th of November, not the earlier known 26th October. The 5th November has also been set as the last date for all concerned parties to send their comments to the SEC and the ruling may be expected anytime after the given date.
While most of the crypto community is looking forward to an ETF, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company is shying away from the idea at this time. According to the company’s CEO Larry Fink, the cryptocurrency industry is not yet mature enough for an ETF.
MapleChange
Concerning hacks, a Canadian exchange MapleChange was hacked according to the news in the week. The exchange said all funds held in the exchange were lost and the exchange had to shut down.
According to an announcement on the exchange’s official Twitter page, all social accounts of the exchange have also been closed and investigations are ongoing to uncover those behind the hack before compensation can be paid to users.
Ripple (XRP)
Despite Ripple’s bad reputation in the crypto industry because of its style of business (working with banks), Dilip Rao the company’s Global Head for Infrastructure Innovation said the asset holds the solution to liquidity problems in the financial industry.
As far as Dilip is concerned, XRP is the lead cryptocurrency as its network processes up to 1,500 transactions in a second, a number that is far larger than most cryptocurrency networks.
The Chief marketer of Ripple Cory Johnson also holds the same view as Dilip, emphasizing that the Ripple network is highly decentralized which makes it the future of cryptocurrency.
Nasdaq
In a bid to protect investors in the cryptocurrency market, Nasdaq, a trillion Dollar American company has announced its intention to launch Nasdaq SMARTS to help reduce the problems of funds loss through hacks, fraud and market manipulation.
The product is a market surveillance technology that can be used for any company in any industry in a unique fashion to monitor risks and alert the company in case of any attacks. This according to Nasdaq will boost confidence and attract investors to the cryptocurrency industry.
Tron
On the subject of Tron, Justin Sun, CEO of the company has destroyed 800 million worth of TRX. According to Sun, the ERC20 tokens will soon become nothing more than “historical artifacts.” Sun announced this on his Twitter page, saying his followers to not “forget to keep one as a souvenir.” according to Tron Foundation, the decision to burn the token was also to prevent inflation due to excess supply and the token burning is a tradition to improve the value to the circulating coins.
Justin Sun has also made known his regard for Bitcoin and Ethereum as his favorite projects apart from Tron. according to Sun, he will always hold Bitcoin in high esteem because it is the “gateway” to the cryptocurrency industry. For Ethereum, he said it is the closest thing to Bitcoin that has ventured into the building of DApps which makes the project enviable to him.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash, though part of the crypto struggle, has had a taste of a sudden rise within the week. This came after the world’s largest exchange Binance and Bitcoin.com announced their plans for a BCH hardfork. BCH experienced a 10% appreciation despite the week’s unfavorable nature in the market. Both major companies have indicated their decision to support the BCH version in the event of a fork, a statement which is believed to be responsible for the sudden rise.
Janet Yellen
One of the most fanatical critics of Bitcoin and former chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen has said Bitcoin is by no means a store of value neither is it a useful currency. Yellen said this during the 2018 Canada FinTech Forum in Montreal on Monday.
She alleged that Bitcoin’s decentralization is what has made it useless as a payment instrument although she admitted that the asset has grown more stable in the past few months. Not only her but her successor has also taken the same attitude saying Bitcoin investment is only for “sophisticated” investors and everyone else should stay away from it.
