BitPay, one of the largest payment blockchain providers in the world, announced a new record reached in 2018. The company processed payments in the amount of more than $ 1 billion and again showed record income.
In addition, Dish Networks, HackerOne, and the Ohio State Government have joined the payment network. The B2B division showed record numbers and grew by 255%, as many law firms, data centers and manufacturers in the IT industry connected to bitcoin reception.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, launched a new exchange on the island of Jersey, a British self-governing dependency. On Wednesday, the company announced that thanks to the new exchange, users will be able to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum against the British pound and euro in Europe and the UK.
"Binance selected Jersey for its highly developed digital infrastructure, robust regulatory framework, and world-class financial services sector," said Wei Zhou, chief financial officer of the exchange.
Coinbase and Kraken, the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, have joined the ranks of platforms that have confirmed the support of hardwood for Ethereum Constantinople, which will be implemented this week.
Two major exchanges joined Binance, Huobi and OKEx, which previously expressed their support for the upcoming update, and promise to monitor the hardforks, which will be carried out at block 7,080,000. This will probably happen on the night of January 16-17.
US regulatory agencies - the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are exploring the possibility of providing federal banking licenses for technology companies that provide financial services, such as remittances and lending.
The presence of a federal license will allow FINTECH companies to reduce costs and develop new regions and products. However, they do not intend to invest heavily in expansion without having access to payment systems, settlement services and other tools of the US Federal Reserve (Fed).Serbian startup accelerator Decenter reported that the Google Ads contextual advertising service blocked all advertisements containing the word "Ethereum".
Such blocking began on January 8, 2019. According to Decenter, only ads with the word "Ethereum" got under the blocking; all other words from the field of cryptocurrencies, including "Bitcoin", "ICO" and "EOS", were not blocked. At the same time, an advertisement with the word "Ethereum" is blocked with the wording "This advertiser has not been approved to place an advertisement in your location."Co-founder and managing partner of the Multicoin Capital cryptocurrency fund, Kyle Samani, shared his opinion on important trends in the field of cryptoassets for the coming year.
Samani noted that he is closely watching the popular Binance Cryptocurrency Exchange and its development of a new decentralized platform, the launch of which can change the digital industry. He expects that the status of this exchange will allow it to attract a large number of users to an alternative solution, while Binance competitors, who are also developing such platforms, are unlikely to succeed.
Analysts of the MarketWatch portal analyzed the ICO market and concluded that the number of initial placement campaigns conducted in accordance with all the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increased significantly in 2018.
MarketWatch searched the Edgar database using the keywords "coin", "ICO", "token", "initial coin offering" and "saft". According to their data, a total of 287 campaigns with ICO signs were held, which together collected $ 8.7 billion. The highest rate was registered in the second quarter - 99 companies. For comparison, in 2017, only 44 campaigns were held, collecting a total of $ 2.1 billion.Despite yesterday's volatility in cryptocurrency markets and a noticeable drop in the price of Bitcoin, well-known digital currency critic Jeffrey Gundlach said that in the near future the price of the first cryptocurrency will reach $ 5,000.
In an interview with CNBC Channel, Gundlach, who is the head of DoubleLine, which manages assets of $ 200 billion, noted that risky investors could make easy profits if they turn to Bitcoin trading.During the session of questions and answers on the Reddit portal, the founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange - brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss predicted that in the future the capitalization of the cryptocurrency market would exceed $ 7 trillion.
According to the twins, the evolution of technology in the future will change the trade, financial system, Internet and cash. They stressed that the process would not be easy and perhaps not very successful, but the brothers believe that technological revolutions will create new rules and this will lead to success.
With the advent of the New Year, a large number of forecasts regarding cryptocurrency rates appeared. Last year, many forecasts did not take into account the "bearish" trend, which dominated the market throughout 2018 and led to a fall in Bitcoin price by more than 80%. The beginning of this year was marked by the forecast rate of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, published by the independent agency Weiss Ratings.
According to the Weiss Ratings forecast, 2019 foreshadows the growth of Bitcoin popularity. The international rating agency expects that more and more people will consider cryptocurrency as a store of value, and Bitcoin will finally become stronger in its status of digital gold.
Former Goldman Sachs partner Michael Novogratz is not worried about the long drop in quotations on the cryptocurrency market and is increasing his position in the Galaxy Digital trading bank he founded.
According to the information giant Bloomberg, he bought 7.5 million shares for $ 5.5 million, which corresponds to 2.7% of all Galaxy Digital shares in circulation.
According to the Coinopsy research group dealing with the statistics of the "dead" cryptocurrencies, 264 altcoins and tokens, which were active in early 2018, could not stand the bear market and ceased to function. More than half of them launched as ICOs in 2017.
Coinopsy refers to "dead" coins projects that have been abandoned, used to implement fraudulent schemes, do not maintain a website, do not have active networks, updates on social networks that have problems with wallets and do not have any developments and adequate amounts bidding.
There is a strong likelihood that cryptocurrencies will become the most effective asset in 2019, said Travis Kling, former head of Point72 Asset Management, a hedge fund that controls assets worth $ 12.4 billion.
The founder of the "Ikigai" fund said that cryptocurrencies were never present during the "bearish" mood in traditional finance, and the fall in the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones indices could bring more investors into the cryptocurrency space.
Time magazine published an article saying that a cryptocurrency "has a meaning for freedom" and is a "way out" of authoritarianism.
According to the author of the article, Alex Gladstein, transactions protected from unauthorized access and state control open up the possibility for inclusion in financial transactions, and mean that the world should spend more time developing Bitcoin.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) conducted research among more than 3,000 cryptocurrency projects and found out that hundreds of companies are copying parts of the Whitepapers from each other, promising inflated interest on investments and showing signs of fraud.
It is reported that analysts edition downloaded and studied 3 291 whitepaper - an information document that describes the company's goal, the composition of the team, the technical specifications of the project and so on.
Cryptocurrency enthusiast and founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets Anthony Pompliano expressed his opinion in an interview with Blockchain Reporter that over time all assets will become digital and then the golden age of cryptocurrency will begin.
Pompliano said that he first heard about Bitcoin while working on Facebook in 2014. However, he decided to enter the cryptocurrency industry only in 2016, when he studied the prospects of the technology and the possibilities of its application.President and Chief Operating Officer of Coinbase Asiff Hirji said that institutional investors who have short-term goals, it is better not to touch cryptocurrency.
During his speech on CNBC, Hirji stressed that his company warned investors to be cautious during the period of explosive growth of Bitcoin back in 2017, but many cryptocurrency enthusiasts did not heed the warning.
The head of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum Joseph Lubin announced that the current state of the market will not deteriorate, because this year he "reached its bottom", "is marked by an epic amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt."
In addition, the head of ConsenSys assured the cryptocurrency community that, despite the recent significant reduction in staff, nothing bad happens to the company - this is just a reorganization.
"ConsenSys remains healthy and is engaging in a rebalancing of priorities and activities which started about nine months ago," said Lubin.
