Venture investor and well-known cryptocurrency enthusiast Tim Draper said that you should not succumb to despondency, because cryptocurrency has a great future - in five years digital assets can force out fiat currencies.

Draper has always been much more optimistic about the future of Bitcoin than other industry players and cryptocurrency enthusiasts. He believes not only in Bitcoin, but also in the potential of the entire cryptocurrency industry.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun the process of reviewing an application for a change in the rule that will allow listing Bitcoin ETF proposed by Bitwise Asset Management and the NYSE Arca exchange.

The proposal itself was published in the Federal Register on February 15, which leaves authorized personnel 45 days to make an initial decision on approval, rejection or further extension of the time frame for consideration of the application. The SEC has a total of no more than 240 days to make a final decision on whether to approve or reject the proposal.

The head of BK Capital Management and the popular cryptocurrency expert Brian Kelly expressed the opinion that Bitcoin is undervalued by 50%.

According to Kelly, the year 2019 will become more successful for cryptocurrency than 2018. However, before the courses go up, the price of the first cryptocurrency may drop to the level of $ 1.5 thousand. He noted that the market has repeatedly dropped to similar values.

The American Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase paid a reward of $ 30,000 to a hacker who found critical vulnerability in the exchange system.

It is reported that the error was registered on the portal HackerOne on February 21. A Coinbase spokesman stressed that the vulnerability had already been closed, but did not cover the details. The error report itself was also closed from public access, but, given the high reward, the vulnerability was very serious.

Mike Novogratz, a well-known cryptocurrency enthusiast and founder of the Galaxy Digital investment bank, believes that large institutional investors will start investing in the cryptocurrency industry next year.

"All the architecture that institutions need to feel comfortable with this is being put in place. You're going to start to see custody come online" through the middle of March, paving the way for the "smart money" to enter in a serious fashion," he said.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recalled the guidelines on primary token allocation (ICO) on its Twitter account. The dedicated section of the regulator's website lists five aspects of the ICO that consumers should be aware. In addition, the SEC has posted information for investors and marketing specialists in the section.

The information has been on the site since last year, but the SEC decided to draw attention to it on social networks this weekend amid ongoing debates about regulating the industry. This material is notable for the fact that the SEC explains its principles regarding ICO in accessible language - it is much easier for all interested parties to familiarize themselves with the information in this format.

CFO and co-founder of Blocktower Capital investment company Ari Paul said that although people say that blockchain is not Bitcoin, he believes that the real turning point will come when people realize that Bitcoin is more than blockchain, and it can create a new wave of using cryptocurrencies in real life.

"Bitcoin blockchain is first generation technology with limited throughput and features.

BTC can be used on other protocols and networks. The Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that allows for numerous fast and cheap BTC transfers that settle to and are secured by the Bitcoin network. People may also use sidechains, drivechains, and other L2 or L3 solutions.

Yesterday, the network did not receive officially confirmed information that was allegedly provided by one of the investors in the Telegram Open Network project (TON). Sources claim that the submitted document contains actual data on the readiness of the project.

The head of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, Changpeng Zhao, expressed confidence that the largest online retailer Amazon eventually release its own cryptocurrency, which will be used to buy and sell goods.

In his tweet, Zhao noted that companies doing business on the Internet need to integrate cryptocurrency as a means of payment for their clients. He stressed that using cryptocurrency for payments is simpler and cheaper than traditional fiat money.

Dan Morehead, the founder and head of Pantera Capital, an American investment company, stressed that he no longer worries about the future of the blockchain technology, as he did during the fall of the market in 2014 and 2015.

"I think the underlying fundamentals are much much stronger than they were in the 2014-15 crypto winter," Morehead expressed his opinion in an interview with former Forbes editor Laura Shin.

PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos said that the project team initially planned to create a digital currency that would have technological advantages similar to cryptocurrencies, namely independence from banks and the government.

Answering a question about whether PayPal and WeChat Pay solved a problem related to online transactions, or perhaps cryptocurrency can deal with it, Nosek said:

"Many people don't know this, but the initial mission of PayPal was to create a global currency that was independent of interference by these, you know, corrupt cartels of banks and governments that were debasing their currencies. "

Yesterday, a BitTorrent Crowdsale (BTT) took place on the Binance Launchpad platform, which caused an unprecedented stir and ended in just 18 minutes. It was also the first large-scale ICO on the TRON platform.

The campaign was carried out in two stages: the first one lasted 13 minutes and 25 seconds, during which time 23.76 billion BTT were sold at a price of 0.00001824 BNB per unit; in the second stage, 35.64 billion BTT were sold at a price of 0.00447261 in 14 minutes 41 seconds. In just two of these sessions, 962 cryptoinvestors (340 in the BNB session and 622 in the TRON session) invested more than $ 7 million in the project.

Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced the launch of its own over-the-counter trading platform (OTC), intended for trading large volumes of cryptocurrencies.

Binance representatives stressed that the new platform will not support trade in fiat funds - transactions can only be made in cryptocurrencies.

One of the advantages of the site is the ability to use Binance accounts for calculations. At the same time, a list of more than 80 cryptocurrencies will be available for users to trade.

Bears on the cryptocurrency market have dominated for more than a year. In various thematic chats you can hear a huge number of stories about the loss of more than 80-90% of the deposit in dollars, but customer losses are not reflected in any way on the cryptocurrency exchanges.

Huobi Global CEO Livio Weng in an interview with the South China Morning Post (SCMP) shared information, according to which 70% of the company's revenue brings the main exchange business.

The popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance is trying to enable every inhabitant of the planet to buy new rapidly developing assets. The first such initiative — the launch of a crypto-fiat unit in Uganda last October — was not particularly successful and raised a number of questions, but the second was much more convincing.

This week, Binance introduced a new trading platform on the island of Jersey, through which residents of the European island will be able to buy Bitcoins for euros and pounds. The new site based on the infrastructure of Binance, but framed as a separate company.

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.