The Australian currency exchange exchanger Bitcoin.com.au made it possible to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum for Fiat in more than 1200 newsstands throughout the country. "The fact that you can now buy Bitcoin and Ethereum from the same place you purchase soft drinks and stationery really speaks to how institutionalised cryptocurrency has become [...] For anyone who has hesitated about buying Bitcoin because it all seemed too complicated, this is the perfect setup that takes the fear factor out of investing in digital currencies", said Bitcoin.com.au CEO Rupert Hackett.

Pacific Marshall Islands is planning to issue its own crypto currency, which will become the official legal tender of the republic. Last week, members of parliament voted to promote this initiative, Senator Kenneth Chedi said. According to him, the senate still has a few days to oppose, but this is unlikely.

Japanese company Kumamoto Energy, a producer and supplier of electricity from the city of Kumamoto, began using solar energy for mining. The company is also affiliated with "Take Energy Corporation Co" Ltd, the largest corporation that manages solar power plants in the prefecture. The activities of the subsidiary "Kumamoto Energy" "OZ Mining", are aimed at the effective use of surplus electricity produced by mining farms.

Telegram Open Network may refuse to hold a public ICO. The company is ready to conduct a closed sale of tokens among a small number of investors and attracted the "iTechCapital" and "Da Vinci Capital" funds for their search. The public ICO (initial coin offering - the initial placement of coins of cryptocurrency or tokens that give their owners certain rights) of the project of the Telegram Open Network (TON) by Pavel Durov, which was expected in March, may not take place. The company is ready to confine itself to two closed investment rounds among qualified investors, and to allocate a part of the tokens to the development team of TON. This follows from two presentations for potential investors. These are materials in which on behalf of venture funds "iTechCapital" and "Da Vinci Capital" investors are invited to participate in the ongoing second round of the closed sale of TON tokens. Three investors confirmed their authenticity.

Many have heard of people building their homes and getting rich, or have lost their savings when investing in cryptocurrencies. Naturally, this attracted the attention of regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose chairman expressed his point of view on the situation. Jay Clayton (SEC Chairman) shared his thoughts on the cryptocurrencies and ICO, which are squeezed to five main points.

According to the Google Trends portal, the number of search queries "Bitcoin" and "Ethereum" in Google has recently decreased significantly - by 75% (from 100 points to 25). The number of requests for Bitcoin, in particular, began to decline from December, and now are at the same level as in October-November. A similar story with the Ethereum. While he managed to restore a high level of interest in January, after falling in December, it fell to about 25 points and stopped at the same level as in November.

For three years now, Liberland, a self-proclaimed state located between Serbia and Croatia, is struggling for its autonomy. In a few months, the country plans to issue its own cryptocurrency, and now accepts contributions to BTC, BCH and ETH. Applications for the citizenship of Liberland sent already half a million people. Nevertheless, the question of the borders of Liberland is still not resolved, since Croatia states that 2/5 square miles of unsettled territory stretching for 7 kilometers along the Danube between Serbia and Croatia belong to it.

Coindash announced that 20,000 ETH had been returned to the wallet of the company with an address associated with a hacker who last year stole about 37,000 ETH during the ICO. This is the second time that the hacker returned funds to Coindash. On February 23, Coindash stated through the blog that 20,000 ETH were transferred to the company's wallet at 12:01:41 GMT. In July last year, the hacker changed the address for funds transfer, displayed on the Coindash website, and then stole about 37,000 ETH sent by ICO participants. At that time, the value of the coins was approximately $ 10 million. The 20,000 ETH returned by Coindash now cost about $ 17 million.

In less than two months in 2018, ICO projects received $ 2 billion in funding, while for the entire 2017, the total amount invested in the initial placements of tokens was $ 5.7 billion. However, as the structure of these sales is now more and more focused on large investors, ordinary users had to try to take part in buying tokens and get benefits from it. The data show that 84% of all ICO fees this year were received from large investors and during preliminary sales of tokens. When the method of collective financing only appeared in the cryptocurrency industry, it was a democratic way of raising funds, helping to unite the emerging crypto-exchange community. However, in 2018 the situation seems to have changed.