Founder of the Ikigai cryptocurrency hedge fund Travis Kling believes that a small group of wealthy traders can push the Bitcoin rate to new heights.

Kling based on data from its own analysis and information from other institutional investors. In his opinion, there is a small group of "risky whales", which caused the recent take-off of the first cryptocurrency course.

David Chaum said that the most stunning application for the industry would be a privacy-oriented message-sending system, integrated with payments.

The digital currency pioneer said this in an interview with Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast. David Chaum is the creator of the predecessor of Bitcoin, e-currency Ecash, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement. Chaum told Bloomberg that raising awareness of privacy and digital sovereignty in the modern era paved the way for blockchain and cryptocurrency, which can make a breakthrough and go into mass use. 

Co-founder and CEO of Kenetic Capital, Jehan Chu expressed the opinion that the rate of the first cryptocurrency by the end of this year will exceed $ 30,000.

Chu made a statement in an interview with Bloomberg. According to the head of Kenetic Capital, one of the main factors for the growth of Bitcoin will be the launch of the Fidelity and Bakkt platforms, the emergence of Facebook's own cryptocurrency. In addition, the recent unsuccessful share offerings conducted by Uber and Lift may attract investors to "new technology companies."

According to the Chepicap portal, an unknown sender transferred a transaction in the amount of 8.88 LTC (~ $ 1000) in the Litecoin network and paid a fee of 200 LTC (more than $ 22000).

Thus, the size of the commission exceeded the amount sent by 22 times. The transaction was added to the block, mined by the Chinese mining pool LTC.TOP.

The world's largest social network Facebook plans to release its own cryptocurrency called GlobalCoin next year.

According to the BBC, Facebook will launch a system of cryptocurrency payments in the "dozen countries" by the first quarter of 2020. The company intends to begin testing the system by the end of this year. More information about Facebook plans will appear in the coming months.

Telegram Company informed in a letter to investors that it plans to launch its project Telegram Open Network (TON) in the 3rd quarter of this year.

Representatives of Telegram said in their letter to investors that the network is being tested successfully: the test blockchain works fine, and the consensus algorithm is consistent with the goals stated in the Whitepaper of the project.

The head of the cryptocurrency investment company Morgan Creek Capital, Mark Yusko said that Bitcoin is "a great asset" that should be in the portfolio of every competent investor.

Yusko also stressed that in 10 years, Bitcoin significantly outperformed any funds based on traditional assets.

A cryptocurrency trader, Anthony Grisanti, who works on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), predicted a Bitcoin exchange rate to reach $ 7,000 and the subsequent consolidation of markets.

Anthony Grisanti made his assumptions on the Trade Alert program on CNBC. According to a professional trader, in the near future, the rate of the first cryptocurrency will fall to the level of $ 7,000.

The Ethereum Foundation announced its intention to invest about $ 30 million in the development of key projects in the Ethereum ecosystem.

According to the foundation's statement, over the next 12 months, $ 19 million will be allocated to "create Ethereum of tomorrow". In particular, funds will be directed to the development of Ethereum 2.0, "second-level" scaling solutions such as Plasma, and other research initiatives. In addition, in the coming year it is planned to spend an additional $ 8 million to support the current network of Ethereum through initiatives such as Ethereum 1x.

Changpeng Zhao, the head of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges BINANCE, expressed the opinion that cryptocurrencies will become a shared future and urged everyone to accept digital assets.

"If you don't want to be left out in the future, you will have to embrace it," Zhao said at the 10th Asian Leadership Conference 2019 in South Korea.

Well-known cryptocurrency enthusiast Tom Lee expressed the opinion that the return of Bitcoin to $ 8,000 after falling to $ 6,400 is a clear sign of the end of a "cryptocurrency winter".

Tom Lee immediately presented 13 reasons for the end of the bear market, and one of the main reasons he called the return of Bitcoin to $ 8,000. According to the co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, this confirms the bullish trend in the cryptocurrency market.

The company Zulu Republic announced the launch of a new bot in the popular WhatsApp messenger, through which users can send and receive BTC and LTC.

According to the Chainalysis study, a third of all ethers in circulation belong to only 376 people.

The study showed that despite the control of a significant part of ETH, these "whales" accounted for only 7% of all Ethereum transactions. Chainalysis concluded that, although these people do not necessarily have a significant impact on the price of ETH, they contribute to market volatility when large sales are made.

According to the new index of the analytical web platform Indexica, the current growth rate of Bitcoin is due to its development and maturity as an asset.

Analysts have identified three main factors of the growth rate of Bitcoin: popularity in the network, reducing concerns about fraud, as well as a change in the attitude of people to the first cryptocurrency. At the same time, researchers noted that more and more financial experts and scientists are discussing Bitcoin, and traditional financial institutions are starting to take this asset more seriously.

The Governor of the French Central Bank and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank Francois Villeroy de Galhau said that the stablecoins have more potential than Bitcoin.

According to Bloomberg, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, in addition, believes that cryptocurrencies tied to fiat money, will benefit the global financial apparatus. 

According to the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange study, investment in the ICO industry decreased by 97% compared with the previous year, and reached only $ 40 million in the first quarter of 2019.

According to the study, in the first quarter of 2019, the ICO market volume showed a decline of 97%, compared to the same period of 2018. According to the report, the top 10 ICO projects in terms of capital attracted in 2018 included EOS, Telegram, Dfinity, Bankera, t0, Basis, Orbs PumaPay, Jet8 and Unikoin Gold.

According to Messari analyst's OnChainFx rating dated May 10, Bitcoin miners, on transaction processing fees alone, received $ 580,000 per day. 

For comparison, all of the miners of other cryptocurrencies, also analyzed by Messari, for the same period, earned 8 times less.

Joseph Lubin said that the blockchain scalability of Ethereum would grow 1,000 times in the next two years.

Co-founder of Ethereum expressed his opinion in an interview with Cointelegraph last weekend. Lubin specified that such a significant increase in scalability will be ensured by the next iteration of the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain network. He explained that the development divided into four stages and that eight groups are already creating clients for the new chain.