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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.