Every week, I will be collecting some news stories / opinion pieces that I have found to be interesting in the crypto world and condensing them down into one easily digestible article. All the article and images are taken from a news source that I like to use and an alternative to CoinTelegram called BeInCrypto. 

BeInCrypto is a news website founded in August 2018 that specialises in cryptographic technology, privacy, fintech, and the Internet — among other related topics. The primary goal of the website is to inject transparency into an industry rife with disingenuous reporting, unlabelled sponsored articles, and paid news masquerading as honest journalism. You can visit their website by clicking here or join their new Telegram Trading channel by clicking here. I am also part of that group and like the content they are discussing. There is a lot of news that came out last week, So let's get started!

MicroStrategy Buys $50 Million in BTC

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor announced in a Tweet on Dec. 4 that the company bought about 2574 bitcoins.

The company reported the purchase at an average price of about $19,427, with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the Form 8-K filing, MicroStrategy also disclosed that it currently holds approximately 40,824 bitcoin. The total price of the bitcoin purchases was $475.0 million. What do you think about this? You can read more about this story by clicking here.

Kraken Exchange Now Allows Users to Stake ETH on Its Platform

Kraken, the online cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it has enabled the ability for its users to stake ETH via the new ETH 2.0 Beacon Chain directly on the exchange. As far as major cryptocurrency exchanges go, Kraken appears to be one of the first to announce the opportunity for its users. 

To read more about this, click here.

Grayscale Buys Almost $140 Million in BTC in 24 Hours

Grayscale made the purchase of 7,188 Bitcoins in just one day. This confirms continued institutional interest surrounding their Bitcoin offering. When you look at Grayscale Bitcoin holdings over the last week and month, a similar pattern appears. In the last week, Grayscale added over 14,000 BTC. In the last month the company added a whopping 64,832 BTC worth collectively over $1.2 billion.

Miners created only 27,881 BTC in all of November, or only half the Bitcoin Grayscale purchased during the month. It is apparent just how massive and influential Grayscale is as a cryptocurrency focused entity. To read more about this, click here.

Pakistan Passes Resolution Urging Government to Legalize Cryptocurrencies

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly in Pakistan passed a resolution on legalizing digital assets and cryptocurrency mining on Dec 2. The measure calls upon Pakistan’s federal government to address the legal issues of cryptocurrency in the country. A Tweet by Dr. Sumera Shams, author of the resolution, shows both photos of the voting and the draft of the resolution in the north-west Pakistani province. 

To read more about this, click here.

Over 1,000 New Bitcoin ATMs Opened Worldwide in November

As the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continues to rise, there have been other corresponding factors pointing to greater worldwide adoption, such as the notable increase in the number of available Bitcoin ATMs.

According to data from Coin ATM Radar, 1,118 new ATMs were opened in November while 100 were closed. This led to a net growth of 1018 ATMs, an 8.9% month-on-month increase. To read more about this, click here.

$20 Million AirBit Cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme Ringleader Extradited to the US

An Acting US Attorney has announced the extradition of a key member of a cryptocurrency investment scam. Gutenberg Dos Santos was involved in the AirBit Club scam that’s thought to have generated in excess of $20 million.

The AirBit cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme promised its victims unbelievable rates of return on investments. Those duped believed they would receive shares of profits from digital asset mining and trading activity that turned out to be entirely fraudulent. To read more about this, click here.

Over One Million Ether Already Deposited for Staking on Ethereum 2.0

The mainnet launch of the Beacon Chain of ETH 2.0 took place on Dec. 1. Interest is objectively growing as the total number of ETH staked on the network has surpassed one million.

Just a few weeks ago, some users were worried that the necessary number of ETH would not reach the threshold for quite some time, delaying the anticipated Dec. 1 launch. To read more about this, click here.

Only 5% of Ripple Customers Are Located in the US, Says Ripple CEO

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, recently appeared on CNN with anchor Julia Chatterley to discuss Ripple’s operations, setbacks, and future outlook.

Although Ripple is still a United States-based company, the vast majority of Ripple customers come from outside the US. The firm is planning to move its headquarters to a different country with more lenient cryptocurrency regulations. To read more about this, click here.

Crypto Indexes Set for 2021 Launch: S&P Dow Jones Indices

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Thursday that it will be launching its own cryptocurrency indexes. The new products will reportedly go live in 2021. Crypto has already received notable mainstream attention in 2020, however, the S&P move will likely bring more legitimacy to the emerging asset class. To read more about this topic, click here.

Ethereum Google Search Trend Is Going Parabolic

Google Trends, an online tool that analyzes the popularity of search terms on the platform, shows that the volume of inquires related to Ethereum has gone parabolic. Besides the overall increase the entire cryptocurrency market has seen throughout 2020, there are many reasons that could lead to this exponential growth of Ethereum searches in the last few months. To read more about this, click here.

Loopring Launches Latest Layer 2 ‘Gas Free’ Automated Market Maker

The Loopring cryptocurrency exchange has just upgraded and launched its latest high-speed automated market maker for improved Ethereum zkRollup implementation.

The Loopring non-custodial order book-based exchange protocol was originally launched in November 2019 and the zkRollup based decentralized exchange was deployed as version 3 the following month.

The project has just announced that its latest v3.6 AMM has gone live ushering in extra functionality like the ability to do gas-free instant swaps and gas-free instant adding/removing liquidity as a liquidity provider on Layer 2. To read more about this, click here.

Facebook’s Libra Renamed ‘Diem’ Amid Plans for Stablecoin Launch 2021

Libra, the Facebook-backed digital currency is undergoing another rebranding phase in a bid to smoothen lingering regulatory wrinkles.According to Reuters, the Libra project is rebranding itself by changing its name to “Diem,” the Latin word for “day.” Thus, the Swiss-based Libra Association will now be known as the Diem Association. To read more about this, click here.

That is my weekly roundup of the interesting news coming from the crypto world. What do you think about the topics / news stories and what was your favourite article? If you liked the content, please consider following me and tipping the article. Also are you a trader? If you are check out my favourite Telegram Trading chat, where you can discuss and find out more about crypto projects. Click here to start conversations with other crypto traders!