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!
PS, we all know that Bitcoin hit an all-time-high, so I won't be focusing on the price of Bitcoin. If you want to keep up to date with the price, you can at CoinMarketCap by clicking here.
Crypto Council of WEF Releases First Report
The World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Cryptocurrencies inaugural report is an overview of the cryptocurrency landscape. The report, titled “Crypto, What is it Good For?” makes the case that “cryptocurrencies have reached a point of inevitability”. The authors call the report a ‘non-exhaustive list of companies, protocols, and projects’.
To read more about this, click here.
Coinbase IPO Worth $28 Billion – Messari
Massive US exchange Coinbase has filed papers with the SEC to go public. With huge volumes and an ambitious board, Messari believes the company could be worth billions.
Coinbase filed an S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This confirmed some not-so-secret rumors that the exchange intended to go public. With new money pouring in and bitcoin smashing through it’s all-time-high, Coinbase thought it was high time to become a US stock. To read more about this, click here.
Tether Sets New Records With $20bn+ Market Cap
USDT is now also the fourth largest crypto by market cap. The news was announced in a Tweet from the company. At the time this article was written, Tether had a market cap of slightly over $20.03 billion. This is down about $10 million from its peak today, according to CoinMarketCap.
What do you think about this? You can read more about this by clicking here.
Venezuela Holds Unofficial Referendum Using Blockchain, Millions of Votes Cast
Juan Guiado, the opposition leader of Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, held an ‘unofficial’ referendum that resulted in millions casting their votes. The referendum was to decide on whether Maduro should resign from his position or remain in power. Over 6.5 million Venezuelans voted using a blockchain system.
The referendum was held on the Voatz platform, a pro-democracy blockchain-based application where citizens have the opportunity to securely and transparently vote. To read more, click here.
Compound Finance Announces its New Multi-Asset Blockchain
Decentralized finance lending and borrowing platform Compound Finance is launching its own distributed ledger to enable the transfer of value and liquidity.
Compound Finance was the pioneer of liquidity farming, being one of the first to launch governance token distribution incentives in June 2020. The DeFi protocol is taking things a step further now with its latest product, Compound Chain. To read more about this, click here.
NFT Market Takes off With 115% Month Over Month Growth
According to a recent tweet from Dapp.com, a website solely focused on decentralized applications, the NFT market is booming. NFTs or non-fungible tokens have reached a 30-day volume of $10.15 million, representing a 115% growth from the previous month.
To read more about this, click here.
NiceHash Completes 4,640 Bitcoin Reimbursement to 2017 Hack Victims
NiceHash has finally finished reimbursing users impacted by a December 2017 security compromise. The cloud mining company has paid back a total of 4,640 bitcoin. The firm has been gradually diverting profits to its users for almost three years. It started the refund process in Feb. 2018.
To read more, click here.
Yearn Finance Founder Andre Cronje Awarded DeFi ‘Person of the Year’
Decentralized finance has been rocket fuel for the crypto industry this year. From its humble beginnings have emerged a raft of new protocols and the personalities that built them. DeFi Prime has compiled a list of the top personalities and innovators in the industry this year, creator of the yield aggregator Yearn Finance, Andre Cronje, came out on top not just for his development of such an innovative product.
To read more about this, click here.
Nexus Mutual Hacker Taunts Founder With 4,500 ETH Ransom
The Nexus Mutual saga continues as the hacker who forced their way into the founder’s wallet has now included a ransom threat. EtherText, a Twitter channel that relays text messages embedded within Ethereum transactions, displayed the message. Someone claiming to be responsible for the hack sent the founder and recent wallet victim, Hugh Karp, an ominous threat with a ransom of 4,500 ETH.
To read more about this, click here.
British Asset Management Firm Announces $15M Bitcoin Purchase
British investment management firm Ruffer LLP is the latest publicly-listed company to announce its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC). Ruffer announced the news via a letter to investors published on Dec. 15. According to the note, the company allocated 2.5% of its $620 million in assets under management (AUM). To read more about this, click here.
PayPal Bitcoin Isn’t Bitcoin – Andreas Antonopoulos
One of Bitcoin’s biggest proponents is not a fan of PayPal’s supposed Bitcoin service. Andreas Antonopoulos is one of the most well-known crypto evangelists worldwide. He’s the author of numerous books related to the space, such as Mastering Bitcoin, The Internet of Money, and Mastering Ethereum.
Antonopoulos recently released a YouTube video titled ‘Cargo Class Bitcoin with PayPal [PayPal Bitcoin isn’t Bitcoin].’ Antonopolous describes in detail the potential problems PayPal faces with its service such as, “trying to chase the price of Bitcoin to the point where that renders them bankrupt.” To read more about this, click here.
Daily Created Ethereum Addresses Hits a Three-Year High
In more bullish news relating directly to Ethereum fundamentals, the second-largest crypto by market cap has seen the most new addresses created in a single day in the last 35 months. Ethereum may be having one of its biggest years so far, as the system migrates over to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) verification with the launch of 2.0. Alongside this release, ETH witnessed a yearly price increase of around 4x.
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!
