Miners, hackers and investors: weekly review
Last week (June 4 2018 - June 8 2018) has seen three groups engaging with the digital currency space one way or another. There was several major news from the mining sphere, traditional investors continue to assess the marker, while their counterparts from the crypto world are opening new branches. And, lastly, when it comes to hackers, there was a big report on the malicious network and the wide public assessment of 51% attacks is still ongoing. The price dynamics of Bitcoin and altcoins, on the other hand, have not been groundbreaking, and will be analyzed in a separate material.
Mining
GMO has introduced a new mining device - full specifications can be read in a separate report. Here it’s worth mentioning that it is able to compete with one of the most advanced models of Bitmain devices which is going to give the market participants a choice - something they lacked long enough due to Bitmain’s monopoly.
The United States miners will open a big center in an old factory near Canada, the facility may become the biggest in the country, if the estimations from the reports are correct.
Meanwhile in Quebec, there clearly is a clear regulatory uncertainty surrounding the electricity consumption from hydro plants: at the beginning of the week, Bitnewstoday cited a report from Le Journal de Montréal - the article which can literally be translated as “Quebec opens the floodgates for cryptocurrency” published 30 May. Quite confusingly, just a bit later in June 8, crypto media outlets told about new restrictions — the province has apparently closed the floodgates again.
Investors
The crypto exchange Coinbase which is one of the locomotives of the US crypto market, if not beyond, is continuing to pursue its active policy of mergers and acquisitions while also opening a new branch. The financial services firm Keystone Capital has been acquired, while Coinbase Japan is announced to open soon with a former Morgan Stanley banker leading it.
Huobi, in turn, is planning to open a new exchange in San Francisco, as it became known on Friday. The aggressive expansion is directly mentioned in the announcement of this Singapore-based platform.
The classic assets management giant Fidelity Investments has been seen in the rumors about its own crypto brokerage platform, they have not been confirmed by official representatives, although look logical considering the positive attitude of the corporate leader towards cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Two other fiat market firms VanEck and SolidX have filed for new Bitcoin ETFs - this is not the first time they are doing it and the initiative may easily be overturned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Regardless, nothing will happen if one doesn’t try, and maybe there will be times when Bitcoin ETFs become a mainstream trader’s instrument.
Hackers
Throughout the past days, the community and the press continued to discuss 51% attacks. It looks like that they are easier than previously assumed. The development team of suffered project Bitcoin Gold vows to install a good defense against this method of blockchain manipulation. A new attack on ZenCash happened on the weekend (3-4 June 2018).
A vast criminal operation has been unveiled by cybersecurity experts, and it looks like some experienced coders and network architects are behind it. Mining viruses using Monero and traffic redirection techniques are used on various corporate computers around the world.
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