Image of The Day, 26 of November: Quartz, CNBC, Financial TImes and Others
We're presenting "the image of the day". Bitnewstoday.com has chosen the most important news about the digital economy and virtual currencies. Only the most valuable stories from only the trusted sources. Each and every event from this list will change the world of the digital economy either way. The most important stories of this day in the most indicative quotes are below!
1. LEVA, BIRRA AND BITCOIN (The Next Web)
Yet another group of organized criminals have been apprehended after illegally acquiring cryptocurrency.
Three individuals in Bulgaria have been arrested and charged after obtaining over $3 million (5 million lev) through illegal schemes. Prosecutors had been gathering evidence against the group since June.
According to local outlets, police found a trove of passwords and private keys associated with various cryptocurrency exchange services and wallet providers. It is not clear what exactly the miscreants had done to obtain such a large amount of cryptocurrency illegally.
2. RUMBLE ON (CNBC)
Bitcoin is not going down without a fight
The world's best-known and most-valuable digital currency climbed back above the $4,000 mark late Sunday, according to CoinMarketCap data. Its price fell as low as $3,447.58 on Sunday, as investor angst over the cryptocurrency's plunge worsened. However, later in the day, Bitcoin pared its losses, and on Monday was trading 5.54 percent higher to a price of $3,982.80 shortly after 7 a.m. ET.
Cryptocurrencies are still well off their record highs though. Bitcoin is down more than 80 percent since it reached an all-time high close to $20,000 in December 2017. XRP and ether, the second and third-largest virtual currencies respectively, are both down roughly 90 percent since their record highs.
3. VITALIK DISAGREES (Quartz)
Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin says IBM’s corporate blockchain is missing the point
On the sidelines of Devcon 4, Ethereum’s cofounder, Vitalik Buterin, spoke with Quartz. He discussed what’s on his reading list, why he’s distressed about the IBM blockchain, and what blockchains might be good for — that is, beyond cryptocurrency.
“I read this CoinDesk article about some IBM blockchain thing. I don’t understand this deeply, but the detail that jumped out at me is they’re saying “Hey, we own all the IP and this is basically our platform and you’re getting on it.” And like, that’s totally not the point — potential value of tracking food on a blockchain is that you’d get QR codes stamped on the [food] at every step [along] the way, and you as a consumer can scan the code and get confirmation about “here is where the stuff came from.” Like I can check if it complies with my own moral values or standards for quality and so forth. There’s definitely something there, but whether or not any of the actors there are doing it remotely correctly, I’m much less sure.”
4. JUMPING JACK FLASH (Financial TImes)
Bitcoin was down again on Monday morning after a rocky weekend
The latest fall brings Bitcoin’s loss for the calendar year to date to 72 per cent. Responses within the crypto community were mixed: writing on online forum Reddit, one user expressed excitement at the lower price saying it was good news for prospective investors and enthusiasts looking to buy more: “Last year I could only dream of owning 1 bitcoin, now it’s possible... I wanna see this thing go so low I can afford to buy 20.”
Another was more pessimistic: “I would be [excited] if I had any money left to buy with . . . I need a selling season, not a buying season.” One user appeared to have more mixed feelings:” [Bitcoin’s] price has stopped dropping like a rock, but I am concerned there isn’t enough buy volume coming in to call a bottom,” the user said. “C‘mon bulls, let’s make some more money before we trash this useless experiment.”
5. MOON LANDING (The Daily Hodl)
Initial coin offerings getting more and more money from venture capitalists
According to a report by Outlier Ventures, VC investments have surged 316% from a total of $900 million in 2017 to over $3.85 billion in 2018. VC is the now the dominant source of funding in the crypto world with investments across all funding stages. A recent slate of 119 deals in the third quarter are the most ever reported. Conversely, ICOs are down almost 74% from the $3.8 billion raised in the first quarter with September’s ICOs reaching a total of $150 million.
Eden Dhaliwal, partner and head of crypto-economics at Outlier Ventures, says:
“This quarter saw significant negative sentiment around utility tokens from an investment standpoint. Many investors have grown frustrated over regulation and exasperated over valuations of tokenized networks. This represents a new cycle back towards equity based blockchain investments until the crypto community makes advances in validating tokens as a new asset class with viable business models. That said, projects with well designed token economies are still finding support from the community and increasingly from VCs.”
6. GETTING INTO THE TRON (Blokt)
Tron noted that since the release of its first Dapp weekly report, more developers are now digging deeper into Tron’s technology
Tron published its second Dapp Weekly report on Nov. 23rd for the period running from Nov. 17th to Nov. 23rd. The release of the initial Dapp weekly report has triggered an increase in the number of developers delving into Tron’s technology. More teams are beginning to develop on the Tron network. While the number of Dapps listed on the DappHouse has not increased, Tron discovered that there are more than 20 Dapps running on its MainNet through other channels. The report is rounded off by the number of partnerships Tron has entered into.
Compared with last week, the transaction volume for Dapps on the Tron network increased by 15 percent. After reaching 640,000, Tron’s account number surpassed that of EOS, and the 24-hour transaction volume increased steadily to over 1.5 million. Tron’s official DEX has witnessed a significant growth after its daily transaction volume surpassed 100 million TRX.
7. THE NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS (Financial Magnates)
What does 2019 hold for Bitcoin?
At the beginning of 2018, plenty of analysts predicted that 2018 would hold Bitcoin’s really big boom, a skyrocket in valuation that would make the 2017 rise look like peanuts. Mike Novogratz said that Bitcoin could “easily” reach $40,000 by the end of 2018; crypto portfolio manager Jeet Singh said just last week at the World Economic Forum that Bitcoin could still reach $50,000 this year. John McAfee made a similarly bullish prediction, although his vision for major growth in Bitcoin valuation extends to 2020.
For as many analysts, fund managers, and other financial bigwigs that predict that Bitcoin could reach the tens of thousands by the end of the year, there are two dozen more who say the opposite. Even Mike Novogratz reeled in his optimism. On October 3rd, he publicly said that BTC wouldn’t top $9000 by the end of the year. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Bitcoin’s stagnancy throughout 2018 took a serious blow earlier this month when it fell below $4500, a low that hasn’t been reached in over a year. According to some, things are going to get even worse. Renowned analyst and researcher Willy Woo predicts that Bitcoin won’t truly bottom out until the second quarter of 2019.
8. POWER FOR THE BULLS (The Daily Hodl)
BitPay chief says Bakkt and Fidelity will power Bitcoin bull run
The COO of BitPay says Fidelity and Bakkt will push enough institutional money into the crypto market to trigger a bull run in 2019.
Fidelity’s crypto trading platform and custody solution for qualified investors launched last month. Meanwhile, Bakkt’s new physically-backed Bitcoin futures product is set to launch in January. Sonny Singh told Bloomberg he thinks the two companies will help push the price of Bitcoin to $15,000 — $20,000 over the next year.
9. REGULATOR DISAPPROVES (The Next Web)
It’s stupid to buy Bitcoin from tobacco stores, says French regulator
The central bank of France and its local financial markets regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), are not particularly fond of the prospect of having thousands of tobacco stores sell Bitcoin and Ethereum coupons to citizens.
The government agency has issued a notice to warn citizens against buying cryptocurrency coupons, stating following “[In light of recent announcements to offer cryptocurrency coupons in tobacco stores,] the AMF, the Bank of France, and the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority warn that the acts of purchasing, selling, and investing in Bitcoin are currently carried out outside any regulated market.”
10. BOLD STATEMENT (Blokt)
Professor Saravanan and cryptocurrency exchange conducted joint research, declaring Bitcoin safe from a 51% attack
Cryptocurrency service provider Zebpay and Professor Saravanan Vijayakumaran, an Associate professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, recently conducted a survey on Bitcoin’s security, concluding that the world’s premier cryptocurrency is safe from a 51% attack. The research suggests that it would be very costly to assume 51% control of the Bitcoin network and even if it happens, there would be little to be gained financially.
Zebpay CEO Ajeet Khurana commented on the research, saying that the cryptocurrency, which recently completed 10 years of its existence, is moving further into the financial mainstream and the whitepaper investigates the security of this protocol given the current circumstances. He added that the paper dives deeper into the security for Bitcoin at times of wider adoption.