An interesting week in the crypto-verse where news you should be aware of including; price action, BSV hardfork, why MasterCard dumped Libra and much more. Read on to find the latest and don't lose track of this ultra fast-moving industry.
Bitcoin keeps rising
There’s no stopping BTC now, it seems. This week, Bitcoin rose above $10,000, gaining about $800 in the process. The last time Bitcoin was worth this much was September 2019- over 100 days ago. Put on your big-boy pants guys, now is the time to manage your emotions.
Ethereum also recorded decent gains, rising from $190-ish to $230.
There are talks of the recent bull run being a reaction to the coronavirus outbreak but who knows what actually moves Bitcoin?
ETH 2.0: Vitalik Buterin 95% confident about 2020 launch
In a Reddit AMA, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Eth 2.0 researchers Danny Ryan and Justin Drake say the next phase of Ethereum, ETH 2.0, won’t be rolled out until three clients can run testnets consistently for a minimum of eight weeks.
The update was scheduled to come on board in January 2020 but was postponed to Q2 2020. Now, it seems Q2 2020 might not look but Drake says he is 95% confident that ETH 2.0 will launch this year.
ETH 2.0 promises higher transaction speed and the beginning of the move to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
Bitcoin emoji on Twitter
The Bitcoin emoji is now on Twitter will appear after you type ‘#btc’ and ‘#bitcoin’. Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey is campaigning for it to be added to the list of emojis on mobile phones.
Confiscated $40m BTC up for grabs in US auction
Proceeds from ‘Silk Road’?
The US Marshals will auction off 4,040.5 confiscated BTC on February 18. That’s about $40m going by today’s price.
The coins were seized by multiple law enforcement agencies and was transferred to the Marshals for safekeeping.
Bids will be accepted via email only from bidders who are pre-registered with the Marshals. Registration includes a $200,000 deposit.
Ethereum DeFi hits $1 billion
The Ethereum dapp ecosystem is growing really fast.
The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance applications surpassed $1 billion this week, recording a 100% gain. This sparked celebrations across many quarters of the Ethereum community.
However, not everyone is toasting the milestone as there are rumors that the actual amount is lower than generally believed.
BSV activates Genesis hard fork
BSV had its genesis hard fork. The hard fork un-bounds BSV by removing block size limits. Now, BSV can process huge blocks and execute thousands of transactions per second. But is this a good thing?
Mastercard - why we dumped Libra
This week Mastercard revealed the reason it broke up with Facebook and left the Libra project. CEO Ajay Banga said his attitude towards the project deteriorated when the project members started linking what was supposed to be a global currency with a proprietary wallet- the Calibra wallet.
In short, Mastercard had doubts over Libra’s business model and regulatory compliance. That’s why they pulled out.
TRON wants to reshape the internet
TRON CEO, Justin Sun, during an interview said the startup is working on a project (MPC Torch private protocol) that will improve anonymity and speed of transactions. He believes this project will reshape the internet.
More and more XRPs
Ripple recently unlocked 500 million XRP tokens (worth $120m) from escrow, unleashing fresh controversy.
The number of XRP tokens in circulation is much already and Ripple being the 'custodian’ firm in charge of the tokens is more than enough to spark controversy.
