Month: December 2017

2017 will go down as the biggest year in Bitcoin’s history – with meteoric highs paving the way for the preeminent cryptocurrency bursting into mainstream consciousness. December will forever be remembered for Bitcoin’s massive price correction after hitting the $20,000 milestone, but a lot happened in the lead up to the climactic end of the year. Rewind to January 2017. Bitcoin had just broken through the $1,000 barrier and the talk among crypto enthusiasts was that the virtual currency was Read more …

Get Trading Recommendations and Read Analysis on Hacked.com for just $39 per month. The bitcoin price has slightly recovered to above $13,500 as the market valuation of Ripple dropped by $20 billion overnight. Major Shift in Trend Since December 30, Ripple has regained $7 billion in market cap and is still demonstrating a valuation significantly larger than Ethereum, the third most valuable cryptocurrency in the market. Over the past few days, the entire cryptocurrency market has experienced a drastic shift Read more …

This is an entry in CoinDesk’s Most Influential in Blockchain 2017 series. “If I talk like this, am I loud enough to be heard?” It’s an ironic statement from a man who became famous without saying anything at all. Steps from San Francisco’s gleaming City Hall, the internet sensation better known as “Bitcoin Sign Guy” struggles with a microphone as he tries to recall the day when he boldly thrust out a yellow legal pad behind a sitting Federal Reserve Read more …

Technology Considering the persistent issues with the system at the moment, fast and cheap bitcoin (BTC) transactions might sound like a distant dream, but its realization might be just around the corner. The first transaction using real bitcoin to make a payment on the lighting network has recently been completed via mobile top-up service Bitrefill. Also Read: Several Bitcoin Exchanges Are Closing Their Doors to New Traders Lightning Payment on Bitrefill Software developer Alex Bosworth has revealed Read more …

Get Trading Recommendations and Read Analysis on Hacked.com for just $39 per month. Bitcoin investors in Australia have claimed that major banks including National Australia Bank, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corporation, have started to freeze the bank accounts of cryptocurrency traders without prior notice. Major Banks Called Out Earlier this week, Australian cryptocurrency trader Alex Saunder publicly called out all of the major banks in Australia that have had a history of treating cryptocurrency traders Read more …

Bitcoin certainly has had a wild ride in 2017. Its price has risen from around $1,000 at the start of the year to over $13,000 at the time of writing. At one point, less than a month ago, you’d have to fork out almost $20,000 to buy a single Bitcoin. The market was clearly over-extended as the mania surrounding the launch of Bitcoin futures subsided, so too did the price. Recently, fear and uncertainty over legislation in South Korea has Read more …

The recent abduction of UK-based Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Exmo Operator Pavel Lerner has demonstrated the importance of financial privacy for cryptocurrency users. Earlier this week, BBC initially reported that Lerner kidnapped outside of his office in Kiev, Ukraine, on Dec. 28, by a group of individuals who dragged him at knife point to a black Mercedes and drove off the scene. At the time, Anatoliy Larin, the spokesperson of the exchange, stated: “Despite the situation, the exchange is working Read more …

This is an entry in CoinDesk’s Most Influential in Blockchain 2017 series. Any publicity is good publicity, the saying goes. And with a disruptive technology like cryptocurrency, sometimes even negative comments from a powerful incumbent can be bullish signals … particularly if they’re coming out of the right mouth, like the big one belonging to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. A banker lionized in the business press for his leadership during the 2008 Read more …

In a year of soaring cryptocurrency prices and countless initial coin offerings, it’s perhaps unsurprising that, over the course of 2017, regulators worldwide stepped in to define how they would oversee what had been to date a legally murky environment. From China’s crackdown on online exchanges to the SEC’s report on The DAO, 2017 was perhaps one of the most significant years to date on the regulatory front. Indeed, the year saw regulators from many of the world’s leading economies Read more …

Setting aside a massive December price correction, Bitcoin has pushed its way into the minds of ordinary people all over the world. Google stats for 2017 have Bitcoin as the second most searched news term of the year, as everyone from plucky investors, cryptocurrency newbies and diehard technologists look for the latest news and price updates on the lucrative cryptocurrency. With a market capitalization of over $11 bln, Bitcoin has made many a millionaire with its rapid appreciation in value Read more …

This is an entry in CoinDesk’s Most Influential in Blockchain 2017 series. Strange as it might seem, Charlie Lee stills pays for parking. On the sun-streaked streets of San Mateo, California, the man affectionately known as “Satoshi lite” feeds the meter before walking up to the front of the famed early-stage startup incubator Boost VC. The locked glass doors seem not to care they’re reflecting the face of litecoin, the $12 billion cryptocurrency that’s now one of the world’s oldest, Read more …