For the first time in forever, this week in bitcoin was strangely subdued. No major price movements, no regulatory crackdowns and no Tether collapse. Iota got into a bit of a pickle and then blamed everyone else, as Iota is apt to do, but that’s all. Everything was uneventfully ticking over, right up until Friday, when word broke of a record-breaking hack from the Land of the Rising Sun – yes, the very same land from where the world’s previous largest hack emanated. Turns out this week wasn’t so forgettable after all.
Also read: Bitcoin Futures Report Shows Bullish Sentiment Is In the Air
Tangle Loving Blues
Iota got themselves into a bit of a tangle at the start of the week, but thankfully they had the good grace to apologize and vowed to learn from their mistakes. Ah, who are we kidding? Their overgrown manchild of a CEO lashed out at anyone and everyone for reporting the news because shooting the messenger is always easier than tidying up your own mess. First there was the story of Iota users losing $4 million from wallet hacks, followed by an analyst’s report that the altcoin was severely overvalued.
Meanwhile, South Korea was quietly getting its crypto affairs in order with a shade more dignity than team Iota. We reported on how a new system will enable the country’s exchanges to share date with banks, as officials released guidelines on how the bank-exchange relationship should operate moving forwards.
Weiss Ratings Are Great Bait
Midweek entertainment came in the form of cryptocurrency’s Weiss Ratings which, everyone agreed, were laughably bad. It’s always fun to see supposed experts from the world of finance get crypto so wrong. You’d get more accurate ratings from the average Twitter trader with a five-digit follower count. Other stories which warmed the comments section this week included Crypto Celebs, rumors of Bitfinex and Tether’s bank accounts containing billions, George Soros blathering nonsense, and another lingering scam – Onecoin – being shut down in Bulgaria.
This week’s most popular story however concerned credit card issuer Discover blocking access to cryptocurrency for its 44 million customers. This is becoming a recurring theme among credit card issuers. It seems the crypto revolution is going to have to occur without their help, but we always assumed that anyway.
Coincheck Gets REKT
And onto the final essential story of the week, in which Coincheck gets $400 million of NEM removed from its vaults after failing to implement even the most basic op-sec. Unlike the Mt Gox affair, it’s a story that’s ended happily as all of the exchange’s customers who lost their NEM will be reimbursed in Japanese yen. It says volumes about the sort of profits that crypto exchanges are making when they can lay their hands on almost half a billion dollars in fiat in 48 hours. Still, props to Coincheck for making amends and to NEM for refusing to fork away the stolen coins.
With the crypto markets starting to rise again, the stage is set for an edifying and profitable seven days ahead. All we need is for Bitfinex and Tether to cling on, crypto exchanges to multi-sig their assets and everything should turn out just fine.
What was your favorite story from this week in bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Blanka Boskov.
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.