GOOD READS
What's behind this week's surge in the price of Bitcoin?
This week saw the price of Bitcoin surge to more than $5,000 in just under an hour, before settling back to the $4,900 range for the rest of the week. The big move in the markets was primarily due to improving technical market factors, as well as the looming Bitcoin halving set to take place in mid-2020. This price pattern has been seen a year out from previous halvings as well.
Bithumb to halt deposits after $19M in customer funds were stolen
Late last week, South Korean exchange Bithumb saw more than $19M in EOS funds evaporate after a massive hack. This week, the exchange sent out a notice to customers asking that they stop all deposits until further notice. There are fears that the attack may have been perpetrated by an insider, setting off a search inside the company for potential security holes.
ICOs only raised $118M in Q1 of this year, in a significant decrease from 2018
Nearly $7B in ICO funding was raised in the first quarter of last year, but so far, 2019 is seeing ICO funding begin to dry up. Investors have reportedly been reluctant to invest in ICOs since regulators began clamping down last year, and the risk profile is now even higher given that the returns for many ICOs have been lower than expected.
The SEC has just released its framework for digital assets
After a multi-year wait, the SEC has just released its framework for determining whether or not a given digital asset is a security. The framework legitimizes cryptocurrencies as digital assets but also places guidelines around what constitutes a regulations-compliant security in the crypto context. That said, the framework still leaves some questions unanswered, leaving the door open to regulatory confusion in the future.
Demystifying Cosmos and the path to blockchain interoperability
Cosmos has been making headlines recently for its interoperable blockchain platform, which it hopes will connect different chains with ease. It does this by solving some of the key governance Ethereum has faced and also pioneering a new form of inter-blockchain communication. This allows assets to transfer between chains, while even allowing new blockchains to be built on top of the Cosmos platform itself.
The key takeaways from Vitalik and Nouriel Roubini's duel in Seoul
This week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and economist Nouriel Roubini faced off in a debate on the merits of crypto, and its potential for igniting real social change. While Vitalik accepts that the current state of crypto is more centralized than some would like, he's also laying out a compelling path forward that involves sharding and would bring democratization back to the industry.
Andreessen Horowitz is blowing up the VC model (again)
The famed venture capital firm is shaking up its business model in a bid to make big bets on riskier industries like crypto. By registering its partners as financial advisors, Andreessen Horowitz is bringing its conventional fund and its crypto fund together under one roof - which will allow the firm's partners to more easily collaborate on generating deal flow.
Bitcoin has now surpassed PayPal in transaction volume
Despite a bearish year for the crypto markets, recent data is showing that Bitcoin has now surpassed PayPal in overall transaction volume, and it's coming close to passing Mastercard too. By several other key metrics, Bitcoin is now beating the industry's leading payment networks, and the quality of its community remains light-years ahead.
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