The 25 most important crypto stories of 2019

Inside Bitcoin presented by Andela.

Presented by Subscribe | View in browser As we slowly wind down 2019, a look back at the crypto market shows that it has certainly been an interesting one. Looking back at the past 12 months plenty of events have taken place, from several Bitcoin ETF applications, crypto scams and hacks, to the announcement of Facebook's Libra stablecoin. Coin values have gone up, and, ultimately, down, and opinions have been voiced as to where the market is going. One thing is for sure, as the year comes to an end, many will be looking to see what 2020 will bring. In no particular order, let's revisit the 25 most important crypto stories of 2019. As a reminder, Inside.com returns with its regular publishing schedule on Jan. 2. 1. Hackers steal over $500,000 worth of Ethereum Classic The hackers were able to undertake a 51 percent attack that rewrote the coin's blockchain. As a result, this allowed them to double spend around 88,500 tokens. –ARS TECHNICA 2. Bitwise submits a Bitcoin ETF filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Bitwise had initially filed a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund in 2018; however, this was rejected by the commission following concerns about price manipulation. Bitwise claimed that "2019 should be the year" for a crypto ETF. –BITCOINIST Reviews: CNBC COIN DESK DECRYPT More: Following the SEC's rejection of Bitwise's ETF application, the commission is taking a second look at its proposal. As part of the review, the general public can comment on the rejection through December 18. 3. The price of Bitcoin dips below $3,500 Trading at its lowest since mid-December 2018, the price of Bitcoin fell to $3,480 per coin. According to experts, they blamed the fall in value to the 51 percent hack on Ethereum Classic, arguing that it scared investors off. –MARKET WATCH Reviews: COINTELEGRAPH BITCOINIST More: Since the beginning of the year, the price of Bitcoin has fluctuated in value. In October, it nearly topped $10,000 after a rally in price following China's president, Xi Jinping's endorsement of the blockchain. 4. The Constantinople hardfork The hardfork, which was scheduled for February 27, had been delayed several times. A previous schedule was on January 16 but was postponed after developers discovered a security bug. The fork continued without EIP 1283, an upgrade that was supposed to make certain transactions on Ethereum cheaper. –MASHABLE 5. QuadrigaCX, a Canadian crypto exchange unable to repay $190 million in client holdings In December, the platform's founder Gerald Cotten died in India; however, he was the only one who knew the passwords to its cold storage account, meaning there was no way for others to gain access to the locked funds. Speculation, at the time, circulated that Cotton had faked his own death. –GIZMODO Reviews: COIN DESK BLOOMBERG More: Lawyers representing the platform's users' have requested that Cotten's body be exhumed to check he is dead and, if so, the cause of his death. 6. Ripple's XRP bonuses In order to recruit engineers to the company, Ripple offered them millions of dollars worth of the altcoin, along with a competitive salary back in February. According to an anonymous engineer, they had received an email from the company promising a package worth up to $3 million in XRP. –COIN DESK 7. Mercedes-Benz develops a blockchain platform to increase transparency Partnering with software company Icertis, the platform allows for a sustainable mapping of sorted documents across the supply chain ensuring that each component of the car meets industry standards. –COINTELEGRAPH 8. Miguel Vias, the head of XRP market at Ripple, denies allegations Back in March, Ripple was accused of bribing Coinbase to list XRP at the end of February. Coinbase had originally taken a cautious approach to the coin's controversial history with Ripple Labs, in particular to a $167.7 million class-action lawsuit. –CCN 9. LocalBitcoins.com implements new security measures The platform took steps in March to satisfy the European Union's money-laundering rules, making it harder to purchase Bitcoin anonymously. By doing so, it became the first to align itself with the EU's 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD). –THE NEXT WEB 10. Brock Pierce's crypto-backed mortgage Brock Pierce, the founder of Blockchain Capital, used his crypto reserves as collateral to loan the money from NEXO, a Swiss-based lender. He then used the money to buy a $1.2 million home in Amsterdam. –BITCOINIST       A MESSAGE FROM ANDELA Proper Onboarding is Critical for Employee Retention and On-the-Job Performance At Andela, we have onboarded hundreds of distributed developers, and have discovered exactly what it takes to successfully integrate engineers into a team. Here's what we learned. 11. Ripple's Chris Larsen donates $25 million in XRP The co-founder of Ripple donated the money to the San Francisco State University in April. According to the university, this was the biggest donation ever made to a U.S. university. –CCN 12. Vitalik Buterin defends Ethereum Ethereum's co-founder took to Reddit to defend the progress being made to Ethereum 2.0. In his post, Buterin argued that it had not been delayed "even by a single day." –ETHEREUM WORLD NEWS 13. BitMex CEO claims Bitcoin can reach $50,000 in two years Mid-April, Arthur Hayes made the prediction that the price of Bitcoin could reach new highs in two years. At the time, the value of Bitcoin was priced at $5,100; however, this didn't stop Hayes from voicing his opinion as to where he thinks it could reach. –CCN 14. Hackers declare Bitcoin as national currency Sweden's ruling political party, the Social Democrats Party, had their Twitter account hacked, which saw the hackers declaring that Bitcoin was the country's national currency. They also changed the name to "Socialdemokraterna" to the "Bitcoin Democrats" and added a BTC symbol to the party's logo. –BE IN CRYPTO 15. Coinbase shuts its office in Chicago Late April, the San Francisco-based platform closed the office and laid off 30 employees in the process. More than a year ago, Coinbase opened the office in Chicago to take advantage of the city's financial expertise. –FORTUNE 16. Warren Buffett is no fan of crypto Billionaire investor Buffett has said that Bitcoin is a "gambling device" and that it has "a lot of frauds connected with it." He'd previously called the coin "rat poison squared." –CNBC 17. Hackers steal $40 million from Binance Binance found themselves the victim of a hack at the beginning of May, which resulted in the loss of $40 million worth of Bitcoin. The hackers were able to steal 7,047.2 Bitcoin from an internet-connected hot wallet on the platform. –BUSINESS INSIDER 18. Facebook reopens blockchain advertising In January 2018, the social media platform had banned crypto advertising in order to protect users from initial coin offering (ICO) scams. In June, it then relaxed its rules allowing some ads to be shown after they were reviewed. The following May saw the complete reversal of its ban, permitting blockchain and crypto-related ads to be shown without going through a pre-approval process. –TECH CRUNCH 19. The SEC sues Kik The commission sued social media company Kik for a securities violation that took place during its 2017 $100 million ICO sale. The SEC stated in June that the ICO was a sale of unregistered securities and that it should give the money back to investors, plus interest and penalties. –WALL STREET JOURNAL 20. Facebook announces Libra On June 18, the social media platform revealed its Libra stablecoin project, which is projected to launch in 2020. Acting as a stablecoin that is backed by a reserve of assets, Facebook envisages that Libra will be used mainly to transfer money between people. –THE GUARDIAN Reviews: TECH CRUNCH WIRED THE VERGE More: Since the announcement in June, Facebook has faced criticism from global regulators about its plans, with many citing legal challenges that it will need to overcome. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that it won't launch Libra until it has received regulatory approval.       A MESSAGE FROM TRIPLEBYTE We know how hard it is to build out your team. Find out what motivates the best engineers and how they choose the right team by downloading our latest eBook.​​​​​​​ 21. President Donald Trump tweets about Bitcoin and Libra Taking to Twitter, Trump stated that he's not a fan of alternative asset classes, adding that the U.S. dollar is the most dominant currency in the world. –@REALDONALDTRUMP 22. PBoC's central bank digital currency China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, announced in August that it was ready to launch its cryptocurrency. Research has been ongoing for the asset over the past five years and that it was "said to be ready." –SHANGHAI SECURITY NEWS Reviews: FINANCIAL TIMES FORTUNE REUTERS More: A date has yet to be set for when China will launch its central bank digital currency; however, the PBoC has indicated that it will pilot it in the cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou. 23. Default answer should be yes U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) has stated that regulators' default answer to crypto innovation should be "yes." In his opinion, those on Capitol Hill should learn as much as they can about the industry rather than trying to stamp it out. –UNCHAINED PODCAST 24. No point in central bank crypto coins Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the U.S Federal Reserve, is of the opinion that central banks don't need to issue their own central bank digital currencies. In November, he argued that fiat currencies are backed by sovereign credit, something no other organization can offer. –CNBC 25. Russia would back crypto ban Russia's central bank, the Bank of Russia, has indicated that it would be in favor of a crypto ban. According to the institution, "private cryptocurrencies cannot be equated with fiat money and cannot be legal tender." –COIN DESK       This newsletter was written and curated by Rebecca Campbell. She has been writing and reporting on various industries for the past 10 years, more specifically tech in the last three. Connect with her on Twitter.       Ad Scaling your engineering team in 2020? Read the Guide to Onboarding Developers today Download our latest eBook and find out what motivates the best engineers and how they choose the right company with the right product.

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CEO Denelle Dixon's Message for 2020, A New SDF Mandate, Big News from BitGo, and more...

September "newsings"

View this email in your browser Winter Roundup 2019 December SDF CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon shares the many accomplishments from 2019 and looks to 2020 as a big year, not just for SDF, but for the Stellar network and ecosystem as a whole. Some points of note: We've expanded our ecosystem. We've focused on targeted distribution. We've been vocal on the regulatory agenda. Check out the full blog for more! SDF released a new Mandate this month, including info on lumen distribution and XLM grants. You can read the new Mandate here. We hosted an end of the year event at Cloudflare recapping 2019 and answered questions from the audience about Stellar and regulations in the blockchain world. In case you missed it, the latest Horizon version, 0.24.0, is now available. The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) Final Voting round starts today, December 27th. Cast your vote now! SatoshiPay and Aktionaer, a German finance outlet, kicked off a partnership where users can pay for digital content using lumens.  Denelle Dixon made an appearance on the Money 3.0 Podcast by Abra, speaking about the importance of regulations, the biggest challenges that SDF faces, SDF's structure as a nonprofit, and what it's like to work with Jed McCaleb. BitGo announced their support of Stellar tokens! You can now use lumens to book your hotel lodging on Travala.com. Did you know that we publish weekly updates of what's happening in the Stellar Ecosystem? Check out the latest Stellar Dev Digest and subscribe to the mailing list to get it direct to your inbox! November This year, we hosted the first-ever Stellar Meridian conference. Participants included IBM World Wire, Satoshipay, Wirex, Flutterwave, Coinsquare, Coins.ph, AnchourUSD, Bitbond, Realtybits, BinanceX, Rehive and many, many more. During Meridian, we reduced our lumen allocations and rededicated what remains to what we think Stellar needs most. Read about why we did this and how the remaining lumens will used here or watch the video here. Jed and Denelle gave a fireside chat at SF Blockchain Week this year. Check out the video. Lisa Nestor also gave a talk at Blockchain Expo this year. Jeesun, a Stellar frontend developer, wrote a great guide on using Keybase for the Stellar Korea community. Smart Valor now supports Stellar. In case you missed it, the latest Stellar Core release, v12.2.0, is live. October Want to learn about one of the things that makes the Stellar network so unique? Kolten breaks down a key part of the Stellar network in an easy-to-understand way. Kolten was on a roll in October! Check out his blog on Stellar Smart Contracts and how they are different than the smart contracts you might be used to... MouseBelt launched the Blockchain Education Alliance in partnership with SDF, Tron, ICON, and more to increase education efforts and support innovation in the blockchain world. Marta, a lead engineer at SDF, wrote a blog on Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). It discusses a simplified version of the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), and provides concrete examples of how the Stellar Network achieves agreement via SCP To get you pumped up for the SCF Round 3 winners announcement (coming soon!), check out the Round 2 winners from October. SDF New Hires Jordan Edelstein, Chief Marketing Officer Jordan is responsible for driving SDF's marketing efforts of the Stellar network. He has spent his entire career in marketing. For the last 15 years, he worked in the video game industry, partnering closely with game developers and partners on bringing some of the industry's biggest game titles to market for Electronic Arts, Kabam, and 21st Century Fox.   Lauren Thorbjornsen, Director of Communications and PR A writer by training and at heart, Lauren is responsible for the communications and public relations plan for SDF and its leadership. Most recently, she worked on partner communications and marketing at Salesforce, helping tell the story of the ecosystem of businesses that build and implement on the platform. Previously, she worked in politics and international government, working to make domestic and global policy issues understood by broad audiences. Work at SDF We recently had a booth at Stanford's career fair in Palo Alto, California. If you're interested in joining the SDF team, check out our job postings here. We are hiring! Apply today. Reminder: Beware of "Hard Fork" Scams, Impersonators, and "Giveaway Scams". We will never ask for your private keys. Learn more about how to protect yourself and your accounts in our Security guide.   DISCLAIMER:  Stellar.org does not endorse any third party organizations that are named in this and/or any other communication(s). Please conduct due diligence and interact with these organizations at your discretion. Safety Policy: The Stellar team will NEVER ask you for your private keys. We will NEVER ask you to deposit funds to any wallet address. Read our Security Guide for more information. Copyright © 2019 Stellar Development Foundation, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive updates with Stellar.org Our mailing address is: Stellar Development Foundation PO Box 192750 PMB 24194 San Francisco, CA 94119 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.