The IOTA networks is back online after a minor bug fix that was creating issues for transaction parties according to a recent development on the IOTA GitHub community. According to a previous Github submission, there was supposedly a bug that was creating problems for nodes to register transactions immutably.
The developer said:
“There is an edge case where IRI [IOTA Reference Implementation] didn’t account for a transaction that was shared between two distinct bundles. Once it marked it as ‘counted’ in one bundle, it was ignored for the next bundle.”
IOTA immediately took notice of the issue and start working on a possible solution. According to David Sønstebø, the co-founder of the IOTA foundation, the bug was minor and was caused due to an increasing number of spam transactions making their way to the ledger thus forcing the real transactions to get slower than usual.
But, according to IOTA, the bug was quickly identified and fixed. Node operators have also been called to update through a software patch particularly the IRI users. The network itself is all okay and is running at optimum performance now according to the foundation.
IOTA is a 2016 cryptocurrency project that focuses on IOT-based applications of blockchain technology.
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Libra, the much-scrutinized proposed cryptocurrency from Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), has “failed in its current form,” according to Swiss President and Finance Minister Ueli Maurer.
Swiss President Critical of Libra BasketMaurer, who is in the final days of his year-long term as President of the Swiss Confederation, was speaking to the country’s national TV network SRF when he said, “I don’t think (Libra has a chance in its current form), because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it,” adding that “the project, in this form, has thus failed.” The Libra Association, the body ...
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When it comes to the crypto space, it should be noted that much of the progress that has been seen is primarily due to the existence of crypto exchanges, and perhaps the most influential among those is Binance. In a new development, the exchange has announced that Ethereum withdrawals and deposits are going to be suspended in order to complete an upgrade on the ETH network.
Key DetailsThe Ethereum network recently announced that there is going to be a Muir Glacier upgrade, and owing to that, Binance will update accordingly. The announcement was made in ...
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In early 2018, the initial coin offering (ICO) boom reached the peak of its speculative frenzy, pushing the Bitcoin dominance percentage as low as 32%. Unfortunately, numerous ICOs ended up being scams or poorly planned, causing untold numbers of investors to be ruined and scared away from the crypto space. As the ICO bubble collapsed, the Bitcoin dominance percentage rose to 51.7% by the end of 2018.
In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought legal action against numerous ICOs, making it clear that they were illegal in the United States, and that any offering that conducts business in the United States will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This caused the ICO sector to collapse even further, and Bitcoin’s dominance percentage rose another 17% in 2019, reaching 68.7% currently.
Now Bitcoin reigns supreme, as well as several handfuls of reputable altcoins that are well-built and have solid potential. Compare this to the crypto space in 2017 and 2018, which was filled to the brim with fraudulent ICOs.
This has set the stage for a crypto space rebound, since now only the best cryptocurrencies remain as serious investment options, and the focus has shifted towards developing better infrastructure and increasing crypto adoption, rather than the focus being on scam ICOs.
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Bitcoin is enjoying a minor resurgence over the weekend as it plants a foot firmly in front of USD 7,200 to trade mainly in a range above USD 7,300 (CoinDesk), with sights set on the USD 7,500 resistance. It is, however, still in a very narrow range of less than USD 100 as most traders remain in holiday mode.
#Bitcoin 📈
▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░ 38%
price: $7322.935
— Alert Shark (@Alert_Shark) December 29, 2019
If you’re looking for some festive cheer for crypto, take note that the United Nations (UN) secretary-general António Guterres has urged his global organization to embrace blockchain technology. Reported in Forbes, Guterres has gone on record to say that he believes that blockchain should be among the technologies used by the UN. He was quoted as saying:
“For the United Nations to deliver better on our mandate in the digital age, we need to embrace technologies like blockchain that can help accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.”
Guterres touted the technology, acknowledging that it was popularized by Bitcoin, and sees it as a critical part of the UN, especially with significant portions of its annual budget’s goals put towards “building a more sustainable world”.
Those familiar with the UN will know this is not the first time that Guterres spoke well of the potential of blockchain technology. It does seem like a recurring theme for the UN, of course, since Guterres has been a known advocate of blockchain technology. Earlier in July, the same man had been the brains behind a High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation that put blockchain firmly on the UN’s agenda. A year earlier, during his 78th address to the UN General Assembly, he was acknowledging that the levels of trust in national institutions and among states has declined, as well as with public trust in organizations like the UN at an all-time low. In response, he had fingered blockchain technology as one possible mitigating factor. He had been less friendly about crypto at the time, however, saying:
“Organized criminal networks lurk on the dark web, profiting from encryption and near-anonymous cryptocurrency payments to traffic in people and illegal goods.”
The unfavorable tune seems to have changed more recently, of course, with UN organizations like the fund for children (Unicef) now happy to accept donations in cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin demand continues to rise in parts of South America, especially where some developing economies continue to experience the effects of hyperinflation amid joblessness and economic sanctions. In Venezuela and Argentina, Bitcoin weekly trading volumes have hit new all-time highs, calculated in their respective national currencies.
According to crypto data website CoinDance, peer-to-peer trading platform LocalBitcoins has seen a trading volume on the week ending 21 December hit more than ARS 32.6 million (Argentine pesos) or about USD 544,905. This was a jump of over 34% than the amount registered a fortnight before that. In Venezuela, it was a similar case with more than VES 248 billion (Venezuelan bolivars) or USD 24.8 million changing hands in the same period.
BitcoinNews.com frequently reports on record-setting Bitcoin volume in such countries. In Venezuela, once capital controls were imposed by the central bank, preventing citizens from buying up US dollars and foreign currency, locals have instead gone peer to peer to get Bitcoin to store monetary value. In Argentina, since September, the central bank has been increasing the peso’s monetary base by 2.5% per month, further increasing inflationary pressure.
While both bolivar in Venezuela and peso in Argentina have been steadily losing value over the past year, Bitcoin has in fact risen to over 100% of its value from March 2019.
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The latter half of 2019 has been bearish, which makes it easy to forget how much value Bitcoin has gained this year. In reality, Bitcoin has risen from USD 3,700 on New Year’s Eve 2018 to USD 7,200 currently, which is a 95% gain. Even though the United States stock market has had a banner year and is at all-time highs, the S&P 500’s gain of 30% during the same period of time pales in comparison to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin actually began crawling out of a prolonged bear market as 2019 started, with the bear market low of USD 3,200 being reached only a few weeks before New Year’s Day 2019. Bitcoin actually remained volatile and flat through the beginning of February, at which point Bitcoin began to lift off slowly, reaching USD 4,000 at the end of March.
The fireworks began to go off in April and May, with Bitcoin rising to USD 8,500. Then Bitcoin skyrocketed as high as USD 13,800 in late June and early July.
Since then the Bitcoin market feels somewhat bearish and has been in a persistent decline. However, after reaching as low as USD 6,500 in mid-December Bitcoin is now back up to USD 7,200, bringing hope that a bottom has been reached and Bitcoin will begin to rise again as 2020 begins.
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As reported by local news outlet Korea Times, the Bank of Korea (BOK) is planning to set up a taskforce exclusively for CBDC research, following the crypto boom which has garnered the attention of several central banks from around the world. BOK also plans to recruit additional CBDC experts as Hong Kyung-Sik, head of the central bank’s payment and settlement systems department, said that the bank is considering the issuance of digital currency, although not anytime soon.
As of now, the BOK underscored its priority to strengthen efforts for the CBDC research. The bank said:
“We will actively engage in discussions with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and other international organizations, keeping an eye on CBDC development at other central banks.”
South Korea is actively trying to extend support for adequate research into emerging technologies. As part of the Monetary Policy for 2020, BOK said that it will keep up the research work on emerging technologies and innovations, such as distributed ledger technology, crypto assets and CBDC, to tighten the security of settlement systems.
Several countries are showing a keen interest in CBDC, of late. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) will soon get on board with the testing and promotion of the digital currency in the cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou, sometime in 2020. France will also begin testing of CBDC in early 2020.
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Bitcoin price is steadily creeping back up the hill beyond USD 7,200 on the weekend, as the final days of 2019 run out and the new year approaches. Despite the world’s most popular digital asset seemingly unable to shrug off the bearish trends marking lines all over technical analyses, price action continues to strongly favor the resistance from long traders.
For weeks now, the daily charts show a tightening range for Bitcoin, meaning that volatility is in store and monthly close fast approaching could propel the bulls to aim for the next resistance at USD 7,600. Without any notable volume though, change could just as quickly unravel.
Sentiment is lukewarm, but in Southeast Asia, crypto adoption is heating up with global names in crypto keen to make their mark. For instance, China origins crypto exchange Huobi has not launched a fiat gateway in Indonesia, enabling a fiat to crypto trading between the Indonesian rupiah (IDR) and stablecoin Tether (USDT).
A press release from the Huobi Group yesterday said this move would enable Indonesian investors to make use of their IDR holdings to freely trade over 250 digital assets on the subsidiary platform in the country, Huobi Indonesia. Huobi Cloud senior director David Chen stated:
“The new fiat gateway is part of Huobi’s global expansion strategy and reflects our ongoing commitment to working with strong local partners in key markets across the globe […] By continuing to add new fiat/crypto pairs for Huobi Cloud 2.0, we want to make it frictionless for investors anywhere in the world to trade digital assets on a trusted and proven platform.”
The crypto exchange sees one of the world’s most populous countries (Indonesia has a population of around 264 million) a “major opportunity to contribute to the growth of the greater blockchain community and help drive crypto adoption globally”. Huobi Indonesia CEO Xiong Dan also said that the company would not only expand in the new location but consolidate and improve service quality.
Huobi’s global expansion began with an inroad into Turkey earlier in the year, with a planned fiat onramp for Turkish lira still before the year’s end. Alphan Gogus had already been appointed for Huobi Turkey as a general manager and much is expected from crypto’s potential in a country where lira has been experiencing devaluation and constant economic sanctions.
Turkey, which is commonly associated within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, is seen as a hotbed for mass crypto adoption. Recently, mobile payments service MenaPay also announced support for Twitch tipping with their MenaCash stablecoin. In a press release shared with CoinTelegraph, the company said that users of the popular livestreaming platform — typically gamers sharing livestreams of their gaming sessions — could now tip each other or their favorite players with MenaCash, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
A week earlier, MenaPay apps could be used by streamers to seamlessly collect donations on the blockchain. It is thought that some 3.7 million streamers donate or subscribe to others on Twitch. MenaPay CEO Cagla Gul Senkarders reiterated her belief that the gaming community was core to the further development and recognition of blockchain technology, and that the new donation option was a “critical milestone” in that relationship. She said:
“Following the announcement, we saw incredible demand from Twitch’s viewer base, which also wants to use a simple means of donating. We made the necessary advancements and updated our app to support the gaming community further. Now, viewers can also integrate their MenaPay app with Twitch and make their donations from their smartphones in seconds.”
Turkey has been one of the surprise entrants in the blockchain and crypto space this year, with Binance calling it as a key target for blockchain development. Back in June, Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay announced its intentions to launch a digital lira by the end of next year, with trialing set to start early 2020.
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Ethereum Classic will undergo the Agharta hard fork at block 9.573 million which should occur around 15 January. After that, Ethereum Classic will become compatible with Ethereum via including features from the Ethereum Constantinople hard fork.
Ethereum Classic split off from Ethereum in 2016 following the USD 50 million Ethereum Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) hack. Ethereum decided to undo the hack via a hard fork, but the Ethereum Classic community stayed on the old chain in order to preserve immutability. Since then Ethereum has become the #2 cryptocurrency with a market cap of USD 13.7 billion, while Ethereum Classic trails by far with a market cap of only USD 0.5 billion.
It is believed that making Ethereum Classic compatible with Ethereum will accelerate the development of decentralized applications (Dapps) and smart contracts by allowing Ethereum Classic to use technology that has already been developed for Ethereum. Also, this compatibility will help bring the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic communities back together.
The market has viewed this news as positive, with Ethereum Classic rallying 11% within 24 hours of the announcement.
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YouTube has affirmed that crypto content is not being banned, and said that the mass deletions of crypto-related videos was a mistake, bringing a sigh of relief to the crypto space.
This past week crypto-related videos from the popular publishers Chris Dunn, Crypto Tips, The Cryptoverse, and Node Investor were removed without warning, and the creators of the content received a one week ban and a warning that they would be banned permanently if they continued to produce crypto videos. The videos were classified as ‘harmful or dangerous content’ and ‘sale of regulated goods’.
Now YouTube moderators have posted on Twitter that most of the videos have been re-instated, and that affected content creators have had their ban and warning removed.
It remains unclear as to why the crypto content was deleted in the first place, and YouTube has offered no explanation beyond saying it was a mistake. In any case, this incident has sparked a discussion among crypto video creators about moving their content to blockchain-based and decentralized video sharing platforms.
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The Central Bank of the Bahamas has announced that their blockchain-based Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is officially launching as of today, 27 December, and it will be called the Sand Dollar. This new CBDC will begin in a pilot phase in Exuma, with the pilot expected to last through the first half of 2020.
The Sand Dollar will be pegged 1:1 to the Bahamian Dollar (BSD), and the BSD itself is pegged 1:1 with the USD. Therefore, the Sand Dollar is a blockchain-based stablecoin that is interchangeable with the BSD and the USD.
The Bahamian government says they are launching the Sand Dollar to improve financial inclusion and access and to make domestic payments more efficient and non-discriminatory.
As the pilot phase of the Sand Dollar progresses, the Bahamian government plans on promoting a new regulatory framework for digital currency and to strengthen consumer protection. Once regulations are ready the Sand Dollar will become available across the Bahamas for banks, individuals, and corporations.
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Reports indicate that the Bank of Russia, which is the central bank of Russia, is evaluating the performance of stablecoin technology in a regulatory sandbox. According to the bank, there is no intention for a Russian stablecoin to be used as a payment method or to act as a substitute for traditional fiat, however.
That being said, this news is a significant policy reversal from the Russian government’s negative stance towards crypto. In-fact, Russia almost banned cryptocurrency earlier in 2019 due to the government’s belief that crypto was only used for money laundering and illicit activity.
These stablecoin experiments are leading to speculation that the Russian central bank could eventually launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which would be a blockchain-based version of the Russian Ruble (RUB). This would make sense, since Russia’s primary ally, China, is going to launch a Chinese yuan (CNY) CBDC in the near future. However, Russia has not yet confirmed that a RUB version of the same is in the works.
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The Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong, Henry Arslanian, discussed how institutional investment in the crypto space is likely to increase during 2020 in an interview with Bloomberg.
First off, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code for cryptocurrency has become increasingly clarified over the last two years, which will make institutional investors more comfortable with investing in crypto. Simultaneously, the infrastructure of the crypto space has become increasingly mature, with more options for insured crypto custody, regulated crypto funds, Bitcoin futures markets on Bakkt and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), as well as crypto friendly banks.
Essentially, the infrastructure is now there for institutional investors to invest large amounts of capital into crypto in a completely safe and regulated way. Perhaps the only thing that is needed now is a significant Bitcoin rally, at which point institutional investors will be motivated to invest, and will easily be able to invest large amounts of money due to the proliferation of institutional infrastructure in the crypto space, unlike in the past when institutional investors had to sit on the sidelines due to a lack of safe and regulated options.
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