Cryptospace News Digest, May 22 – 29

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29.05.2016

This week’s ForkLog overview features new price records of Bitcoin, the launch of Lisk and the completion of The DAO’s crowdsale, new announcements from Russian officials as to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, and some results of the recent Fintech Week Kyiv.

Bitcoin Price

This week, Bitcoin broke 2016 price record surpassing $500 for a short while. On Friday, the cryptocurrency was traded even higher at some Chinese exchanges. It’s the demand from China-based investors that had caused Bitcoin’s skyrocketing growth of these days, market experts say.

Bitcoin’s price started growing on Thursday night, and on Friday it peaked at $479.08. The exchange rate surpassed $480 on Friday night, and on Saturday morning it peaked at $503.10 according to CoinDesk index.

Meanwhile, ETH price was going down this week, losing nearly 14%. While a week ago the price was around $14.31, on Friday it was below $12. However, as of Saturday morning, the light turned green, and the exchange rate has grown by nearly 6%, or to $11.95 (or 0.0239 BTC) by the time of writing.

On Sunday morning, Bitcoin price continued growing. At one point It reached as much as $533,22.

screenshot-coinmarketcap.com 2016-05-29 11-29-11

 

Lisk Launch

On Thursday, May 24, the decentralized application platform Lisk has finally launched after a string of delays. Even though the developers claimed the postponements would guarantee a flawless launch, everything turned out to be the other way round: the platform went offline after a few minutes of operation.

According to the project’s team, it’s a DDoS attack that is to blame, however, some users were doubtful about that explanation. Some forums were full of direct accusations of fraud, even though no evidence thereof was provided.

LSK token has become available for trading at Poloniex. It garnered serious interest from investors due to its high volatility. On the very first day of the launch, LSK became the exchange’s second traded cryptocurrency (outranked by ETH only). On Thursday, it reached No.1 for a short while.

The DAO

On Saturday, a more-than-a-month-long crowdsale of The DAO has finally ended. The project was launched by developers of the Ethereum Foundation and Slock.it. Over the course of the crowdsale, the organizers managed to raise 12.07 million ETH by creating 1,172.78 million DAO tokens. The overall amount of the investment in USD comprised $132.32 million. The project’s tokens are intended for usage in voting in regard of various projects.

DAO tokens became tradeable at several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Poloniex and Kraken.

The DAO’s concept is maybe still beyond some crypto-enthusiasts’ comprehension, and ForkLog will definitely issue an additional informational material in this regard. As for now, it order to make things a bit clearer about the crowdsale’s organizers, it would seem reasonable to quote Vitalik Buterin, who had noted he had no direct relation to the project but, however, called it ?great’.

Coinbase Transforms

On Tuesday, Coinbase started officially operating as GDAX. The exchange’s rebranding was announced last week. GDAX has become one of platforms supporting ETH trade.

The company has also announced it will add some other cryptocurrencies later. However, Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, wrote a blog post highlighting the company’s new priorities. According to him, while continuing to work with Bitcoin, GDAX will, however, put its stake on Ethereum. Ehrsam is also convinced that the cryptocurrency community is to expect some interesting events to come, and recommends to fasten the belts.

Meanwhile in Russia

In Russia, the head of local major state-owned Sberbank German Greaf has warned that penalization of cryptocurrency will cause the blockchain technology to cease developing in Russia, and technologies in general to retrograde.

“Blockchain, to my reckoning, is a new internet. Or, more precisely, an idea equal to the internet. The idea didn’t even take shape when the regulator stated that cryptocurrencies must not be issued. Then they said one can’t buy them. And now they’re talking about putting those attempting to buy it in jail,” Gref said.

As for now, the technologies develop in a more desired direction, as evidenced by a meetup of blockchain developers held at Future Fintech‘s premises on Friday. The event’s organizer Alexander Pankov stated that such events will become monthly.

Future Fintech Meetup

Notably, a few years prior to the event’s beginning, Russian media reported that the country might introduce its own cryptocurrency. Similar ideas have been vocalized by China a while time ago. In layman’s terms, it’s all about the same: centralization and governmental desire to control everything.

While discussing such initiatives may take days, the crypto-community is mostly confident that they have no future, at least to the extent as presented by the officials.

Ukraine

Last week’s Fintech Week became a platform for a series of events, including a roundtable on Bitcoin’s legal status in Ukraine. Representatives of the country’s Bitcoin and blockchain industries, including that of IT legal companies, have discussed regulation, de-regulation, and legal execution of cryptocurrency operations considering modern-day legislation. There were diverse opinions in this regard, all of which are highlighted in ForkLog’s report on the event.

Additionally, it was announced that Ukraine may soon see its first bank using blockchain technology. The system to be used employs blockchain system INFRA introduced by Vladimir Dubinin of Distributed Lab at Blockchain Conference Kyiv. He stated the system may be launched over the course of next three months.

Smart Socket

At the same event, so-called smart socket has been first brought to the eye of general public. The device is able to sell power and Wi-Fi access for Ethereum. Its creator Valery Litvin of Cyber.Fund told ForkLog more about the project in a brief interview.

Bitcoin Regulation

On Wednesday, Japan‘s National Assembly has passed a law to regulate cryptocurrency exchange operators. The new law recognizes virtual currencies as functionally similar to real money, and enables banks to launch new settlement systems. It also simplifies procedures for buying IT companies for bank managers.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament has endorsed the proposal to create an operative group to settle issues related to cryptocurrencies and their underlying technologies. It is assumed that the new structure will include techincal experts and permanent employees. They will be tasked to study digital currencies and compile relevant regulative recommendations, including those related to combatting money laundering and terrorism funding.

What Else

Other interesting events of the week include the announcement of partnership between Australia’s DigitalX and international telecom company Telefonica. The partiership will allow blockchain-based remittance app AirPocket to debut on South American market. It was also announced that Deloitte would establish EMEA Financial Services Blockchain Lab focused on development of financial industry apps. British bank Santantder, meanwhile, has announced that it would develop a new Ripple-based app for international remittances.

R3CEV has expanded once again — this time thanks to China-based insurer Ping An Group. Dubai-based BitOasis has completed first funding round.

Quite unexpected news have come not long before the weekend — a well-known miner KnCMiner has announced its bankruptcy. The Swedish company states the decision is caused by the forthcoming miner reward halving, as well as fierce competition from the Chinese companies.

And finally

BTCC has released physical Bitcoins. BTCC Mint V-series are made of titan and look very posh. The coins may become a collector’s item in no time.

Finally, Dutch town of Arnhem celebrates a two-years anniversary Bitcoinstad, a unique Bitcoin experiment which already resulted in making this small locality into one of the most prominent cryptocurrency venues.

 

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