Waves Rising, Blockchain Expanding, and Bitcoin Upsurging. Cryptospace News for April 9-16

17.04.2016

This week’s overview features growing bitcoin price, news and releases from cryptoplatforms, continuing attempts to use blockchain technology in fintech, and other events of the week.

Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin has been steadily consolidating this week. While the price has been fluctuating between $420Â and $426 for the better part of the week, starting Friday, the cryptocurrency’s exchange rate rushed upwards. At some moments, bitcoin’s price reached as much as $435 at some exchanges. Later on, the price slightly dropped and comprises $430 at the time of writing.

The release of bitcoin network client’s new version 0.12.1 is probably the basic factor behind bitcoin price surge. The release features a set of amendments welcomed by the community, as they imply the first serious step on the way to settle the prolonged scalability debate.

Market cap of bitcoin has also grown (up to $6.646 at the time of writing) while exchange rates of the most popular altcoins have unsurprisingly dropped.

A Bit More about Bitcoin

Benjamin Lawsky, the initiator of infamous BitLicense of New York, made the news with a peculiar and ironic situation. As it turns out, the person who earlier stood for harsh cryptocurrency regulation now earns his bread and butter by consulting companies on new technologies, and blockchain in particular.

The issues of bitcoin regulation and trust were featured in Dmitri Bondar’s articleÂ noting that government regulation of bitcoin contradicts the ideology that had inspired thousands of bitcoin enthusiasts around the world.

Exchanges, Platforms, and Releases

Crowdsale launched by blockchain platform Waves became one of the most prominent events of the week. The platform, positioning as Kickstarter’s decentralized killer, managed to raiseÂ in excess of 2,000 BTC during just first four hours of ICO. The crowdsale’s first day brought the company around $2 million.

Another news came from decentralized cloud storage Storj that had announced the long-awaited beta version was released. Currently, Storj, which intends to compete with giants like Dropbox, is accessible only with personal invitations. Date of the platform’s public release depends on how long it would take the company’s developers to make everything right.

Bitcoin exchange CEX.io joined the ranksÂ of Ethereum-trading platforms, having added pairs ETH/BTC and ETH/USD.

Financial platform Uphold announced its partnership with crypto-exchange Bittrex to enable users to exchange Voxel, Litecoin and Ethereum against fiat currencies. Almost simultaneously, Austria-based cryptocurrency brokerage company Coinimal announced it supported payments with MasterCard and Visa cards.

Owners of hardware wallets Trezor might be interested in the release of myTrezor’s public beta powered by BitPay’s Bitcore, which enables users to employ the software’s full functionality regardless of developer server’s availability.

Blockchain and Fintech

Blockchain startup Chain partnered with Japan’s biggest bank Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG). While initially the cooperation will focus on creating new blockchain-based prototypes for obligations trades, the partners intend to eventually research other areas of the technology’s applicability in order to enhance payments and market infrastructure of Japan.

Meanwhile, Britain’s FCA announced an ambitious experimental program intending to enable new fintech companies to test innovative solutions being beyond current regulatory framework.

Venture foundation Life.SREDA and fintech expert Chris Skinner created investment foundation dubbed Banking on Blockchain Fund to raise $100 million for further promotion of blockchain technology in finance.

Finally, the situation around AirBnB, which earlier had announced it might use blockchain to improve some of its business processes, continued. As it turns out, the popular online booking platform has hired a team of ChangeCoin’s bitcoin and blockchain experts. The news launched a wave of speculations as to possible addition of bitcoin payments to the platform. However, AirBnB dismissed the rumors having stated it has no such plans now. Pity, isn’t it?

Russia

Most news from Russia this week concern blockchain-related issues. Bank of Russia has announcedÂ it could issue smart bonds and launchÂ pilot projects on biometric identification of bank customers. Additionally, Russia’s National Settlement Depository has created a blockchain-based prototype for e-voting service aimed at smart bond owners.

Russia seems to be very positive about blockchain, yet the attitude has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Criminal punishment for using and issuing cryptocurrency is still on the table, however, there are some people willing to oppose the situation. One of them is local bitcoin enthusiast Alexei Bragin, who intends to enter the parliament in order to defend “the interests of science and small businesses”. He told ForkLog about this decision in an interview.

Ukraine

Mike Chobanian of Kuna Agency told ForkLog he abandonedÂ his plans to introduce a draft law on cryptocurrency regulation. Earlier, Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine was actively engaged in developing Ukraine’s BitLicense, while this January brought more news on preparing a bitcoin-legalization bill. However, now the idea is dead, while cryptocurrency, as Chobanian stressed, remains legal. The reason for withdrawing from preparation of the bill, according to him, is other laws regulating business activities that effectively render the initiative senseless.

Events

Next week, the European Parliament will hold a four-days conference on digital currencies and blockchain technology. The event, primarily targeted at enlightening the parliament’s members, will feature spokespersons for the World Bank, IMF, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Bank for International Settlements, United Nations, Europol, Nasdaq, and Blockchain.info.

Also next week, Minsk will hold an event, somewhat more modest in terms of participants’ line-up, yet very important for the whole community: Belarus’s first-ever meetupÂ on cryptocurrency and blockchain. The event will feature speeches by Belarusian bitcoin enthusiast and developer Valeri Litvin, Mike Chobanian of Ukraine’s KUNA Bitcoin Agency, Alex Fork of Russia’s fintech cluster Future Fintech, and Vladimir Basko of Belarusian Confederation of Digital Business.

Sources of Inspiration

If this weekend you feel abandoned by your muse, making paper wallets out of c-notes could bring you some inspiration.

Have a positive weekend!

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