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Ethereum 2.0 launch date announced

The zero phase of the Ethereum 2.0 network will be launched on December 1, but one condition must be met for this. The Ethereum Foundation announced on Wednesday the launch of the second version of the network's custody contract. Users need to deposit 32 ETH to participate in staking. If the contract collects 16,384 deposits in the amount of 524,288 ETH (about $200 million), then the network will be ready for the launch. The specified goal must be achieved at least seven days before the expected launch date, that is, by November 24. A few hours after the announcement, the number of ETH addresses with a balance of more than 32 coins reached a new high at 126,852. To launch Ethereum 2.0, 13% of these addresses must participate in staking.

Bill Miller: Every Investment Bank Will Want to Buy Bitcoin

Legendary investor Bill Miller stated that the risks of bitcoin price zeroing are "lower than ever before" and predicted an increase in institutional investment in cryptocurrency. “The bitcoin story is very easy, it's supply and demand. Bitcoin's supply is growing around 2.5% a year and the demand is growing faster than that,” he said. After MicroStrategy's $425 million purchase of bitcoin, Square's $50 million investment, and the integration of cryptocurrencies into the PayPal wallet, Miller believes every major investment bank and company will eventually want to own cryptocurrency. He added that Bitcoin has performed well over the past three-, five- and ten-year periods.

Bitcoin surpasses Coca-Cola, Netflix and Disney in terms of capitalization

In early September, BTC's market capitalization was at $190 billion, when the price of the cryptocurrency was hovering around $10,000. However, over the past two months, the asset’s price has grown by more than 50% to the levels above $15,000, thanks to which the market capitalization has reached $280 billion. By this indicator, Bitcoin has surpassed most large US companies. In the rating of the capitalization of American public companies, Bitcoin would take the 18th place between Home Depot with $306 billion and Verizon with $242 billion. Companies that BTC has surpassed in recent months include such names as Netflix, PayPal, Coca-Cola, and Disney.

In 2020, the number of Bitcoin-ATMs has increased by 83%

The number of cryptocurrency ATMs has reached 11,665, CoinATMRadar portal reports. At the beginning of the year there were 6,372 of them, which indicates an increase of 83%. According to CoinATMRadar, an average of 23 new devices are installed per day, or almost one ATM per hour. More than 79% of exchangers are in the USA. At the same time, since 2019, their number has grown by 2.2 times: 4,213 in 2019 and 9,242 in 2020. The first bitcoin ATM appeared in 2013 - it was installed by Robocoin in a Vancouver coffee shop.

An unplanned hard fork might have occurred on the Ethereum network

Ethereum infrastructure providers Infura and Blockchair have reported outages, resulting in problems with exchanges and wallets. Initially thought to be an internal Infura issue, later independent node operators also reported malfunctions. The Binance exchange has suspended the withdrawal of funds, and its head Changpeng Zhao referred to a “possible chain split” as the culprit. Crashes were also reported by the MetaMask wallet, Bithumb, Upbit and Crypto.com marketplaces. After block 11'234'873 at 07:08 AM UTC, blockchain explorers Blockchair and Ehterscan began registering two different chains. “It seems that a minor hard fork occurred without anyone noticing it,” said Nikita Zhavoronkov, Blockchair development lead.

Opinion: ETH 2.0 won’t handle DeFi’s growth

FTX exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried believes that the Ethereum network is not able to of handling decentralized finance’s (DeFi) growth. According to him, the ETH blockchain is limiting the development of DeFi, and the only way to solve the problem is to use other networks. Bankman-Fried said that whenever his team tried to create a new DeFi project, they "immediately exceeded the throughput of the Ethereum blockchain by orders of magnitude." The FTX CEO believes that one day the DeFi audience will surpass 1 billion people, which means that blockchains will need to significantly expand their scalability in order to maintain a ten-digit user base. Scaling improvements on the Ethereum 2.0 network won't be enough either, he points out.

Bitcoin Cash network again split into two

On November 15, a hard fork took place on the Bitcoin Cash network — the network split into Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) and Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA). Earlier, the BCHA developers proposed an updated version of the protocol, according to which 8% of miners' profits will go to finance the development of the network. The update was opposed by the BCHN community, which removed the "miner tax" from the source code of their network. As of the evening of November 15, the computing power of the BCHN blockchain was 1.12 EH/s, and BCHA - 0.094 EH/s, that is, 11 times lower. Most major exchanges have indicated they will support the longer chain, i.e. Bitcoin Cash Node.

$2.3 billion in BTC was withdrawn from exchanges in a month

From October 15 to November 15, exchange reserves in bitcoins fell from 2.5 million to 2.355 million coins — the lowest level since August 2018. During this time, users withdrew about 145,000 BTC worth of $2.35 billion, according to the CryptoQuant portal. During the same period, miners mined about 27,000 BTC, which is 5 times less than the amount withdrawn from the exchanges. “This aggressive accumulation trend seen in the Bitcoin market shows that investors anticipate a prolonged post-halving uptrend,” said Cointelegraph analyst Joseph Young.

Ripple grows 60% in price in three days

XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization, gained 63% in price in three days and came close to $0.5 per coin. On Sunday, the token price reached $0.49567, which was a record high since June 2019. XRP has more than doubled in price since early November. Other major cryptocurrencies are also in positive territory: Ethereum and Litecoin added 32% in value in 7 days, Cardano showed more than 50% growth, and Stellar - 37%. Altcoins are strengthening in price amid BTC rate approaching its historical maximum. The main cryptocurrency traded at $18,945 last Saturday, less than $1,000 below its all-time high of $19,891.

Research: BTC price volatility is lower than that of many stocks

Investment management company Van Eck has published a study showing that bitcoin is less prone to fluctuations than a quarter of S&P 500 stocks. Since the beginning of the year, quotes of 29% of stocks have shown greater volatility than the first cryptocurrency, and 22% - over the past 90 days. Although Bitcoin is considered a “nascent and volatile asset outside of the traditional stock and capital markets” reality shows that it trades with volatility comparable to the world's largest stocks, analysts say.

Grayscale: investors seek in Bitcoin protection against inflation

According to Michael Sonnenschein, managing director of Grayscale Investments, Bitcoin is no longer a temporary phenomenon. Investors no longer believe that BTC has failed as a currency as we don't use it to buy a cup of coffee. The coronavirus pandemic this year has become another key factor for the flow of funds into cryptocurrency, he said. “I think investors understand today that buying Bitcoin and putting it in their portfolio is meant to be a store of value, inflation hedge, a digital gold, a digital form of money that is much better suited to the digital world we live in today versus historical stores of value like gold which would have been certainly much more applicable to a world characterized by physical exchanges. They view it as one of the most important next steps in the evolution of money and what constitutes a store of value,” Sonnenschein said. Grayscale manages nearly $11 billion in cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin keeps dropping

The main cryptocurrency has continued to decline over the past couple of days. On November 27, BTC fell to $16,915. Bitcoin capitalization fell to $313 billion. Nevertheless, crypto experts advise not to panic because of the fall of BTC and a number of other popular crypto coins. NEXO co-founder Anthony Trenchev believes the pullback was needed due to the overheated market. But in the long term, nothing will prevent Bitcoin from repeating its record three years ago and reaching $20,000.

OECD will present international cryptocurrency tax regulations in 2021

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is preparing to present general tax reporting rules for digital assets. This could happen as early as 2021. According to the head of the OECD Center for Tax Policy Pascal Saint-Amans, the innovations will be similar to the existing standards for combating tax criminals. The OECD hopes that the European Commission will pay attention to the solutions proposed by the organization, as they will meet the requirements of European regulators. Earlier, the European Commission initiated amendments to the EU legislation to combat financial offenses. Until December 21, the organization plans to collect proposals from experts on an initiative aimed, among other things, at tightening control over crypto operations.

Deloitte: many financial institutions are ready to spend more on blockchain implementation

According to preliminary results of the Deloitte survey on the prospects for the industrialization of financial services, 27% of companies surveyed expect a "small increase in costs" on blockchain and distributed ledger. 14% of respondents intend to significantly increase the item of development costs. Another 33% of the survey participants said that investments will remain at the same level, and 27% intend to slightly cut costs. The survey was conducted among 800 top managers of banks, investment companies, hedge funds, payment services, and insurance companies. According to the survey, blockchain turned out to be the No. 2 technology in popularity among financial market players, the costs for which can be increased. Cloud solutions have become the most demanded direction for development.

Bitcoin has strengthened and again began its run for $20,000

Yesterday, the value of the main cryptocurrency reached its maximum in 3 years. BTC broke the $19,860 mark. OTC trading platforms noted a significant increase in trading volumes, mainly due to large investors. The Genesis platform reported a six-fold increase in volume compared to a record high in 2017. Investors have become active on specialized platforms, preferring them to messengers. The trading volume on the derivatives market on the Genesis platform reached $600 million in a week. The Galaxy Digital platform has seen similarly rapid growth.

Ethereum 2.0 finally launched

After several years in the making, the genesis block of the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain has finally seen the light of day. The upgrade to the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap was launched as planned, at just after 12 pm UTC on Dec. 1. The launch suffered no hiccups and immediately reached the required stake participation rate to finalize the blockchain. The biggest change is the introduction of a proof-of-stake consensus to the network, which has previously been purely based on the same proof-of-work consensus as Bitcoin. The transition to PoS paves the way for future planned upgrades to be implemented, such as sharding to improve scalability. The launch will be especially welcomed by those in the decentralized finance community. The explosion of DeFi during 2020 saw a huge increase in traffic and gas fees on the Ethereum network.

Trading activity related to cryptocurrencies is breaking records

Another rise of Bitcoin, as well as the recent launch of the zero phase of Ethereum 2.0, led to records of trading activity on the Binance crypto platform. This is stated in the report of the exchange. At the end of November, platform analysts stated a historical maximum of the trading volume within 24 hours. It was $ 37 billion. Binance's cumulative turnover reached $ 50 billion last month. Serious activity in the market was facilitated by the entry of the BTC value to the next historical maximum in the spot market. Over the past month, bitcoin has grown by almost 40%. Its capitalization has surpassed the $350 billion mark.

ETH miners earned more in November than in October

Ethereum miners' profits increased significantly last month compared to October. It amounted to $262 million. However, this figure is still lower than the August and September levels. A significant portion of the profits for Ethereum miners came from transaction fees. The growth of this type of income is associated with the development of the direction of decentralized financing and the number of transactions. In November, miners earned $62 million thanks to transaction fees. In September, ETH miners earned $321 million. 50% of this amount is made up of transaction fees.

The largest software manufacturer intends to invest another $400 million in the purchase of BTC

MicroStrategy, a software manufacturer, wants to raise $400 million for investing in Bitcoin. Previously, the company invested $475 million to purchase the main cryptocurrency. The software manufacturer has released a statement about plans to issue convertible bonds. The maturity date for them is set until December 15, 2025. The securities will be available only to qualified institutional investors. In 2020, MicroStrategy bought BTC several times. In August, the manufacturer invested $ 50 million in the first crypto coin. The next month, the share of the company's crypto assets increased by another $175 million. In early December, Michael Taylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, wrote on Twitter that the company acquired 2,574 bitcoins for $50 million. Currently, the software manufacturer owns 40,824 BTC.

One of the Ripple creators sold almost 30 million XRP

Jed McCaleb, one of the founders of Ripple, sold another 29.5 million XRP. After leaving the Ripple project, the businessman received 9 billion XRP tokens. Six years ago, he announced that he plans to liquidate these crypto assets. After a lengthy conflict with Ripple Labs over this, McCaleb entered into an agreement with former partners. According to the document, the entrepreneur was able to sell XRP by tying them to the global trading volume. Under the terms of the agreement, McCaleb was entitled to sell up to 1.5% of the world's XRP trading volume daily. It is important to consider that XRP reached a new all-time high in November. Therefore, the speed with which an entrepreneur began to get rid of crypto assets could negatively affect the market. “After the radical increase in XRP volume (according to CMC) it only made sense that Jed would increase his sales, as per his deal with Ripple. Today 9.9 million XRP were sold, making it a new ATH of Jed sales. At this rate, Jed's 3.836B will run out after 387 days”, says cryptoexpert Leonidas Hadjiloizou, ”said Leonidas Hadzhiloizu. McCaleb owns about 3.7 billion tokens.

Bitcoin price correction continues, dashing hopes of $20K in 2020

Bitcoin will probably not reach $20,000 this year if a key technical price level isn't reclaimed soon. Bitcoin continues to be in correction mode with its price dropping below $17,600 on Dec. 11, the lowest level since November. Every beautiful rally comes to an end and gets followed by a corrective period. This correction seems to have started with the price currently down more than 10% since touching a new all-time high ten days ago. Meanwhile, some recent news namely the proposed crypto regulation in the United States is bringing fear to the otherwise euphoric market.

SEC Commissioner: authorities must abandon excessive regulation of crypto market

Regulators need to find acceptable options in order to finally accept the principle of personal freedom of citizens, embodied in the very concept of digital currencies. Also, the authorities must abandon the idea of excessive control over the crypto industry, said SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce. In one of her recent speeches, she noted that the digital asset market and the sector of decentralized finance creates certain difficulties for the authorities. Regulators, however, should not restrict industry development with excessive regulatory requirements. “If we were instead to steamroll the technology’s liberty-enhancing features under the weight of regulation, we would lose a lot of the power of the new technology to afford opportunities to people whose autonomy has previously been curbed by, for example, limited access to the traditional financial system, geographic location, social standing, or subjection to a repressive government,” Peirce said.

Estonia has revoked licenses from more than 1,000 crypto companies

The Estonian government revoked the licenses of more than 1,000 cryptocurrency companies. This happened amid increasing control over the digital asset industry and countering money laundering. As the representative of the State Commission on Combating Money Laundering noted, "monitoring and regulation" of crypto service operators "constantly needs increased attention." He said that in the past year, many projects have received licenses to work with crypto projects. And amendments to the country's legislation, which came into force in 2020, have tightened the licensing of operators of services related to digital assets. “In 2020, the Financial Intelligence Agency revoked more than 1000 licenses to operate from companies dealing with crypto assets. At the same time, there are still around 400 companies offering services in this area in Estonia. The connection of many of these companies with Estonia is minimal, and the clientele of some companies is from distant countries, ” the Ministry of Finance said.

Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issues the first cryptocurrency license

Last November, the SFC unveiled new rules for regulating cryptocurrency exchanges in the region. Then OSL Digital Securities Ltd became the only company to apply for a license. On August 25, the SFC tentatively approved an application for a license of a digital asset trading platform operator, but the company had a number of undisclosed conditions to meet. And on December 15, a press release was issued by BC Technology Group, of which OSL is a member, which states that it has finally obtained a license that allows the company to conduct regulated brokerage and automated digital asset trading services. In addition to Hong Kong's licenses, OSL has also applied to the Monetary Authority of Singapore for a digital asset license under the Payment Services Act. First of all, the news is interesting because institutional investors will get access to trading Bitcoin, Ethereum and security tokens. This event is expected to generate interest from industry players to join the market.

Robinhood is accused of manipulating inexperienced Investors

The Massachusetts authorities have filed a lawsuit against the fintech company Robinhood, which has developed a popular securities trading application. The company was accused of prompting inexperienced users to take risky trades and failed to protect customers from technical glitches in the application. Robinhood, according to the US state, violated new local law. It obliges investment brokers to prioritize their activities in the interests of clients. However, Robinhood, according to the regulator, has provided hundreds of Massachusetts users with no investment experience the ability to trade options. They won approval despite the company's stated policy of screening clients for experience before allowing them to buy and sell options. The company now faces fines.

American Express has invested in a crypto trading platform

The venture branch of American Express has invested in a crypto trading platform for institutional investors, FalconX. Since the end of the last investment round in May 2020, FalconX has grown by 350% in revenue. According to its own data, the company serves 250 institutional clients. The trading platform's transaction volumes reached about $3 billion per month. “We’re seeing growing interest from traditional asset managers who are adding cryptocurrencies as an inflationary hedge, catalyzed by recent macro-economic policies,” said FalconX CEO Raghu Yarlagadda. FalconX offers institutional clients the ability to access cryptocurrency markets through a single platform for trading, lending and clearing.

Not only COVID-19 year, but the most successful since crypto winter

The Coronavirus did not make any effort to prevent crypto enthusiasts from trading. According to Mass Media, 2020 turned out to stay quite successful in the context of assessing the size of investments in cryptocurrency projects. Crypto companies did their best to raise about $ 3.1 billion. All in all, it took near 800 transactions to reach the score. Despite serious downgrade of players activity during the first half a year, the situation has slightly changed by the end of 2020. For example, BAKKT finished trade round with 300 million dollars in total. The majority of funds came from M12, PayU system, CMT and The Boston Consulting Group.

Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, Florida, declared BTC as a stable investment portfolio

If you have never heard about this man before, now it is high time. The official said: "Great insight into how Bitcoin has been a stable investment during and incredibly unstable year." The mayor wrote that he learned about BTC from Tyler Winklevoss and Anthony Pompliano. And «Pomp» has declared Miami is on its way to become Bitcoin city, whatever it means. So, for now crypto educated politic states Miami truly can be the first crypto-friendly city across the whole country. No doubt that South Florida takes its leadership to proceed crypto industry, based on advanced technologies. Suarez also said that he was reading the book "Bitcoin Billionaires", which was authored by Tyler Winklevoss.

Analytics make predictions concerning trial SEC against Ripple

The regulator believes that the XRP company should be responsible for the unregistered issue of securities in the guise of tokens that the project has been selling for 7 years. To remind you, Ripple has raised about $1.3 billion. According to Adam Cochran, a partner of Cinneamhain Ventures, the trial court will take years, though Ripple Company does not have many chances, like EOS or kin do. While seeking the arguments Cochran says that Ripple is completely falling under the jurisdiction of the SEC. The defendants are Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and his companion Chris Larsen. Nonetheless, XRP assets are still trading on global markets. To remind you, the SEC recognized tokens as unregistered securities. Andrew Tugarin, leading partner of GMT Legal, has no doubt that the proceedings will most likely not be in favor of Ripple. «It seems that a large fine will be imposed on the project itself and its founders personally» - analytic said.

An outside opinion: it is high time for market correction

The total share of TOP-1 BTC on the crypto market for the first time this year has reached 69.3%. Mikhail Karkhalev, the analyst of the crypto platform Currency.com believes that the key driver of BTC's market share growth was a decrease in Ripple's capitalization and its future trial. Over the past 7 days the token price has decreased by 54%. The fall comes amid SEC accusations against Ripple and the refusal of several companies to work with XRP at once. «In my opinion, there are no prerequisites for a decrease in the market share of BTC. The main cryptocurrency, in contrast to the same Ethereum (ETH), is held near the price maximum, while Ethereum has lost positions. The market is ready for a slight correction to $ 21-20 thousand for BTC. The price may reach these levels in the first half of January, after which it will move back to growth in search of new highs.

British regulator pointed to the risk of investing in cryptocurrencies

The UK Financial Conduct Authority warns of the risks of investing in crypto assets. The corresponding statement was published on the regulator's website. FCA drew attention to the fact that some companies are calling for investment in cryptocurrency projects and promising high returns. The British regulator warns that such investments are high-risk, and consumers "must be prepared to lose all their investments." “Firms offering these products should make sure they comply with all relevant regulatory requirements and are authorised by the FCA where this is required. Since 10 January 2021, all UK cryptoasset firms must be registered with the FCA under regulations to tackle money laundering. Operating without a registration is a criminal offence, ” FCA said in its statement. According to the regulator, the key risks are associated with the lack of a system for protecting the rights of crypto investors, the volatility of such assets, difficulties in understanding the principle of operation of products, and high fees for cryptocurrency transactions.

The drop of BTC did not undermine the confidence of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies

The sharp decline in the bitcoin rate, which was recorded on January 11, did not become a reason for institutional investors to revise their attitude towards BTC. For example, the founder of SkyBridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, wrote on Twitter that he is "investing to the maximum", especially amid the decline in the price of the first crypto coin. Crypto enthusiast Nick Carter also wrote that he was not impressed by the recent decline in the value of BTC. “I felt nothing at 40k and I continue to feel nothing. maybe I'll feel something at 100k? ?fter watching bitcoin plunge 50% to 3k in 24h in an apparently "mature" market last year nothing fazes me anymore», ”Carter said. On January 11, the price of bitcoin dropped to $ 31,000. After that, the rate began to rise again. The cost of bitcoin, according to Coinmarketcap, is $35,556.

PayPal records a multiple increase in the volume of transactions with the main cryptocurrency

PayPal has set a record for the volume of transactions with crypto assets on its own platform. As of January 11, transactions totaling $242 million were carried out on the site. "That's nearly double the previous record," Nugget's News founder Alex Saunders tweeted. Cryptocurrency trading volume on PayPal was significantly higher than the previous record. On January 6, it reached $129 million. We would like to remind the reader that in mid-November 2020, PayPal launched the purchase and sale of BTC for US customers.

Criminals moved XRP stolen on Livecoin to KuCoin platform

The fraudsters transferred XRP stolen from the Livecoin crypto exchange to the KuCoin platform. Representatives of XRP Forensics wrote about this on Twitter. They asked the KuCoin administration to freeze these transactions and contact them for more information. Earlier it became known that 106 BTC, 361 ETH and 236 BCH were stolen. A chat has appeared on Telegram for the affected Livecoin traders from Russia, where they share information about the situation with the hacking of the crypto exchange. Some of the users have already contacted the police.

CryptoQuant claims that investors withdrew $ 2.5 billion in ETH from exchanges in two days

According to CryptoQuant, the number of Ethereum on crypto exchanges has dropped sharply over the past two days. The company reports a decrease in stock exchange balances from 11 million ETH to 8.1 million ETH. The founder of Nuggets News, Alex Saunders, does not exclude that if the trend continues in 10 days, ether will disappear altogether on trading platforms. However, other sources do not confirm these concerns. Ethereum exchange balances have remained largely unchanged since the rise in late 2020, according to Glassnode. “This is nonsense. Who'd really think that a sudden drop of 2M+ #ETH are actual withdrawals from an exchange? Nothing unsusual has happened, exchange flows are completely within their normal range. Current balance: 16.3M ETH», the technical director of Glassnode Rafael Schulze-Kraft tweeted.

Ethereum has risen in price by more than 14% in 24 hours

Ethereum price has risen by more than 14%. According to Coinmarketcap data at the time of writing, ETH is worth $1,406. “Ethereum's daily transaction volume is going parabolic. It now settles $12 billion in transactions daily - $3 billion more than Bitcoin, " Ryan Watkins, a researcher at the Messari analytical company, wrote on his Twitter account. The explosive growth of the cryptocurrency rate can be associated with the movements of stablecoins, a significant part of which is based on the Ethereum blockchain.

Mark Cuban thinks Bitcoin may continue to rise

Billionaire and well-known Bitcoin critic Mark Cuban believes that the first cryptocurrency is able to continue to grow, like stocks in general, amid no increase in interest rates. The entrepreneur urged crypto enthusiasts to monitor the dynamics of interest rates. “All speculation about debt will get real ground if interest rates rise and by how much. That's when we will see how this affects the prices of all assets. Bitcoin is akin to any stock. Its price is determined by supply and demand, ”said the billionaire. In his opinion, the interest of institutional investors contributes to the growth of the BTC rate. About a year ago, Cuban stated that bitcoin "has no chance" to become a reliable currency in the future. "It [Bitcoin] is too difficult to use, too easy to hack, way too easy to lose, too hard to understand, too hard to assess a value," Cuban said in December 2019.

Research: over 70% of central banks are interested in blockchain

According to a study by analyst firm Mindsmith, 74% of central banks are interested in blockchain technology. The experts came to such conclusions based on the results of a semantic analysis of publications of 191 central banks. As of the beginning of this year, they mentioned the blockchain 4408 times. More than 50% of mentions of the technology fall on 9 regulators. The undisputed leaders were the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank. In addition, regulators from Singapore, Thailand, Tunisia, Germany, Portugal and Lithuania are included in the top ten by mentioning the technology.

Ethereum has risen in price over 15% in 7 days

Ethereum is showing strong growth. According to Coinmarketcap, the price of ETH has risen to $1,414. Over the past day, the crypto coin has risen in price by 5%. The growth in 7 days was more than 15%. The number of long-term investors able to lock in profits from the sale of ETH has grown to almost 100%, according to intotheblock.com. These are crypto owners who store their assets in over-the-counter wallets. As noted by Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, the next target of the altcoin may be the level of $2,600. NewsBTC website analyst Ayash Jindal believes that ETH may grow to $1,600. This is possible provided that Ethereum breaks the $1,500 mark. The level of $1,360 will prevent the collapse of the altcoin value, Jindal noted.

Regulation of the crypto market positively influenced the attractiveness of bitcoin for investors

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci is confident that bitcoin as an asset has become much more attractive to investors. This happened after regulators began working to eliminate the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. “Until recently, as an investment, bitcoin has had unique and pronounced risks, but that's changing, with new rules and regulations that have spurred wider institutional adoption,” wrote Anthony Scaramucci and SkyBridge Capital President Brett Messing in a column for CNN. Crypto enthusiasts believe that during a crisis, including an economic one, there is a "natural desire to invest in something tangible, such as gold." However, the value of bitcoin lies precisely in its intangibility. “You can always mine for more gold. Bitcoin is unique among assets as the first store of value in the world where supply is completely unaffected by increased demand,” entrepreneurs said.

Opinion: Bitcoin will not hold at the $30,000 level

Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, is confident that the price of the main cryptocurrency will be dropping. In a comment to Bloomberg, he said that he doubted BTC's ability to hold on to the $30,000 mark. “Right now, the reality of the institutional demand that would support a US$35’000 price or even a US$30’000 price is just not there. I don’t think the investor base is big enough and deep enough right now to support this kind of valuation, ” Minerd said. In his opinion, BTC will remain a viable asset in the long term, but in the near future, the pressure on the price of bitcoin may increase.

Developing country regulators to issue government stablecoins in the coming time

According to BIS (Bank for International Settlements) analysts, regulators from different countries are actively exploring the question of issuing government tokens. Their mass launch will be in developing countries, analysts say. In the third annual BIS survey, in which 65 central banks participated, 86% of those surveyed said they were considering the pros and cons of issuing their own cryptocurrencies. In 2020, this figure was 80%. About 60% of regulators are already experimenting with government digital currencies. “This research is evidenced by the launch of the first real government cryptocurrency in the Bahamas. Others are likely to join this pioneer. Central banks, which together represent a fifth of the world's population, are likely to issue general-purpose government cryptocurrencies in the next three years,” the report said.

8,000 BTC, which were mined about 10 years ago, belong to Coinbase

Eight batches of 1,000 BTC each, which have been in motion for the first time since 2010, are owned by Coinbase or related companies. This version was published by the Goldfoundinshit Telegram channel. “Yesterday the next, eighth batch of 1,000 BTC, moved, which lay on the wallets broken by 50, has not moved since 2010. I have previously suggested that these bitcoins belong to Coinbase. Now I am absolutely sure of this, ” wrote the author of the channel. According to the results of the on-chain analysis, as before, 1,000 bitcoins were accumulated in tranches of 50 BTC at separate addresses from 20 wallets. “As you can see, first there is a consolidation of 20 wallets of 50 per address – 1,000 BTC then, this 1,000 is scattered in batches of 10 BTC into original ones, let's call them“ pockets ”for withdrawal. The same thing happened during the movement of the previous parties. Sometimes one or two transactions with large amounts of BTC went from a wallet with 1,000 BTC, apparently for some VIP users, ” the author noted.

The number of active BTC addresses reached 22.3 million in January

During the first month of this year, the number of unique active BTC addresses amounted to 22.3 million. The growth occurred against the background of an increase in the activity of traders and the price of bitcoin, which exceeded the $42,000 mark. “In January, more than 22.3 million unique addresses were active in the network sending or receiving $BTC – the highest monthly number in Bitcoin's history to date,” Glassnode said. According to the company, January became a record for the number of active Bitcoin addresses. The previous record was reached in December 2017. The number of active addresses was 21 million. Since 2017, the number of active BTC addresses has not dropped below 10 million per month.

Economists criticized the idea of issuing government cryptocurrencies

Economists Peter Bofinger and Thomas Hass believe that government tokens issued as a medium of exchange may not compete with private banks. Experts believe that regulators need to focus on the concept of supranational cryptocurrencies that will become a store of value in the international system. Economists admit that the best type of government cryptocurrency is one that regulators are unlikely to think about for fear of rejecting intermediation. It will be a government-owned cryptocurrency designed not to facilitate payments, but to save the value. “The demand for a store-of-value CBDC would come from firms and large investors with bank deposits of more than €100,000, which would be bailed-in in the case of a bank restructuring. From the user perspective, this demand would depend on the interest rate for such deposits. Central banks could auction store-of-value deposits which would give them a perfect control over their amount,” the researchers noted.

SEC accused three leaders of the Bitcoiin2Gen crypto project of defrauding investors

The SEC has accused three leaders of the closed crypto project Bitcoiin2Gen of defrauding investors. In 2018, the company held an ICO for $11.4 million, with Steven Seagal as the face of its advertising campaign. The SEC believes that the creator of Bitcoiin2Gen Christian Krstic and the promoter of the project John DeMarr violated securities laws during the ICO, and the company's partner Robin Enos "was engaged in aiding and abetting." The defendants promised to distribute to 460 investors a B2G token, which, according to the SEC, never existed. The scammers promised a “mined” and “traded” digital token.

Dogecoin soars more than 50% after Elon Musk's tweet about the token

Doge has risen in price by more than 50% after the of a series of tweets by Elon Musk. Half an hour after the first message, the Tesla founder posted a picture in which he raises a coin symbol above his head, with the words "welcome". In the next tweet, Musk called Doge "the people's cryptocurrency." “No highs, no lows, just Doge,” the entrepreneur wrote in the fourth post on the token. Doge continues to grow, according to Coinmarketcap. At the time of this writing, the cryptocurrency has risen in price by 63%, reaching $0.053.

Ethereum has overcome the level of $1,600

The Ethereum price has renewed its all-time high, reaching $1,621. Over the course of the day, the crypto coin has risen in price by 5%, and in 7 days - by 26%. Analysts believe that the growth of the cryptocurrency is due to the launch of Ethereum futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It is set for February 8th. At the same time, analysts warn of the risks of a decline in the price of ETH. “For all you know, major players may be looking to get long exposure through futures, now that there is an institutional-grade product to do so. Smart traders moved to Ether when Bitcoin topped out around $40,000 and have made more money,” said Vijay Ayyar, head of the Asia-Pacific division of the Luno exchange.

Mark Cuban: The direction of decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens will be popular

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban believes that the direction of decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFT) could become quite popular in the crypto market in the next decade. The billionaire also criticized the SEC, noting that the structure was founded by "lawyers for lawyers" to win cases, not make the right decisions. The entrepreneur believes that the SEC only cares about large investors. Cuban advises those who go into the negative to believe in their investments. He turned to the owners of BTC, who purchased bitcoins in the wake of 2017 and witnessed its strong fall. The hodlers didn't sell cryptocurrency because they believed in it.

Institutional investors prefer ETH

According to CoinShares, the inflow of institutional investors' funds into the crypto market in the first week of the second month of the year amounted to $245 million. 80% of this volume was invested in ethereum. Analysts believe large investors are starting to diversify their crypto portfolios. They transfer part of the funds from BTC to ethereum, and other coins. At the same time, nothing indicates profit-taking. Investors buy and save cryptocurrency.
“We think that investors looking for diversification are becoming more comfortable investing in ethereum. The inflow of funds into bitcoin is gradually decreasing, ” analysts noted.

Bitcoin tested the $48,000 level

The main crypto coin has updated the all-time high on the Binance crypto platform. It has risen above $48,000. During the day on February 9, the coin grew by 23%. Its market capitalization exceeded $892 billion. The value of BTC is breaking records amid news that Tesla has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin. Representatives of the company said that in the "near future" it will accept payment in cryptocurrency. Well-known trader Peter Brandt wrote that despite the hype around digital gold, the uptrend in price "looks healthy compared to the end of 2017".

Brian Brooks: Tesla's investment in bitcoin is awesome news

Former head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks said the information about Tesla's investment in BTC is exciting news.
Although, the ex-official believes, for those who have not previously invested in cryptocurrency, "it looks somewhat alarming". “That's crazy, right? The way inflation works is the more of asset you have the less valuable it is. That would explain why a lot of institutions want to have bitcoin sitting in their treasury because it's a lot more stable source of value over the long haul, potentially, ” Brooks said.

Mastercard to start working with cryptocurrencies in 2021

Already in 2021, Mastercard plans to start working with cryptocurrencies. The specific coins have not yet been named. However, it is known that the system will only support stablecoins backed by real assets. The company said in a statement that digital currencies must guarantee stability "so that people can use them for day-to-day transactions, not investments." Clients of Mastercard already have the opportunity to make cryptocurrency transactions, but now the payment system will begin to independently process transfers. “Our philosophy on cryptocurrencies is straightforward: It’s about choice. Mastercard isn’t here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value – traditional or crypto – however they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money, ” said Raj Dhamodharan.Executive Vice President, Digital Asset and Blockchain Products and Partnerships, Mastercard.

Elon Musk speaks out against custodial crypto wallets

Elon Musk believes that it is better for investors not to use the services of crypto wallets, which do not provide their clients with control over private keys. He wrote about this in a Twitter post from the custodian wallet operator FreeWallet, who used Musk's post on Dogecoin to advertise himself. "Your app sucks," wrote the head of Tesla. It turned out that the entrepreneur uses FreeWallet, and his account was automatically blocked by a security algorithm. Musk's account was then unblocked, but the developers of Ledger hardware wallets joined the discussion, taking the opportunity to advertise their decision. "Elon Musk is right, as long as you do not manage your private keys, you do not actually own your cryptocurrency," wrote the representatives of Ledger.

Glassnode believes that "miners have reduced bitcoin sales, and investors are taking profits"

According to the research company Glassnode, miners have begun to accumulate reserves in bitcoins. Long-term investors, on the other hand, are trying to get rid of their assets in order to lock in profits. The Glassnode report says that in January, miners were actively selling almost all of the mined BTC, however, in February, the volume of sales decreased significantly. This could mean that miners are hoping for an increase in the value of bitcoin. “This suggests that miners have either completed adequate sales to cover costs, or could also mean they see Tesla's vote of confidence as fair reason to keep a strong grip on their treasuries," analysts say.

Analysts: 5 services store more than 50% of cryptocurrencies that were obtained illegally

Chainalysis experts concluded that 55% of digital currencies that were obtained fraudulently or with the help of ransomware viruses are laundered through just 5 services. These services use about 270 unique deposit addresses. Analysts believe that the largest processors of illegally obtained crypto coins receive about $25 million a year. Serving such illegal transactions may be their main activity. Experts believe that suppressing the illegal activities of such deposit addresses will help shut down most of the infrastructure that now exists for laundering crypto assets.

BlackRock with $ 8.7 trillion in assets is interested in bitcoins

Investment company BlackRock, which manages assets totaling $8.7 trillion, is interested in the main crypto coin. The company's investment director Rick Rieder said BlackRock is already "doing a little bit" of digital currencies. “My sense is the technology has evolved and the regulation has evolved to the point where a number of people find it should be part of the portfolio, so that’s what’s driving the price up, ” said the entrepreneur. Rieder did not go into details of BlackRock's cryptocurrency strategy. However, it is known that the investment giant recently filed documents with the SEC. They say the company wants to include bitcoin futures in the investment portfolio of two of its funds.

US authorities accused the creators of Coinseed of defrauding investors for $ 1 million

New York Attorney General Laetitia James has accused the creators of the cryptocurrency investment application Coinseed of fraud. The state prosecutor's office believes that entrepreneurs lured out $1 million from investors through hidden fees and implausible statements. The company also issued a CSD token, which actually "had no functionality" in the Coinseed app. The prosecutor's office intends to bring to justice not only the company, but also two of its top managers. The allegations are centered around the 2017 ICO of Coinseed. Coinseed, according to preliminary data, received about $100,000 through the sale of 200,000 CSD tokens. Also, the prosecutor's office is confident that the company was engaged in operations with cryptocurrencies without registering as a broker-dealer. “Attorney General James seeks to stop Coinseed and the two individual defendants from further operating as unregistered commodities broker-dealers through their mobile application, as well as return investments of Coinseed’s worthless cryptocurrency, the CSD token,” according to a press release from the Attorney General's Office in New -York.