PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($8,561): -1% / +19%
- ETH ($166): +1% / +27%
- LTC ($56): -2% / +35%
- XRP ($0.23): -4% / +17%
- Crypto Market Cap ($234B): 0% / +23%
- BTC Dominance: 66%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- British telecom company Vodafone has dropped out of the Libra Association, following recent moves from PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa. When Facebook first launched its stablecoin efforts in June 2019, 28 companies joined forces to form the Libra Association to oversee the digital currency. Since then 8 companies have left the initiative. Link.
- Square was granted a patent for a new network that would enable seamless crypto-to-fiat transactions. The payments system allows users to hold different asset types to transact with one another in real-time. This new system would make it easy for retailers to accept cryptocurrencies as a payment method in real-time. The patent suggests the system could add support for other asset classes including securities, derivates, and loans. Link.
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos and said that the company could go public in the next 12 months. “In the next 12 months, you’ll see IPOs in the crypto/blockchain space. We’re not going to be the first and we’re not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side… it’s a natural evolution for our company,” he said. Just last month Ripple raised a $200 million Series C round, which valued the company at $10 billion. Link.
- Blockchain payments processor BitPay has added support for XRP, the world's third largest cryptocurrency by market cap. XRP has been integrated via Ripple's open developer platform, Xpring. Now BitPay's customers can begin accepting XRP as payment. Link.
- Square Crypto announced its first product on Tuesday: a "Lightning Development Kit" (LDK) to help developers integrate Lightning with their bitcoin wallet applications. The product includes an API, language bindings, and demo apps that make integrating Lighting easy and configurable. Link.
- The long awaited Taproot/Schnorr proposal for the Bitcoin blockchain has been published as a series of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs). Taproot is expected to bring privacy features to bitcoin by making all transactions - from simple payments, opening/closing Lightning channels, or sophisticated smart contracts - look the same to outside observers. Next steps will include protocol implementation and network activation, and could take some time. Link.
- BlockFi, a crypto lending startup, announced changes in the interest rates it charges its customers. Users holding modest balances will see their yields increase from 2.2% to 3.2% for BTC holders and from 0.5% to 2% for ETH holders. Users with more than 10 BTC will see their rates drop from 6.2% to 5.1% and users with more than 500 ETH will see yields drop from 4.2% to 3.6%. Rates across the board are still lower than alternative options. BlockFi hopes the changes will encourage higher volume users to join the platform. Link.
- Fidelity is hiring for a bitcoin mining engineer to design, build, and maintain its bitcoin mining operations. Fidelity began mining bitcoin and ether in 2014 and it has since become a profitable venture. Link.
- Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said the firm is currently exploring launching a bitcoin future with an unknown partner. Nasdaq wants to bring a market to product that is differentiated enough from competition, and wants to ensure it has the proper risk-management foundation in place. Friedman also said that the exchange's view is that "digital currencies and cryptocurrencies will have a role in the global economy." Link.
- South Korea is planning to charge a 20% tax on income from crypto transactions. The change has raised speculation that the government will treat crypto trading gains as "other income" and not as "capital gains". Link.
- Decentralized cloud startup Dfinity, which raised $102 million in 2018, is launching an open version of LinkedIn called "LinkedUp". LinkedUp was on top of Dfinity's internet platform by 1.5 engineers in three weeks. Dfinity's platform can be used to create open versions of all types of platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, eBay, Salesforce and more. Link.
- Japanese lawmakers are working on a proposal to issue digital currency, which would be a joint venture between the government and private sector. The proposal could be submitted as early as next month. Link.
- Adult entertainment website Pornhub added the Tether (USDT) stablecoin to its payment options. The addition comes two months after PayPal cut off its services to Pornhub in November. Pornhub thinks this move will make it easier to pay its models. Link.
- Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, does not like bitcoin. At Davos he said, "There’s two purposes of money, a medium of exchange and a store hold of wealth, and bitcoin is not effective in either of those cases now". In 2017 Dalio had called bitcoin "a bubble" and "highly speculative" instrument. Link.