Bitcoin is above $ 4000, steady growth of altcoins and other main events of the week

The main topic of the outgoing week was the recovery of the cryptocurrency market after a long recession period.

Bitcoin price

This week, Bitcoin, reaching last year's annual minimums, showed a significant increase and, rising in price by 25%, fixed at levels just above $ 4,000. The total market capitalization for these seven days has grown by more than $ 35 billion and at the time of publication was $ 136 billion.

Many other cryptocurrencies have also shown impressive growth. If it speaks of the Top 10 CoinMarketCap, here Bitcoin Cash (BCH) turned out to be the absolute leader, which rose in price by more than 150% and, bargaining now above $ 200, returned to the 4th place. Tron ($ 0.021) increased by 65%, Ethereum ($ 130) and EOS ($ 2.90) increased by 50%.

The steady growth of the market, which was observed in recent days, led many to talk about the fact that this time Bitcoin really overcame the bottom. A number of experts, however, take a more cautious approach. So, the New York analyst of Bloomberg Intelligence Mike McGlone believes that in 2019 the cryptocurrency will fall to even lower levels.

In the shorter term, Bitcoin, according to CoinDesk analyst Omkar Godboul, is paving the way to a psychological level of $ 5,000, but there is a serious obstacle on this path – $ 4,400.

At the same time, well-known trader Peter Brandt is sure that it is too early to talk about a radical change in the trend, and any bitcoin price movement above $ 4,000 is no more than a “dead cat jump”. Brandt is sure that the “bottom” for Bitcoin could be $ 1200. It will become relevant if deep drawdowns after short-term upward corrections result in a price below $ 3,000. It can happen at the end of the first quarter of next year.

At the same time, Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, who had previously predicted that Bitcoin would reach $ 25,000 by the end of the year, said that he would no longer name any deadlines for achieving a “fair price”.

Coinbase has confirmed information on the movement of cryptocurrency at $ 5 billion

Coinbase plans to significantly expand the number of cryptoactive assets supported. For this purpose, the Californian company said, it is necessary to radically rethink approaches to storing funds on the platform, the amounts of which amount to billions of US dollars.

As part of this process, Coinbase transferred customer funds totaling about $ 5 billion to the updated vault. In particular, 5% of the bitcoins available to the company, 8% of the broadcast and 25% of Litecoin were moved.

According to Coinbase security head Philip Martin, planning the process of moving coins took about four months and a fundamentally new architecture was created.

Waves platform raised $ 120 million to develop private blockchain Vostok

Waves Platform announced the successful closure of a round of financing, following which it raised $ 120 million to develop corporate blockchain Vostok. The round of financing, in which private investors also took part, was led by London-based financial company Dolfin.

“Cryptocurrency fever is over, but the idea of using a decentralized network to store data and reduce costs is still relevant, ” said Alexander Ivanov, CEO of Waves.

Earlier, he stated that the mission of Vostok will be to create a large-scale blockchain platform for the implementation of large business projects and state institutions. The launch of the project is expected in 2019.

Coinsquare has entered the European market

The Canadian Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinsquare officially began operations in 25 countries of the European Union. European users will be able to trade all cryptoactive assets represented on Coinsquare, including Bitcoin, Air, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, XRP, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin and Ethereum Classic. In addition, the exchange will support the euro and the Swiss franc.

Earlier this year, Coinsquare, together with investment blockchain bank DLTa 21 Blockhain Corp, also announced the launch of a trading platform in Japan.

In addition, the exchange launched the Coincapital investment fund, which will offer clients investment-oriented cryptocurrency products, as well as new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence.

In the US, can exclude cryptocurrencies from the legislation on securities

An important bill was introduced into the US Congress, excluding “digital tokens” from the definition of securities, approved as early as the 1930s. Its authors are members of the House of Representatives Warren Davidson and Darren Soto.

The draft law “On the classification of tokens” states that the rules on securities are not applicable in relation to cryptocurrency. The definition of “digital tokens” is also given. The latter are defined in the document as “digital units” that can be created as a result of mining or mining. At the same time, they are governed by rules that cannot be changed by an individual or a group of individuals. About tokens say that they can be transferred between people directly, without intermediaries and "are not an expression of financial interest in the company, including participation in capital, debt interest or a share of income."

The bill also contains clauses related to taxation, use and sale of cryptocurrencies. In particular, lawmakers propose not to tax profits from transactions with cryptoactive assets, not exceeding $ 600.

UK Tax Service has published a guide for cryptocurrency owners

The UK Ministry of Taxes and Customs (HMRC) published on Wednesday, December 19, a detailed guide for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency owners, which explains its approach to such assets and the issue of their taxation. It explains the taxation of individual cryptocurrency holders in some detail, but the mechanism that will be applied to companies that hold tokens for business purposes will be presented at a later stage.

According to the guide, investors who acquire tokens solely in the hope that their value will increase, will have to pay a capital gains tax when selling. Individuals who receive tokens from their employers as payment, from mining, in the form of transaction fees or eirdrop will have to pay income tax and make contributions to the social insurance fund.

It is noteworthy that HMRC does not equate the purchase and sale of cryptoactive assets to participate in gambling. The document also explains how and when assets (or transactions) of users can be classified as securities.

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