The main news of the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain for the last week

This week, Bitcoin and many Altcoins went to conquer new peaks. The BTC rate broke through the $ 6500 mark and set a new maximum for the market share of 58.7%.

Traditionally, the development of growing dynamics is supported by positive news, for example, about the players' readiness to introduce uniform cryptographic standards and the long-discussed issue of SEC and CFTC market regulation, which the corresponding statement was made to the US Congress.

In turn, large capital, it seems, has already gained positions for the purchase and is now ready to make a profit on the growing market movement, which may last without major corrections for more than a month, and maybe until the end of 2019. Consider the key events of this week.

Binance exchange lost 7,000 BTC as a result of a hacker attack

The most discussed exchange of recent weeks, Binance , was successfully attacked by hackers , as a result of which hackers were able to withdraw 7000 BTC (about $ 40.7 million) in one transaction. As representatives of the exchange reported , only the hot wallet of the exchange suffered.

The reimbursement of all lost funds to users will come from the SAFU stock exchange’s own fund, and the withdrawal and withdrawal will be suspended for one week to conduct an audit of security systems. Trading works in the normal mode. After the hacker attack, the price of the BNB token has dropped by 10%.

During the AMA session (Ask Me Anything) on Twitter, the head of Binance Changpen Zhao responded to questions from representatives of the crypto community regarding the hacker attack that had taken place, and he also shared his plans for the near future.

Facebook is developing its own blockchain and cryptocurrency

Facebook hired former PayPal employees to develop their own blockchain project, reports Bloomberg. There was no official statement from the Facebook team, but sources close to the company report that it can be made already in the 3rd quarter of this year .

According to anonymous insiders, the development team numbers about 50 people and continues to expand. Now there are former employees of PayPal and Coinbase , allegedly all of them are working on the creation of steyblkoina tied to the US dollar.

The first country to test the new currency will be India – a region that is particularly attractive to Facebook.

Launch of the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain test network based on the Casper POS protocol

On May 8, a test blockchain network of Ethereum 2.0 was launched on the basis of the Casper PoS protocol, which supports stacking.

The implementation of Casper is one of the most awaited updates of the Ethereum network . This protocol was first introduced by Ethereum chief developer Vlad Zamfir in August 2015 and combines two Ethereum research projects: Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget (FFG) and Casper the Friendly GHOST: Correct-by-Construction (CBC).

Casper is based on the key principles of the PoS algorithm and gives the nodes more freedom to evaluate security while achieving consensus. The founders of the network believe that after the transition the network will become much faster and safer, and the network bandwidth will exceed 100 transactions per second. More information about the test network can be found here .

Half of the transactions in the Bitcoin Cash network in April fell on one address

Twitter user under the name IamNomad noticed that in April more than 50% of all transactions on the Bitcoin Cash network fell on one address – 1b1itzeSKYEKhdcthUSnNJ47Fx2U8Zwwn.

50% of $ BCH transactions in the last month. https://t.co/eSfJswoZqN

– I am Nomad (@IamNomad) May 5, 2019

It is noteworthy that the first transaction was made on April 8 of this year, and since then about 587,000 transactions have been carried out from this address. At the same time, in April, the entire Bitcoin Cash blockchain processed 1.17 million transactions.

According to many Twitter users, thus the owner of the address tried to create the appearance of high network activity and its relevance as a payment system.

Bitfinex has published a white paper of its IEO and intends to raise $ 1 billion

Bitfinex Cryptocurrency Exchange has published a white paper LEO token. Recall that Bitfinex is preparing for an IEO (initial exchange offer) and intends to raise $ 1 billion with LEO tokens.

Bitfinex exchange tokens, called LEO, will be offered to private investors during a private tokensail round. According to white paper, Bitfinex issues tokens to cover frozen $ 850 million in several accounts controlled by payment processing company Crypto Capital.

A week ago, New York City Attorney General (NYAG) sued Bitfinex and Tether for allegedly pooling $ 850 million in damages.

CFTC may approve Ethereum futures

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is considering the possibility of approving Ethereum futures contracts (ETH) . This was told by an anonymous source, who is one of the high-ranking officials of the department.

Thus, the regulator hopes to attract new institutional investors, who will be able to interact with the second largest capitalization cryptocurrency in the market. Moreover, futures contracts will help form and consolidate the CFTC jurisdiction over Ether .

Publication date 11.05.2019
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