The “Second Birth” of ZCash and other key events of the outgoing week (10.29.2018 – 04.11.2018)

In the traditional Sunday review – the new ICO format, hard forks ZCash, the next rating of cryptocurrencies from China and other important events of the week.

Grueling flet continues

A week ago, bitcoin was trading in a narrow range between $ 6,450 and $ 6,550, and the average weekly volatility fell to 0.86%.

On Monday, October 29, the price of the first cryptocurrency dropped to $ 6,300 and for seven days, not counting the sharp movement to $ 6,500 on November 1, did not leave the channel $ 6,300- $ 6,390. Nevertheless, on November 4, after 3:00 pm UTC, the bulls managed to break through to the area of ​​$ 6,470.

TradingView data

Meanwhile, the total trading volumes on the leading cryptocurrency exchanges for October showed a decline compared with September. Poloniex lost 56%, and Binance – 32%. In addition, the market capitalization of digital currencies reached an annual minimum of $ 203.4 billion.

It is noteworthy that in the rating of cryptocurrencies from the Center for the Development of the Information Technology Industry of China (CCID), Bitcoin took 19th place, and EOS – the first. At the same time, the top three were closed by Ethereum and Bitshares.

Note that in the study of the auditor of distributed networks, Whiteblock Inc. it is said that EOS cannot be called a blockchain, and failures in the consensus algorithm make the network vulnerable to Byzantine errors.

Coinmetrics.io analysts also reported this week that only one of the four bitcoins has moved between addresses and has been stored on them for the past six months. The last time Bitcoin reached such low levels of activity in 2015.

Some Reddit users have found that Bitmain-controlled mining pools Antpool and BTC.com reject all SegWit transactions on the Bitcoin network and pay higher commissions due to the clogged memory.

Wasabi Wallet 1.0 was released on October 31, and then the largest transaction was performed using the CoinJoin coin mixing technology in the amount of 34.30709811 BTC.

Hardfork ZCash

October 29 in the main network ZCash on block # 419200 took place hardfork Sapling, which the developers of the protocol have already dubbed the “second birth cryptocurrency”. The upgrade will reduce the amount of memory required for secure transactions, reduce transaction processing time by 90% and use lightweight clients for secure transactions.

The Sapling update also implemented a new address format, a full-scale transition to which will take place over the coming months, during which a monetary audit of the network will be conducted.

Coinbase capitalization exceeded $ 8 billion

The American cryptocurrency company Coinbase raised $ 300 million as part of a round of financing for the E-Series, which was led by the American hedge fund Tiger Global Management. According to the estimates of the company itself, its capitalization exceeded $ 8 billion, and the annual profit could be $ 1.3 billion.

However, according to Asiff Hirji, Co-Operating Director and President of Coinbase, the company does not intend to enter an IPO in the near future.

On November 2, Coinbase Pro expanded its listing by adding support for Basic Attention Token (BAT).

Another significant deal of the week was the purchase of the leading European stock exchange Bitstamp (founded seven years ago) by Belgium-based investment company NXMH, which is a subsidiary of NXC, owner of the South Korean crypto-bureau Korbit, and video game developer Nexon. The amount of the transaction remains unknown.

New ICO format

ERC-20 creator Fabian Vogelstellar, speaking at the Devcon4 conference in Prague, proposed the concept of a reversible ICO (RICO), during which a special smart contract will allow investors to return invested funds at any stage of the project development by returning tokens.

He said he feels responsible for the ICO boom and intends to propose a more efficient model. In his opinion, RICO can significantly reduce the number of scams and encourage project creators to keep their promises.

In Prague, the creator of Ethereum Vitaly Buterin also announced the future transition of the ecosystem to the Ethereum 2.0 stage called Serenity after the activation of Casper, sharding and migration to Proof-Of-Stake. At the same time, the creation of specialized equipment for the new generation network will be funded by the Ethereum Foundation and the developers of Filecoin.

In Tether Ltd. called a banking partner

Tether Limited has officially confirmed the cooperation with the Bahamian Deltec Bank. The company also submitted a letter, on the basis of which it has sufficient funds to ensure the total volume of issued USDT tokens.

Allegedly, Deltec checked information on shareholders, ultimate beneficiaries and managers, assessed the policy of reserve management and legal compliance.

According to a published letter from Deltec Bank, at the end of the business day on October 31, 2018, the Tether account had a cash value of $ 1,831,322,828.

It is noteworthy that in the above letter, contrary to accepted practice, there is no signature of any official of the bank.

Winklevoss vs. Charlie Shrem

The founders of the Bitcoin exchange Gemini Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss brothers filed a lawsuit against the founder of the already non-existent Bitcoin exchange BitInstant Charlie Schrem, demanding the return of 5000 BTC.

In 2012, the brothers allegedly gave Shrem a total of $ 1 million for the purchase of bitcoins, when the exchange rate was around $ 12.5. Only later, according to Winklevoss, did they realize that they did not receive coins for the full amount. Requests to return the missing bitcoins, they said, were not satisfied.

In the meantime, Shrem’s lawyer denies all charges and warned that his client intends to defend his reputation.

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