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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Bitcoin price updated a 15-months maximum On Wednesday night, the first cryptocurrency rose in price to $13,200, which became a record value since July 2019. Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin has gained 5.90% in price, and has strengthened by 14.50% over the week. The active stage of growth began after the announcement that PayPal would support cryptocurrency. The share of bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market has also increased, at the moment reaching 61.67%. At the same time, market capitalization exceeded $394 billion, having updated a maximum of two and a half years. 10% of bitcoins haven't moved in over 10 years According to the Glassnode service, 1.8 million BTC have not moved in over 10 years. At the moment, the bitcoin supply is about 18.5 million BTC, which makes almost 10% of the mined coins inactive. Today, the total value of sleeping bitcoins exceeds $23 billion. Most of these coins may belong to the creator of the cryptocurrency Satoshi Nakamoto, who has remained silent since 2011. It is estimated that Nakamoto owns 1 million coins that have been inactive since mining. In May, coins minted in February 2009 suddenly began to move. The owner sent 50 BTC to two different addresses without giving any reason. State Duma representative predicts the timing for testing of the digital rouble Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Russian State Duma Committee on the financial market, expressed the opinion that testing of the digital rouble will begin next year. “I know that many serious businessmen are preparing to issue digital assets. The Central Bank took a big step forward by announcing that it is starting consultations on digital assets. I am sure that there will be testing of the digital rouble, perhaps as early as next year,” the official said during his speech at the Blockchain Life 2020 forum. He emphasized that he is in dialogue with cryptocurrency companies that offer their solutions in the field of market regulation. According to Aksakov, in power structures "everyone understands how important it is to develop blockchain technology, but there are different points of view."

ETH 2.0 deposit contract may be launched this week ConsenSys developer Ben Edgington announced that the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract will be launched "in the coming days." It will allow transferring coins between Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0. This is one of the few remaining updates required to launch the second version of the web. Genesis block ETH 2.0 will appear within 6-8 weeks, according to the developer who clarifies that this is "not an official statement." "Meanwhile, be careful out there. Many fake deposit contracts and Launchpad front-ends will erupt in the coming days. Look out for the official announcements: do not send Eth to random contracts; this is not DeFi,” Edgington warned. The BTC rate has come close to $12,000 On October 20, the bitcoin price rose to $11,930, which became the highest value since the beginning of September. In 24 hours, the first cryptocurrency went up by 2.8%, and in two weeks it added more than 11% in price. The bitcoin dominance index in the cryptocurrency market rose to 59%. Earlier, the BTC hashrate once again updated its historical maximum. In addition, the trading volume of the first cryptocurrency jumped sharply in relation to altcoins - to a three-year peak. At the same time, the altcoin market capitalization decreased by 4.8% over the week. Large investors withdraw ethereum from exchanges Santiment analysts noticed that Ethereum whales are withdrawing coins from exchanges. Over the past two months, the amount of ETH on the largest exchangers' wallets has decreased by 20.5%. This indicates "price confidence on the part of leaders," Santiment writes. A similar trend is noted by the Glassnode service, according to which the volume of ethereum on the exchanges fell to a minimum of nine months. At the same time, the number of addresses with a balance of more than 32 ETH has reached a historic peak - this is how many coins are needed for staking on the Ethereum 2.0 network.

OKEx has suspended the withdrawal of cryptocurrencies OKEx, the world's second largest crypto exchange, has suspended the withdrawal of all cryptocurrencies for an indefinite period. The platform representatives said that one of the private key holders " currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations/" OKEx plans to resume withdrawals of digital assets "immediately" as soon as the key holder "can authorize the transaction." OKEx said it decided to suspend withdrawals under the terms of service, but added that these events "will not affect" the security of customers' assets. The head of the exchange, Jay Hao, noted that the cooperation of the key holder with officials is associated with a "personal problem" and the investigation will not affect the business. Chinese media Caixin reported that OKEx co-founder Star Xu was detained by the police at least a week ago and has not been seen since. Institutions can cause Bitcoin shortages in the market In recent months, there has been a significant surge in demand for bitcoin from institutional investors. 10T Holdings co-founder Dan Tapiero believes this could lead to a BTC shortage over time. Along with investments in bitcoin from Square, MicroStrategy and Stone Ridge, the investment fund Grayscale reported record inflows. In the third quarter of 2020, the company's bitcoin trust received $1.05 billion in investments. This marked the first quarter with over $1 billion in investments, which indicates record high demand from institutional traders. Based on these data, the fund buys about 77% of all coins mined by miners. “Shortages of Bitcoin possible. Barry's Grayscale Trust is eating up BTC like there is no tomorrow. If 77% of all newly mined turns into 110%, it's lights out. Non-miner supply will get held off market in squeeze. Shorts will be dead. Price can go to any number, ” said the businessman.

Fidelity Investment: BTC capitalization will reach $1 trillion Fidelity Investment, one of the world's largest asset management companies, has published a report on investments in Bitcoin. It demonstrates how much profit managers could get if they invested part of their portfolio in bitcoin. The company also noted that in the near future, interest from institutional investors could increase the market capitalization of BTC by hundreds of billions of dollars. The bond market is valued at about $50.3 trillion. If bitcoin captures just 1% of this market, its capitalization will grow by $500 billion. The report argues that steadily declining bond yields could prompt financial managers to seek alternative assets. According to the most optimistic forecasts of Fidelity analysts, the capitalization of bitcoin could grow to $2 trillion. With the current supply of 18.5 million coins and an average market price of $11,415, this will send the rate to $108,000. Binance CEO: Chinese and US Presidents Could Spur Bitcoin Rally Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the crypto exchange Binance, , commented on the tweet of the US President, in which he hinted at the imminent adoption of stimulus measures to support the economy. According to Zhao, in the coming days this could provoke an increase in the bitcoin price. In addition, Chinese President Xi Jinping may issue a statement on the blockchain on October 14. Last year, this caused the price of BTC to rise by 30% in a day, and a number of altcoins grew in price by 50-100%. “We will likely have two of the world's most powerful presidents pump crypto for us in 2 consecutive days. Rumor has it that a blockchain related announcement is coming out of China tomorrow, ”Zhao said on October 13.

BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes steps down after accusations BitMEX has announced a complete change of leadership. Earlier, the US authorities charged the founders of the exchange with illegal use of an unregistered trading platform and failure to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. BitMEX operator 100x Group announced that exchange co-founders Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Ben Delo will step down from senior positions in the company. Business Development Manager Greg Dwyer is taking a vacation. Vivienne Khu will be the interim CEO. Previously she held the position of Chief Operating Officer of 100x Group. “These changes to our executive leadership mean we can focus on our core business of offering superior trading opportunities for all our clients through the BitMEX platform, whilst maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance,” said David Wong, chairman of 100x Group, in the post,” commented David Wong, Chairman of 100x Group. The value of tokenized bitcoins WBTC reaches $1 billion The recent DeFi boom has resulted in a 900% increase in the total locked value (TVL) of tokenized Wrapped BTC. At the moment, the figure exceeds $1 billion. The current TVL of all tokenized bitcoins is almost $1.5 billion, of which one third falls on WBTC. Wrapped Bitcoin is now the fifth-largest DeFi protocol in terms of TVL, accounting for nearly 10% of the sector-wide locked capital. Wrapped Bitcoin allows users to block BTC in exchange for WBTC, an ERC-20 token pegged to Bitcoin. This enables BTC holders to access the Ethereum-based decentralized finance ecosystem, using bitcoins as collateral. Capitalization of the DeFi sector falls by 25% in a day The DeFi market experienced a sharp decline: on October 7, the total capitalization of assets fell by 25%. Santiment analysts estimate that daily trading volumes for DeFi tokens fell 30%, while recent market leaders Sushi (SUSHI), Uniswap (UNI) and Yearn Finance (YFI) lost 51%, 38% and 31% in value over the week. respectively. “The crypto market has been engulfed in a sea of red this week, with most DeFi blue chips recording double digit losses over the past 7 days,” analysts wrote. They also noticed that large players began to accumulate some of the assets.alytical portal Cryptowisser reports. Basically, the list includes centralized sites. Compared to last year, the figure is up 56% and "there are no signs of decline." While the crypto industry continues to show impressive growth, the cryptocurrency exchange industry is facing high competition and regulatory requirements, analysts write. According to the report, exchanges are most often closed on their own, due to hacks or at the request of the authorities. The positions of centralized exchangers have also been hit hard by the development of decentralized exchanges. “For a new centralized exchange to flourish, it will likely need to have some form of unique edge that is not already on the market today,” notes Cryptowisser.

John McAfee arrested in Spain on tax evasion charges John McAfee was arrested in Spain on tax evasion charges, according to the US Department of Justice. He will be extradited to the United States. The businessman faces more than five years in prison on the charges brought against him. On the same day that McAfee was detained, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him for promoting initial coin offerings (ICOs). The businessman allegedly misled investors by not saying that he was receiving money for advertising projects. According to the SEC, McAfee received over $11.6 million worth of BTC and ETH for promoting seven ICOs in 2017 and 2018. He also raised $11.5 million in promotions. John McAfee got a lot of fame in the cryptosphere after promising to "eat his own dick" if bitcoin does not rise to $ 1 million by 2021. Later, the founder of the McAfee antivirus said that "only an idiot would believe" in this prediction. At the moment, McAfee's Twitter has more than 1 million subscribers. 75 crypto exchanges closed in 2020 Analytical portal Cryptowisser reports. Basically, the list includes centralized sites. Compared to last year, the figure is up 56% and "there are no signs of decline." While the crypto industry continues to show impressive growth, the cryptocurrency exchange industry is facing high competition and regulatory requirements, analysts write. According to the report, exchanges are most often closed on their own, due to hacks or at the request of the authorities. The positions of centralized exchangers have also been hit hard by the development of decentralized exchanges. “For a new centralized exchange to flourish, it will likely need to have some form of unique edge that is not already on the market today,” notes Cryptowisser.

BTC price will be rising until the end of the year Analyst Willie Wu thinks. He draws attention to the fact that the number of new participants in the bitcoin network has grown significantly since mid-September, and the cryptocurrency price has not reacted to this. In the last year and a half, the price of bitcoin in all cases has increased following an increase in the characteristic. Therefore, BTC is currently undervalued, the analyst points out. He also notes that in September, market participants accumulated coins while the price moved sideways. This is indicated by the On Balance Volume indicator. Another important metric of the beginning of growth is the ribbons of complexity. The indicator has left the "compression" zone, which previously always indicated an increase in the value of bitcoin. “Overall: bullish the next 3 weeks, also bullish over next 3 months,” concludes Willie Wu. Bitcoin will rise in price to six-digit numbers If one condition is met, said Michael van de Poppe, an analyst at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. He notes that previous bullish runs of the BTC price took place amid a falling dollar index. This was the case in 2014 and 2017. Since March this year, the index has also significantly lost in value, which contributed to the rise in the price of bitcoin to $12,400. The price of BTC may temporarily sink due to the second wave of coronavirus, but in the long term, the cryptocurrency will win as a safe-haven asset. “Of course, a potential drop by 25-35% could occur in the first stage of the crisis just like in March. But Bitcoin and gold would benefit significantly afterwards as safe havens against a weakening dollar, which is precisely what happened in December 2017 as BTC hit its all-time high of nearly $20,000,” writes van de Poppe. If the weakness of the dollar persists in 2021, then bitcoin may rise in price to six-digit numbers, the analyst said. New US stimulus measures will strengthen bitcoin The BTC rate will continue to rise this week amid falling dollar index, Cointelegraph analyst William Suberg writes. The index declines for the fourth day in a row as negotiations continue in Washington on new stimulus measures due to the coronavirus epidemic. The amount of support can reach $2.5 trillion. US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin confirmed that the measures will include a new round of payments in the amount of $1,200 for a number of categories of US citizens. Past payments took place this spring during the first wave of coronavirus. Then the crypto-exchanges recorded a sharp jump in deposits for exactly the amount of incentive checks. Trader Ton Weiss recommends buying bitcoin as he believes the authorities will continue to issue dollars. “No matter who wins they will keep printing, so buy bitcoin,” Weiss wrote during a debate between US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Ethereum 2.0 final testnet launched On September 29, the developers launched the Spadina test network, which will become a general test before the start of ETH 2.0. Spadina test network will work for three days, with its help the developers will test the depository contract and the process of launching the network. Testnet will work together with the already functioning Medalla network. At the moment, 41% of validators have joined Spadina. 2955 network participants contributed 94,560 test ETH. Earlier, the developers reported that if the Medalla and Spadina testnets work successfully, Ethereum 2.0 will be launched in November. 93% of TOP-250 cryptocurrencies fell in price in September Over the past few months, DeFi token prices have skyrocketed, sparking talk of a bull market. The boom in decentralized financial projects triggered an increase in the Ethereum price, which rose from $100 in March to $470 in August. However, in recent weeks, the euphoria in the DeFi sphere has faded, and with it the rest of the crypto market has subsided. According to CoinMetrics, 72% of the 250 largest crypto assets have lost in value over the past week, while 93% of top cryptocurrencies have seen a decline over the month. Most DeFi tokens fell by 15-85% in September. However, specialists from the DeFiWorld portal note that corrections are normal in a growing market, and the current year reminds them of 2016. “We move in bubbles and 4-year cycles. While everyone is just thinking about what happens today, this week, or this month, you should zoom out and reflect where we are really heading. The long term trend is clear: It’s upwards,”analysts point out. Users withdrew $5 billion in bitcoins from exchanges Over the year, the balance of wallets of crypto-exchange clients decreased by 400 thousand BTC (about $5 billion). In October 2019, the figure was 2.8 million coins, and today it has dropped to 2.4 million. The inflow of bitcoins is considered a bearish signal, as traders bring coins to exchanges for sale. Consequently, the outflow of bitcoins from exchange wallets indicates that investors' appetite for selling is declining, according to Cointelegraph analyst Joseph Young. Another possible reason lies in recent exchange hacks. In September, hackers stole $150 million in cryptocurrency from the KuCoin exchange, and a little earlier - $4 million from the Eterbase platform.

Hackers Hacked KuCoin Exchange On Saturday, September 26, the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange reported it had been hacked. Attackers stole about $150 million worth of bitcoins, ERC-20 tokens and other crypto assets from hot wallets. Funds in cold wallets are safe, according to KuCoin representatives. They also promised their clients to recover all losses from the insurance fund. The company contacted law enforcement and launched an internal investigation. The site plans to resume deposit and withdrawal of funds within a week, said the head of KuCoin Johnny Liu. Miners left to mine 2.5 million BTC At the moment, miners have mined about 18.5 million bitcoins, which is more than 86% of the maximum emission level. There are 2.5 million coins left to mine, and half of them will be mined in the next four years, says an analyst at ChartsBTC. The total number of bitcoins is limited to 21 million coins. The last of them, according to the idea of the creator of the cryptocurrency Satoshi Nakamoto, will be found by 2140. Once every four years, the reward for mining a block is halved, which slows down the issue of new bitcoins. Since the network was established in 2009, there have been three halves. The latter happened in May of this year, as a result of which the block reward decreased from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

Visa plans to create a payment system on the blockchain Visa is exploring the possibility of creating an offline payment system based on the blockchain. According to the head of the cryptocurrency division of the company, Kai Sheffield, more details will become known during the year. “So we are continuing to advance research on that front and we'll hopefully have more to talk about in the coming year.” Sheffield said. He also added that the company is actively helping central banks develop government digital currencies. ““We think that if a central bank is going to issue a CBDC, they will need to consider a number of the same factors that are facing private companies building tokenized stablecoins,” the specialist said. European Commission to launch sandbox blockchain by 2022 The European Commission, in an alliance with 30 countries called the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP), plans to launch a pan-European regulatory sandbox blockchain. This will happen by 2022. The agency is going to test the blockchain and digital currencies usage cases in the European infrastructure of EBSI blockchain services. EBSI is a joint initiative of the European Commission and EBP that aims to create a cross-border blockchain platform to deliver digital government services across the EU. The sandbox will also test smart contracts and digital identity. The Commission will pay special attention to the development of a regulatory framework in the field of asset tokenization and the operation of smart contracts.

BTC price is in a "steady upward trend" As pointed by Delphi Digital analysts. Bitcoin's surge is now more robust than last year, as traders prefer to hold coins rather than speculate on exchanges. The current rise in bitcoin price to $12,500 in August differs from strengthening to $13,800 in 2019. Back then, the wallet balances of crypto exchanges were increasing, and this year they continue to fall, despite the rise in prices. This suggests that the selling pressure is now much lower. “This suggests a more sustainable move upwards for BTC, in comparison to that of 2019 as data indicates a holder base with longer time horizons,” analysts say. The balance of bitcoins on exchanges fell from an all-time high of 2.96 million coins in February to 2.59 million BTC today. Institutions want to increase Investments in bitcoin Cryptocurrency insurance company Evertas conducted a survey among institutional investors from the US and the UK, who manage assets totalling $78.4 billion. It turned out that 90% of respondents expect an increase in investments in crypto assets. 64% of those surveyed said they expect a small increase in investment from pension funds, family managers, insurers and sovereign wealth funds. Another 26% of respondents believe that institutions will "dramatically" increase investment in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the next five years. #bestchange #bitcoin #gold #cryptocurrency #blockchain #investing #trading 84% of respondents attributed improved regulation to the reasons, and 80% named liquidity, which will grow along with the expansion of the crypto market.

Tether capitalization reaches $15 billion USDT market cap has exceeded $15 billion. As of September 18, capitalization increased by another $200 million and reached $15.284 billion. Over the past 20 days, the indicator has grown by 50%, and since the beginning of the year - by 3.7 times. Analysts attribute this to the rapid rise in popularity of the decentralized financial applications sector. Tether developers have previously noted that many investors enter the crypto market precisely through USDT. For example, Asian traders most often buy bitcoin and altcoins using Tether tokens. Most of the coins ($10 billion) are issued on the Ethereum blockchain, another $4 billion operates on the Tron network. Police summoned the head of Bithumb for questioning Seoul police have summoned Lee Jong Hoon, chairman of the South Korean exchange Bithumb, for questioning. A fraud case is pending against him, local media reported. Lee Jong Hoon is accused of manipulating the presale of Bithumb BXA tokens, as a result of which investors lost about $25 million. On the second charge, he did not pay taxes on foreign real estate. Bithumb's offices were searched three times in September. During the latter, law enforcement officers seized shares in Bithumb Holdings owned by the company's director Kim Ben-gen. The bank plans to add new types of cards, improve the loyalty program, and add new functions for businesses and users.

Bitcoin has risen in price to $11,000 again On the morning of September 16, the price of the first cryptocurrency returned to the $11,000 on a number of exchanges. Over the week, BTC rose in price by 11% - at the beginning of September, the asset rate tested monthly lows at $9,900. The rise in the price of bitcoin is taking place against the backdrop of several fundamental positive factors. Thus, the network hash rate has once again updated its historical maximum, reaching 150 EH/s. The number of coins sent per day, expressed in dollars, broke the annual record of $30.69 billion. At the same time, the dollar index is declining for the fourth day in a row, which also supports the BTC/USD pair. Draft law on the regulation of cryptocurrency in the EU has been published Politico has published a preliminary version of the Cryptocurrency Assets Markets Act (MiCA), created by the European Commission. The document proposes to regulate cryptocurrencies, security tokens and stablecoins in the same way as traditional financial instruments, which will ensure their legal purity. The bill gives broad definitions to cryptoassets and also describes a set of rules and requirements for asset issuers and service providers. The former will be obliged to register a legal entity, and service providers will be obliged to establish an official office in a member state of the European Union. Special attention is paid to stablecoins, which are divided into two categories: tokens linked to real assets and digital tokens. It is expected that the bill will be submitted for consideration in September, and will be able to enter into force no earlier than 2022. Bakkt Exchange Records Record Bitcoin Futures Trading Volume The Bakkt cryptocurrency platform has reported a new all-time record for daily trading volume in bitcoin futures. On September 15, the indicator reached 15,955 BTC (more than $ 200 million), which is 36% higher than the previous maximum. At the same time, the activity of BTC futures trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) dropped to the lowest levels - about $ 262 million. Unlike CME, Bakkt allows customers to receive instrument settlements in Bitcoin. The site was launched in 2018 by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) operator, which owns the New York Stock Exchange.

Ethereum 2.0 launch dates announced Raoul Jordan, Prysmatic Labs developer who is involved in testing of Ethereum 2.0, said preparations for the network's launch go as planned. All necessary features will be added by mid-October, he said, allowing developers to focus on improving security and user interface. “If all goes well, November is still looking good for a launch from our perspective, Jordan wrote. Earlier, a representative of the Ethereum development team, Afri Shedon, also announced that the network will begin work in November this year. Ethereum Miners' Profit surges by 98% In August, Ethereum miners received $285.1 million in revenue, the highest in two years. Compared to last month, profit increased by 98.2%, the resource The Block notes. This happened amid a record increase in online transfer fees. For more than a month, their average level has been above $2, and in early September it peaked at $15. The reason lies in the growth in the activity of applications from the field of decentralized finance. All transactions made by application participants are recorded on the Ethereum blockchain, which increases the load on the network and creates a queue of transfers. To send their transaction faster, users are willing to pay higher fees. The digital yuan will become a complete analogue of paper money The digital yuan is legally fully consistent with fiat currency, says Fan Yifei, deputy chairman of the People's Bank of China. In an article written for Financial News, the official outlined the basic principles for regulating the digital yuan. According to him, digital currency is part of the supply of paper notes and coins, and therefore "must comply with laws and regulations related to money management." Fan emphasized that the digital currency will be accepted throughout the country and "no company or individual can refuse to accept it." The official also added that the digital yuan should be regulated by anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws.

Bitcoin and Gold Correlation Set Record The correlation between gold and bitcoin has been increasing since July amid a weakening US dollar. The loss of the position of the main world currency has a positive effect on "defensive" assets, which include gold and bitcoin. The level of correlation between the two instruments exceeded 0.5, which indicates a high co-directionality of the movement of their rates. A few months ago, the indicator was below 0.1. The correlation index varies from -1 to 1. The -1 mark indicates that the quotes move absolutely independently, with a value of 1 the price charts completely coincide. In addition to gold, the correlation between BTC price and S&P 500 index also increased. On September 7, the indicator reached 0.4905, after which it decreased to 0.36. ETH Transaction Volume Updated Historical Peak In August, the monthly volume of ETH transactions set a record, reaching $24 billion, according to DappRadar data. The indicator has been renewing maximums for already three months - back in May it did not exceed $2 billion. The active growth of the level of transferred funds in the network is associated with the development of the decentralized finance market. The volume of transfers of DEX and DeFi applications over the past month increased by $9 billion each. The level of blocked funds in the DeFi-sphere increased by $3.61 billion and reached $7.5 billion by September. At the same time, the number of active ETH addresses in August decreased by 6% - this is due to a record increase in transfer fees. The first government digital currencies will appear by 2030 Experts from the European Analytical Center believe. In their opinion, at least three central banks will replace their currencies with digital tokens. China, the United States and the European Union will be the first to do so, launching digital versions of the yuan, dollar and euro. According to experts, this will happen by 2030. They also allow for the option of governmental stablecoins being issued by Sweden and the Bahamas. The Swedish regulator recently announced that it is ready to submit the CBDC by 2025. China is already testing the digital yuan, and the European Central Bank is actively exploring this direction.

Bitcoin and gold will stand in case the stock market falls 10T Holdings and Gold Bullion International co-founder Dan Tapiero thinks. According to him, the stock market is in for a strong correction since the optimism of individual investors regarding S&P 500 index is at its record high. "Unfortunately, most worrying data point have seen in a while for #StockMarket from short term perspective. Certainly an extreme of epic proportions hit on this indicator. Does not seem to be something that can be corrected in just a few days", he said. The businessman thinks that gold and bitcoin "must hold their positions" according to this scenario. Opinion: the BTC rate will not go lower than $9,700 Amsterdan stock exchange analyst Michaël van de Poppe thinks that the bitcoin price is going to turn back on above the point of $9,700. He says that the price should go up to $10,800 and then go down to its new local lows within the zone of $9,700-9,800. It will stay within this zone untill the end of the month and then it will go above $11,000. To regain the growth, the price should get stable above a very important point of $11,170. The analyst adds that, however, in case the price tests the level of $9,700 real quick, the BTC price may start to strengthen already at the middle of the month. Why bitcoin is going to get as high as $250,000 Popular analyst filbfilb explained. He drew Fibonacci circles through the highs and lows of the two previous growth/fall bitcoin price cycles. It turned out that the high of the next rally coincided with the circle with the period of 3,618. For instance, the pattern built according to the 2013-2015 year cycle showed a high at about $17,900. The actual high of 2017 was at the point of $19,700. Judging from the new patterns, the next rate high will be around the level of $243,000. Analyst GravityWave notes that the new high is also near the area of $250,000. He put Fibonacci levels through cycle lows and highs — the point of 2,382 showed the high of the next bubble.