Review of the latest news for crypto-space 05.01.2021

Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin network exactly twelve years ago, on January 3, 2009. But how far has Bitcoin come on this day, January 3, 2021, 12 years later?

News digest of the last week of 2020

At the beginning of 2021, BTC is breaking a new price record every day, and a weekly review of cryptocurrency news that will essentially revolve around the Bitcoin price, which continues to rise, without a significant correction. Some are even starting to question Bitcoin’s immediate price correction, a price that could rise much higher before finally deciding to take a break.

So, let’s take a look at the highlights of the past week of the end of 2020.

• Bitcoin exceeded $34 K, and Ethereum defeated $900

The New Year’s rally in the first weekend of 2021 accelerated on Sunday as top crypto assets continue to rise, with BTC jumping above $ 34,000 and ETH topping $ 900 for the first time since February 2018.

On January 3, BTC is trading at $ 33,315, correcting from the $ 34,566 reached earlier. The price is still growing by almost 3% per day and 24% per week. In addition, it grew by 75% for the month and by 353% for the year.

Meanwhile, as BTC adjusts its gains, ETH and altcoins are rising. Ether soared 25% on the day, trading at $ 963, and increasing its weekly profit to 39%. The price jumped 53% in a month, and 574% in a year.

However, the volume of BTC trading in 24 hours was almost $ 64 billion (the average for the last month was about $ 30 billion, compared to almost $ 28 billion in ETH. BTC dominance, or a percentage of total market capitalization, has fallen below 70%.

Other coins from the top 10 rose by 2-18%. Even the most problematic coin, XRP, is up 2% on the day, but it’s the only major crypto asset to fall in a week (25%).

In addition, January 3 marks the 12th anniversary of the mining of the first block in the Bitcoin block chain, also known as the Genesis block.

As reported, BTC “will be on its way to $ 50K, probably in the first quarter of 2021”, Anthony Trenchev, managing partner and founder of Nexo, told Bloomberg.

“It is very likely that the value of the asset will eventually exceed $ 100K per coin”, Sergey Nazarov, co – founder of Chainlink (LINK), wrote in an email to Reuters.

“For years, people have been steadily losing faith in their state currency, and monetary policy driven by the economic impact of the coronavirus has only accelerated this decline”.

Also, as reported, only 4.2 million BTC (22%) are currently in constant circulation and available for purchase and sale. However, he also estimated that in 2021, the total exchange balance of BTC will grow as more holders seek to make a profit or trade other cryptocurrencies.

• Miami Mayor Says He’s Open to Investing 1% of City Funds in Bitcoin

After institutional investors, it was the turn of major cities to consider investing part of their reserve funds in cryptocurrencies.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said he is ready to explore the idea of placing 1% of the city’s cash reserves in Bitcoin.

It all started with a tweet by American youtuber Anthony Pompliano, known as “Pump,” in which he asked his followers to retweet whether they wanted to move to Miami if the mayor invested some of the city’s funds in BTC.

“Repeat this if you move to Miami after the mayor has invested 1% of the city’s cash reserves in Bitcoin”.

He received immediate success on Twitter with more than 1,300 retweets, having 430,000 followers on his Twitter feed.

And among the responses to his post, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez responded himself, indicating that he is open to the possibility of investing in the crypt.

This is, of course, only a statement on Twitter, and it remains to be seen if the mayor of Miami will delve into the issue, or if he just took the opportunity to talk about the city, about himself, and on the topic of Bitcoin.

However, investing in BTC can make sense at a time when many institutional investors are buying it for billions of dollars.

As we wrote earlier, the Grayscale fund now holds $ 19 billion in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto assets on behalf of institutional investors. The American insurance company MassMutual bought it for $ 100 million. And so on.

Bitcoin has become an alternative investment asset recognized by professionals and organizations, so cities may very soon decide to invest in crypto and BTC to get good capital gains in the coming months if the price of Bitcoin continues its growth that began in late 2020.

• The first preliminary hearing on Ripple’s lawsuit against the SEC will take place in February 2021.

Ripple’s value has collapsed following the announcement of an SEC lawsuit against the US crypto startup, and XRP token holders are eagerly awaiting the trial to find out the final outcome.

Thus, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 22, 2021, and lawyers for the SEC and Ripple Labs will be able to transfer their arguments to Judge Analisa Torres via video conference, the court said in its ruling.

Pre-trial settlement is also possible. A friendly settlement is always encouraged before a trial takes place, which can last months or years, and cost the United States dearly.

Recall that the SEC accuses Ripple of illegally raising $ 1.3 billion by selling XRP tokens. XRP tokens, which the SEC considers to be Ripple shares, rather than commodities such as Bitcoin BTC or Ethereum.

Ripple generally refutes the SEC’s accusations and says it is ready to go to court, accusing the Commission of harming XRP token holders.

Ripple has paid dearly for this kind of test, ending trading operations with the XRP token on major exchanges such as Coinbase, Bitstamp, or Binance US, among others.

So the cases against Ripple are moving forward, and we’ll have to wait to see if the SEC and Ripple reach a settlement agreement, or if the trial actually takes place in the coming months.

The SEC has sued other crypto projects, and in most cases, the parties come to a settlement agreement and pay a fine. The EOS blockchain project paid $ 24 million in fines after collecting $ 4 billion.

It is highly likely that Ripple will negotiate sanctions of this type to avoid a lengthy legal process that will greatly affect the image of the startup and its XRP token, with the risk of losing in court and re-certifying its token as a share of the company.

• Russian CBDC will create centralized database of expenses, expert warns

A Russian crypto expert has warned of the danger of the country’s central Bank issuing a so-called digital ruble, saying that neither consumers nor banks are yet convinced of the idea of using a digital fiat.

In an interview with AB News, Viktor Dostov, chairman of the Russian Association of Electronic Money and Money Transfers, and head of the Center for Distributed Ledger Technologies at St. Petersburg State University, said that the digital currency of the Russian central bank (CBDC) will be more “convenient and cheap” than existing payment platforms.

However, he added that the “attractiveness of switching to the digital ruble” for many other consumers will be “far from obvious.”

Dostov said that recently, conventional alternatives issued by commercial banks have become easier than ever, using QR codes and contactless interfaces. He also suggested that commercial banks are likely to oppose the idea of sharing data about their operations (and those of their customers) directly with the Central Bank.

Moreover, according to him, ordinary citizens are likely to “worry” that the mass introduction of the digital ruble will ensure full transparency of payments for the state, creating a centralized database of expenses.

He stated that the financial sector is still not convinced of the need and benefits of CBDC both for itself and for future customers and users.

However, Dostov noted that the Central Bank is keen to advance its plans, which he believes will allow it, for example, to ensure that social payments and the social security system as a whole will not be subject to abuse. The expert added that the digital ruble can guarantee that child benefit payments, for example, will be spent only in stores that sell goods for children.

The rollout could happen in the next few years, he said. The central bank hopes to launch a pilot token in 2021.

Seeing the Central Bank’s determination, banks and other organizations are gradually moving away from the idea of resisting the deployment of CBDC, and instead think about “how banks will survive” in this new paradigm and what new services banks will be able to provide to recover lost income if the digital ruble is issued.

• Major Darknet Site No Longer Accepts Bitcoin as Payment Method

Bitcoin is losing momentum in the darknet as more and more trading platforms turn only to the anonymous cryptocurrency. White House Market has announced that it no longer accepts BTC as a means of payment, but only accepts Monero.

Hackers ‘ preferred cryptocurrency, Monero (XMR), thus strengthens its position as a reference exchange currency on trading platforms where illegal goods such as weapons, drugs, medicines and databases of stolen passwords, customer databases, etc. are sold.

White House Market said:

“Bitcoin payments are no longer accepted. The third-party exchange API we were using (Morphtoken) suddenly decided to block access to Tor exit nodes, and while getting around this was trivial, we decided to respect their decision.

We decided that this would only help with the transition to XMR”.

The darknet sector continues to grow in terms of turnover, as we mentioned earlier, with darknet revenues growing, as does the price of BTC.

However, the darkweb is failing, many markets have been closed, such as Empire Market, so this sector is consolidating around several large trading platforms, such as White House Market.

For example, Finnish customs recently eliminated Sipulimarket, a large Finnish darknet market used by drug traffickers.

Bitcoin is still widely used on the darknet, although BTC transactions can be tracked. This means that any Bitcoin spent on the darknet market can reveal the identity of its former owner. Illegal service providers use mixing services (Bitcoin Mixer or mixer) to clear the transaction history of the BTC.

Over time, Monero is sure to establish itself as the main cryptocurrency in the darknet, and surpass Bitcoin as a trading currency in these little-known markets.