Weekly News Roundup #9
By: Parul Gujral
Tags: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Crypto News, Newsletter

Welcome to our Snowball cryptocurrency media digest. Here we will provide you with regular updates on trending news from the blockchain and crypto space.

Rundown of what happened last week:

Bitcoin’s First $1,000 Weekend Since 2017 Marks Nine-Month High: Bitcoin surged more than $1,000 this weekend to the highest level since August, as cryptocurrencies extended their rebound from a slump last month amid the New York attorney general’s investigation of a key part of the market. Bitcoin rose as much as 6.9% to $7,445, before trading at $7,323.86 as of 2:15 p.m. Hong Kong time on Sunday. That compares with $6,290.24 at Friday’s close. All five members of the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index are up more than 8% this weekend, based on pricing from Bitstamp and Bitfinex. Read more.

Bitcoin’s Monthly Price Gains Already Highest Since November 2017: Bitcoin (BTC) clocked fresh 10-month highs earlier today and currently appears on track to post its largest monthly gain since late 2017. The cryptocurrency market leader rose to $8,335 at 08:00 UTC on Tuesday, the highest level since July 25, according to Bitstamp prices. As of writing, BTC dropped back slightly to $8,000, but that still represents 51.5 percent gains on the monthly opening price of $5,267. Read more.

Bakkt to Roll Out First Bitcoin Futures Testing in July 2019: Bakkt plans to roll out testing for bitcoin futures trading in early July 2019, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler announced in a Medium post on May 13. First announced in August 2018, institutional crypto exchange Bakkt now announced that it will soon introduce bitcoin futures trading testing on a federally regulated futures exchange in collaboration with its parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Read more

Microsoft Builds Decentralized Identity Network: Microsoft claims its approach addresses throughput issues that mean “the most robust, decentralized, public blockchains operate at just tens of transactions per second, nowhere near the volume a world full of DIDs would demand.” By contrast, the company says its approach means tens of thousands of operations can be achieved per second. Read more

Ethereum Co-Founder Says Tether, Bitfinex Mess Won’t Get Better: The turmoil surrounding Tether and Bitfinex isn’t likely to subside, said Joseph Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys. “It seems like a really big mess that probably won’t get better,” said Lubin during an interview at the sidelines of the Fluidity Summit conference in Brooklyn, New York. “Tether is somewhat important to our ecosystem because it’s used by different institutions to effect more fluid trading. There are other price-stable tokens out there — many others — and I think they’re going to gain traction because of this. I think that will be a really good thing.” Read more.

Crypto Exchange Binance Says It’s Revamping Security in Post-Hack Update: Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it is revamping security measures after losing some 7,000 bitcoin worth over $40 million in a hack earlier this week. “Significant” changes related to its application programming interface (API), two-factor authentication (2FA) and withdrawal validation are being made, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a blog post published on Friday. The exchange did not disclose more details regarding these efforts, but said it is also improving its risk management and know-your-customer procedures to fight phishing, among other additional security measures at the back-end. Read more.

Tim Draper Envisages Bitcoin at $250,000 Taking 5% of Global Market Share by 2023: NEWS Bitcoin will have a 5% market share of the entire world by 2023, serial VC investor Tim Draper told FOX Business in an interview on May 10. Speaking on the sidelines of the Salt Conference in Las Vegas, Draper — who has become a stalwart bitcoin advocate — said the largest cryptocurrency would continue to gain dramatically in price. “It’s going to keep going because, I’m a believer than in four years, something like that, bitcoin will be about a 5% market share of the Earth,” he told the network. Read more.

Tweet of the week:

This week one of our favorite tweets is a reminder by BlackBeard about an overlooked bitcoin update which will come into place in 2020, many believe the halving will be a catalyst for a huge spike in price for BTC. Do you think people are now starting to accumulate behind the scenes?

Join our Snowballin’ community: