14/05/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

By BlockEx

1. Coinbase Releases State of Blockchain Q1 2018 Report

Coinbase’s State of Blockchain report presents data on public blockchains, distributed ledger technology (DLT), consortium chains, initial coin offerings (ICOs), trading and investments, and regulation. It also shows the results of Coinbase’s extensive sentiment survey. According to this summary, there were 6 main trends. 1) It identified the bear market for cryptocurrency, which saw huge drops following the end of 2017, but Coinbase’s survey showed respondents were still optimistic. 2) The market has been maturing, with the introduction of the bitcoin futures market in Q4, and a steady growth of activity in this area during Q1. 3) Miners appeared to remain unphased by dips, with market activities not appearing to affect their mining as much as expected. 4) Taxes are an area of concern for many investors, with an estimated $70billion in global tax revenue generated by cryptocurrencies last year. Many say they are struggling to understand their tax liability. 5) ICOs continue to be an area of high activity, with $6.3 billion raised in Q1. 6) Transaction fees on the bitcoin network dropped from the freakish highs seen in Q4 2017, and most other cryptocurrencies saw declines of 60 to 90 percent.

2. Florida Tax Collector to Accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash

Seminole County Tax Collector has partnered with BitPay to accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash for payments associated with driver licenses, ID cards, automobile tags, titles, and property tax. The decision was made in an effort to “bring government services from the 18th century into the 21st century” and make it easier to collect fees, to reduce the risk of identity theft and fraud, and to increase the transparency and accuracy of payments. This is BitPay’s first government partnership.

3. Ethereum Blockchain Tracks Tuna From “Bait to Plate”

Attendees at the Ethereal Summit were served a giant tuna caught off the coast of Fiji while watching a documentary film about its journey to their plates. The documentary, called “Bait to Plate”, followed the fish from being caught to being packaged to being shipped all the way to plates of attendees at the conference. Many have pointed out blockchain’s potential in supply chain management, and it is being tested for a huge variety of products. During the summit, Viant, an ethereum-based supply chain management startup, focused on tuna.