“Weekly what changed in crypto” by Alte.Capital — 26–5 March 2018

We share the most important stuff according to us we’ve seen previous week in crypto world. Enjoy it every Monday morning!

Whole week major drivers

Last week many projects teams announced developments about their work progress and we can see that soon they will start to deliver their promises.

Since some time rise in cryptocurrencies has corresponded with a bull market in stocks (specially US S&P 500). And while cryptocurrencies have experienced a crash over the past few weeks we have yet to see how they will handle a bear market in stocks. We will see in upcoming weeks if cryptocurrencies provide diversification benefits during a down stock market (assuming S&P 500 is going down next days).

On 28th February there was a fork of ZClassic. Some people didn’t understand how to behave during fork and they lost about 90% of capital invested in it.

There was news about issuing national cryptocurrencies by countries. For example Turkey, Marshall Islands, and Iran announced (by sources related to ruling parties) that they are thinking about that. This will not happen very fast, but it’s interesting to see what intentions these countries have.

Lastly, we see increasing trend in starting cypto games, mostly clones to launched a few weeks ago CryptoKitties. This is still a small trend but looks like this can be one of a first use case for blockchains.

Price action

It was a very good week for Bitcoin and Monero. Also, all market daily turnover exceeded 8.4 billion dollars, which was the highest level since February 20. Although it must be remembered that the daily turnover in December and January reached even 13 billion dollars.

From https://coins360.io

Market cap increased almost 9% since last week and we are still in the market capitalization area between 420 and 500 billion dollars, which is an important area. Soon (in 1–2 weeks) we will in what direction market will go.

From https://coinmarketcap.com

Major events

Germany will regard bitcoin as the equivalent to legal tender for tax purposes when used as a means of payment, according to a new document.The document justified its tax decisions by regarding cryptocurrencies a legal method for payment, stating:

“Virtual currencies (cryptocurrencies, e.g., Bitcoin) become the equivalent to legal means of payment, insofar as these so-called virtual currencies of those involved in the transaction as an alternative contractual and immediate means of payment have been accepted.”

For tax purposes, this means that converting bitcoin into a fiat currency or vice versa is “a taxable miscellaneous benefit.”  Rabobank — is thinking to offer Crypto WalletRabobank (Dutch major bank) has launched a dedicated website for the project called “Rabobit.” Part of its internal kickstarter program dubbed the “integrated cryptocurrency wallet” offers customers the chance to “store your cryptocurrencies in a wallet hosted by a trusted party”.

Largest Japanese trading company launches its own cryptocurrencyLargest Japanese trading company, Rakuten, is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency, Rakuten Coin, based on Blockchain technology and Rakuten Super Points Program. The Rakuten Super Points Program was first introduced 15 years ago and has been extremely successful ever since, with 1 trillion Super Points given to its customers, worth around 9.1 billion dollars. The points are obtained each time when a customer makes a purchase and can be redeemed for discounts or certain products purchases.

JD.com Chinese e-commerce platform will test BlockchainJD.com, China’s largest retailer and e-commerce company, has launched AI Catapult, an accelerator for the developing Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI). As part of JD’s program, AI Catapult will partner with blockchain startups.

Circle has bought PoloniexCircle (a startup backed by Goldman Sachs and few other big banks) has acquired Poloniex, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, for around 400 million dollars. Circle is a P2P payment company started in 2013. Circle’s mobile payment platform, Circle Pay, allows users to hold, send, and receive traditional fiat currencies. Poloniex’ acquisition will make Circle a rising threat to other large crypto-exchanges, such as Coinbase, Bittrex and Kraken.

Porsche starts testing BlockchainPorsche has announced testing Blockchain technology which will be used for faster and safer data transfer, such as parking fees, charging electric cars and temporary access to the vehicle. The applications tested include locking and unlocking the vehicle via an app, temporary access authorizations and new business models based on Blockchain. These functions will be useful in so-called autonomous vehicles.

Our next “What changed” is due on March 12th, 2018

Connect with Alte.Capital

Please visit our website, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.