Another exciting week in the cryptocurrency market with a small bounce back for many coins this week. XRP moved from $0.24 to $0.32 at the time of writing but Ethereum is still getting hammered with a slow bleeding of a further 7.35% in the last 7 days.
We’ve summarised the most important and interesting stories of the week so far:
Australians now able to pay bills in Crypto
Table of Contents
A strategic partnership has been agreed between Cointree, a platform to buy/sell cryptocurrency and bill payment platform Gobbill will mean that Australians now can now pay their bills with cryptocurrency. Gobbill, will act as an intermediary and will collect funds from customers and settle the payments on their behalf. Interestingly, this additional step will enable customers to pay with cryptocurrency whether their utility provider accepts them or not. This is an aggressive step in the right direction from a country that has a stable currency and a developed society already.
China continues to wage its war on Bitcoin with further bans
In their most recent wave of Bitcoin-related bans, the Chinese government has now banned all commercial cryptocurrency events! The right to talk or even discuss the asset class seems a step too far with China. We’ve discussed in details why China is afraid of Bitcoin and you can read it here.
Additionally, reports are emerging that China also plans to block over 120 foreign cryptocurrency exchanges as part of a broader and deeper crackdown. Yet, despite all this, the State Council of China has publicly backed the acceleration of blockchain development within the country, further defining China’s love-hate relationship with the new technology. If this is proved to be of benefit and useful, the perception could flip back around.
Nvidia says no to crypto
In a somewhat surprising move, Nvidia decided to end its crypto-specific product venture. In a statement last week, CFO Colette Kress explained, “Our [Nvidia’s] revenue outlook had anticipated cryptocurrency-specific products declining to approximately $100 million, while actual crypto-specific product revenue was $18 million, and we now expect a negligible contribution going forward.” It seems no matter how wealthy you are, how fast you moved or where you live, no one is safe in a falling market.
Ripple CTO swipes at Bitcoin
This week, in an article titled “The Inherently Decentralized Nature of XRP Ledger,” Ripple CTO David Schwartz has taken a side swipe at Bitcoin calling it “centralised” turning down the heat on the issue for his own altcoin. In his post, Schwartz made several arguments regarding validators as a better alternative to miners, the potential for the collusion of mining pools, and the final blow that “the XRP Ledger is in many ways a more transactional, functional and decentralized ledger than either Bitcoin or Ethereum.”
SEC rejects numerous Bitcoin ETFs but
We covered this last week as it was the main catalyst for another 20% sell-off and you can read the details here.
In short, 8 more Bitcoin ETF proposals join the Winklevoss ETF in the SEC’s reject pile. The primary reason for the rejections, so far, has been the inability of the exchanges to provide enough proof that they can prevent market manipulation and fraudulent activity. Compliance is still an issue. The SEC stated that their decision has no bearing on their opinion of Bitcoin and blockchain as a useful technology. Investors seem to agree. Bitcoin’s price remained relatively stable even with the unfortunate news.
But… In a quick turnaround, the SEC now has come out and slightly backed tracked saying they will review the 9 ETFs that they had previously rejected. These reviews could still lead to the same result, but they do bring a glimmer of hope for Bitcoin ETF hopefuls this week.
Featured image: © Wit – stock.adobe.com
