The cryptocurrency market is not perfect

The network Ethereum Classic has undergone an “attack 51%”. Information about the Ethereum Classic which has undergone “attack 51%” has already been confirmed. The ETC developers called on the stock exchanges and mining pools to increase the number of transaction confirmations for all transactions and acceptions deposits up to 400 or more. This once again indicates the vulnerability of the cryptocurrency market, which keeps large investors from investing in it. Representatives of Ethereum Classic insist that this is not an “attack 51%”, but the so-called “mercenary mining”. But not everyone agrees with them. For instance, Coinbase Exchange blog reported that even on January 5, was noticed reorganization of the blockchain Ethereum Classic. At that moment, the exchange stopped the movement of funds, after which were noticed eight more cases of chain reorganization. According to Coinbase, the total amount of funds under the “attack 51%” was 88.5 thousand ETC.

Gate.io will cover $200 000 of stolen ETC

Gate.io managed to identify and block the intruder’s transactions by sending them for manual review.

However, during verification, some transactions were missing, which led to a loss of about 40 thousand ETC. Representatives of the exchange reported that they will bear all the losses of users. Information about the “51% attack” was also confirmed by Bitfly. Earlier the developer of Ethereum Classic Donald McIntyre highlighted that there is a need in changes of the PoW mining algorithm. He is confident that this step is necessary for short-time, on which the developers of Ethereum Classic are already working.

Fighting for Bitcoin-ETF

The founders of the Gemini exchange, the brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, are still full of hope that they will be able to create Bitcoin-ETF.

At the Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, they confirmed their willingness to make this investment tool real. As before, the Winklevoss brothers are quite optimistic about the future of BTC. They believe that Bitcoin performs better the role of gold than it does, considering gold as a protective asset.

Active buying

The total capitalization of gold exceeds $ 6 trillion. Therefore, the brothers expect that Bitcoin will be able to perform the saving value function and increase its capitalization to $7 billion in the long term.

Many experts consider this scenario as possible. It is not the first time BTC is compared with gold, as a tool of accumulation. However, only if the cryptocurrency market infrastructure is developed the implementation of this scenario is possible. First of all, we are talking about the regulation of the market and creation of an exchange-traded investment fund or its equivalent. This will allow attracting large institutional investors and revitalizing the market.

“Crypto Winter” continues to have a negative impact on business.

We have already heard about major mining companies reducing their staff. Nowadays, cost reduction of most cryptocurrencies significantly reduces the profitability of all other market participants. In this case, we are talking about the company ShapeShift - a platform for instant cryptocurrency exchange.

Eric Vorges, the head of ShapeShift, announced a painful for him decision to fire 37 employees. This dismissal is the largest in the company and almost a third of the entire staff. Vorges pointed to high competition as well as the collapse of the market as a whole, but also on legal uncertainty.

Based on all of the above, the likelihood of further price reductions for basic cryptocurrencies remains high. At the same time, any significant progress in creating investment instruments and improving the security of the market contribute to the growth of its capitalization. However, considering the results of 2018, this is not a very fast process.