“Weekly what changed in crypto” by Alte.Capital — 19–26 February 2018

Most important stuff according to us we’ve seen previous week in crypto world.

Whole week major drivers

There weren’t many price movement news in last week. We could observe the increased amount of news related to cryptocurrencies and ICO’s regulations attempts. They can have influence long-term, but not in short term.

Price action

It wasn’t a good week for almost all major coins except Litecoin. As stated our letter last week market approached very important levels of capitalization around 500 billion dollars. That lead to pull back and drop which we can observe now. We think that we will stay in area 440–500 billion dollar for 2–3 weeks more.

Weekly price changes 19–26 February 2018. From https://coin360.io/

Crypto market capitalization 26 February 2018. From https://coinmarketcap.com

Major events

Venezuela launches Petro

The Venezuelan government has started pre-sale of the first national cryptocurrency — Petro (PTR), which value is based on crude oil. On the next day, Maduro tweeted they gained 735 million dollars. Officially, the Petro project and token trade will start on April. Because of extremely low Bolivar value, the government decided to look for alternative ways to save Venezuelan economy. During the past 12 months, Venezuela’s inflation was 4.115% and Bolivar lost 96% of its value.

Robinhood Opens Cryptocurrency Trading

Mobile app stock trading provider Robinhood has formally launched cryptocurrency trading, rolling the new service out to five U.S. states today. Trades performed via the Robinhood app are potentially not “fee-free” — they’re free of any additional fees from Robinhood, but are likely still subject to trading fees charged by the exchanges the trades are performed upon.

Robinhood has also strange withdrawal availability. Prior to the launch FAQ stated that it is possible to withdraw crypto if sufficient ID requirements are met and withdraw can take few days.

Coinbase and Bitfinex adopt SegWit

Two of the most popular crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Bitfinex announced their support of SegWit protocol. Coinbase tweeted that it had finished testing for SegWit. On the other hand, Bitfinex already adopted SegWit for all the BTC clients. The launch promises Bitcoin investors faster transaction times and lower transactions fees.

Georgia May Accept Cryptocurrency Payments for Taxes

Georgia will accept cryptocurrencies for taxes and licenses. Georgia Bitcoin Taxes According to the bill 464, that was introduced by the Republican state senators Joshua McKoon and Michael Williams, the cryptocurrencies received will be converted to US dollars in the next 24 hours after receiving the payment.

The United States is taking important measures to let the cryptocurrency market grow with less interference as possible.

German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority on ICOs

German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) clarified the obligations for ICOs. According to the new update, potential ICO operators must thoroughly check “whether the underlying tokens, coins or cryptocurrencies behind so-called ICOs are viewed as financial instruments within the area of securities supervision.” BaFin follows its Swiss counterparts, where financial regulator FINMA similarly introduced new regulatory guidelines for ICOs. This month the country also joined a debate about wider cryptocurrency regulation on an international level.

Great Britain will assess cryptocurrencies

The UK Treasury Committee is launching an inquiry into digital currencies, which are attracting a great deal of interest after the recent rise and fall on crypto exchanges. Chair of the Treasury Committee Nicky Morgan said that they want to protect individuals who may not be aware of the fact that cryptocurrencies are currently unregulated in the UK. The Committee will inquire the most crucial topics about cryptocurrencies, i.e. if they could replace traditional payment system in the future, if regulations would be beneficial for start-ups, how other countries approach cryptocurrencies and how Blockchain technology could serve the Government.

Our next “What changed in crypto” issue is due on March 5th, 2018

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