The value of BTC and ETH, the two largest cryptocurrencies in the markets, recovered close to 5% on March 17, while the CEO of Visa assured that Bitcoin is the “digital gold.” This and more news in this handy daily summary so you are always informed with those most recent events that happen within the crypto world.
📍The value of Bitcoin and Ethereum has grown about 5% at the time of this edition. The market-leading cryptocurrency, BTC, is close to reaching the $60.000 USD per unit, with the recovery of about $5.000 USD this March 17. Meanwhile, ETH is trading above $1.850 USD, with the recovery of about 1.000 $ USD in the last hours and approaching the level of 2.000 $ USD per unit again.
Bitcoin and Blockchain Adoption
📍Alfred Kelly, CEO of Visa, said that Bitcoin is “digital gold” during his participation in a Leadership Next podcast, moderated by Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt. Kelly believes that Bitcoin can be an excellent means of payment for various types of transactions. In addition, she reaffirmed her plans to create a platform that allows cryptocurrencies to be transferred to fiat money and thus be able to use them through one of her cards.
In early February, Visa began offering cryptocurrency payment services through Anchorage, a crypto-asset financial services company in which Visa is a major shareholder.
📍Morgan Stanley will begin offering Bitcoin exposure to its clients and investors, reported CNBC. The investor management company has been preparing its strategy to enter this growing industry for several months. In mid-February, Morgan Stanley announced its plans to begin investing in Bitcoin. At that time, it reported that it would invest close to $150 million through its subsidiary Counterpoint Global.
📍Grayscale added another 5 tokens to its investment fund offering. Now the Basic Attention Token (BAT), Chainlink (LINK), Decentraland (MANA), Filecoin (FIL) and Livepeer (LPT) tokens have funds where Grayscale investors will be able to gain exposure to this class of digital assets.
After the announcement, the value of these tokens in the markets has grown between 4% and 80%, leading several to reach new highs.
📍Meitu, the beauty app developer, added another $50 million to its investment in Bitcoin y Ethereum. As reported by the company, the investment made gives Meitu another 16.000 ETH, with an investment close to 28,4 million dollars and 386 BTC, with an investment of 21,6 million. As of today, Meitu already has $90 million invested in cryptocurrencies, which corresponds to its investment plan of $100 million in digital assets.
Cybersecurity
📍On Twitter it seems that a new wave of phishing scam is being orchestrated that goes after the cryptocurrencies, of the most unsuspecting users. According to a report presented by the BBC, a German user lost all his savings when he believed that “Elon Musk” would return him a large amount of money in cryptocurrencies, if he sent a small amount first.
The victim, named Sebastian, sent 407.000 pounds sterling, about $507.000, to a Bitcoin address, following instructions on a website supposedly owned by Elon Musk, where he promised to double the amount of money sent by users, which had to be between 0,1 BTC and the 20 BTC. Whale Alert, a blockchain analytics company, notes that phishing scammers have made nearly $18 million in scams so far this year, and that social media is the favorite place to find their victims.
Development and Technology
📍Travala, the technology-driven travel network blockchain, is expanding its booking services around the world, adding another 400 tourist activities to its offering that users can pay for using cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Travala's new service offering is available thanks to a alianza with the Viator platform.
Travala has signed several strategic alliances with Booking, Expedia and Agoda that reinforce the package of products offered by the travel platform. In addition, they consolidate Travala as one of the largest online travel agencies (OTA) in the world. To date, Travala has more than 3 million travel products available in 230 countries around the world.
📍Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and developer of Ethereum, proposes changing the size of ETH wallet addresses from 20 to 32 bytes. Buterin presented this proposal with the purpose of increasing “the collision resistance of public address hashes”, preventing two different private keys from being able to access the same address.
Regulations
📍The Hawaii House of Representatives introduced a bill in which it asks the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to change the strict rules established regarding cryptocurrencies. In 2016, the regulator implemented regulations that prevent cryptocurrency exchanges and companies from providing financial and custody services if they do not have the proper licenses and fiduciary reserves that support the value of their clients' assets. The House of Representatives bill seeks to make this regulation more flexible, and allow the development of the crypto industry more effectively.
📍The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) rejection the license application of the company Bitcoin Suisse AG because it considered that its protection system against money laundering and other illicit activities was “weak”. According to the regulator, cryptocurrency companies must ensure robust anti-money laundering defenses.
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