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Is the Ethereum Dead?

Ethereum was on the rise in the late 2017 and the beginning of 2018 reaching its price peak of over $ 1.000 USD in January. Since then the news has not been too positive about the blockchain-based coin, though. Ethereum lost around 80% of its value starting to decline in February 2018 and did not recover completely yet. in fact, cryptocurrency experts say the delicate bounce it experienced in the last couple of weeks showed just a small momentum – indication for its dropdown again.

A chart showing Etherem fluctuations
Charts from coinmarketcap.com.

Vitalik Buterin, considered the actual ‘father’ of the Ethereum, went through bearish and pessimistic statements on social media to high hopes on the token’s future. He was blamed by many about the unclear predictions and the non-willingness to drive Ether’s perspective into another direction. As he recently expressed the belief that the blockchain space would not ever experience another 1,000 times boom. Yet, he certainly does not seem to consider the crypto revolution over.

Speculations go to the Initial Coin Offerings’ funds. According to many specialists, ICOs raised attention among new startups took over of Ethereum’s power. Researches show that in 2017 and early 2018 these freshly founded companies gained billions of dollars through ICOs, businesses that were otherwise supported by the Ether. Some bearish hypothesis claimed that these startups would eventually ditch their Ether funds due to the constant a year-long low price and would go only with ICOs.

To work out the recent financial depression, the Ether community discusses a hard fork on the Ethereum Constantinople and Casper. The fork is supposed to go live this month, probably on October 30th, the community chats. There is not still an agreement on the fork and if it is going to happen at all because miners can easily suspend the idea. But according to the latest research of the Diar group, a small group of Ethereum developers decided to change the reward from 3 ETH to 2 ETH per block. Their inquiry shows that, especially if also introduced to the Constantinople fork, the reduction would significantly lower the inflation rate of Ethereum, which at the moment is quite high.

A graph showing the inflation levels of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic

 

As seen in the graph, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic now hold the leading positions in supply inflation. According to Diar, the block reduction will lead to 4.3% instead of the current 6.4%. At the same time, that would limit the issuance with $1.3 million USD – from $4 million now to $2.7 million USD.

On the bright side, Ethereum still keeps the rank of world’s number #2 with a market cap of more than $ 22 billion USD. However, the coin struggles a lot to surpass the $250 USD mark of resistance and holds the price of a bit over $200 USD.

Bitcoin Slowly Rallies, Bears Get Exhausted

For the last 7 hours, Bitcoin showed a surprising surge of more than 2%. After a long stand stability rate of around $ 6.400 – 6.500 USD, now the major cryptocurrency gained to $ 6.600 USD. The increase came unexpectedly since the only bounce the Bitcoin experienced lately was the one up to $ 6.700 USD in late September. At the time, crypto experts explained that the token is chasing that so important mark of resistance of $ 6.800 USD, which, if it had surpassed, they said, it would skyrocket to over $ 7.000 USD. Something that has not happened from the beginning of 2018.

However, the predictions referred the next 12 to 48 hours of that time and because, as we saw, the Bitcoin did not increase, bears became to speculate again. The bounce was called an instant moment by many, which was a temporary event that will quickly go away.

Today, the charts clearly show that all these bearish predictions were not the whole truth. The Bitcoin expresses volatility lately that gives hope to every crypto day trader. Now, the next line of increase is the mark of $ 6.800 USD again, which, if went through would clear the way to the desired $ 7.000 USD, the crypto evangelists say. But until it breaks this level, it will keep moving in a small volatility range, according to the crypto analysists.

A chart showing the fluctuations in Bitcoin to USD
Chart from tradingview.com, published on 04/10/2018.

Why bears decline?

Well, the crypto bears were very confident that the high volatile poles are impossible anymore. In fact, the blockchain ecosystem has started to transfer into a stable market and no one foresaw another price bubble. The volume of the Bitcoin stayed relatedly low in all crypto exchanges, probably for these reasons. Bearish prognosis usually leads to sells and low interest for buying.

This has already started happening but will really start to ramp up in 2018.

Said earlier this year James Altucher, author of the book “Choose Yourself”.

So, probably for the moment, the best strategy is to calm down, sit and watch how the price level will evolve.

South Korea Now Close to ICO Legislation

The question of legalizing the ICOs status has been a crucial one for all countries worldwide since the introduction of the technology. France has recently accepted an official document with rules for regulating ICOs for French-based companies (insert link here).

Now, South Korea seems very close to the same step. Min Byung-Doo, a member of the ruling Democratic party and a chairman of Korea’s National Policy Committee, is a passionate supporter of cryptocurrencies and the latest blockchain developments. For some time now he strongly encourages the government to think of ICO regulations and to give a green light to the crypto industry. As anywhere in the world right now, the ICOs are getting a hot topic in the business circles and especially in such a high-developed country as South Korea, the problem seems to become an urgent one.

The other day Mr. Min talked in front of the National Assembly and insisted on a juridical change in the ICO perspective. He stated that the ICOs are becoming a ‘real trend’, the market is getting ‘bigger and bigger’ and some actions should be taken soon.

I do not want us to close the doors for the ICOs completely, as it is at the moment. The government should not ignore the ICO trend. This is the power of a government.

Said the chairman regarding the current ban of all ICO-related businesses in South Korea. The issue is quite over spoken in the media and widely discussed in the cryptocurrency sphere.

Regulation is not bad. ICOs should also be regulated. It creates trust in the market.

Added in his speech Min Byung-Doo but warned that many additional measures should be also taken:

Fraud, speculation and money laundering should be reduced to a minimum. The private sector must examine itself, the ICOs should include in their White Papers analysis reports and the exchange platforms should a safety rating system.

He later gave an example of the big profits made in the industry. $1.7 billion USD from the ICO of Telegram and $4 billion from the token sale of Block.One / EOS. These significant numbers talk for themselves, was Min’s attitude. The crypto trading and ICOs launch in the country will not stop; it just stays unregulated. Which makes it more dangerous and insecure for investors, traders, and companies.

Coinbase Pro is a Top Security Exchange, a New Study Shows

The question of the security among the cryptocurrency exchanges stays a sensitive topic for all traders and investors. After the hacking attack on the Facebook’s access tokens and the Cambridge Analytica case, the web security became even a more worrying issue.

The research group of ICOrating published a new inquiry with a detailed check up of the most popular crypto exchanges. The rating agency motivates the need of that research explaining that:

Over the past 8 years, about 31 crypto exchanges have been hacked and more than a 1 billion dollars (actually, $ 1.3 bn) stolen. Some of the crypto exchanges learned from their mistakes and managed to recover, the others went bankrupt and several the most “happy” ones, such as Mt.Gox, Bitcoinica, PicoStocks, Bitcurex, have been attacked even multiple times.

Now, the number of crypto exchanges offering services keeps emerging. New ones open almost every day and billions of investors go online to make funds. These facts, of course, attract hackers as ‘bees to honey’, as they say, and the safety issue is alarming.

The research focused only on exchanges with more than a million USD of trading volume per day and the total number of platforms is 100. The parameters of examination include four main categories, each with subcategories and a range of points. The four central features of observation are the following:

  • Console Errors
  • User Account Security
  • Registrar and Domain Security
  • Web Protocols Security

The result of the Console Errors analysis showed the erratic number of 32% of all exchanges have code disruptions, which would lead to defects and leaves them vulnerable to breaches.

The second category is crucial for all traders and investors. Unfortunately, here the level is not so high, too, because only 46% of all platforms meet the security requirements (which are passwords with more than 8 characters, verification process, etc.).

For the Registrar and Domain Security, the inquiry reassured users that there are no exchanges which do not reply to all criteria. Though, there are just 4% scoring 4 out of 5 for this test.

And the last one, Web Protocol Security, showed that only 10% possess all the security headers and 29% have absolutely no headers.

All in all, ICORating prepared a table ranking all 100 exchanges. Coinbase Pro ranks #1 with 89 points, meeting almost all criteria. On the last place stays OKCoin.cn with only 15 points. Here is an excerpt of the top 10:

A table of the top ten crypto exchanges, created by ICORating

Even though Coinbase Pro ranked so high, the trading volume charts show differently.

BitMEX holds the premiership in 24 hours trading volume with the significant 16.43% of the whole cryptocurrency market, followed by bitFlyer with 16.39%. Binance stays third with 6.9%, according to CoinHills. Here are the top 10 performers:

A graph of the top 10 platforms with the biggest trading volume
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Blockchain Industry Will Reach $7 Billion, Bank of America Foresees

In a groundbreaking analysis, Bank of America projects that the blockchain industry is on the brink of a significant upswing, poised to reach an astonishing $7 billion. The financial giant foresees widespread adoption of blockchain technology, particularly by industry leaders such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Seizing Opportunities in Decentralization

Bank of America predicts that major corporations, including tech titans like Amazon, will harness the decentralized power of blockchain to enhance their operations. According to Kash Rangan, head of the software research analysis team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch,

Amazon will benefit from incremental cloud services demand from Blockchain implementation, while improved supply chain tracking should make Amazon’s retail operations more efficient.

This strategic integration with cloud services is seen as a key driver for the anticipated growth of the blockchain market. However, the timeline for this transformation remains unspecified, highlighting the gradual nature of technological adoption.

Walmart Leads, Commercial Adoption Lags

Recent developments, such as Walmart’s exploration of blockchain for tracking food in its supply chain, underscore the technology’s potential in diverse industries. While promising, widespread commercial implementation is still in its infancy, as noted by Rangan:

Many blockchain use cases have been identified, but full products/services have not yet been built out and are not used in the production.

Despite the current developmental stage, blockchain presents unprecedented opportunities not achievable with traditional databases. Bank of America’s analysis suggests that an estimated 2% of servers will be dedicated to blockchain operations, translating to an annual cost of $5,500 per server.

A Ripple Effect Across Industries

Bank of America identifies a spectrum of companies set to benefit from the blockchain revolution. Beyond Amazon and Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Salesforce.com, VMware, as well as real estate and mortgage giants like Redfin, Zillow, and LendingTree, are anticipated to capitalize on the transformative potential of blockchain technology.

The comprehensive list reflects the diverse applications of blockchain, with IBM already making significant strides by providing Walmart with a decentralized ledger system. As the industry continues to evolve, the synergy between established corporations and blockchain innovations is poised to shape the future of technology.

Stay tuned for further updates as the blockchain industry embarks on a path toward a projected $7 billion market.

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