More Whales, Bans, and a Cookie Monster Cameo: This Week in Crypto

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Let’s go over what happened in crypto last week.

Price Watch:

• Bitcoin Price is down 1% this week after dropping around $1,000 last week. The drop comes in stark contrast to what some high-profile analysts had predicted. Investors have been waiting patiently to regain the all-important $10,000 support level.
• Ethereum is up 5% this week after being down around 8% last week. The price rise comes as Ethereum regains some momentum. Steve Wozniak came out as a bull this week saying Ethereum could be “as influential as Apple”. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance also launched a new platform with some important features aimed at developers.
• The entire crypto market remained flat this week after falling almost 10% this week. The move comes despite strong performances from several Altcoins and strong expectations due to historic price performance during Consensus with the conference normally resulting in double or triple digit price increases.
• Zcash Price up 50% on news of Gemini Listing: Zcash, the 21st-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of more than $1.4 billion, jumped more than 50% this week, according to CoinMarketCap, pushed by the news that the Gemini exchange will list the cryptocurrency next week.

Bulls & Whales:

• ‘Almost Irresponsible’ to Not Invest in Bitcoin: Billionaire bitcoin bull Michael Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital Capital Management, says every investor should have 1% to 2% of their portfolio in cryptocurrency. Not to do so, he told CNN, is “almost irresponsible.”
• “No Future in Traditional Finance” – Barclays Trader: Traders at top finance firms are taking massive pay cuts to move to crypto firms. We also reported on the same thing happening at JP Morgan.
• Cookie Monster Talks Bitcoin: I’ll let you check this one out for yourself. Turns out, he’s a big bull!
• More Whales are Diving into Crypto: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and other large corporations are are all diving into cryptocurrencies.
• 47% of South Africans Plan to Invest in Cryptocurrencies With extremely optimistic growth projections for the African continent the influx of capital could be huge.
• Bitcoin Price to Hit $50,000 in 2018 – BitMEX CEO: Arthur Hayes, the co-founder and CEO of Seychelles-based BitMEX, the bitcoin mercantile exchange, has a bullish prediction for the bitcoin price, which he believes will skyrocket to $50,000 by year-end 2018.
• Coinbase Building More Products for Whales: Coinbase announced a partnership with an SEC-regulated broker-dealer for third-party auditing and financial reporting validation. The custodial product offering maintains a high standard of reporting validation that institutional firms require in broker-dealer relationships.
• Japanese Giant Announces Cryptoasset Custody Service: A global venture called Komainu has been created to provide a secure digital asset custody solution for institutional investors.

Bears:

• Jack Ma Joins the Bitcoin Bashing Brigade: The Alibaba founder said during the World Smart Conference in Tianjin that bitcoin is a bubble. He remains positive on blockchain as a data privacy solution.
• ‘Big Short’ Investor Bashes Bitcoin: Wall Street veteran Steve Eisman rose to fame by shorting the sub-prime mortgage market ahead of last decade’s financial crisis. He’s arguing that only use cases for cryptocurrency are speculative investing and money laundering.
• Paypal Claims Bitcoin Price too Volatile for Merchants: The bitcoin price is too volatile to make it a useful payment tool for merchants, PayPal CFO John Rainey claimed in a recent interview. He joins a long line of Paypal executives who have bashed cryptocurrencies.

Crackdowns:

• Indian Cryptocurrency Exchanges Fighting Back: Following the Reserve Bank of India’s blanket ban on purchasing cryptocurrencies last month, the exchanges are fighting back. While some are outright ignoring the banks statements, others are moving from Crypto-Fiat to Crypto-Crypto trades.
• Kazakhstan President wants U.N. to Issue Crypto Rules: The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is urging the global community to work together to draft common rules regarding the use of cryptocurrencies.
• Bing Bans Crypto Ads: Search engine Bing has joined social media giants Google, Twitter, and Facebook in banning cryptocurrency advertising, citing the need to protect users from scams.

Featured Image from Shutterstock