More mainstream interest, hacking news, stablecoin developments, and long-term projections are seen in today's headlines as Bitcoin's price remains relatively stagnant. Catch up on today's action -
Crypto M&A Activity Reaches Record High
Strangely enough, mainstream interest in the crypto space has flourished this year, in spite of overall downside price action for most of 2018.
"Blockchain and crypto M&A deals have surged this year, climbing from 47 in October 2017 to 115 currently. And according to JMP, it could reach as high as 145 by the end of 2018" as reported by CryptoInsider. (M&A stands for mergers and acquisitions, and JMP is a securities business).
2018 is seeing more than double last years amount of deals. This seems a bit backward as 2017 was saw amazing market growth. It does make sense in the right frame of mind though. Smart money waits for the right opportunity, regardless of what the majority thinks.
North Korean Hacking Group Lazerus Stole $571 Million In Cryptos: Report
Lazarus, a squad of North Korean hackers, has reportedly stolen $571 million in crypto assets. It's reported that Lazarus has hacked an astounding 14 cryptocurrency exchanges over the last 2 years (roughly).
Over the last 2 years, reports indicate that exchange hack casualties, in general, total $882 million in stolen crypto assets. According to these numbers, Lazarus appears to be responsible for about 65% of the mentioned total exchange hacks.
World's Largest Crypto Exchange Binance Looks To Add New Stablecoins
Binance is currently the largest crypto trading platform (according to adjusted volume) according to coinmarketcap.com. Three stablecoins are already available on Binance, including Tether (USDT), Paxos Standard (PAX), and TrueUSD (TUSD). (Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged 1-1 with certain fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. These are commonly used for retaining dollar value between trades.)
Binance looks to add even more stablecoins to their exchange."'We hope to be able to list a few more stablecoins on our platform,' chief financial officer Wei Zhou told CoinDesk Thursday".
Binance is part of a recent influx of entities listing multiple new stablecoins, possibly due to recent USDT concerns.
Third Largest Crypto Exchange Huobi Opens Deposits For New 'Stablecoin Solution' HUSD
Even more news on the stablecoin front appears as major exchange Huobi announces its new coin HUSD. The coin launched today, and will cooperate with four other stablecoins available on Huobi. (each of the four current stablecoins is supposedly backed 1-1 with the U.S. dollar.)
These include PAX, TUSD, USD Coin (USDC), and Gemini Dollars (GUSD). HUSD will give "users a balance in HUSD as a kind of aggregator of all four", reports CoinTelegraph.
Russia: CEO of Banking Giant Sberbank Says Blockchain Tech Will Be 'Ready' In 3-5 Years
The CEO of one of Russia's biggest banks (Sberbank), reportedly explains his opinion that cryptocurrencies will not replace currently centralized government currencies any time in the next 10 years.
Herman Gref (Sberbank CEO) stated - “[The future] of cryptocurrencies is not clear so far as the state will not give up its central role, won’t allow [decentralized] cryptocurrencies. Though this might be the proper model – as for me, I’m for a distributed model, including in money supply. But it seems like that is not in the cards for the next — well, let’s be optimistic – ten years”, as reported by CoinTelegraph.
These statements are contrary to the sentiment that cryptocurrency mainstream adoption is just around the corner.
Originally posted on Crypto Insider : https://cryptoinsider.com/daily-crypto-roundup-10-19-2018/