1 - Bitcoin crashes 15% as cryptocurrency investors pour money into bitcoin cash
The bitcoin sell-off continued on Wednesday after the leading platform for buying and selling the cryptocurrency, Coinbase, announced it was rolling out support for rival bitcoin cash.
“Sends and receives are available immediately. Buys and sells will be available to all customers once there is sufficient liquidity on GDAX. We anticipate that this will take a few hours,” the exchange announced in a blog post on Tuesday.
Coinbase said in an updated tweet that buying and selling would likely not be available until Wednesday. Bitcoin cash trading has also been suspended on GDAX until noon on Wednesday.
The news sent the value of bitcoin cash soaring more than 50 percent to $3,800 per coin. It then retreated to $3,549 per coin as of 7:20 GMT.The original bitcoin, which was trading at more than $19,000 on Tuesday, slid to $16,353 in less than 24 hours.
Bitcoin cash split off from bitcoin on August 1 after a group of developers decided to try to improve transaction speeds and costs. The majority of those who supported the conventional bitcoin failed to reach an agreement this fall on their own upgrade proposal – SegWit2x.
2 - People are taking out mortgages to buy bitcoin, says securities regulator
Bitcoin is in the "mania" phase, with some people even borrowing money to get in on the action, regulator Joseph Borg said.
"We've seen mortgages being taken out to buy bitcoin. … People do credit cards, equity lines," he said.
Bitcoin has been soaring all year, starting out at $1,000 and rocketing above $19,000 on the Coinbase exchange last week.
3 - Japanese company offers to pay its employees in Bitcoin
Employees of Japan’s web hosting company GMO Internet will get an opportunity to be paid for their work in bitcoin starting in February next year.
The internet service provider, operating a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising, and internet infrastructure, is planning to offer to pay its workers up to ¥100,000 ($890) per month in digital currency.
“Employees can receive salaries in bitcoin if they want to. We hope to improve our own literacy of virtual currency by actually using it,”company spokeswoman Harumi Ishii said.
The company said the offer would be available to nearly 4,000 of its employees in Japan. The workers will reportedly get an extra 10 percent of their salary if they choose to receive it in digital currency.
GMO Internet Group is interested in promoting bitcoin as the company joined a bitcoin trading and exchange business in May and is planning to launch a new cryptocurrency mining operation next year.
“We will operate a next-generation mining center utilizing renewable energy and cutting-edge semiconductor chips in Northern Europe,” GMO said as quoted by Bitcoin Magazine.
The company announced it would invest in research and development, as well as in the manufacturing of hardware, including the next-generation mining chip.The firm, which is headquartered in Tokyo, operates over 60 companies in 10 countries. Given the group’s size and financial power, the bitcoin salary initiative may potentially boost the mainstream adoption of similar practices worldwide.
4 - New Rule Could Send Bitcoin Soaring By December 31
If you think you’ve missed out on the historic boom in Bitcoin…
You’ll want to pay attention to this breaking development.
A new rule – set to go into effect by the end of 2017 – is expected to send tens of billions of dollars flooding into the crypto market.
A move that could send Bitcoin skyrocketing far higher than anybody expected – within a matter of weeks.
“Frankly, the biggest gains in the crypto market are still to come. You just need the secret to buying in,” says one multimillionaire expert, who recommended Bitcoin at $2,500.
In the wake of this new rule, Wall Street is expected to make a first-ever change to their Bitcoin policy – which could introduce bitcoin to millions of Americans starting this year.
Former investment banker Tama Churchouse says there’s one critical step every American should take now to prepare for this massive inflow of capital before it happens. If you get in front of it, he predicts you could make as much as 55 times your money.
5 - Bitcoin’s Mysterious Creator Set To Become World’s First Trillionaire
We know a name Satoshi Nakamoto. Beyond that, we really know nothing, although Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright claimed in 2016 it is he.
Satoshi could be alive, he could be dead. He could be a she, he could be a number of people. Nobody knows for certain.
But if the simplest explanation is in fact true, then Satoshi Nakamoto – whoever they truly are – is currently the 52nd richest person in the world if measured against Forbes‘ list of billionaires.
Finally - Bitcoin futures are about to get another big boost
TD Ameritrade, the largest futures operation of any online brokerage, is going to allow bitcoin futures trading on its platform starting Monday.
CME, a large futures trading operation, is preparing to launch bitcoin futures on Sunday.
The moves come a week after Cboe bitcoin futures began trading in a slow but respectable start.